by Zoey Draven
Erin would’ve laughed at herself, but Jaxor’s expression was serious. He looked at the hot springs, then back at her. “There are no ‘sharks’ in there, rixella. No creatures of any kind. It is too hot. And we are underneath the mountain, so you have no reason to fear heights here.”
“Okay,” she whispered, feeling foolish despite Jaxor’s attempt to assuage her fear. She dropped the blanket from her shoulders, then paused.
She hadn’t really given thought that she would bathe in front of him. Or that they would bathe together. After all, she’d knowingly washed herself in the waterfall the afternoon after they’d kissed. After he’d told her that it had been a mistake…after he’d made her feel surprisingly rejected. A reckless part of her had wanted him to eat his words, had wanted to test his restraint.
Yet, he hadn’t made any advances towards her since. Neither had she. So it didn’t really matter if they bathed together, right? He’d already seen her naked. Twice. The first time had been in the Golden City. He had kidnapped her and Crystal while they’d been bathing, after all.
Erin had never been so liberal with her nudity before Jaxor. She’d rarely shown much skin. Back on Earth, she taught second graders for a living. Her wardrobe consisted mostly of midi-length dresses, cardigans, and blouses that revealed only her collarbones. After work, her choice of clothing mostly consisted of pajamas. On the rare occasions when she went out at night, her most scandalous outfit was a black sheath dress that hit just above her knees with a sweetheart neckline. Her friends had all lovingly teased her about her grandmother-esque wardrobe, but Erin liked her clothes.
So Erin thought she’d be more shy about her nakedness around Jaxor, but she found the opposite was the case. Parading around in nothing but tunics, sans underwear, had certainly helped.
“Will you go in first?” she asked.
The corner of his lips quirked. “Still do not believe me about sharks, rixella?”
Was he teasing her?
Erin suppressed an amused smile before he could see it. “Well, if there are none, then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Erin’s mouth went dry when Jaxor loosened the tie around his waist and stripped out of his pants. Her eyes swept over his firm ass, solid thighs, and narrowed, sculpted waist, before dropping lower to his seemingly perpetually hard cock.
Her fingers curled, as if imagining grabbing for it.
Jaxor walked forward and dropped into the hot springs. A groan of pleasure escaped his throat and Erin’s breath hitched, her body throbbing with that sound, remembering a similar one he’d made as he climaxed all over her thighs.
“No sharks, female,” he rasped after a moment, those blue eyes piercing into her. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing her again or not.
The lantern’s light wasn’t bright. It flickered off the cave walls like a candle might, casting most of the space behind the pool into darkness. When Jaxor dunked his head beneath the water and then resurfaced, he raked a hand through his short hair, pushing it back, that golden light reflecting off the water on his arms. The tattoos seemed to glow from it.
Erin’s heart was beating fast. A sound escaped her—it sounded embarrassingly like a whimper. But why, oh why did he have to look the way he did? It made everything so much harder.
Before she lost her nerve, Erin got close to the edge, sitting, dangling her legs in the pool. Jaxor hovered close, looking up at her. She realized he wouldn’t give her the luxury of looking away as she undressed. He wanted to see her. He was going to see her.
A stray thought came to her. She wondered what he would do to her, right then, if there was nothing lingering over them. No promises, no memory of past actions, no expectations, no threats. If they were just two beings, impossibly and insanely attracted to each other, promised to one another through magic and something that felt a lot like destiny.
She wondered what she would do to him. Her blood was roaring and pulsing hot with all the possibilities.
This felt like one of those moments in life…the point where something would irrevocably change. For better or worse, but definitely permanently. Something unchangeable.
Erin reached for the hem of the tunic she’d stolen from Jaxor, one of a thicker material than the one she’d been wearing. She pulled it over her head and let it drop.
Then she pushed off the edge, hot, steaming water greeting her, blanketing her limbs, relaxing her muscles. Despite the heat, her nipples were pebbled underneath the water.
