Page 42 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Taevas stood with his palms braced on the back of his head, his expression the picture of sheer disbelief as he looked and looked and looked.

For someone so used to hiding, to wishing not to be seen, it should’ve been uncomfortable.

But Alashiya was shocked to discover a wild, fiery thrill at his silent observation.

She liked it. She liked it a lot.

Alashiya watched his face contort into a visage of agony when she slowly raised one leg and rested her heel on the edge of the counter.

The warm air kissed the slick flesh between her legs.

The feeling of exposure, the possibility that this might be a humiliating failure of seduction, ratcheted up her lust until the ache grew to a nearly unbearable level.

“Naine,” he growled at last, “I think I’ve already died.”

Her gaze dipped. It fell down the slabs of strong flesh that made up his chest and stomach and settled on the straining shape of his cock tenting the thin material of his pants.

A shiver of trepidation ran through her.

Perhaps she wasn’t ready for that yet, but the thought of it, of him wanting her so badly with just a few touches and a look… Alashiya took another risk.

The dragon’s gaze somehow managed to grow wilder when he tracked the progress of her right hand over the softness of her stomach to the dark curls of her mons.

He made a low moaning sound and lurched forward until he stood between her legs once more.

She had no idea what compelled her to do it.

The gods knew her last fumbling attempts at intimacy nearly a century prior hadn’t exactly primed her for boldness.

And yet she found herself placing her foot above his pounding heart, stopping him abruptly when he reached for her.

They both stared at each other in surprise. Taevas didn’t move. His normally smooth voice had gone rough as sandpaper when he said, “Naine?”

Praying she wasn’t making a massive fool of herself, Alashiya swallowed hard. “I like it when you watch me.”

Taevas’s mouth snapped shut. A muffled sound, a little bit like the whistle she’d heard that first night in the barn, came from somewhere deep in his throat. His attention zoomed back to her right hand, which had begun to slowly part her slick, swollen cunt.

“Can I touch you?” There was an edge of desperation in his voice now, but no frustration, no pushiness. He wanted to touch her, had no problem expressing just how much he wanted that, but he would only do so if she agreed to it.

He was always so bossy, but now… Now he seemed ready to beg.

A heady sense of power overcame her. She’d dared to command a dragon, a lord, and now he asked her for permission.

“You can touch my legs,” she allowed, following the familiar path over skin that begged to be stroked. Alashiya was an old-hat at self-pleasure, but she didn’t think any experience going forward would compare to how it felt to swirl her fingers under Taevas’s ravenous gaze.

One of his hands instantly banded around the delicate bones of her ankle, while the other pressed into the plush skin of her thigh.

“Let me help,” he breathed, voice ragged, as he stepped closer.

Gently, he slung the leg she’d propped against his chest over his elbow. The other he lifted and pushed up slightly, taking her weight off her thigh so it didn’t cut into the counter.

Having him so close, the feeling of his pants brushing her inner thighs, the way his eyes never wavered from where they watched her…

She knew how to get herself off quickly, but that wasn’t what she was after.

Just to see what he’d do, Alashiya observed him closely as she slid one finger inside her slick cunt.

Taevas had a full-body reaction to the sight.

The hard lines of his face went even starker than normal, and he lifted her leg to press an open-mouthed kiss against the smooth skin of her thigh.

He left his lips there, moving restlessly, as he stared unblinkingly at the finger that slowly went in and out of her with wet, sloppy sounds.

She slid another finger in to join the first and ground the heel of her palm down, providing just enough friction to ease the ache. His fangs scraped her skin. A shock of pleasure, made sharper by the tiny bite of pain, made her gasp.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he breathed into her damp skin. “A work of art. I want to make you come so bad, naine. I want to show you what it’s like to be worshipped. Let me do it.”

Forcing him to watch was all well and good, but when it came down to it, Alashiya didn’t actually want to do everything herself. She’d had a lifetime of that, after all.

But she wasn’t quite done yet.

She lifted her chin in the direction of his hips. “I want to see you, too.”

Taevas let out a husky laugh. “Haven’t you already? That’s why you ran, if I recall.”

“Not like this.” She slowed her movements down. Curling her calf over his side, she pulled him in just a little closer. “I want to see what you look like when you’re hard for me, argaman mlk. I… want to see my husband come first.”

All the hard lines of his body stood went taut. “Keep calling me that, naine, and I’ll give you anything you ask of me.”

Her heart stuttered. Licking her lips, she whispered, “My husband.”

He groaned. “You have no fucking idea what that does to me.”

“You could show me.”

A soft, amazed breath left him. Taevas gingerly set her leg down and hurried to free himself from his pants. The linen tie came away with a frantic jerk, and the waistband, its structure weakened by his customization, fell almost instantly.

Alashiya’s mouth watered. She couldn’t claim to have an abundance of experience or opinion on the matter, but she knew Taevas was a gorgeous specimen in all ways.

