Authors: Juliette Cross
His body a rigid wall of flesh-encased steel, I couldn’t help the small sound of pleasure that escaped my lips. He jerked back, pulling us apart a fraction. Without even glancing at his siblings, eyes still for me, only for me, he scooped me in his arms and leaped upward, winging us to the loft. Three more strides and we were in a bedroom, his foot slamming the door closed.
Pitch black hemmed us in. He had me stretched out on the bed in less than a second, covering me with his body, devouring my lips once more. Nipping. Biting. Sucking on my tongue. Groaning like a dying man. I opened wider—my mouth, my legs—wanting more of him. His breathing was jagged, his movements shaky, hands trembling as they roamed over me, my breasts, my ribs, squeezing my hip. He shook as if he were borderline hypothermic, his body in shock.
“Skin,” he growled.
He ripped my pants down my legs and off my body, no panties underneath. He stripped off my shirt before I knew what had happened, pinning me before I could even take a breath.
“I want skin, too,” I murmured against his lips.
Fumbling in the dark, I found the zippers of his back flaps underneath his wings and pulled. He yanked off the shirt and tossed it away. Pressing me into the mattress, I sensed his wings spreading wide above us, a cave of heat walling us in. Seeing nothing but slits of silver, I smoothed my hands up and down his shoulders, arms, roving over his chest, twining in his hair. That electric charge snapped in the air, warning me of his volatile state.
“Moira, I can’t stop. I need, I need—”
He hovered over me, holding his weight on his forearms, knowing his dominance had him knotted and ready to spring. He needed to be inside me, to be as close as he possibly could after fearing for my death for so long. He needed the deepest, most primal level of connection. Because I did, too.
“Shhh.” I nipped at his jaw, light feminine bites and kisses as I slid my hands lower, unzipping his pants. He didn’t move, holding himself above me, letting me take control. Sliding my hands lower, I stroked his thick length, surprised that I’d already had it inside my body. There would be pain again, but pleasure, too. Great pleasure.
I sighed, spreading my legs, scooting my pelvis up so I could guide him, our fevered panting the only sound. He pierced my slick heat, thrusting hard and deep the way he needed to. The way I needed him to. I cried out, the sharp sensation of pain lost the second his throbbing shaft sheathed to the hilt. He took my mouth, groaning as he licked and tasted, his tongue stroking deep. All of him stroking deep. A wave of emotion flooded through my body to have him once again fill me.
Letting me have some of his weight, he pounded into me, over and over. I wrapped my ankles at the small of his back, anchoring myself to him, letting him drive as hard as he wanted, the sensation spinning me higher.
“Kol,” I whispered in his ear. “I needed…”
Before I could form another thought or say another word, I cried out, coming hard and fast. Too fast.
He sheathed himself deep and stilled, cupping my breast in a possessive hold, letting me ride out the orgasm, wave after wave, as I whimpered beneath him. I felt a tear slip from one eye and across my cheek, the release of emotion too much for me. Kol kissed up the damp trail left behind, drying the path with his lips, moving again inside me, slow and sweet.
The hand on my breast slid beneath my bottom, gripping one cheek as he rolled his spine, thrusting in a steady rhythm, again and again. His lips brushed against mine, less desperate, more gentle. Less frantic, more sensual. His tongue teased my lips. I opened for him on a gasp. He sucked my lower lip, tasting in a tender way.
“Moira.” His voice, gravel-on-stone in the thick darkness of the room, heavy with lust and need and something much, much more. “I can’t live without you.” A deep stroke of his shaft, slamming hard, but slow. “I want you. Always.”
His words, his body, and his hard, demanding desire drove me near madness. Loving me with an intensity that burned fire-bright, he pushed me to the edge before calling me back again.
“Is this”—I rocked my hips up to meet him. He hissed in a breath—“your declaration of love?”
“Yes,” was his instant, broken reply.
My heart skipped a beat. His often brutal, and now vulnerable honesty, cut me like winter wind. I wound one hand in his hair, pulling his mouth down to my own. A moaning growl rumbled through his chest to mine. I kissed him deeply, stroking my tongue along his, matching his need, his aggression, as best I could.
He pulled away, panting as he continued to pump inside me. “You’re making me insane.” He sucked my neck, marking me, driving his scent deeper into my skin.
