Page 35 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Chapter Twenty-One

It had been a very long time since she’d been kissed, but her memories were vivid. It wasn’t unusual to have someone swoop down on her like a bird of prey, and it had always been swiftly followed by a wet, thrusting tongue and wiggling lips. Sometimes she liked it, other times she hadn’t.

But this… Maybe it should’ve been awkward, just sitting in his lap as they breathed together, their skin flush and eyes closed, but it wasn’t. It felt nice. Better than nice, even.

It was thrilling.

Alashiya inhaled sharply through her nose before she dared to place a hand on his naked chest. His heart thundered under her palm. Hardly believing that she was the one making a move, she shyly rubbed her lips against his. Just a little. Just enough.

This is Adon. My Adon.

Without thinking, the very tip of her tongue darted out to dab at his lower lip. The faintest hint of his taste was a shock to her system; as heady and rich the first time she tried red wine. Her breath hitched.

Nothing in all her life tasted as good as he did.

Taevas’s claws tightened in her hair, making her scalp tingle.

He said something in a language she didn’t know.

It was a low, pained murmur into her mouth that she didn’t need to translate to understand.

Slowly tilting her head to one side, Taevas parted his lips and began to coax her into a languid rhythm of soft, sucking kisses.

In the beats between each one, he’d often mutter something under his breath.

It reminded her a little of the blessings she spoke when she stitched his garments.

Every word was full of wonder and longing and a hunger for things that were too good to be named.

Prayers, of a sort, to the Hungry God who gave love and madness in equal measure.

Eventually, his hands skated down her arms, pushing the blanket aside, and fit into the divot of her waist. His tongue darted out to tempt her. Alashiya found herself leaning into him, chasing the taste of him and the heat of his skin.

She had no idea when her hands found his thick hair.

It was pin-straight and heavy in her grasp.

He groaned when she tugged it, urging him closer.

Big hands began to rearrange her in his lap, throwing one thigh over his so she straddled him.

A sweet ache took root in her stomach and expanded into a pressure that sank lower, to the juncture of her thighs.

It’d been decades since anyone touched her. It was barely a thought anymore, the longing faded into an old bruise, but now… Now she felt it. Sharp. Needy. Immediate.

A new urgency crackled to life between them. Taevas let loose another thunderous growl and nearly bent her in half to stoop over her, his lips and tongue and fangs working hard to make her forget the loss of her fantasy, or even her own name.

Lust was a hot wave through her body, making everything bubbly and too bright, until it felt like something inside of her was going to float away. Only Taevas’s increasingly hungry lips and roaming hands held her there, tethered to the Burden’s Earth.

Alashiya wasn’t naive to desire, nor sexual pleasure.

Even if she hadn’t done just about everything except the final act with a handful of local boys available, she had her grove’s experiences to explain what she was missing.

Individual memories weren’t accessible, thank the gods, but the accumulated knowledge of them was.

Her sexual education was complete, if not practiced. She knew how to bring herself pleasure quickly. She remembered the taste of seed on her tongue. She knew how a partner ought to curl their fingers or use their teeth just-so.

But she’d never felt this.

It was desire in a new and evolved form; one that made all previous incarnations appear pale and watery in comparison. Alashiya got drunk on it. Gorged herself on it. Let it eat her up from the inside out.

She couldn’t tell if she wanted to rip her clothes off or begin giggling uncontrollably as the thrill of it rushed through her. Her hands moved restlessly over his hair, the strong cords of his neck, the tantalizing slopes of his chest and arms. She wanted to touch all of him. She needed to.

Like he could hear her thoughts, Taevas’s hands moved to the buckles of her overalls. “Too many fucking clothes,” he gasped, fumbling with them. Without even a hint of caution, Alashiya pried her hands from his feverish skin to help him.

She’d gotten one unbuckled when he growled, “I’ve dreamt of this for a decade and still, somehow, it’s already better than anything I could imagine.”

Her breath wheezed out of her. The next buckle proved more challenging due to the fact that her fingers had begun to shake.

Grasping her hips, Taevas dragged her into a better position in his lap.

They both jolted when the juncture of her thighs met the straining bar of his cock beneath the blanket.

A flicker of logical thought came and went, saying something about how they probably should slow down a bit, that they had a lot more to talk about. It was soundly ignored, of course, as she finally managed to pop open the second buckle. Taevas hissed out something that sounded like praise.

Pressing another hungry kiss to her lips, he growled, “I’ve dreamed of what your cunt will taste like. What you’ll feel like wrapped around my cock. How you’ll whisper my name when you come.”

He hitched her closer. Their hips rocked together again, more deliberately this time. Alashiya closed her eyes as a sharp jolt of pleasure snapped down her spine.

Sliding one hand into the front of her overalls, Taevas grated, “Tell me you’ve dreamed of me. Touched yourself to the thought of me. Craved me even half as much as I’ve craved you, my Shiya.”

She wasn’t certain how he expected her to respond when his fingers found the hot, slick skin of her aching cunt. Alashiya was only capable of breathy sounds of what she hoped was encouragement.

“No panties?” Taevas delivered a sharp bite to her lower lip. It felt more like a reward than any kind of punishment. “Good. I fucking hate those things. I never want a barrier between me—” His fingers curled downward to cup the whole of her possessively. “—and what’s mine.”

The heel of his hand ground down, creating a delicious, inescapable friction. She rocked into his hand helplessly, mindless, completely lost to sensation. It was too fast. All of it was too soon, too much, but she didn’t want to stop.

It’d been so long, and it was him. It was Adon. She’d dreamed of this. Couldn’t she enjoy it for just a moment longer before rationality returned?

