Page 12 of Storm of Blood and Shadow (Merciless Dragons #3)

Of all the possibilities in the world, I could never have conceived of this.

The sleek black dragon who stole me from my home is standing before me in human form, his brown eyes alight, asking me to teach him to dance.

He can barely stand. He hasn’t even walked yet.

Sweet dragon , whispers my heart. Darling dragon… But I cut that line of thinking short. I can’t get attached. Every time I’ve allowed myself to start hoping for love and a future with someone, he has grown bored of me and moved on—or demanded something of me that I wasn’t willing to give.

“We have a saying among humans,” I tell Varex. “You have to walk before you can run. And you should also learn to walk before you dance.”

He takes a moment to ponder that. “I suppose you’re right. But this is all very exciting, isn’t it?”

“Aren’t you worried that you might be a human forever?” I glance at the ledge and the ocean beyond. “If this is permanent, you and I might starve to death in here. Which will be anything but exciting.”

His expression turns introspective, and he leans against the cave wall, looking at his hands. “I don’t think the change is permanent. My dragon body and my void magic still exist, but it’s as if they are on the other side of a wall. I can sense them, but they’re locked away.”

“I suppose that’s some comfort.” With a sigh, I collect the food he brought and plop down near the cave mouth, staring into the blue and lavender dusk.

As I begin to eat, I hear Varex shuffling around behind me. I think he’s trying to walk, but I don’t watch, because I don’t want to embarrass him. Eventually he makes his way to me and sits down carefully, copying my posture.

I look at him sidelong, chewing a piece of roasted wild carrot. A warm smile spreads across his face as he surveys me, like he’s perceiving me on a whole new level.

“May I?” he asks, reaching for the carrot.

I hand it over, and he bites into it. His brows furrow in concentration as he chews. It’s cute, and I smile in spite of myself.

“These are much softer after being cooked,” he comments. “I like the alteration in texture and flavor. Imagine how many things I’ll be able to taste now! Can I learn to cook?”

“Easy.” I laugh a little. “This isn’t necessarily a good thing, you being human. Like I said, how will you fly us out of here? How will you take me back to the mainland? Why did the sorceress do this? What does she— Varex, what are you doing?”

He has shifted his body to face me and he’s leaning in, his breath fluttering across my lips. “Something I’ve seen humans do.”

“While they were naked and you were spying on them?” I try to sound harsh, but my voice comes out mild and breathless.

“Yes.” His lips graze mine. “Open your mouth, darling.”

A helpless thrill runs over me, and I do as he asks.

“Pretty little teeth,” he whispers. “Everything about you is perfect.”

I know for a fact that while my upper teeth are decent, my lower teeth are quite crooked, including one snaggletooth that has always made me feel self-conscious. I start to comment on it, to tell him I’m not perfect, but he puts out his tongue and slides it between my lips.

He isn’t even kissing me yet. He’s barely touching my lips with his, and somehow that makes the questing entrance of his tongue into my mouth even more erotic. A tingling heat flares between my legs as I touch his tongue with the tip of mine.

He presses in, confirming the kiss, sealing it. It’s a short kiss, not nearly enough. He leans back, and I’m left there, flushed and needy, mouth open.

Varex grins. “You liked it.”

“No.” I blush harder.

“Beautiful liar,” he whispers. “Shall I do it again?”

Instead of answering I tilt my body forward, tipping my face up to his.

He kisses me over and over, learning, experimenting. I have not felt so dazed and delighted by the simple act of kissing in a very long time. I’d forgotten how exciting it can be, how just the soft melding of mouths can awaken the deepest, fiercest, and most carnal cravings.

“My cock is longer now,” Varex whispers against my cheek. His hands are in my hair, and my fingers are clasping his sides. “Will you let me come inside you?”

It would be foolish to agree. If this change isn’t permanent, he could turn into a dragon while we’re fucking and split me in two.

“I don’t think so,” I breathe.

“Then may I at least explore you with these?” He lifts long, strong, masculine fingers. “And with this?” He touches his mouth.

Such a pretty mouth. Too fucking pretty.