I fisted my fingers into his hair, pressing him harder against me, begging for more. He buried his face against my neck. What was it about him that made me feel powerful and powerless at the same time? I was the strongest woman in the world when he said my name with such adoration, loved my body with desperation, and pushed me higher toward climax as if my pleasure was all that mattered in the world. And yet, I was the most vulnerable I’d ever been—caged beneath his massive body, enveloped by his powerful wings, and captured within his sensual embrace. Soaring higher and sinking faster was the most glorious sensation I’d ever felt. I wanted, hoped, he felt it, too.
Nipping his earlobe with my teeth, I whispered, “Show me how you feel.”
His other hand cupped beneath me, both large hands gripping my bottom, fingers digging into flesh, his weight spreading me wider. He tilted my bottom up, stroking till he hit the sweetest place. “What you do to me, Moira,” he panted against my skin.
I moaned. “Oh, God.”
I clawed down his back. White-hot passion racked my body, wringing me out, stroke by stroke.
“Tell me who you want, Moira. Tell me who you belong to.”
Pounding me with fierce unrestraint, I was engulfed by something rare, something raw, something so deep and real. And I knew I would never feel this way with anyone but him. There would never
be
anyone but him. Ever again.
“You.” I gasped, my inner walls pulsing around him.
He stiffened, buried inside me, releasing his seed into my body. For a split second, I feared pregnancy, even after that monster king had said I wasn’t “breeding.” Never before had I considered having children, but after the brief time I’d been intimate with Kol, I wanted to give him children. I wanted to give him everything.
I loved him.
So I pulled his head down and whispered that very thing in the pitch dark, our sweaty bodies aligned and intertwined as one. I was unable to say the words too loud, only in a whisper, afraid they might change this moment in some terrible, irrevocable way. But all I felt was the loving sweep of his mouth over mine—no tongue, no penetration—only lips on lips, brushing a tender caress. Acceptance of my gift, my open heart. As I accepted his.
After a moment of silence and sweet touching, he slid out of me. I heard him moving, though I could see nothing. He blew a bright line of yellow flame, lighting a three-tiered candlestick on the bedside table.
Disinterested in the room, I took in the sight of my magnificent man by candlelight. He lay on his side, wings folded to his back, eyes roving over me. Unaccustomed to being examined in the nude, I wasn’t shy for some reason. Not with him.
One of his hands traveled a light trail over my hip and across my ribs, circled my abdomen, then back up between my breasts, stopping suddenly. He gazed at the mark high on my cheek, his expression darkening to a storm.
“Kol. I’m okay.” His expression remained unchanged. I cupped his face between my hands, forcing him to look at me, the dragon vivid in hard planes. “I’m safe.”
Finally, he blinked, stony expression softening. “Tell me what happened.”
His fingers resumed their petting trail up and down my waist, brushing in soothing sweeps, reminding me that I was now safe in his arms.
He seemed to be forcing himself to slow his breathing, to calm the rage after seeing the mark on my cheek. So I told him in quick, clipped succession how I was taken, chained, and held captive, leaving out how close the monster king came to making me his breeder.
Kol’s fingers rounded my hip and stopped, his gaze finding mine. “Who gave you the mark on the cheek?”
Gor. “He’s dead.”
“Good.” He pulled loose one of my braids, untwining the plait and lifting the gold ribbon to his nose. “And who were you made into a concubine for?”
My pulse sped ahead. “Why would you say that?”
He proceeded to undo the braids hanging by my temple with gentle fingers, pulling the gold ribbons and tossing them away.
“Long ago, dragon kings kept human concubines, but never sired a child with one. Radomis was the first to take a human woman as a wife.” The ring around his iris glowed white within a sea of deep blue. “There are millennium-old paintings in some of our museums depicting the ancient ones, their slave girls dressed in white tunics, gold ribbons braided into their hair.”
“Why gold?” I managed to ask evenly.
“Gold is the element of royalty, a dragon king. It labels them as his property.” His voice dipped low and soft as a whisper. “So, tell me, Moira. This bastard of a king had planned to keep you as his concubine, hadn’t he?”
Pause. I nodded. Now I knew why Kieren’s mood was so dark after his dreamwalking chat with his brother. He’d told Kol all about this monster Morgon who led this dark charade. I decided the best thing was to be honest with him about my experience.
