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The caress is light, but her breath catches, showing me the effect my touch has on her body.

I reverse my path, getting reacquainted with all her pretty curves by using my fingertips like the brush of a painter to outline her shape.

I start at the hollow of her throat and her collarbone before tracing my way down to her breasts, her nipples, her navel, and the junction of her legs.

Her breathing turns labored when I draw light patterns over the silk that covers the most intimate part of her.

She moans again, gripping my wrist when I circle her clit in a touch that’s barely there, but she doesn’t push me away, so I increase the pressure and rub the button at the apex of her sex with the heel of my palm.

“Aruan.” She digs her nails into my skin. “Please.”

I trace her slit with the flat end of my hand, watching as the action dips the silk between her folds. “Who do you belong to, Elsie?”

She throws back her head and presses her thighs together. “Ah.”

The thin fabric clings to her wet pussy, the sight driving me wild. Pushing down my own need so that I can take care of her pleasure first, I massage her clit in circles through the smooth fabric. I slide that slippery silk over her swollen flesh until she begs me again.

“Say after me.” I let her pleasure build faster, not sparing her any longer. Just as her body draws tight like a bow, I stop. “I belong to Aruan, my mate.”

“Aruan,” she cries out.

“Say it, Elsie.”

“I—” She whimpers. “Oh, my god.”

“Say it.”

“I… I belong?—”

She swallows the rest of her words as I take her over the edge.

Her climax is a powerful aphrodisiac. Her pleasure is my greatest accomplishment and my biggest trigger.

Yet I don’t rush. I continue to ignore the need firing through my body, a need that demands I claim her and ease the ache in my loins.

Wanting the moment to last, I unwrap her slowly. I draw the sheet down little by little, exposing the perfect canvas of her naked body. All for my taking. Mine. Mine alone.

“You belong to me,” I say with a growl reverberating in my chest as I lean down and suck a hard little nipple deep into my mouth.

She grabs the sides of my tunic and tugs impatiently. I smile around the curve I’m devouring, loving it when she makes her own demands and takes what she needs. I sit back on my heels, straddling her thighs, and lift my arms to make it easier for her.

As soon as she’s pulled the garment over my head, she reaches for the button of my waistband. I clench my hands into fists, summoning every fraction of willpower I possess to refrain from touching her when all I want to do is pounce, submit, and claim.

I let her undress me as far as she can, and then I get off the bed with every intention of removing my boots and the rest of my clothes.

To dragons with that.

I’m too impatient to bother.

Elsie’s eyes flare as I disintegrate my clothes in a flash, but it’s not only the use of my power that elicits her reaction.

As she trails a gaze over my naked body, I can’t help but enjoy the way in which she’s watching and unconsciously wetting her lips.

I climb back onto the bed and kneel in front of her, one thought running through my head and ruling my actions.

I need to taste her.

Now.

“Lie back,” I say, the command almost sounding animalistic. “Open your legs for me.”

Instead of obeying like a good mate, she gets onto her knees and pushes me back with her hands on my shoulders. Every part of me is eager to take her, to hunt her down and to put my mark on her, but I’m curious about what she has in mind, so I force myself to let her have this moment.

When I’m sitting on my heels, she kneels between my spread legs.

My cock juts out between us, painfully hard and throbbing with need.

The sac at the root is heavy with the seed meant to fill her.

The sensitive flesh contracts, eager to expel its load into the warm body that was created to receive my seed alone.

She fixes her gaze on the precum leaking from the tip of my cock, her cheeks flushing with a need that reflects my own. When she lowers her head, it takes everything I’ve got and then some not to combust on the spot and climax before she’s even touched me.

The halfmoons of my nails dig into my palms as I clench my fists harder, fighting the urge to reach for her like I’ve never fought anything in my life.

A lightning bolt rips through me when she locks her hand around the base of my cock.

Her fingers brand my flesh where they touch my skin.

Heat rushes to my groin when she moves another fraction closer, and then flames erupt in my gut when she finally presses her lips on the crest.

Holding my gaze, she laps up the drop of precum designed to ease my possession of her body.

She hums her approval, stoking the fire that tears through my insides and sizzles in every extremity of my body.

The lips she presses on the crown are like the branding of white-hot metal. Her kiss burns with the sweetest agony.

Clenching my teeth, I endure the torture as she uses both hands to guide my cock to her mouth before sucking me deep. Her lips stretch wide to accommodate my girth, her struggle to swallow me only turning me on more because she wants to please me.

And please me she does, almost too much when she pulls back and swirls her tongue around the crown before sliding her lips over my length again with her tongue flattened on the underside.

I will myself not to come, but it takes tremendous self-control not to empty myself in her mouth when I hit the back of her throat.

She pulls away to breathe, her turquoise eyes glittering from tearing up. Then she sucks me into her mouth again, making greedy little noises as she battles to take me.