In this he was truly spectacular. Thick, veined, and standing proud with a livid erection, his cock was at once intimidating and perfectly formed.

Taevas took himself in hand with a hiss of pain or pleasure or both.

The tip of his cock, the deep color of his night-shift and flushed with blood, glistened with moisture that looked like little stars against a night sky.

She watched as a hard stroke sent a bead of pre-come onto the floor between them.

Too distracted to continue her own side of things, she slapped her damp hand on the counter behind her and settled in to watch as he pumped his fist. A part of her was in disbelief that it was happening, that he was touching himself for her, to her.

She thought that maybe she should say something, but no words came. She had no practice with any sort of dirty talk, and even if she had, the sight of him had completely knocked any thought from her mind.

He wasn’t particularly gentle with himself. She wondered if that was his habit, preference, or a consequence of being so worked up. At last finding some words, she murmured, “Easy, argaman mlk. Don’t damage what’s mine before I even get the chance to enjoy it.”

Taevas’s rhythm stuttered. More moisture beaded and slid down into his stroking, squeezing fist until he, too, was making slick noises. His expression was pained when he groaned, “My Shiya, my Shiya. You’ve already ruined me.”

Too tempted, she nudged him just a bit closer, until the bumps of his knuckles skimmed her mons with every pass. Taevas sucked in a sharp breath. “I can’t— I can’t take this. Where?”

It took her brain a moment to catch up to what he’d asked. It was hard to focus on anything other than the sight of him stroking himself between her legs like he was desperate to do exactly as she asked.

“Hm?” She lifted one hand to smooth her palm over the hard plane of his stomach, mere inches from the base of his cock. “Where, what?”

In a tight voice, he clarified, “Where do you want it, naine? Tell me where to come.”

It? What does— Oh! Alashiya’s eyes opened wide.

Yes. She remembered this part. She wanted this part, but it was so easy getting caught up in the act itself that the finish seemed unimportant. In her memory, she couldn’t recall it ever being that way with someone else, but with Taevas, everything was different.

To cover up the fact that she really didn’t have an answer, Alashiya stroked his stomach, fascinated by the way the muscles contracted at her touch, and answered, “Why don’t you choose?”

“Ah, my generous goddess,” he panted, shoulders hunching as he stroked harder, faster, and completely ignored her admonishment to go a bit easier on his poor flesh.

“You give me too much. Don’t you know that it only makes me want more and more and more?

I want you covered in my seed. I want to watch it spill out of you and stain our nest, just so I can fill you up again.

I want your thighs sticky with it every— fucking— day. ”

Before she could think of what to say to that, Taevas rolled up onto the balls of his strange feet. Already tall, the added height allowed him the perfect angle to come in thick white spurts across her soft stomach and thighs.

A sound unlike anything she’d heard rumbled from the depths of his chest as he did it. It was a great tearing noise, definitely not human and yet not entirely beast, either. It fell somewhere in between, and when it rolled through her, her toes curled with delight.

Alashiya barely had a moment to register the cooling seed that dripped down her thighs before Taevas swooped in on her again. His kiss was frantic, and the way he batted her hand away from where it accidentally blocked the entrance to her body was urgent, determined.

He ripped his mouth from hers, but it wasn’t to give her time to catch her breath.

Taevas dropped to his knees, that terrifying rumble still rattling his chest, and slung her thighs over his broad shoulders.

He muttered something guttural in that lilting language as he gently pried the folds of her cunt apart, exposing everything to his avid gaze.

A choked sound was all she was capable of when he pressed the flat of his tongue against her opening and licked upward in a hungry sweep. He didn’t seem even a little bit bothered by the splattering of seed already there. If anything, it made him wilder.

Taevas swirled the very tip of his tongue around the taut pearl of nerves of her clitoris and through his own release. His rumble turned into a deep, bass purr. It vibrated through his tongue and straight into her, making her eyes cross.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, Taevas— I’m—”

She squeaked when he slid two fingers deep inside her with no preamble. Not that she needed one, but his fingers were considerably larger than hers, and she really wasn’t prepared for the way he curled them just so, allowing the pads to massage her inner wall.

Her hips jerked. She found herself clinging to him as he set a frenetic, relentless pace.

Taevas could move with extraordinary speed and power, at precisely the right angle, and when he closed his lips around her with a hard, fluttering pull of suction, Alashiya came with a violence she’d never even imagined.

Her back bowed as a cry tore from her throat. She gushed over his hand, marking him like he’d marked her. He didn’t stop his frantic touches for even a second. One powerful orgasm bled into aftershocks that broke her down to her foundations.

It took her a while to realize he was speaking to her. She’d tilted her face up to the ceiling, as if the pleasure was sunlight and all she wanted was to bask.

Dazedly tilting her head just a little toward him, she caught his satisfied growl. “Next time, you’ll do that sitting on my face.”