Page 28

Aurora

I laughed as Damian spun me around with his hand, my dress coming up with the speed of the twirl before settling back against my legs as he brought me in tight to his chest. We slid to the side, hips twisting and legs moving in time with the music.

“You’re getting better at it,” he remarked, casually lifting me off my feet while he pivoted on his left foot before setting me down and extending me on his arm.

“I’m trying,” I said, the formal steps to the ballroom dance unlike anything I’d ever learned.

We glided across the floor, hand in hand, moving in lockstep with other pairs, all in time to the music until the last note faded away, and we faced one another. I curtseyed low, as did the other women. The men, in perfect unison, snapped their heels together and bowed deep at the waist before straightening.

“You’re a natural,” Damian rumbled with a delighted air, snagging my arm casually to escort me off the dance floor.

“I did dance for some years as a child, as much as I would love to let you believe I’m some sort of prodigy.”

“You aren’t that good.”

I whirled on him, only to see the mirth spreading across his face until it became a big grin of the sort I rarely saw on him.

“Wise-ass.”

“I prefer to think I store my wisdom in my head,” he said, tapping his temple.

“Probably ‘cause the rest of you is full of bullshit,” I joked, leaning my head on his shoulder, momentarily forgetting that we were in public.

“Leave it,” he said as I started to pull away.

“But if they know you and I …”

“They won’t unless you tell them.”

“Won’t they make your life hard?”

Damian turned a feral grin on me. “I’d like to see them try,” he stated very carefully. “They won’t enjoy it.”

“Okay …”

“Now, stop worrying and enjoy the night, please.” He gave my arm a squeeze.

Despite my worries, I managed to do as I was told.

The night passed in a blur. We danced. We ate. We had drinks. We danced some more. I was in his arms, and out of them, moving like a spinning top across the floor. Every move, he knew what I was going to do, where I would be, and what to do next. It was incredible.

I laughed and smiled until my cheeks hurt. There was nothing but the music, and Damian. Strong, confident Damian. He never faltered, never slowed, his stamina impeccable. The lights dimmed, but I could still see his face and his silvery eyes unaided.

At some point, the ballroom disappeared, and we were back in his room. Alone. Music played from somewhere as we danced slowly in one another’s arms. His body against mine. Hard muscle against the soft blue fabric of my dress.

In the background, a fire roared merrily, wood crackling and burning. When had he lit that? I didn’t recall. I didn’t care.

Fingers caressed my shoulders, hooking around the hem of my dress as it slid from my body.

Damian growled at the sight, the noise coming from somewhere deep within him—that seat of basic primal urges. The beast of man. Skin puckering from excitement and nerves, I beckoned him down on top of me, his legs pushing mine to the side.

“I’ve wanted this,” he whispered into my ear before nibbling on it, his mouth tasting my neck, my collarbone, and across my chest.

“You have?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he said, mouth full of my nipple, making me gasp, my spine arching toward the ceiling high above. “Since the day I saw you in the hallway.”

I grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up, even as he slid farther down. “The first day I arrived?”

He nodded. “I knew I shouldn’t have. I wasn’t supposed to. You were a human, and I am the magistrate.”

“I’m still a human,” I teased.

His eyes burned with platinum intensity. “No, you aren’t. Not anymore, Aurora. You have shown that you are so, so much more than that. You have shown you belong here.”

“With you,” I murmured.

Damian tensed, then nodded. “Yes. With me.”

Any reply I might have had was stolen when he brushed his lips against the tender sensitive skin above my mound and dragged his mouth down between my thighs. Little kisses and whispers of air only teased me further until I was soaking, every part of me eager for more.

“Touch me,” I moaned when I could take it no longer. “ Please .”

Damian growled happily and touched his mouth against me, fully parting my lips with his tongue, running it up and down, pausing to trace delicate circles across my little nub.

One hand on the back of his head, pulling him in tighter, I twisted the thick carpet into tight circles with the other hand. The fire crackled, the sharp noises mixing with the rising crescendo of my moans as Damian demonstrated he was quite skilled in the art of satisfaction.

Quite fucking skilled indeed.

I sprinted toward the edge at an insane speed, stunned by how well he could read my body and every little sigh and movement. It was coming, and he was driving me right off the cliff without slowing down. My eyes rolled back into my skull, muscles going limp as everything reached the tipping point.

