by Ophelia Bell
“Not yet, sweetness,” Aodh rumbled just as she thought she could be free to fly over that edge she’d barely managed to resist the first time. Her eyes flew open and she stared at him, then down at Neph, who had removed his mouth from her, though he still trailed his fingers up and down the soaked folds of her pussy, keeping her spread open, but not providing enough contact to make her come.
“Wh-why?” she asked.
“Because he wants to be in contact with you when you lose your mind under my tongue, kitten. Save it a little longer.”
She let out a frustrated groan, but nodded. This she knew she could do, even if she wasn’t exactly pleased about it.
She closed her eyes and drifted back to that night, then the following morning and the enforced nudity, and how very aware of her own body she’d been while Neph stripped and had breakfast with her.
The ensuing activities came back into focus with crystal clarity, from the moment he’d first touched her as Aodh and they’d each observed each other without touching at all, merely pleasing themselves.
Vrishti opened her eyes at the low growl that emanated from Aodh’s throat and met his piercing, silvery gaze.
“He let you see me, and that pleased you.” His gaze fell to Neph’s back, and Vrishti glanced down to see the satyr’s brows draw together, but he kept his focus entirely on her tender flesh.
“Of course it did. The first time he kissed me, I was kissing you. I was with only you for an entire day. He even tasted like you.”
Her voice softened at the memory of the first taste she’d had of Neph when he’d shared his true essence and not a fabricated version of Aodh’s. She gripped his head in her hands and pulled back until he paused his licks and looked up at her. The lower half of his face shone with her juices and he cast his eyes down as though he couldn’t bear to let her see what lay inside. Yet every emotion was bare for her inside their minds—the rawness of what he’d felt when taking on that beloved shape for her benefit. How much it had cost him to ease the process for her.
“You did that for me … became him, even though you were ashamed to … to use his likeness that way, without his consent.”
Neph’s throat rippled as he swallowed and nodded. “It was a sacrifice I had to make to reach him, not just to please you.”
“Show it to me again,” Aodh said, his gaze filled with a strange desperation as he thrust harder into Neph’s ass, one hand now gently stroking up and down the other man’s side.
Inside Vrishti’s mind, the scene unfolded again, this time from Neph’s point of view—a vision she hadn’t seen before of one moment just before breakfast the first day when he’d looked in the mirror. “Forgive me for being glad I get to have her first. You broke all the others in, but this one I want to myself for a little while, even if I have to look like you to have her.”
Vrishti watched, enraptured, while Neph’s memory unfolded, showing her every moment of the rest of that first afternoon up until their shower after lunch, and then them falling asleep entwined beneath the covers. When they reached the darkest part that featured his dreams of fearful rejections that left him chilled in the winter cold, she knew they’d reached the moment when she understood the most important thing about the entire experience.
She closed her eyes and overlaid the events of that evening as she recalled them, from her eager attention to him in the shower to her awareness of his slip when he’d fallen asleep, and then her study of Neph’s sleeping shape afterward.
Aodh let out a long, rough groan and she looked at him again, saw the pain of realization in his eyes. Then he pulled back, removing himself from Neph’s ass. The satyr turned an apprehensive gaze to the dragon.
“We’re not going to keep doing this,” Aodh said. “I fucking love you. Both of you. I hate how we left things, and it’s going to take me more time to get past, but she deserves our honesty at least.” He raked his big hands through his hair, his gaze resting on her. “About how many orgasms does he owe you?”
“I … I’m not sure.”
“Move over,” he said to Neph, patting the satyr on his rump. He stepped forward and knelt before the pedestal Vrishti rested on with her legs still spread. Her tailbone ached from the hard stone, but every discomfort disappeared after he emitted a fresh cloud of white smoke and pure euphoria set in. Then Aodh’s mouth was on her, tongue dipping between her folds and licking upward until he sucked her clit between his lips. Her breath came in sharp gasps as he concentrated on her pleasure, teasing it to a crescendo while Neph dropped to his knees and watched. The satyr rested his hand on Aodh’s pale, silken hair and urged him on.
“Don’t forget her favorite thing,” he said, curling his fingers around her ass and teasing his thumb at her rear opening. Aodh let out a grunt of acknowledgment and pressed his own finger at her slick rosebud. He pushed inside and her world flew apart. Her hands flew out and gripped for purchase at the smooth stone on either side of her while the spasms shook her.
Just as she was coming down with shaky breaths, Neph descended on her, taking over. Aodh sat back on his haunches, smiling and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “We’re not stopping until you beg us to, baby.”
She didn’t have the presence of mind to respond under the diligent ministrations of Neph’s tongue. He pushed two fingers into her slick channel and slid another into her ass, sending her ecstasy into the heavens once more. Then Aodh took his turn again. With each successive orgasm, the world grew hazier, and she was nearly certain the pair of them had taken on dimly pulsing auras.
She could barely even move when Neph asked her something she thought involved fucking. She nodded, simply thinking that yes, she liked it when he fucked her. The next thing she knew, his thick, curved cock was sliding into her, and the slick friction made her moan with pleasure. His swirling gaze fixed on her from above as he plunged deep, and when Aodh took up position just behind him, Neph froze.