I don’t like saying yes aloud. It feels like yielding to more than the pleasure of the moment—it feels like agreeing to something more , something deeper. But I offer him silent consent by removing my dress and lying down naked for him on the white cloth he brought.

He starts at my toes, popping each one into his mouth and sucking them gently. Then he caresses my ankles, my calves, and my thighs.

I’m a little insecure about the thickness of my legs, especially since a few of my former lovers commented on them negatively, saying they were too large, too muscular, out of proportion with the rest of me.

But Varex traces the contour of each muscle with unfeigned delight. “Such power and beauty in these glorious thighs. They are made for strength and for music.”

His words heal me more deeply than he will ever know.

Impulsively I sit up and pull myself close to him, arching my legs over his, bringing my pussy in alignment with his cock. I’m about to put him inside me when he says, “Wait. I haven’t tasted you with my human tongue yet.”

No other man would stop me from putting his cock in my pussy, and offer to go down on me instead.

“You’re not real.” I touch his face. “It’s not possible.”

“I would have thought the same thing a few days ago,” he says. “The sorceress has enviable power, to be sure.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I caress his jaw, familiarizing myself with the feel of it. No scales, just warm skin. “Most men would prefer to get inside me quickly when I offer the opportunity.”

“If that is what you want, I will do it. I will do anything you desire.” There’s a note of desperation in his tone, of abject devotion and aching desire. “Would you rather have my tongue or my cock?”

“If I’m not wet enough, I prefer the tongue first,” I tell him. “What do you think, dragon? Am I wet for you?”

I take his wrist and move his hand between my legs. His long fingers brush over my sex. When he twitches them, I shiver and moan softly.

“This little river, just here…” He strokes one finger between my soaked folds. “Is this for me?”

Lacing my arms around his neck, I nod. Much as I want to feel his tongue, I want him inside me even more. Maybe it’s a foolish, reckless choice, and yet I can’t stop myself. I want to reward him for what he said, for the way he touched my heart and soothed it with those lovely words. Beyond that, I am helplessly aroused and naughtily delighted that I am going to be someone’s first , instead of his twelfth or hundredth.

Varex looks down between us. “Do I simply… put it in? And where do I put it, exactly? The same place where I put my tongue?”

“I’ll make it obvious. Give me a moment.” I scoot backward off his lap and do a few stretches to limber up my legs. Then I lie down on my back again, only this time I pull my legs up, parallel with my body, so that my ankles are almost by my ears. Several of my previous lovers have appreciated my flexibility, specifically my ability to achieve this position, in which I basically fold myself in half and expose my entire pussy and ass for easy use.

“It’s called the oyster position,” I tell Varex. “There’s a similar one called the seashell, and so many more… but we’ll start with this. Put your cock inside me, then grab my ankles and push on them gently while you move in and out of me.”

He looks doubtful. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. I’ll let you know if I don’t like the pressure or the angle. Do you see the slit where your tongue went?”

He swallows, his eyes bright. “Most definitely.”

“Rise on your knees, slip your cock in, hold my ankles, and thrust.”

I hold my legs in position, feeling the stretch along the backs of my thighs, barely breathing as I watch Varex take himself in hand. He explores his own cock for a moment, brows slightly bent as he tests the sensitivity of his length. His sheet of long, snowy hair spills over his broad shoulders, down the muscled expanse of his chest.

This man is fucking magnificent.

Lining himself up, he pushes carefully inside me. I can’t help a desperate little whimper as the sleek, thick length of him glides in.

“By the bones of the world,” he says in a shattered tone. “How does this feel so good? So warm and wet… fuck… oh fuck, I’m going to come.”

“Not yet,” I beg him. “Please… try to think about something else. I need this to last a little while… I need you to fuck me, to move inside me rhythmically, like you did with your tongue last night.”

“With pleasure. I will hold out as long as I can.” His large hands wrap around my ankles, taking over, providing pressure so I don’t have to strain quite so hard to maintain this position.

Since I have a hand free, I reach down and touch myself while Varex begins moving in and out, in and out. He groans heavily, his eyes glazing over. Despite his promise of restraint, he’s not going to last long. My fingers jitter across my clit, hastening the orgasm.