The water was deep. She searched for the bottom, but found none.
“Come,” he murmured, that voice weaving through her body. “There is a ledge so you can sit.”
He surprised her—again—by taking her hand away from where it was clutched to the edge of the hot springs. He guided her over to a place at the back of the pool, nearest the darkness that the lantern’s light couldn’t reach. She thought of the kekevir, but Jaxor seemed to read her thoughts.
“They do not live in this mountain,” he soothed, bringing her to sit on a little nook in the pool underneath the surface of the water. It was perfect for sitting, for soaking. The water lapped at her collarbones. “My female fears many things,” he noted softly, looking at her.
My female.
Her stomach clenched in longing and she sunk into the water until it came up to her chin. Her face felt flushed, but at least she could pretend to blame it on the heated water.
“Maybe with good reason,” she finally said. She determined he was tall enough to stand at the bottom and it made her feel slightly better—that there wasn’t this endless abyss beneath them. The water came up to the tops of his shoulders. Erin found herself relaxing.
“I do not like the dark,” he confessed, reaching forward to rub a strand of her hair between his fingertips, the action strangely intimate, but not out of place. As if he’d done it a million times before.
What is happening? she wondered, blinking. He was willingly telling her a fear, a vulnerability?
“It’s dark back here,” she whispered, feeling a little breathless. He’d come closer. She was acutely aware of how naked they both were. How easy it would be for him to reach out and widen her legs. How much she wanted to feel him there, how she could almost imagine how his hips would feel digging into her inner thighs.
“I do not mind it so much right now,” was his reply. “Because you are here.”
The water was a blessing because it hid the scent of her arousal, which was becoming harder and harder to control around him. In her mind, she struggled with processing it all. He’d kidnapped her, threatened her, and wouldn’t tell her what he planned for next. But the warmth in her chest told her she would still accept him. That she would love to touch him, that she wanted to hear his laugh again, that she needed his eyes on her and she needed to feel his touch.
When she put her mind and her soul together, when she tried to mix them both and form her wants into something tangible and certain, she failed. Because nothing made sense.
So which one did she listen to? Her mind or her soul?
His fingers brushed between her brows, smoothing out the lines that had formed there. “What are you thinking of?” he murmured, coming even closer still.
She took a deep breath. As if under some kind of trance, her honest answer came easy, “I’m thinking that I want you. And I’m thinking that I shouldn’t.”
A sound rumbled from his throat. One of agreement? As if his thoughts mirrored her own.
“You told me it was a mistake,” she reminded him, feeling oddly panicked but oddly calm. There, in that place, with the darkness at their backs, whatever was going to happen next seemed inevitable. As if his Fates had already written it and they were actors in a play, performing exactly what they were meant to. “That it wouldn’t happen again. Just yesterday morning.”
His jaw ticked, as if he regretted his words.
He drew closer, or maybe she did. All Erin knew was that suddenly her knees were brushing his thighs unde
r the water. All she had to do was part them. All he would have to do was tilt his hips slightly and he could make both of them burn.
Something feral and dark entered his gaze. Something wild. She felt his hands come around her waist, felt him pulling her closer and lifting her, despite the fact that he’d just situated her on the little ledge.
Erin was in his arms now, holding her against him. His head bent. One of his horns tangled in her hair when he ran the angled tip of his nose across her neck, over the hickey he’d given her two nights ago, dragging his nose up until his sharp exhale tickled the sensitive shell of her ear.
He was…scenting her?
She heard his swallow, felt his hands tighten around her waist.
When he inhaled, her lips parted, her eyes fluttered shut. The soft whistling sound of it, knowing he was so close, feeling those strong arms around her, made her head swirl, made a shiver tingle all the way up to her scalp.
“Vellixa,” he groaned in his language. Erin didn’t know what the word meant, but she heard the awe in his voice.
Tentatively, she clasped her arms around his shoulders. Her eyelids felt heavy when she looked at him.