“Concubine sounds rather kind. He was looking for a breeder, not a lover.” I winced at the memory of those monstrous hands on me, his eyes raking me as if I were a precious piece of livestock. “But, Kol, I injected him with poison. Gaius gave me a way to escape, gave us both a way to escape.”
Kol’s eyes slid closed, a tremble shuddering through him. “I’ll be forever grateful to Gaius, for what he risked in saving you.”
There was no need to point out he risked his life. And lost it. There was more to tell about Gaius but not now.
Kol’s sharp features seemed kinder in the candlelight. His hands threaded through my hair, draping the long strands on the mattress. We lay sideways in the bed, never making it to the pillows. His fierce passion had consumed us both.
I stared at the line down his cheek. “Kol.”
“Hmm.”
“Why didn’t you have an Icewing heal this?” I traced a finger there. “Not that I mind it at all. Actually, I kind of like it, but—”
He stopped my mouth with a soft kiss.
“No need to explain.” He sighed, seeming to remember. “I didn’t want it to be healed. I wanted the reminder of what I’d done. I regretted what I’d done to Kieren, injuring him that way, my own blood.” Regret laced every word. “But I couldn’t take it back. I thought, well, I thought I deserved the scar.”
I leaned up and kissed the center.
“Perhaps it’s time you two let those wounds heal.”
A tender smile from my not-so-icy Morgon man. “Perhaps.”
My eyes dropped to the pulse in his neck, still thrumming hard. I remembered the heat of his kiss, languishing in the near-memory. A small sigh escaped me.
His mouth ticked up into a half-smile. “What, Moira? I can see the wheels turning in your head.”
I shrugged one bare shoulder. “I was just wondering something.”
“That something being what exactly?”
If I wanted to know, I had to take the plunge. “Soulfire.”
His fingers curled to wrap my waist. “What about soulfire?” No inflection.
“I wonder…I mean…” I tried to find the words, the courage to ask him what I needed to know. He slid his hand over the curve of my hip and back up to my waist, waiting patiently.
“Why haven’t you mentioned it yet? If you feel the way you do about me, isn’t that something you’d want to share with me?”
Sex with Kol was mind-melting, but I knew he hadn’t given me soulfire. My sister had once told me it wasn’t something she could express in words, but something you’d recognize the instant it happened.
His gaze left the contours of my body, meeting my own. “I won’t bond with you in that way, Moira.”
My heart fell, my blood running cold. Clearing my throat, I managed to ask, “Because…it doesn’t burn that way for me?”
His hand continued its exploration of my body. He gave a sort of snorting laugh. “Oh. It burns that way.” His gaze raked over me, his words telling me the fire wasn’t remotely extinguished. “The truth is that my mother suffered terribly when my father died. They were heartbound, and the pain she endured was unbearable.” His fingers curved around my waist again, tightening. “I’d never do that to you. I don’t wish you to suffer. Ever.”
His words were ice, his eyes were molten—soft, filled with affection. My blood warmed at once. “But, Kol. Don’t you want that bond? Isn’t that what Morgonkind longs for?”
He shook his head. “Not at that price.”
I frowned. “You’ll suffer instead.” I lifted a hand, tracing his scar in the half-light. “Lucius told me the Morgon male is in pain around his mate till he can release it.”
“Lucius should keep his mouth shut.” He brushed a lock of hair off my shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. Just tell me you’ll have me.”
“I’ll have you.” I smiled. “As many times as you want. You’re not all that bad in bed.”
His hand drifted south again and pinched my bottom. “Kittycat likes to tease, does she?”
I laughed, squirming to get away. He threw a heavy leg across my thighs, leaning his chest partly against mine, easily containing me. Though in all honesty, I didn’t really want to get away.
“Moira, Moira, Moira. What am I going to do with you?”
I laughed, my chest rising and falling with the exertion, drawing his eyes. My brain hazed when he got that look, full of stricken desire—for me.
“Be still, Kittycat. I want to pet you.”
“Pfft.” I rolled my eyes, casting off an air of bravado, while my insides turned to jelly. “I’m not an animal, Kol.”
His hand trailed down my abdomen, sliding along the slick apex between my legs. I gripped his bicep, sucking in a sharp breath, feeling the muscle tense and ripple. No way was he budging.