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Emerie brushed her lips over the soft scales of Ingram’s neck, then drew back from their hug to slowly traverse them up to the corner of his jaw. Her lips curled slightly when his body puffed in reaction to the lightness of her mouth.

She continued her caresses over the side of his beak, seeing if she could get him to open it.

Instigating a passionate kiss with someone who didn’t have lips was a challenge. She couldn’t just hungrily lock their mouths together.

He gave her room to do as she pleased, even as she trailed to the very tip. Then she pecked it. Still, he didn’t open up for her. Instead, he cupped the back of her head and drifted his own back.

“What is wrong, Emerie?” he asked, his orbs morphing to blue. “You have not been yourself today.”

“Nothing is wrong,” she lied, and evenshethought her tone was convincing. Having a steady resolve could do that to a person.

He bumped the side of his beak against her temple. “As much as I have enjoyed it, you do not usually... cling to me like today.”

She returned his nuzzle with more flutters of her mouth. “I just wanted to spend time with you.”

“You have not been the same since meeting with the Witch Owl. She looked at you strangely yesterday.”

Emerie knew he meant when they had been at Delora and Magnar’s home, as he was not aware of her midnight chat with the woman. She was sure Mayumi had told everyone else today while Emerie was with him.

She leaned back in the security of his arms, folded her own across her chest, and pouted. “Do you want to kiss or not?”

He quickly closed the space between them to lash at her lips with his long tongue. “Always I want to kiss,” he grated.

“Good boy,” she praised, as she drew her tongue up his when he licked her a second time. His hands gripped harder.

She unfurled her arms and cupped the corners of his jaw to keep herself steady. Rather than fighting his tongue, she welcomed it into the crevice of her mouth, and moaned at the indulgent taste of burnt sugar and hickory bark.

It was intoxicating, making her mouth water.

Balancing her knees on his thighs, she lifted up slightly to meet him. She let him play with her tongue, her teeth, the bumpy roof of her mouth. His body was against her, and she pushed any thoughts of worry, any fears, to the back of her mind so she could focus on just this moment with him.

She took in the feeling of his hard body and strong, yet overly lean muscles. One of her hands trailed down his chest so she could feel his scales and the bones protruding outside of his flesh.

Emerie eased herself into desire, letting out a shaken exhale when her nipples stiffened against her day dress. With her eyelids low and heavy, she witnessed when his glowing orbs shifted into a different purple – one that mirrored the depths of her own want.

One of his hands slyly drifted to her arse. The claws of it dug through the material, poking tiny holes into it, as he kneaded her round cheeks.

Just as he leaned forward to bury more of his tongue past her teeth, feeding her the thicker part of it, Emerie made him jerk and flinch. She sucked on his tongue, drawing it in herself, and drank him down.

He shuddered out a fierce groan.

His palm slipped from her arse so he could dip it underneath the skirt of her dress. Returning to it, he paused when he felt bare skin instead of the barrier of underwear.

Oh yeah, Emerie had planned thisentireday – especially how it would end.

She gripped the bottom seam of her dress and drew it up until she’d hooked it on the webbing of skin between his thumb and forefinger. Then, she pushed his hand up her hip, her side, forcing him to glide a sinful path up her body, and he happily complied. His rough, calloused palm simultaneously abraded and tickled her skin, sending shivers of goosebumps across her body.

He petted her right breast when he got to it, giving it a rough squeeze.

A slick hardness poked against her navel before it rubbed a trail up her abdomen. Firm, wriggling tentacles tickled her inner thighs once his cock was fully engorged and past his seam.

“You always smell so nice like this,” he rasped, flicking her nipple as he moved his palm up and down. She moaned and squeezed his hand against her. “It makes me want to lick every inch of you.”

He pulled away from their unique kiss so he could lick across her jaw. Before he could get any more ideas, she pushed his hand higher up until it was caressing her throat. Then further still, until she was able to duck underneath the neckline.

His hand fell away, as did both her own, when her dress slipped off her arms and cascaded behind her. Although her skin was flushed with desire, her cheeks pinkened further, as she shyly peeked up at him through her long lashes.

Ingram paused, then his head reared back slowly and tilted so he could see.