“Deeper,” I choke out. “Rise a little higher, angle down and deep.”

He cries out, straining not to come as he alters the angle and penetrates me even more deeply.

I underestimated how glorious it is to fuck a man who will follow directions precisely, who will forestall his own pleasure to the point of torture just so he can serve my needs. The look of agony on his face makes him even more beautiful to me. Every muscle of his gorgeous body is rock-hard, straining to do what I’ve asked without allowing himself any relief.

I reach up, grab his jaw with my hand, and come for him with a gasping scream. The ecstasy tears through me like a dragon’s claws, shearing my belly into glimmering fragments. It steals my breath, my words, my memories. All I see and know is him.

“May I come?” Varex pleads, his voice so sweet and broken that I couldn’t possibly deny him anything.

“Yes.” I place both hands on his chest, my thumbs lightly grazing his nipples. At the new and unexpected sensation, he cries out, eyes flaring with shock, and his cock pulses deep in my body. His hands tighten on my ankles, the muscles in his arms standing out in sharp relief.

I devour the sight of him—the flicker of his lashes, the quiver of his parted lips, the surge of his chest as he breathes hard. He rocks his hips again and groans as the last bit of his cum drains fully from his balls and gushes into me. His eyes close for a second, and then they blink open, meeting my gaze.

“You’ll soften and shrink now,” I tell him. “So you’ll have to pull out.”

“I want to keep my cock inside you forever.”

I can’t help smiling. “Maybe I would let you, but this position is becoming difficult for me.”

He withdraws himself instantly and releases my ankles. I rest my feet on the ground, my knees arched. When I’ve done this position in the past, with someone who didn’t listen to me and pushed too hard on my legs, my back has been sore for days. But there’s not a twinge of pain this time.

“That was the best sex I’ve ever had,” I confess to Varex. “You listened to me, and you gave yourself wholly to my pleasure.”

He sheds a bright smile over me, and I realize with a start that the light outside the cave is gone, and the only illumination we have now is provided by the pink and lavender crystal formations growing from the rocky walls. It’s a soft, romantic, sensual light.

Varex bends, peering between my legs, a frown puckering his forehead. “My cum is leaving you.”

“It’s going to drip out, yes.”

With a faint growl, he gets down on his stomach with his face between my thighs and begins licking the cum upward, pressing it back inside me with the flat of his tongue.

“Shit,” I whimper, as need flares through my body again. “You drive me insane, do you know that?”

His tongue caresses my clit, and then he kisses it. “Is that so very terrible?”

I don’t answer, and I don’t think. I let him curl both his arms around my thighs and drag me against his face. I let him savor every bit of tender flesh between my legs with his new human tongue. I let him tease my clit with his teeth, explore the curves and planes of my body with his mouth, suck on my nipples, lick my throat. When he lies down on his back, I let him pull me onto his chest, just to feel his skin.

We doze and we rouse, and he fucks me again, sweet and slow, wet and warm. The cave should be cold but his body generates its own heat, keeping me comfortable as long as I’m close to him.

I forget who I am and where I came from. I don’t think about anything except the shape of his cock in my mouth, the ripple of his strong fingers deep inside my pussy, the hard bead of his nipple under my tongue.

This will be us, forever. Nothing else exists, not even the niggling anxiety and heavy responsibilities that I keep pushing to the back of my mind.

We sleep for a short time, tangled together, with his soft cock tucked against my pussy because he wants it there, because he can’t bear not to be as close to me as possible. When I wake up he’s kissing me, his palm gliding over my breasts. There’s a faint, rosy light in the sky outside, and my heart sinks, because it means the night is over and reality is going to return.

Varex kisses my cheek, my nose, my forehead. “May I enter you again?” he whispers.

I lift each of my legs and hook them over his shoulders, enjoying the excitement on his face, the broad grin that shows his fang-like canines.

He’s inside me when it happens. A vibration shuddering through his body, so strong I feel it in my bones.

With a frantic cry he pulls his cock out of me—not a second too soon, because when I blink, my lover is gone, and the black dragon has taken his place.