by Naima Simone
But as quickly as it appeared, the weird, unsettling sensation vanished as if it had never been. She lifted her head, pressed a kiss to the gleaming slitted tip. Her gaze traveled up the long, tense length of Nicolai and lust slammed into her with the force of a freight train. His large body arched like a tautly strung bow, head thrown back against the blankets. Tendons corded his neck, bulging under his skin.
Jesus, he was amazing. A primal, magnificent beast whether in man or hippogryph form.
Need tore through her, the sight of him as arousing as the pulsing cock in her hand. She captured his sac in one hand and squeezed the widest, thickest part of his shaft near the base. Another of those growls roared in the air and her pussy responded with a flex and a spurt of cream that coated her lips.
She recaptured him with her mouth, taking him deep and hard. Her head bobbed over his cock, greedy, with little care for technique or skill. She just wanted—wanted his dick in her mouth, her throat. Wanted his seed to fill her.
“Tamar,” he said, and the voice carried more beast than man. “Take it. Deeper. Open for me. Open.”
Pushing her breath through her nostrils, she loosened her muscles and sucked a couple more precious inches into her throat. She forced the air through her nose, flexed the walls of her passage around his cock.
Material ripped. She lifted her lashes to razor-sharp talons that had replaced his fingers, as well as ragged tears in the blankets, exposing the hardwood floor beneath.
Slowly she slid up, up, up his cock until only the head remained in her mouth. Then just as deliberate, she returned down, down, down, swallowing more of him than before. Her eyes stung, her throat convulsed around the invading length but she took him, fucked him.
A thunderous roar erupted from him—her only warning before the hot blast of his seed struck the back of her throat. Instinctively she jerked back but swiftly recovered and consumed everything he offered her. His essence, his strength, his vulnerability.
A shudder racked his body. She finally released him and power eddied inside her, a whirlpool of desire, lust and triumph. No matter what happened, where they went after this time ended, she would have this moment. She’d pleasured this beautiful creature, taken him and believed he would never forget.
As she wouldn’t.
“Not enough,” he rumbled and before she could digest his meaning, Nicolai had her on her hands and knees, open, bared and at his mercy. Mercy she doubted he possessed.
Thank God.
Behind her, his thighs pressed to hers, spreading them wider until her legs bracketed his. He placed his palm at the small of her back and stroked upward to the nape of her neck, sweeping over her shoulder to cup her chin. He paused. Braced his thumb and middle finger on either side of her jaw. The other hand clasped her hip, urging her up to lean against his chest, telling her without words to trust him, rely on his strength. The tiny muscles of her pussy spasmed and the fire-warmed air caressed her exposed flesh even as her heart fluttered in her chest. She fisted her fingers on her thighs and held her breath.
His cock tapped her inner thigh, as hard and insistent as before, proving he was no ordinary male. No average man could have recovered in the matter of seconds he had after such an explosive orgasm.
Shit. Tamar moaned as Nicolai tipped her head back, placed a tender kiss on the underside of her jaw and slid his cock through the slit of her pussy. He was going to ruin her. Who the hell could measure up after this?
No one. Just the fleeting thought of a man other than Nicolai touching her in this way repulsed her. Cracked her heart into jagged pieces.
“No one,” he said, mirroring the words in her head. “No one but me, Tamar. You got that?”
The soft question clenched her heart and sex. If only… And she was thankful for the tumble of curls that hid her face from his view.
His hand dipped between her thighs and he pressed two broad fingers into her pussy, shoving away everything except for his touch.
“I want you,” he murmured. “All of you. Nothing separating us. Like in our dreams.”
Tamar closed her eyes at the sweet seduction of his whispered plea. God, she wanted the closeness he requested. She craved it. Memories of his bare, hard cock pushing into her, the hot blast of his seed high in her pussy extending and intensifying her orgasm… Hell yes, she desired the dream to be reality.
Still she hesitated. She’d never had unprotected sex—not even with Kyle and they’d planned to marry. Her concerns boiled down to trust. Did she trust Nicolai with her body, her protection? Her future?