“You ready for me, lover?” Aodh asked.
“More than ever. Fuck me,” Neph responded. Then he gripped Vrishti by the back of the head and his mouth found hers, tongue plunging deep as he groaned in pleasure.
Aodh wrapped his thick arms around him, his strong, intense gaze fixing on Virshti past Neph’s shoulder. His eyes fluttered closed as he began to move his hips, pushing Neph’s cock deeper into Vrishti as he fucked him.
All she could do was hold on, and as she arched her back and reached out, she found two hands—one pale and huge, the other darker and more graceful, each taking a strong grip of her small brown hands. She kept her eyes open despite the rising swell of pure pleasure. It wasn’t just one man pretending this time. They were both with her now, both making love to each other, to her, and both their pleasure seemed magnified inside their minds as she lent her own to the mix.
While she watched, their features rippled and shifted, the shape of the cock inside her changed, became thicker at the base, more tapered at the tip, and the lips that crashed down on hers were the dragon’s while the satyr looked on from his vantage point at the dragon’s backside, where he steadily pierced Aodh’s ass with his cock.
The orgasm tore through her in a torrent of confusion mixed with utter completeness in that moment. They were two, yet one. And soon they would both be hers forever.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Vrishti
Vrishti wasn’t sure who carried her into the pool a few moments later. She couldn’t tell them apart now, and she’d sensed some strange juxtaposition of them in her mind as well. Like they hadn’t just swapped places, but merged entirely into one being—one creature—whose purpose was intent on proving its love to her and itself.
When the heated water enveloped her, she let out a deep breath and looked up into a pair of piercing silver eyes.
“Is it really you now?” she asked, reaching up to trace a wet line down the side of Aodh’s jaw. She glanced behind his shoulder an
d saw Neph—at least she believed it was Neph—coming closer and slipping into the pool beside them.
“Does it matter?” Aodh said, a slight smile playing at his lips. His eyes were deep with weariness, but he looked content as he cradled her against him and stroked his fingertips along the edge of her jaw.
“You saw the rest,” she said. “You know it matters to me.”
Neph settled himself in the water beside them and stroked a wet line over the top of her shoulder, then bent to kiss it. “It shouldn’t, but only because things are different now, kitten. Blood meld with us and you’ll understand. We share a soul now, Aodh and I.”
“We can literally be the same person if we choose to be,” Aodh said. “When you saw me making love to you, it was me in almost every sense. All except some very basic physical details.”
“You mean, like at a cellular level, you were still different?”
He lifted an eyebrow and looked at Neph. The satyr chuckled. “Yes, if you want to be precise. The physical appearance was a very detailed illusion, but our senses and minds switched places too. I could feel everything as though I was making love to him …”
“And I was making love to you,” Aodh finished.
She frowned, not quite satisfied with their explanation. It wasn’t enough, for some reason. Aodh cupped her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. “What is it you need, sweetness? Whatever it is, we will give it to you.”
“I get it. Assana told me about blood melding. I’ve had conversations with all three of them at once when only one of them was standing beside me. And I want that too, when it makes sense for me. But I want to have you, Aodh. Just once. Just you.” She glanced at Neph, worry for him pulling her brows together. “You understand, don’t you? You had me first …”
Neph held up his hands and nodded. “I understand perfectly, kitten. Pretend I’m not even here.” Before her eyes his skin shimmered and grew translucent, colorless, and he seemed to fade into the steam until nothing but a vague, smoky outline remained, one that dissipated quickly.
Vrishti gasped. “Neph? Where did you go?”
Aodh chuckled. “He’s here,” he said, lifting a cupped palm from the pool and letting the water trickle out of it. “Nymphaea are water shifters.”
“I know but … I didn’t know he was literally water.”
“He is at the moment, but we need to address what you asked for. You have me now, sweetness. Just me.”
She stared into his eyes, suddenly at a loss.
“I missed you,” she finally said, feeling supremely lame once the words were out and the last couple hours came back to her in a rush.
Aodh laughed and gave her an indulgent smile. “I missed you like you wouldn’t believe. I even built a statue, if that shows you anything.” He nodded toward the impressively accurate likeness they’d fucked her against moments earlier.
She studied the statue of herself, half-reclined with knees bent and thighs spread, exposing herself to the satyr on the opposite side. “Is that how you picture me? And him?”
“In my dreams, you were both more or less like that, yes. That was all I had to go by for you. I never did get to see you naked until today.”
“You could have, you know. There was time.”
Aodh shook his head. “Your mother wouldn’t have allowed it so soon. Now, perhaps …” He traced a pattern into her chest just beneath the dip of her collarbone, and her entire body warmed a few degrees as though exposed to bright summer sun. Vrishti glanced down to see the tiny sunburst at the top of her breasts glow with golden light.
“What is it?” she asked. “Mother wasn’t exactly clear, and I didn’t have time to untangle her riddles.”
“Insurance,” he said, the little pulsing pattern reflected in his eyes. He looked like he was reading something, so intense was his focus was on her chest. She raised her hand to her chest and covered it up.