“Adon,” she whispered, digging her nails into his shoulders. “Please, I—”

He moved his fingers back up to caress her slowly, feeling how wet she was, how needy.

“Your Adon has you. Your husband is here, metsalill, and he wants you more than he’s wanted anything in his life.

” He paused to glide his lips over the curve of her cheek.

Whispering in her ear, he told her, “I’ve waited a very long time for this, Shiya, but I’ll stop if you ask me to. ”

Alashiya hadn’t felt so alive in… ever, probably. She chased the feeling with everything she had, even though she was almost certain it couldn’t end in anything except disaster.

Digging her nails in a little harder, she found the courage to rasp, “Keep going.”

His groan reverberated through his deep chest and into hers. “I don’t have the energy in me to take my time like you deserve, but I’ll be damned if I don’t see what it looks like when you come. Now.”

His fingers, which had been fairly gentle in their exploration, began to move in a way she’d never experienced. They shuttled back and forth with breakneck speed, so fast it was almost like they were vibrating.

Alashiya gasped, her back arching until her arms were straight between them. Taevas supported her with a grip on the back of her neck. When she could open her eyes for a handful of seconds, she found him staring avidly at her, his expression a mask of pure determination.

Sweat broke out across her body as he settled into a pattern of overwhelming speed and gentle, circular strokes. Everytime he paused, he’d growl something she could barely hear over the buzzing in her ears.

“A dragon is what you need. Nothing and no one else,” he muttered as he ramped up the speed again. “A dragon is all you need. Can’t you tell? Your body knows. Look how well it responds to me, Shiya. Look how much it needs me.”

It wouldn’t have taken much to get her off, but Taevas was right. She did respond to him in ways she never had to anyone else. It felt like it took only seconds before she began to tense.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he chanted, drawing her in close again, but not too much. She didn’t even need to open her eyes to know he was staring at her face. She could feel it just as much as she could feel the glide of his fingers.

When her orgasm crested, it was sharp, fast, and everything she needed. Alashiya tossed her head back and let out a soundless cry as it swept her under. All the while, Taevas continued his relentless back and forth motions, until she finally slumped in his arms.

His chest rose and fell rapidly under hers as he gathered her close. He didn’t seem like he really wanted to, but eventually he extracted his hand from her overalls, too. Resting his cheek against the crown of her head, he breathed, “It’s a good thing you didn’t agree to meet me.”

It took a lot of effort to follow what he was saying, but she tried. “Why?”

“Because if you’d gone to dinner with me, I would’ve done that at the table. If you’d showed up at my office, I would’ve done it on my desk. If you’d met on the fucking street, I would’ve done it there, too.”

“That’s…” She had to work hard to find her voice again. “That doesn’t sound like something the leader of a territory should do.” If he’s telling the truth.

“You’re right. It’s not.” Taevas took in a shuddering breath. “But here I am.”

Alashiya’s heart hadn’t stopped racing even as the sweat began to cool on her body. Embarrassment edged in, forcing her to turn her face into his shoulder again.

He made a tsking sound. “Are you hiding again?”

Instead of answering, she asked her own question. “Would you really do that in front of other people? Where they could see?”

Taevas tensed. “I’d hide you. No one but me is allowed to see that face.

You’d be where you belong when I made you come.

You’d be here—” There was an odd whooshing noise, a displacement of air, and then a sudden darkness beyond her closed eyelids.

Surprised, Alashiya opened her eyes to find a great pair of leathery wings enclosing them — for all of three seconds.

Taevas jerked backward, severing their connection. He didn’t say anything, but rather made a breathy, choked sound deep in his throat. Alashiya watched, alarmed, as his skin went chalky.

His wings trembled violently before they tried to fold into position at his back, only to slump into two undignified heaps behind him. Sweat dotted his brow and his eyes went glassy as he collapsed into the pillows.

“What happened?” she demanded, lust cooling even faster than the sweat on her skin.

“My wings are damaged,” he gasped. “I knew they were, but I hadn’t extended them all the way before.”

Eyes wide, she gripped his shoulders and craned her neck to peer at the trembling appendages slumped behind him. “Do you have a broken bone?”

“Don’t think so. It feels—” He swallowed hard. The light glistened off the sweat that had begun to coat the column of his throat. “It feels like a muscle. Or a nerve. I don’t know.”

“You need a healer.” Alashiya raked her fingers through her disheveled hair. Worry beat hard at her chest. The golden glow of her orgasm vanished. “I have to call the rangers,” she announced, moving to clamber out of his lap. “They can send a medical evac team to—”

“No, Shiya.” He grabbed her wrist and held on tight, refusing to let her leave his lap entirely.

She tried to shake him off. “Taevas, look at you! You’re in pain. I can’t take care of you the way you need. I have to get you a healer.”

Wrestling with her until he could place her hand on his pounding heart, he explained, “If you go to a healer now, with that dragon around, we might both be dead, but I will not die of this, metsalill. Broken wings are better than bolts to the head. You must not tell anyone I’m here.”

“Then how can I help you?”

Rubbing her wrist with his thumb, Taevas gave her a shaky smile. “Stay with me. Don’t leave so soon after giving me such a gift. Change into one of those pretty nightgowns and lay with me in the nest, my Shiya. It will ease my pain better than any medicine.”

“That’s bullshit,” she scoffed, unable to stop the watery smile that tugged at her lips.

Taevas dragged her hand up to kiss her palm. Murmuring against her skin, he agreed, “You’re right. I should probably take more medicine. But I stand by the rest.”