“Jaxor…” she trailed off, unsure of what she was going to say.
“Do you think I could deny you?” he rasped in her ear. “Do you think I have the strength to? It has been mere spans since I first saw you and already, I am weak.”
His head moved again. He shifted her higher in his arms.
Erin’s lips were parted from his words…but then a soft moan escaped them when his lips found her breast.
Her nails dug into the back of his neck as his tongue flicked over her exposed, hard nipple. The warmth of it, the texture of it was amazing. She’d already known it was ridged from when they’d kissed, but feeling it on her skin, on such a sensitive place, was divine.
A breathy sigh was pulled from her lungs as he sucked gently. She wondered if she might come from this. That was how good it felt.
She tried to keep her head, tried to focus even as she held him in place, in fear he would pull away.
Another one of my fears? she couldn’t help but question, adding it to the rest.
“Inevitable,” she whispered, as he switched to her other breast, wetting it with his tongue. He was almost lazily suckling her, as if this was just normal.
And perhaps it was normal between fated mates. This proprietorial, possessive intimacy.
“Rebax?” he rasped against her flesh before sucking again.
“This was always going to happen,” she whispered, realization jolting her, just now discovering the power of the bond, though Jaxor had hinted that he’d felt it before. She felt insignificant in comparison to the inevitability. She wondered if Jaxor felt the same way.
He had told her he was tired of fighting against her. Was this what he meant?
“Tev,” he murmured. His eyes met hers, even as his cheeks hollowed as he sucked hard. “It was.”
Chapter Twenty
“Wait,” Erin gasped, gripping his horns and pulling him away from her breast. “J-just wait.”
Jaxor groaned, the feel of her soft hands around his horns traveling straight to his cock. Didn’t she know anything about Luxirian males in this state? She may as well have been stroking him.
Then again, why would she know? Unless she’d had affairs with other males during her time in the Golden City. The thought made his claws curl, made hot jealousy rise in his chest, when the only thing he’d ever been jealous of in his entire lifespan had been Vaxa’an.
“I need to think,” she rasped, blinking though her lids were heavy. Desire was dizzying. It fogged the mind and dulled the limbs. Desire was dangerous, but Jaxor felt it coiling in his belly and he wanted to give in to it. Just for a little while. He was so tired of fighting it.
“About what?” he questioned, his head dipping again. He trailed his mouth over her throat before his teeth nipped at her flesh. She moaned, the sound breathless and desperate.
He wanted to put his mouth on hers again. Had thought of little else. When his head pulled back, his eyes dropped to her lips. They were flushed pink and looked soft.
“You’re…” she started, shaking her head. “You’re making it hard to think.”
Jaxor grinned and he heard her breath hitch. Then he didn’t hesitate. He slanted his head and kissed her, brushing his lips against hers the way she’d done a couple nights ago.
Her hands went to his bare shoulders and squeezed. He felt the slide of her peaked nipples across his chest and the feeling made him crazed. His Instinct was pushing, pushing, further and further into the forefront of his mind. Reason was becoming lost. All the reasons why this was a terrible idea became faded.
If Jaxor mated her, he would never let her go. His deal would be forfeit with the Mevirax. They would brand him a traitor. His opportunity to help his people and to take revenge for the lives lost would be gone.
And yet, Jaxor was tempted.
So tempted.
Erin kissed him back, finally. Her hands delved into the hair she’d cut and gripped him, angling her head so he could kiss her harder. It was a wild, desperate thing, their teeth clashing together, more carnal than tender.
They might not like each other—they might fight more than anything—but Jaxor had never doubted this. That she wanted him and he wanted her with an intensity that seemed impossible.
“I need to taste you, rixella,” he murmured, pulling away, his lips feeling stung and swollen. Hers were red. He may have nibbled on them in the midst of it all, he couldn’t remember.
