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I experienced a momentary panic for the state of my wardrobe—I hadn’t packed to account for dragon talon shreddage. I pulled reluctant hands off him long enough to start to yank off my tee shirt.

He caught my wrists. “Let me,” he rumbled.

My eyes narrowed. “You won’t rip anything?”

His brow rose. “Only an animal rips clothing.”

“Then your brother is an animal.” My lips twitched.

“Zyair?” He shook his head. “I do not want to know.” He slid his hands beneath my shirt again—and inched it up while dancing his fingers so lightly over me that I gasped. They were as hot as the rest of him. His skin burned beneath my hands. The heat enhanced every sensation …

I understood, now, that craving I’d had for Zyair. It resurfaced for Xandros, a soul-deep thing so powerful it made it hard to breathe.

Fate? I didn’t know. And didn’t care, as he raised the cloth to my throat, he began to nibble the newly exposed skin along my stomach and ribs. Once the tee shirt was off, he carefully removed my bra, lifting it to free my breasts.

For an instant, as the cool air pebbled my nipples, he froze. “So tasty ,” he murmured.

I laughed. I needed to expand his appreciative descriptions. Then he lowered his lips and licked, swirling his tongue around them…

I moaned, arching my back. With one hand behind me, he danced hot fingers over my breasts as he chased along the sensitive skin of my throat with his tongue.

Something slipped beneath my waistband—it startled me, until I realized it was the tip of his tail. It moved inside my leggings, past my naval, and between my thighs—before it began to vibrate…

Holy wowsers.

I moaned as my hands drifted up the huge, hard muscles of his chest, and then down, over the ridges of his abs—heading lower—to what thrust so desperately between us.

He shuddered and groaned as I closed my hand around him. Were all Drakes so massive? Zyair had been impressive, but Xandros—he was next level.

No matter. I’d been down the behemoth road once already.

Silk over steel. I couldn’t get enough of the sensation as I stroked, and he pushed helplessly into my hand. Then his tail pulled away—no! I wanted it there—but he kneeled, hooking his fingers into my waistband.

“Stand,” he murmured.

I rose, and he rolled my leggings off one iota at a time, chasing his progress with his tongue.

By the time he pushed them over my thighs, I was pretty damned sure that it was longer and much more agile than the human version.

Something confirmed when, after sliding my panties and leggings over my feet and kissing my toes, he shifted his attention to between my legs.

Holy. Fucking. Hell.

It hadn’t been my imagination. When my knees buckled, he caught me and lowered me to the ground—somehow, he’d spread the cloak there.

I had no recollection of it—I was lost in sensation as he did things with that tongue and his mouth that sent me to paradise.

I writhed and moaned and made other undignified noises as he played my body like a fine instrument.

Until I was panting and far, far too close.

This level of want wasn’t normal. Body, heart, spirit, soul—they all longed for him. Wanted to merge with him. To become one entity…

I sank one hand into his thick, russet hair to haul him up and away as my other reached between us, taking firm hold of my goal. It was slick with arousal, and very, very rigid. He groaned when I slid my hand down its length.

I used it as a handle to pull him forward until he kneeled between my legs, then pinned him between them. I sat up until I could fold my lips around the burgeoning head.

Taking his huge rod of fire into my mouth—or, at least, as far as I could manage, I circled my tongue around it, and began sucking.

His entire body shook. “I cannot hold on.” He gasped breathlessly as he pulled me gently off. “I am ready to shaftzing detonate.”

His rod was, in fact, quivering. It was a glorious thing, and I had definite ambitions for it.

So, apparently, did he. Still kneeling, he lifted me right up off the ground, pulling my ass against his powerful thighs, and then higher…

It shocked me. He was still shaking, but he held me with one big hand planted on my bare ass as he kissed me, while I wrapped my legs around his waist until he was poised at my entrance. I rubbed back and forth, gasping at the sensations coursing through me.

He was so damned big . When he hesitated, I pushed down, stretching to accommodate his majestic girth. Heat suffused me, and suddenly I was panting and squirming, wanting every inch of him inside me.

His breath came in sporadic gasps and his hips began to thrust as I clung with my thighs, encouraging him deeper.

“Shaftz, Jaz, you are so—” His breath left him in a whoosh of expelled air. When my eyes opened, his expression was something I would never forget—Passion. Devotion. Plus something I couldn’t quite define—it almost seemed like awe .

I read his soul in those sapphire eyes. And my own responded…

With one last push, he sank home. I teetered for a moment, filled, joined—and with his hands on my buttocks, he began to move my body.

Up and down, his arm muscles like rock as I tightened around him, riding him faster and faster.

Until his thrusts became shorter but more intense, and his breath hitched?—

When he exploded, he took me with him, my scream drowned out by his roar. He held me as the waves traveled through us.

This time, I craved the twitching shaft swelling within me. It didn’t take long for it to begin to pulse—then it vibrated…

I gasped and shuddered and clung to him.

He still had one hand on my butt, and now he placed the other behind my head, pulling me in until I was as close to him as I could possibly be.

His fingers tangled in my hair, and he chanted, “Shaftz, shaftz, shaftz,” over and over.

He didn’t seem to have any control over his hips jerking.

Every move sent frissons of electricity zinging through my core, until I started to writhe and moan and ride him again, desperate to reach that pinnacle.

Rubbing and circling, panting—he was so swollen I could barely move, but the vibration was sending me closer and closer to the edge.

And while I was spasming around him, he roared again as new waves passed from me, to him, and back again.

The ecstasy left me a quivering wreck suspended by his shaft.

“Wow,” I said in English.

He side-eyed me. “Very tasty.”

“That is not as flattering a word as you seem to think.”

He arched a brow. “What should I use?”

“Let’s see. Wonderful. Incredible. Awesome. Stupendous.”

His brows dropped. “You are not stupid.”

“Not stupid. Stupendous. It means very surprising in a pleasing way.”

“Oh.” He smiled, lighting up my heart, and my life. “Then you are stupendous.”

“Thank you. You are…” I waved my fingers in the air.

“Apparently I defy description,” he said in Drakonian.

“Magnificent,” I said in English.

“Which means?”

I realized I didn’t really know. “Deserving to be admired.”

He snorted a partial laugh. “Excellent.” The fingers he gently buried in my hair were trembling.

“Is shaking after mating a normal thing?” I asked.

He took a deep breath. And this time, his laugh boomed freely from him.

“What is it you humans say? No one else has rocked my world,” he confessed in careful English, “quite like you.”