It’s too much. Despite my steely willpower, I snap. The man vanishes, and in his place emerges a beast ruled by the basest of instincts. He’s driven by one purpose only—to claim and mark his mate. To fill her with his seed.

Cupping her head between my hands, I prevent her from escaping while driving my cock through those soft, lush lips. It’s pain and pleasure simultaneously, the pleasure excruciating and the need to come painful.

Mindful of her small frame, I barely manage enough self-control to keep my thrusts shallow.

Tears run over her cheeks, and saliva drips down her chin.

I hit the back of her throat again, pull out to let her breathe, and push straight back in with a wild, uncontrollable frenzy to finish what she’s started.

She drops her hands to my thighs, holding on as I fuck her lips and make her swallow as much as she can.

The untamed creature inside me roars in victory when the scent of her arousal grows stronger in the room.

Weaving my fingers through her short hair, I close them in a fist to keep her where I need her while slipping my other hand between her legs.

A growl tears from my chest. She’s soaking wet. She likes this. Sucking me off turns her on. I part her folds and sink a finger inside her, stretching her to prepare her for what’s to follow. She moans around my cock while grinding herself on my hand.

“Dragons, Elsie,” I bite out, her needy little sounds making me burn hotter.

When her inner muscles soften, I add another finger.

She cries out, swallowing those sexy moans with my cock when I rub circles around her clit with my thumb.

She’s such a pretty sight naked and panting between my knees with her mouth stretched wide around my cock.

The image alone is enough to send me over.

I move my fingers hard enough inside her to spank her pussy with every thrust. When her muscles clench around me, I let go.

I shove one more time, hitting deep, and come. Spasms of painful ecstasy lock my body in a vise while heat burns through my cock and erupts in ribbons of cum. I pump myself empty, making her take every drop. Only when I’m practically dry-humping Elsie’s throat do I pull out.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, her chest heaving with the effort of dragging in air.

She’s a beautiful, disheveled sight. I reach out and wipe a drop of cum from her chin.

The tender kiss I press on her lips is in direct contrast to the urgency with which I grip her hips and lift her onto my lap with her thighs straddling mine.

I just came, but I’m already hard for her again. It should be impossible, but I’m fast learning that she has an effect on me like none other. Not in my wildest dreams could I have known how intense fucking her would be or the havoc she’d wreak on my body.

The only warning I give her as I grab the root of my cock is, “Hold on.”

She barely has time to curl her fingers around my shoulders before I impale her on my cock in a single thrust. Her pussy is warm and inviting, but she’s so tight.

“Relax,” I coax, kissing her neck and nipping the curve where it meets her shoulder.

She gasps when I start to move. “Aruan.”

“I know, my sweet.” I kiss her lips again. “I’ll make it better.”

“Wait,” she says, her eyes growing round. “Protection.”

In the heat of the moment, I forgot she doesn’t want to conceive. She told me she doesn’t want children, or maybe she doesn’t want my children.

The notion stings. It aggravates the beast who wants her to carry his babies. But I force myself to push down those instincts. I’m too far gone to stop, though. As I hadn’t planned this, I don’t have a potion at hand that will prevent her from conceiving.

Instead, going against every grain of my nature, I make her a promise. “I won’t come inside you.”

“Are you sure?” She sounds uncertain. “You won’t lose control?”

Her trust is important to me. If I make an oath, I’ll keep it, no matter how difficult it is. “Yes, I’m sure, and no, I won’t lose control.”

She relaxes a little, giving me her trust, and the sweetness of that gift takes some of the bitter edge off her refusal to birth my babies.

I move slowly, giving her time to adjust, and when her inner muscles turn soft around me, I don’t hold back any longer.

I bounce her in my lap, making her ride my cock while giving her as much as I’m taking.

Soon, she’s moving to my rhythm, arching her back and giving me a stunning view of her perfect body.

If anything, the sight makes me harder. Around her, my cock is permanently hard. As long as I’m inside her, it feels as if it’ll stay hard forever.

I nuzzle her temple. “Elsie.”

“I’m close,” she says, locking her arms around my neck and flattening her breasts against my chest. “Again.”

“Come,” I order, watching her face transform with ecstasy as she gives me her pleasure like an obedient mate.

Dragons, I love that look on her. In her moment of abandon, her eyes are hazy and her expression soft and dreamlike. There’s nothing of the reservations and walls she puts up when she’s with me outside of bed.

I bask in the feeling of connectedness as I hold her while she rides out her climax. Shortly after, I find my own. Like I promised, I pull out, painting her breasts and stomach with hot jets of cum.

We rest in each other’s arms, holding one another like lovers but not like mates. And for all my good intentions, I can’t ignore the raging disappointment that’s like a snake nipping at my heels.

Because once again, where the connection is supposed to grow between us, there’s only a cold, gaping void.