Yes. God, yes. At some point, Tamar had made the unconscious decision to trust him. Maybe when she agreed to place her safety in his hands and allow him to bring her here to the mountains. Maybe in the glen when she touched his hippogryph and the power that emanated from him—power he’d never used against her but always in her defense.
Or maybe when he’d burst into the dark of her bedroom, ready to fight any enemy, and ended up cradling her in his arms and calling her a warrior.
Maybe all three.
The truth was she believed he wouldn’t harm her. Her best interest was foremost in his priorities. And whether those priorities were protecting her from Evander or from disease or pregnancy, she trusted him.
“Will you, Tamar?” he asked and followed the curve of her ear with his lips, traced the slit of her pussy with his fingers before circling her clit. She shivered in his arms. “I want your heat surrounding me, your sweet cream flooding over me.” His big body shuddered. “You’re human,” he rasped. “I can’t impregnate you and I’m not affected by human diseases or ailments. Let me have all of you.”
Jesus, how could she say no? She didn’t want to say no.
“Yes.” She reached behind her, curled her fingers into his hard thighs. “Yes.”
He kissed her just below the ear, brushed a caress over her cheek and, tilting her head toward him, took her mouth. His arm wrapped around her abdomen, holding her close as his cock nudged her entrance and pressed forward until only his cock head rested inside her. He paused and his harsh, rapid breath bathed her lips. Tamar moaned, squeezing her muscles around him, encouraging him to move. To give her more of him.
Their mingled pants and jagged breaths resounded, seeming ten times louder in the silence that surrounded them.
“Nico,” she pleaded, her nails biting into his unyielding flesh.
Slowly he pushed inside her, filling her. Nicolai released her chin, slid a hand beneath her thigh and lifted it, spreading her wider as he shifted her hips higher on his lap. The position and angle of penetration made him seem larger, wider…more. He didn’t pause in his tender but firm taking of her and every ridge rubbed over the walls of her pussy, dragging shudder after shudder from her.
It’s so good. She gasped, raising her arms to circle his neck and hold on. His silken hair tickled her cheek and neck as he grazed a kiss over her shoulder.
His hands gripped her hips, gently lifted her halfway up his cock. Then slid her back down. A gust of air tore out of her chest at the erotic caress of her pussy. It massaged every inch of her sex, from the swollen, parted lips that pressed to his groin on the down stroke to the walls and muscles that quivered around him. He repeated the slow thrust and she cried out.
“Do you know what fucking you is like? What being in this hot, tight pussy is like?” he asked in a honeyed timbre. Another unhurried lifting and lowering. She groaned. “Nothing. I don’t have anything to compare it to. It’s pain, pleasure, heaven and hell. It’s like jumping into a warm, sweet lake and never wanting to come up for air. I love being inside you, Tamar,” he whispered.
A sob welled in her chest at the carnal yet tender words. No fair. He used emotional warfare as well as a devastating, sensual assault.
“Your pussy makes a man welcome death,” he whispered. “Because only heaven could be sweeter than coming inside you. But me,” his voice thickened and the slow thrusts shortened, quickened, “even knowing how stain
ed my soul is, knowing hell awaits me, I would willingly greet the grave if it meant another moment in your arms, in your body.”
Nicolai fell forward, his arm around her waist, keeping her from slamming onto the floor. With tender yet hurried hands, he positioned her beneath him, bringing Tamar to her hands and knees. He planted a palm next to hers, the other clasping her waist. His broad chest blanketed her back, his thighs bracketing hers. He covered her, reminding Tamar of the animal that comprised half his genetics. He rode her, plunging deep, hips rolling against her ass as each thrust buried him inside her pussy.
The smack of thighs hitting thighs, the suction of his cock fucking her wet sex filled the room. The orgasm swelled, looming closer and closer. The thick head of his cock bumped against a place behind her clit, high in her sex, shoving her toward oblivion.
Nicolai growled and the vibration hummed against her back, echoed in her ears. Abandoning her waist, he plunged his hand between her thighs and rolled her clit between his finger and thumb. Ecstasy burst over her, an implosion that rocked from the depths of her soul and outward until it rolled out of her on a long, breathless scream. Her pussy clamped down on his driving cock and she convulsed. Above her, Nicolai gave a hoarse roar, his body tensed and bucked. Hard, powerful detonations of his seed seared her pussy, bathed her and triggered another wave of release. It crashed over her in a long, seemingly endless flood of pleasure.