Aodh lifted his gaze, the crinkle in his brow easing and his eyebrows lifting. “She must have been worried you wouldn’t come home in time. How close were you to the Equinox when you came for me?”
“Equinox wasn’t for another month … more. It was the middle of February.” She brightened when she did the math and realized what day it had actually been when they left. “Perfect timing,” she said, shifting on his lap so she was straddling him, still intent on having the one thing she’d wanted all this time—ever since their first kiss.
“For what?” he asked.
“It’s Valentine’s Day,” she said. “It’s romantic that today’s the day you make up with Neph and I get to make love to you for the first time.”
“We’ve already made love several times.”
“That was with both of you. Now it’s just you.”
His frown betrayed an incongruous uncertainty that made Vrishti’s chest constrict.
“Don’t do that,” she said softly, resisting the urge to slide off his lap and call Neph back.
“Don’t do what?”
“Look at me like you aren’t even sure you want me.”
Aodh’s nostrils flared. “Vrishti, my wanting you is never going to change. That mark of yours that your mother gave you worries me, though. Whatever is happening in the present … the real present … must be dire enough that your mother gave you this link to the Summer Spirit before you left her. She was Queen of the ursa once, so she knows how important it is that you make it back there alive.”
“We have time, though. We have all the time in the world right now. Can we just have this moment to not worry about the fate of the world?”
Aodh tightened his grip on her hips beneath the water and some of the weariness left his eyes. Letting out a soft sigh, he nodded.
“Having you here to wake me was more than I could have asked for. I don’t even know how Neph knew it was you.” He slid his big hands up her sides, pausing when his thumbs edged beneath her breasts and caressed the round swells of their undersides.
Vrishti shifted closer on his lap, sliding her hands up his thick shoulders and hooking her fingers at the back of his neck. She avoided looking down between them, though she desperately wanted to see his magnificent cock again. The base of it nudged up against her core, hard and hot, making her wonder whether he’d been this aroused all along, even with those serious thoughts going through his head.
His mouth twitched. “You have to know I get hard just looking at you, sweetness. Of course I’m aroused when you’re naked in my lap.”
She scowled. “Stop reading my mind. I want to feel you make love to me without any magic. Just you and me and our bodies.”
“I can do that,” he said, his voice lowering in pitch. He shifted his hands higher until they cupped her heavy breasts, his thumbs gliding back and forth over her nipples. Warmth flooded her and she sighed under his touch. His heated gaze fixed on her face, the steam from the bath condensing on his pale cheeks. His lips, however, were flushed and pink, sending her back in a rush to the sight of him sucking and lapping at her core, bringing her to repeated heights of ecstasy.
Impulsively she bent her head and darted out her tongue, sliding the tip along his lower lip, then the upper one. He closed the distance with a slight shift of his head, surprising her with the hungry way he captured her mouth with his. She moaned and tightened her hold on him, tilting her head and shifting tight against him. She rose so that her spread folds glided along the length of his cock until his tip was pressed between.
His hands slipped around her, sliding up her back to support her as she sank down on top of him. His rough groan when she was seated fully sent a pleasant vibration straight through her, causing her muscles to clench around him.
“Sweet Mother, this is more perfect than I could have imagined,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, pressing her forehead to his and peering into his eyes as she began t
o move on top of him. This was perfect. Every bit as perfect as the way Neph had made love to her the night before they’d left. Which had only been a little while ago but it seemed like forever. She missed the big satyr, but she was grateful for this private moment with her dragon. Every single moment with either of them was worth savoring.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Neph
Neph easily merged with the water itself, his magic making him indistinguishable from its molecules. He could have stayed to bear witness to the lovemaking of the pair of people who meant more to him than his own immortal life, but he intended to honor Vrishti’s wish to be alone with the dragon. He understood it all too well. They would be three-in-one when she decided she was ready for a blood meld to complete their trio, and there was no going back after that. She would need these last hours or days to enjoy her autonomy before that happened. He could still easily sense Aodh through their newly forged blood bond, but opted to keep a mental wall in place to let the dragon have his space as well, which Aodh needed for other reasons.
Before he erected the wall, Neph had caught a snippet of their conversation and frowned. The time shift of their journey was something neither Vrishti nor Aodh could have been aware of. It wasn’t as precise as she made it sound. While it may have been February fourteenth in their present when they left, a journey as far into the past as they’d made still took time. Not three thousand years, but they’d likely lost days, and would lose more on the journey back. By his calculations, they’d still arrive before the Equinox, but he wasn’t sure how long before.
There was very little he could do to control that shift, so he saw no point in bringing it up now. They would have to deal with it when they got home.
With his mind carefully separated from theirs, he let the air current and the heat carry him in vapor form into the air above the pool. Then with a slight effort of his will, he pushed toward what appeared to be the most likely spot for an exit to the huge, hemispherical room. He needed to see the sky to get his bearings on both where and when they were … to confirm what the first glimpse of the architecture of the room suggested as well as his suspicions of how much time they might have lost in getting here.