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Chapter Twenty-Two

Vanessa

“Breathe, baby.” The feel of his fingers scratching lightly down the outsides of my thighs has my hips pumping up again. “Keep your hips down,” he says directly into my pussy, his lips brushing mine on every word. “Put your knees here, over my shoulders ... Stay still. I don’t want to nick you with my claws.” Because yes, my boyfriend, the Wyvern, has started growing claws.

I should be more afraid of them ... but I’m not. I’m just grateful that his claws, strange and alarming as they are, are the reason he hasn’t wanted to touch me. And that he’s promised to make up for the time we’ve lost.

“Yeah, just like that,” he says as I exhale deeply and keep my torso from writhing as I want it to. “You’re such a good girl.”

Oh my God. The praise does terrible things to me. It brings tears to my eyes. It also reassures me that, no matter what comes out of his mouth next, I’ll do whatever he asks of me.

“Relax for me, Nessa.” Okay, maybe anything except that.

Another breath jerks into my lungs, and my head kicks back, my spine arching, my shoulder blades curling underneath my body. My mouth opening in desperation to try to remember the order he gave me before. The most important one. Breathe . I can’t. Because he’s lowered his shoulders fully between my thighs, his torso fully relaxed into the mattress. His jaw is all but unhinged, and he’s got his entire mouth pressed to my entire pussy like he’s trying to swallow it whole. And then he proceeds to tongue-fuck me, his lips sucking and pulling at all the shaved skin around my opening while his fingernails continue their ministrations, gently scraping up and down my thighs until it all gets to be too much.

His tongue retracts from my body, and I do the bravest thing I can imagine myself doing in the moment: I glance down. Seeing him watching me with eyes so bright it’s like looking at an eclipse is too much. I’m panting; my thighs are shaking. I’m nervous about this because he all but promised me he’d take me ... take it all the way this time, and I’m scared that he’s going to stop.

“Rollo, please ...”

He lifts his head and smirks at me, the jerk. Without breaking the line of my gaze, his arms curl around my thighs, holding them to his shoulders, fixing them in place so I can’t move. I’m trying so hard not to anyway. His tongue snakes out of his mouth, looking so damn red, and flicks at my clit once, twice, swirling around it the third time. And by the fourth, I come.

His eyes widen and his brows arch, and I lose the strength in my stomach and flop back onto my bed while my orgasm sucks me in like a spell. It almost hurts, the force of it. My body curls up, trying to protect itself, but he spreads me out and lays me bare. He licks me slowly, gently, holding me that way too. He’s so bloody warm, but in this moment, I think I might be hotter as my mind swirls and finally resettles.

I come to in time to feel the beast prowling up my body. He settles his weight onto me, still wearing sweats three sizes too small, though that hardly feels like it’s making any difference. I’m not moving at all, not doing anything as he starts to kiss my neck, my collarbones.

I’m still in shock, smiling and laughing lightly, as he makes it to my breasts. He lavishes each one in turn, squeezing them gently in his palms. Pointy sharp, charcoal gray, and a quarter inch long, his claws look so dramatic against my human skin, but as I watch him worship my body, I feel no fear of them or of him.

Finally I find my hands. I touch the top of his head, almost afraid to at first; I don’t want the spell to break. But he makes a satisfied sound, somewhere between a grunt and a moan, and I do it again, carding my fingers through his thick strands, surprised by the texture. His hair is so glossy and thick, like oil, softer than the finest sand. I’ve never felt a hair texture like it and massage all the way through it, down his neck, over his heavily muscled shoulders. I didn’t realize how stacked they were until I watched the muscles bulge along his neck and upper arms.

Emotion makes my mouth feel thick with words unspoken and my chest light with breaths I don’t take. “Thank you for coming for me, Rollo. And thank you for what you did. And for sticking up for me to Mr. Singkham ... though you were kidding, right, about killing him?”

“Yeah.” He’s still lightly kissing my chest, and I don’t know if he’s listening to me at all.

I tug his hair and scoff. “Roland!”