Her brows furrowed in confusion, but then she gasped when he lifted her from the hot springs, settling her generous backside on the stone of the pool’s edge. Her back was to the looming darkness.
“J-Jaxor?” she whispered, questioning.
Then he spread her thighs and understanding dawned in her gaze. She looked down on him with a glowing gaze, the golden light from the lantern reflecting in her eyes. He waited, wanting to see if she would push him away. Jaxor looked up at her, her heaving breasts swollen, her lips bright red, and her cunt…her perfect sex was on display, inches away, glistening and pink.
Erin said nothing. All she did was spread her thighs a little wider and lean back on her elbows.
The beginnings of his seed pushed from his cock at the sight, at the knowledge that his female was allowing him this luxury for the first time.
Jaxor wasted no time. He slung her legs over his shoulders, positioning himself closer.
Then his head dipped. His tongue flicked out.
Erin’s stunned gasp quickly turned into a moan, reverberating around the cave. Jaxor tightened his hands around her thighs, so much so that he was afraid he’d cut her with his claws. His blood roared in his ears. She tasted divine. Sweet and musky and perfect.
He groaned, lapping inside her cunt, deeper and deeper. The muscles in her thighs squeezed and loosened. When he looked up at her, her eyes were squeezed shut, her head tilted back, her plump, soft lips parted in a soundless cry.
Jaxor felt on the verge of coming just looking at her. He wondered if he would, without any physical stimulation at all.
Her inner walls were slick and wet, ready for him. With a growl, he pulled his tongue from her and then lapped at her folds. She jerked when he reached a small area, a tiny bundle of nerves.
“Good?” he rasped, flickering his gaze up at her.
“Yes,” she breathed. So he repeated the movement, licking at the spot. Luxirian females didn’t have it, but his human female seemed to enjoy its stimulation tremendously. “Oh!”
Jaxor’s horns were pressing into her belly, they were so stiff with his arousal. He made a dark sound in his throat when her hand came to one, guiding his head to that little spot, holding him there.
Vrax. Jaxor’s horns had always been particularly sensitive during matings. He was helpless against her when she touched them in that way and his tongue licked wildly at the spot that se
emed to bring her the most pleasure.
“What do you call this?” he murmured, raising his head briefly. Softly, he placed his finger on it, mindful of his claws, and her hips bucked upwards, her back arching.
“My clit,” she whispered, as if she didn’t trust her voice.
Jaxor made another sound in his throat. “And you like it when I lick you here, rixella?”
Her eyes met his, her hand tightening on his horn, as if afraid he’d move away. “Yes.”
“How much?”
“Very much.”
He grinned, his lips wet from her arousal. “Ask me.”
Her gaze narrowed, though he saw the way they lit with interest. “You want me to beg?”
He trailed the calloused pad of his finger over her clit and her brows drew together, pleasure erupting over her features just from that light touch. Fascinating and arousing. Jaxor’s other hand delved beneath the water, squeezing his cock tightly when he felt like he might come.
Erin saw the hasty movement. Her back seemed to arch a little more, drawing Jaxor’s gaze to her breasts, to her brown-tinted hard nipples, and his jaw clenched, wanting to draw them into his mouth once more.
“I would not be opposed to hearing you beg,” he finally said, his voice deep and roughened.
“I won’t beg,” she whispered, a challenge in her gaze.
His nostrils flared. “Nix?” Stubborn female.
Her smile was languid. Jaxor swallowed hard. Already his mouth was watering for more of her taste, but now there was a challenge between them, one he’d foolishly issued.
“No,” she murmured. She laid back, off her elbow, keeping her hand on his horn. “If you won’t make me come, I’ll have to do it myself.”
His pupils went wide with her words.
“Wicked rixella,” he rasped, though it almost sounded like a curse to his ears. She kept him in place, poised between her thighs, but her fingers replaced his on her clit. Slowly, she rubbed, circling the flesh as Jaxor’s heartbeat thundered in his chest.