And then I tensed, every muscle going taut at the same wondrous moment. Beautiful agony shot through my body, my orgasm exploding out from between my legs, consuming me and everything I was. The intensity shocked me, even if it shouldn’t have. Apparently, I’d needed that more than I thought.

Damian wasn’t done either. He hauled me back up the long cliff I’d gone over and settled me down with little kisses and touches, letting the sensitivity between my legs drop to something more reasonable.

Then he did it all over again. Only this time, he slid first one, then two fingers inside me. I was thoroughly drenched by that point, my wetness easily coating him as he added another layer of pleasure to the perfect torture.

Twice more he did this to me until I was soaking in a bath of beautiful golden endorphins, the thick soporific air settling over us with nervous anticipation.

We both knew what was coming next.

“Damian,” I whispered, my throat dry from moaning and crying out.

“Yes?”

“It’s time,” I said, caressing his shoulder as he looked up at me over the swell of my mound and the tiny humps of my breasts, his eyes wide and dancing delightedly.

“Time?”

I nodded.

“Time for what?”

Grabbing his jaw with both hands, I hauled him away from my pussy. “Time for you to fuck me. Right now. I want this inside me.”

It gave me great satisfaction to watch his eyes wrench shut as I ran my fingers down the length of his hard shaft and across his sac, feeling it tighten under my caress.

“If you think that’s something you’re up for,” I said, grinning wide, knowing exactly how he would react.

Silvery-gray eyes snapped back into focus, pinning me to the plush carpet as strongly as his body did.

“You don’t have to challenge my ego to get me to fuck you,” he said, pushing my legs out of the way and positioning himself with one hand, the tip of his cock rubbing against my entrance. “I’d do that for free. Anytime, anyplace. I would make you mine.”

And then he did. I cried out as he entered me, a wordless thing that conveyed far more than any sentence could. In two strokes, he filled me until I took all of him.

“It’s just as good as I imagined it would be, all those times I stroked myself until I came, all while thinking of you,” he growled into my ear, pinning me down under his bodyweight, hips sliding back and forth. “And your moans are the sounds of the gods. You are the hottest, sexiest little thing I’ve ever seen.”

Fuck. It wasn’t so much what he was saying but how he was saying it that triggered a fresh wave of wetness between my legs. The truth and ferocity of his claims was a heady aphrodisiac that, when combined with his cock pumping in and out of me, drove me over the edge yet again.

I cried out. Or screamed. I didn’t remember. My fingers dug deep enough into his back to make him grunt as he rode me into submission, quite literally fucking the orgasm out of me. At some point, I slumped back into the carpet, gasping for air.

Damian lay on top of me, casually kissing my breasts and shoulders and neck. Every little touch sent a matching bolt of electricity through my body, lighting on fire whatever functioning nerve endings I had left.

“Aurora,” he groaned into my ear with a tone I’d never heard from him before. It was tight and ultra-focused. “I can’t hold on for much longer.”

“Then don’t,” I told him. “I want you to let go. I want you to finish. Please.”

He grunted, thrusting deeper and faster into me. I watched his face, enjoying the way it wrenched itself into a guttural display of utter ecstasy.

Because of me. I was the cause of his enjoyment, and I basked in that like a sunbather at the pool, soaking it all in.

His eyes flew open as he gasped. They were fully soaked in silvery fire now, no pupil visible at all. That was how I knew he was close, that he was letting himself go.

A moment later, he groaned loudly, pulling me tightly to him as he filled me deep.

We lay there for a bit, gasping and sweating from the intensity of our coupling, neither wanting to move until absolutely necessary.

“I’ll get a towel,” Damian said, getting up and heading to the bathroom.

He had to walk past my head as he did, and I cranked it backward, watching his ass from upside down as he strode naked through the door. It was an enjoyable sight, there could be no doubt.

Without his weight on top of me, a cold chill settled into my skin that even the fire couldn’t dissipate. Would I ever see this view again? This was very unlike Damian the Magistrate. This was Damian the dragon, and I had yet to know if I would ever see him again.

I hoped he would, but I feared that, deep inside, he’d been the magistrate for too long and that he didn’t remember who Damian was anymore.

And that made me sad.