As he murmured her name in her ear and the downy, heavy weight of his wings enfolded them, Tamar leapt into the black welcoming arms of release.
Chapter Eight
The sky, heavy with gray-and-navy-blue clouds, looked like God had sucker punched it.
Its angry, bruised appearance fit Nicolai’s mood perfectly.
Though he scanned the air and ground below, his thoughts were as chaotic as the storm that brewed and rumbled in the distance.
This had to end—Evander had to come to an end. Tonight.
Urgency rode him hard, made him fly faster, soar higher. Demanded he fight fiercer.
Protect Tamar. At all costs, she must be protected.
Making love to Tamar the night before had altered the timeline of the chase. After holding her as she confessed her fear of the dark, and then receiving the gift of her body and trust, his sole concern was shielding her from any future harm or pain. A woman as brave and fierce as Tamar shouldn’t live in fear.
No more relays where he passed the baton of the hunt to Lukas, Adon or Dorian. This had become a hundred-yard dash and Nicolai was racing for the finish line, dragging Evander’s corrupt, crazy ass behind him.
The longer Evander remained free, the deadlier he became…and the more dangerous he was to Tamar.
This hunt had ceased being about Nicolai’s people and the safety of their existence days ago. If he were honest, it had changed the moment he’d stared down into Tamar’s unconscious face on that dark street. But it had been cemented the moment she’d swallowed her fear and asked him to change into his hippogryph. Then she’d caressed him. Accepted both sides of him. Whispered her heart’s desire against his chest.
She was a woman of worth and beauty. A woman who had been betrayed in the cruelest of ways and yet had the courage to surrender herself into his keeping.
Tamar had trusted Nicolai not to hurt her when she was at her most vulnerable. Making love to her had rocked him to the core. His soul had once been battered but intact. But after burying his cock inside her, after sleeping with his head against her breast and her arms holding him close, a jagged fissure had cracked his heart wide open.
And she’d reached inside and captured the pieces with her small hands. His soul, spirit and heart belonged to her. Forever.
Even with Pria—whom Nicolai had loved before meeting her—there hadn’t been this…fuck, how did he describe it?
For once after all these centuries, he understood how a hippogryph could go rogue. If any harm came to Tamar, nothing would keep him from hunting and destroying. No law. No tradition. Not his people.
When Pria died, he hadn’t opted to follow her into Eirene or go into nepenthe. Instead he’d channeled his rage and grief into hunting and exacting justice.
But with Tamar…
He wouldn’t choose sleep or the diversion of work.
He would choose to die with her.
So she had to survive.
And when this was over—when he didn’t have a choice but to walk away from her—it would mean another kind of death. One of his soul. But he refused to put a bull’s eye on her back. As he’d learned in the most brutal way, abdicating as Dimios wouldn’t keep her safe. As Tamar had so eloquently put it, he knew the risks.
Yet even if he was willing to take the risk—if Tamar was willing—there remained the biggest elephant-in-the-room hurdle of them all.
She was human.
Though he didn’t give a damn about the law when it came to her, taking Tamar as a mate condemned her to certain death not only from enemies but from his own people. The hippogryph that succeeded him would be honor-bound to take her out.
Then Nicolai would be forced to kill a friend.
Lukas’ words came back to haunt him.
What a clusterfuck.
“Lukas?” he called out.
“Yes.” The response was immediate but clipped with irritation. Apparently, the male was still angry with him for insisting Adon remain with Lukas and Dorian at the cabin. His second-in-command most likely figured Nicolai wanted to take Evander down himself, without interference. True, revenge for Bastien continued to burn in his chest, but another concern overrode that desire. Tamar’s safety. And if Nicolai had to wing it by himself to provide her with the best security possible, then that was his decision.
The three men who served under him were the best warriors of their people and would guard her with their lives.
“Is it all good there?” Nicolai asked even as a faintly darker mass slid among the column of clouds that rolled across the sky.
“Yes.” A pause. “Any sign of him?”
