Page 4 of Fleshbound (Enchanted Ink)

T hey were in a meadow in twilight. Fireflies danced overhead.

The first stars of the night twinkled in the darker blue above the narrow band of purple-gray.

A creek flowed swiftly nearby, the soothing sound of it calming.

The sweet scent of early summer flowers perfumed the air.

Quill inhaled the fragrance, the clean, verdant aroma filling his lungs.

The tall, silky grass was so thick under his back and bottom that it was softer than his lovely bed was.

A dark tree line encircled them, not a sound of anyone near broke through it.

He turned to find Corven looking at him, his brows knitted together for a few seconds before they softened.

“We’re all alone here, Quillie,” Corven said as he brushed back Quill’s hair from his forehead. The cooler evening air swept over him.

“Where are we?”

“Evonium,” Corven whispered.

“Evonium’s not real,” Quill argued.

“Tis a dream. Nothing’s real here.”

Quill chuckled, lifting his gaze to Corven, sensing the lie in those words. Because of the glow in his eyes, there was just enough sunlight left that Quill could see the man’s face in the darkness, though the full moon overhead and the fireflies helped, too.

Corven leaned back on his haunches and scanned Quill’s body, his eyes growing half lidded.

Peeking lower, Quill saw the girthy shaft bobbing in front of his dream lover and gasped.

“A wonae harm ye.”

Quill sensed truth in that, yet there was more than one way to cause harm. “It’s but a dream.”

“Aye,” Corven whispered, his brows knitting together again.

Quill didn’t want to think about the potential for subterfuge.

He was too far gone, wrapped in whatever spell Corven had managed to weave around him.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Corven’s.

He gasped at the intoxicating feel of a man’s lips on his after so long.

Corven’s hands lifted to cradle his head and neck, and he deepened the kiss.

Corven’s kisses should’ve been outlawed. They were sweet. Just the right amount of firmness without being too aggressive. His tongue, which might or might not have been slightly forked, warred with Quill’s, hungry for what came next.

“Aye, ye dae that so well. I’ve never kissed another so lusty for ma debauchery.”

“So shut up and kiss me more.”

Corven chuckled and leaned in for another kiss.

Quill was soon drunk on those kisses and willing to do nearly anything to feel Corven against him. When Corven moved down his body, trailing his wicked tongue, he stiffened, sure he might come the second he was touched in that spot.

Corven wrapped a hand around his hard shaft and somehow, he didn’t come apart at the seams.

“Oh, ma, ye're a beauty. Long enough for ma hand an tongue together. Tis a perfect cock it is.”

Quill’s face flushed at the praise. He leaned back in the grass and looked to the sky as Corven licked the length of it. When Corven reached the head, Quill’s back arched off the ground.

“So needy,” Corven whispered. “Do I let ye come quick… or slow?”

Quill slid the fingers of both hands down his chest and abdomen. “Quick… please. It’s been too long.”

A wicked smile crossed Corven’s face. “Slow it tis.”

Quill’s head fell back again, a moan tearing from his lips as Corven suckled him to the back of his throat.

He threaded his fingers in Corven’s raven locks and attempted to quicken the onslaught, but the man refused his urging.

Over and over, Corven brought him to the edge, only to pinch the base of Quill’s cock and balls, robbing him of any release.

“No yet, ma love,” he said repeatedly, kisses the inside of Quill’s thigh as he trembled with mounting need. “Yer doin so well, laddie. Such a good boy.”

The second Quill felt a wet finger press against his puckered hole, he gasped, contracting as a result.

“Open for me,” Corven whispered after allowing Quill’s cock to pop from his lips.

Quill relaxed against the intrusion. “It’s been too long.”

Corven lifted the hand from Quill’s hole and waved it in a circle above them. A swirl of magic twisted around his palm just before he lowered it.

“What are you doing?” Quill asked, tensing.

“Openin ye up,” Corven purred.

He pressed his fingers back in place. Two sank into him with ease as his channel opened for the man. Quill moaned as they sank deeper and deeper within him.

He recaptured Quill’s cock with his lips, suckling it down as he stroked in and out with those two fingers.

“Best add a third… or a forth,” Quill said between panting breaths. “I saw the size of your snake.”

Corven’s chuckle brought goosebumps to his flesh.

Another finger was added, stretching him ever wider.

“Oh, laddie… ye feel so good round ma fingers. A canae wait tae feel this tight flesh around ma cock.” Corven dropped kisses on Quill’s hip bone. “Ye are perfection itself. A coud no wish for another better.”

The praise warmed Quill deep. He wanted more of it. Desperately. “I want you inside me.”