He growls, grabs my hand, and presses it to the mattress. He grabs my other hand and does the same thing with it, anchoring both hands next to my ears. From there, he stares between my eyes. “You think I’m doing all this out of the kindness of my heart?” He makes a growling sound in the back of his throat and then rolls his hips down into mine. His cock is hot against my skin. I spread my legs a little wider. I just need him to line himself up and then ... my God ... why is he waiting?

“Because I am.” He leans in and sucks hard on my throat. The pleasure shoots down the left side of my body and is so intense I almost miss it as he whispers, “I love you.”

I gasp his name, and he pulls up, kisses me hard, then gives me a little more space to flounder. Lost. The past two days’ events have been insane, but this might be the most intense moment for me of them all. And the bastard doesn’t go easy on me either. He doesn’t wait. He chooses that moment to reach between our bodies. “You trust me?”

I nod.

“Use your words.”

“I trust you, Rollo.”

He kisses the tip of my chin and then my cheek, around my bruises and my butterfly bandage. “Good. Because I’m gonna fuck you now.” He slides his hand beneath my lower back. From hip to hip, his hand is so massive, it almost covers me completely. “Christ. Wanted to feast all day, but I’m sorry, Nessa,” he says, lining himself up with my opening without moving his other hand from my cheek. “Can’t wait.” His words have sobered me now. I’m feeling nervous. Overwhelmed. “You feel me shaking?”

I shake my head. “I thought it was just me.”

Rollo’s pinched features relax when I speak. He shoves the waistband of his pants down, and I feel him shift his legs, kicking his sweats free. I’m already completely naked—have been since we stumbled up and through the front door, making out in my hallway until Rollo swept my legs, carried me up the stairs, threw me on the bed, ate out my pussy, and now ... here we are ...

The Wyvern stares down at me with eyes that are white-hot, the ghost of a smile on his lips, the massive head of his cock prodding at my entrance. “You ready?”

I nod like a madwoman, sparing myself no embarrassment, but that’s also ... okay. He’s seen it all—me at my best, worst, and then worse still—and he hasn’t run away.

“I fucking love you,” he says, and once again he moves before I can grab hold of the words, spread them out, and decipher their meaning. He pushes inside of me.

“Holy shit!” I cry out.

Rollo releases a short laugh and then a deeper moan as he thrusts, holding once the head of his cock is fully sheathed. My mouth opens on a gasp. It doesn’t hurt, but the pressure surprises me. I’ve had sex before, but that was a really long time ago—not since college—and I’ve had vibrators ... but I haven’t used a dildo ... so this is a lot for me. The physical pressure is only one part.

“Breathe.”

I exhale shakily, my eyes blurring. His face is doing something stupid. He’s smiling at me a little while his eyebrows are drawn together all concerned. “Nessa, quit it. If you make me emotional right now ...” He clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I need to concentrate.” His claws alight onto my ribs threateningly yet carefully avoid the scratches on my outer hips.

“You’re not being very nice,” I say, squeezing the emotion down hard. His face drops forward against my left shoulder while his hand on my ribs travels up to squeeze my breast and then my neck.

He pushes inside of me a little farther and grunts, “No, I’m not.” And as his hand hovers over the place where my heart so frantically beats, we both know he’s not talking about the sex. “There’s no retreat,” he grunts and pushes another few inches inside of me.

“Roland, oh my God,” I gasp, lifting my hips, circling my arms around his shoulders, and squeezing him everywhere with every piece of me. In his ear, I whisper, “Baby, fuck me.”

He laughs into the shadow of my hair. “Thought that’s what I was doing.”

“Harder, Rollo. Please. I need ...” My fingers dig into the skin of his shoulder blades. “Ohh!”

He bottoms out, and I lose control. I buck my hips, wanting harder, faster, more. I lift my head and find his temple with my lips. I kiss him softly, but it’s enough for his neck to snap up and for him to wrap his hand around my throat and melt into my lips. He kisses me gently at first, moving delicately around my butterfly stitch, but as his urgency picks up, so does the rhythm of his hips.

“Fuck, Nessa. The feel of you ... I could stay here forever.”

And I know what he means. I’m flying away on a spaceship, going to faraway places I’ve never been. The pressure is there, but it’s starting to transition from something scary to something incredible, and it changes with each position he puts me in. Sitting up on his heels, he drapes my calves over his shoulders.