“Not yet,” he sent, but his eyes zeroed in on the fast-moving billow. Shifting his body with the current, he followed the shadow. “Gotta go. I might be on to something. Luke?”
“Yes.”
His heart dipped as he sped up. “I’m entrusting her into your care. Ensure her safety. Please.”
A long beat of silence passed before his second’s deep, solemn oath rang in his head. “I swear it. On my life.”
“Thank you, my friend.” Without waiting for a reply, Nico cut off the line of communication and arrowed in on his prey. It was Evander, he was certain of it.
He switched directions, climbed higher to come over the cloud. Blood pumped in his veins, conveying fury throughout his body like a parasitic toxin. He blocked everything but Evander from his mind. Evander and his imminent death.
A crimson mist shimmered at the edges of his eyesight. Nicolai sucked in several deep breaths, shoved the fury down and forced a calm to settle the rage-fueled beat of his heart.
He couldn’t afford to lose control.
Tamar’s life depended on it.
“You are so predictable, Nico. It makes this moment almost anticlimactic. Almost.” The smooth, aristocratic voice emerged from the stormy mass seconds before Evander did. The hippogryph hovered like a specter of death waiting to feast on the carrion of whatever poor soul he chose. “I knew it would come down to the two of us.”
“Then you should have stayed hidden like the rat you are.”
“But I waited for you, Nico.” Evander’s silky timbre oozed like an oil stain across Nico’s mind. He wanted to cringe from the filthy residue he couldn’t scrub from his brain.
The rogue used Nicolai’s nickname like a weapon. Each time he uttered the reminder of their former bond, the word poured acid on the open wound of Bastien’s death.
“I’m glad you did,” Nicolai growled. “I wanted to kill you myself, you piece of shit.”
“Oh, I’m hurt,�
�� Evander goaded, his black head bowing. But his onyx eyes glinted with pure evil delight. “Even after I left you such a precious gift, you still wound me. Tell me, Nico,” he crooned. “How is our little Tamar doing?”
Fury and fear blasted through Nico, temporarily deafened and blinded him. The section of his brain that clung to logic recognized the tactic Evander employed. Hell, he’d taught it to him—an opponent consumed with emotion made stupid mistakes. Yet the part of him that envisioned Tamar’s broken, ripped body after Evander would administer his tender mercies blew away logic. Fuck logic.
Nicolai wanted the bastard’s blood.
“You’ll never get near her,” he promised.
“Always so cocky, so sure of yourself,” Evander drawled before fury sizzled down their link. “Yet you didn’t know you had a rogue operating right under your nose, in your command. The great Dimios played by one of his own krinos.” He laughed, the chuckle wicked, taunting. “You killed the wrong brother, Nico,” he whispered.
Disbelief and a growing rage swelled inside Nicolai like a malignant cancer. “You lie.”
Evander cocked his head to the side, his wings flapping back and forth in a lazy rhythm as if they were old friends meeting up by chance instead of enemies intent on each other’s destruction.
“I begged you not to kill him,” Evander snarled. “But you wouldn’t listen. You’re so arrogant you couldn’t conceive you might be wrong in your conclusion of Gregor’s guilt.”
“I didn’t kill him, you sick fuck,” Nicolai rasped. “You did. You let your own twin die in your place because you were too much of a coward to accept punishment for your crimes. You’re the murderer, not me.”
But it hurt. Damn, did it hurt. He’d executed an innocent.
It scored a hole in his heart, one that would never heal.
“You’ll die for that, Nico,” Evander hissed, venom snaking down the line of their connection. The rogue pulled back, his wings almost stationary as his heavy body floated in midair. “You know,” he said, his tone conversational, but his malice buzzed against Nicolai’s skull like a swarm of bees. “Until I saw Tamar, I’d forgotten how beautiful your Pria was. Ummm…” The lascivious hum vibrated in Nicolai’s head and reached to the depths of his soul. “With the others I enjoyed the kill. But Tamar,” he chuckled, “I’m going to fuck her, Nico. Fuck her until she bleeds. And then I will tear her apart slowly, eat her entrails while she still breathes. I hope it’s your name she cries out. It’ll be sweeter knowing you can do nothing while I take her pussy and her life.”