“Aye. I dae as well, but there's plenty o time for that,” Corven replied before suckling Quill’s cock back between his lips.

Onward Corven pushed him, well, well past the line. Each time he’d had an orgasm stolen, they’d swept farther from it. He was in no man’s land, caught up in the ley lines with no compass moon. All he had left to hold on to was Corven.

Would he ultimately drown in the undulating waves of pleasure?

When his orgasm approached for what seemed the dozenth time, he prayed to whatever gods would listen to his plea. If he didn’t come soon, he was going to splinter. He still might if he did come, from the sheer force of what Corven had built within him.

The second he reached the pinnacle, Corven held him tight, his cock still lodged deep in the man’s throat. He roared, his back bowing, as he came, spurting his seed onto Corven’s waiting tongue. Wave after wave tore through him, his thighs shaking forcefully as the crescendo stretched him thin.

When he finally collapsed back into the grass, tears formed in his eyes. He’d never had an orgasm anywhere near as complete or earth-shattering. He dragged air into his burning lungs, allowing fat tears to roll down his cheeks.

“Nay… what is this?” Corven asked, moving up to wipe his tears away.

“They aren’t sadness. The opposite in fact,” Quill whispered.

A cocky smile crossed Corven’s lips. “I rocked yer world, didnae I?”

Quill’s face couldn’t get much hotter, yet it did. “If you’ve been trapped in that book for three hundred years, how are you aware of talk like that?”

“I can hear just fine. I listen tae wha’s goin on outside ma book,” Corven said. He brushed back Quill’s sweat-dampened hair and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “An I was up there in that noggin, I told ye. I got an education.”

Quill tensed. Was that Corven’s purpose? Seeing the secrets inside his mind. “Just what do you know?”

“Everything ye do an more,” Corven replied. He laid back in the grass and pulled Quill into his embrace. “An ye ken a lot.”

“Were you there searching for something?” Quill asked, unable to look Corven in the eye. He fingered a few chest hairs instead.

“Wha woud I be searchin for other than the key tae yer heart?”

Quill scoffed. “I know some think me na?ve, but I assure you I’m not.”

“I ne’er said ye were.”

“I have secrets. Secrets I didn’t agree to share with you,” Quill whispered.

Corven lifted Quill’s chin with his forefinger. “I didnae come here for yer secrets.” He grinned. “Well, the ones outside yer bit, tha is.” His smile faded. “I only came for ye.”

Quill eyed Corven. “I’d really like to know how you’ve gotten this magic past me without me sensing it.”

“Tis a dream.”

Quill climbed astride Corven’s waist, his hard shaft between his cheeks still wet from whatever the man had spread upon him. “I’m not stupid. You know that I’m not.”

“Ne’er said ye were.”

“I know this is no dream. You’ve taken me into your book. How?”

Corven chuckled, but there was no mirth to it. He looked to the ground beside them and plucked a tiny blue bell from the grasses. “Donae ken.”

“Is this book cursed?”

“Aye, there tis a curse.” He lifted the flower to Quill. “Tis mine, no yers.”

Quill met Corven’s stare and sense the truth there.

“That’s why I didn’t sense it,” Quill said, taking the flower between two fingertips. “The book’s not cursed. You are.”

“No one can be harmed by it,” Corven said. “Only me.”

“What’s the curse?”

“Stuck in here,” Corven said, waving his hand around. “For all of eternity.”

“But you can move around freely, from place to place? Within the book.”

“Tae some degree, aye. I can sometimes push maself toward energy I sense around me.”

“Why did you come to me?” Quill asked.

Corven didn’t answer at first.

Quill lifted his gaze to the sky. Hours had to have passed, yet it was still twilight, the sky still filled with fireflies. It was stunning.

But not as stunning as what Corven said next.

“I came tae ye because I sensed yer loneliness. It felt nearly as great as mine. I kept pushin toward it until I finally made it. Only took me a decade or two.”

Quill met his red gaze and was trapped by it.

Corven grasped Quill’s hips. “I’ve sat on a shelf in yer shop for near six months without notice, listenin tae ye an yer coven. But mostly ye. Gettin tae know ye. Tae make sure ye were the right one.”

“The right one… for what?”

“The one who might chase ma loneliness away.”

Quill’s body tensed. He’d half expected Corven to call him mate. The right one…

“Are you a shifter?” The dragon drawn onto the title page… was that you?” Witches were poly. They mated with one human and one shifter in a throuple. Quill had yet to meet either of his two and sometimes doubted he ever would.

He was no longer a young man.

“I once was human. A donae ken what I am now,” Corven asked.

“Your eyes… you’re not human.”