“Touch yourself,” he commands.

I obey without question, circling my clit with my fingers, the sensation entirely new, like I’ve never done this before in my life. The way it changes when he’s inside of me, looking down at me like this. I don’t last nearly as long as I should. I come around his cock, and his hips buck, and he curses.

“Gonna come on that pussy,” he groans, but I squeeze his waist between my thighs.

“Come in me.”

His hands are fitted around my waist, his claw tips just barely grazing my skin even though the pressure of his hands is firm, like he thinks if he lets go I’ll fly away.

“You sure?” he says, his hips losing their rhythm, his forehead scrunching up, his lips twisting together.

“Yeah.” I’m not on birth control, but I’m gonna get my period in a couple days, so I know that even if he were human, our chances of, like ... baby stuff ... are low. But the fact is, he’s not human, so ... I nod. “I’m sure.”

“Fucking love you.” He releases a gruff roar and collapses on top of me. He kisses me hard, and his hips slam up to meet mine, the sensations inside of me lighting so many different kinds of fires.

His eyes glow bright and then brighter to the point that I have to close mine. I hold on to his sides and crash up into his mouth and kiss him until his cock jerks inside of me. He fills my body in a rush. I can feel the temperature of his cum, and it’s higher than it seems like it should be. Warm and wonderous. I gasp. He’s panting, face twisting until he eventually stills and rolls off me onto his side.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, kid,” he says on a breathy laugh as he pulls me to him, yanks covers around us, and throws one leg over both of mine. He traps me to his chest. “You okay?” he says gently in this moment that hangs between us like a fallen star.

I nod. “Yes. Are you? You sounded like a demon was being excised.”

A laugh belts out of him that makes me smile. “You’re a knucklehead.”

“A knucklehead?”

He kisses the top of my head and then just stays like that, his face pressed against my hair, his body fully curled around mine. “Nah, you’re all right.”

“Just all right?”

“Nah, you’re the greatest thing that’s happened to me. Probably to the whole world, but it fucking sucks for them,” he says, sounding shaky. I’ve never heard him sound anything but sure before in my life. “Because you’re mine.” His arms firm around my shoulders. “You sure it’s okay I came in you?”

I nod. “I liked it. I want your cum in me all the time.”

“Fuck,” he laughs. “I’m getting hard again. I want you drenched in me.”

My whole body zings with electricity. My drowsy state is trampled by renewed alertness. “I wouldn’t mind.”

He kisses the side of my neck. “Don’t know if it’s even possible for me to get you pregnant, but even if I did, I wouldn’t be pissed about it.”

My arms around his body tighten. “You ... wouldn’t?”

“Not saying I want kids with you now, but one day, if possible.”

“None of the Forty-Eight have had pregnancies with humans—or each other—yet. It might not be possible.”

“If it’s not, I’d be okay. We could always adopt. Or foster. You okay with that?”

He says the words so glibly, like he didn’t just take a pickax to my heart and shatter the whole thing. I nod, overwhelmed, overcome. Tears prick my eyes, and all I can do is continue nodding.

He rolls me onto my back and hovers over me, looking at my face. “I’m here, and we don’t need to talk about it now. Just know, I want you. All of you. All the time. I got nineteen more dates till you marry me. We can figure out how many more dates we want before we expand our family, if you even want that. For now, though, we can keep practicing.”

“I ... I’ve always wanted a big family, but I just assumed ... I didn’t think I’d find anybody I’d want to do that with.” Who’d want to do that with me.

“You want me?”

I nod. “So much.”

“Then I’m here.” He kisses me and lines himself up with my body, already hard again. He pushes forward, and I moan, shattered heart blooming anew, twice as big and a hundred times more resilient.

“Roland, I ...”

“Not yet,” he says, cutting off the words I was about to tell him. Ones he must already know. “For now, just breathe, baby. And come for me when I tell you.”

“Oh! Okay,” I squeak as he gets to work.

His claws drag down the insides of my thighs. “Yes,” he corrects me.

“Yes, Rollo.”

“No ...”

My back arches. I fist the sheets. “Yes, Wyvern.”