Page 57 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

He barely registered it when she pushed him back by his shoulders, forcing him onto his elbows in the cool undergrowth.

His tongue was a little sore, his lips and cheeks wet, and the taste of her lingered, making him feel almost dizzy with desire.

He watched, eyes glazed, as she dropped onto the forest floor with him.

Her breasts swung, heavy and full, drawing his gaze as she straddled him.

He loved her body. He loved absolutely everything about it.

Every lush curve, dark curl, and dimple.

He wanted the impressions of his fingers to live on her plush hips.

He wanted to trace the strange, alien marks on her skin with his tongue and always keep one hand between her thighs, ready to please her at a moment’s notice.

He wanted her more than he’d wanted anything in his entire life, and if he didn’t have her soon, he was pretty sure he’d lose whatever was left of his mind.

Alashiya’s hands settled on his tense shoulders and smoothed upward, until she cupped the underside of his jaw and tilted his head back. She breathed against his lips, “I used to dream of what it’d be like to be touched by Adon. But you…”

She pressed the tip of her tongue against his slick lower lip. His mouth parted for her on a shaky breath. He felt her words whisper against his tongue when she finished, “You are more than I could’ve ever imagined.”

His tail snaked around her waist, pulling her closer. Hips rocking upward until he could feel the slick heat of her seeping through the thin material of his linen pants, he panted, “Shiya, pl—”

He let out a strangled moan when she reached between them and freed his cock. It rested against her cunt, hot and throbbing and nearly unbearable. Her lips skimmed his, and she never looked away from his eyes when she began to gently explore what belonged to her.

“I know you probably want me to speed it up,” she murmured, each word a gift between soft, sucking kisses. “But I like being gentle with you. I like touching you. Petting you.”

The tendons on his neck stood out starkly against his skin as he strained to hold still, to let her do exactly as she pleased. She stroked him slowly, each pass punctuated by a reverent little squeeze of the swollen head of his cock that made his eyes cross. Sweat drenched his body.

“Keep this up and you’ll make me come,” he gasped, hips stuttering against his will.

He felt her smile against the sweaty skin of his cheek. “I like watching you come.”

“Fuck. Fuck.” Taevas tossed his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to think of anything else, anything at all to stop the rising tide of his orgasm. “Please, naine, I want— I want—”

“Easy, dragon,” she crooned, halting her torturous strokes. “I know what you need.”

Alashiya gently pulled his head toward her, urging him to open his eyes and look at her as she rose on her knees.

Taevas held his breath as he watched her position his flushed cockhead against her entrance.

His claws dug into the soil as the muscles of his spine locked.

The urge to whip his wings around and wrap her in them was a drumbeat in his mind, but he forced it aside, knowing that the pain would ruin this perfect moment.

He wanted to hold her hips, to help guide her down, but he was forced to keep his hands down, since they held his weight. The position left him totally helpless as she lowered herself down, inch by inch.

He’d tried to prepare her, but there was really nothing for it. He was big, she was tight. It was always going to be a struggle.

Taevas watched her expression change as she slowly fed his cock into her body.

Her brows pinched and a little of her flush melted away when the head popped past the tight ring of muscle and closed hard around the shaft.

She paused, her thighs shaking on either side of his hips, and took several deep breaths.

Desperate to ease her obvious discomfort, Taevas tipped his head to press a dozen fluttering kisses across her lips, her cheeks, and her closed eyes. “My beautiful, powerful naine. Yes, just like that. Go slow. Don’t force it. I’m yours. There’s no rush.”

Alashiya leaned into his soft touches. Her arms circled his neck and a soft sigh feathered across her lips. The tension in her brow eased a little. Tucking her face into the rigid line of his neck, she rolled her hips downward.

Taevas sucked in a sharp breath. Every bit of progress was torture.

Every pause was a test. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, even as the beast in him raked his claws against his vulnerable insides, demanding he grab her hips and force her down, to get it over with so they could finish what they’d started.

But he couldn’t — wouldn’t — do that. His Alashiya was in charge now, and it was up to her how quickly her pain ended.

What he could do, however, was distract her.

Beads of sweat slid down his spine from between his bunched shoulder blades as his tail dipped between her thighs. The rattle at the end was a bit too rough to play with, but the side of his tail was smooth and dexterous. More than up to the task.

Alashiya jerked when it slid down to where they were joined.

Taevas took a second to indulge himself, to feel the air-tight seal where their bodies connected and relish it, but no more than that.

Putting firm pressure on the apex of her dripping cunt, he began to slowly draw his tail back and forth.

“Ah!” Alashiya’s already tight walls clenched hard around him. He hissed, clenching his jaw hard against the white-hot flash of pleasure it caused.

Within a few moments she was rocking her hips again, taking him a tiny bit deeper everytime until, with a breathless sound, she seated herself completely.

They both groaned as she fluttered around him. He swore he could feel her heartbeat throbbing in time with his own. “Beautiful, brave, gorgeous creature,” he rasped, grinding his hips upward. He resisted the violent urge to thrust, but only barely.

She shuddered. “Taevas…”

“I have you, naine.” He slowed the movement of his tail and changed from a sawing motion to a slow, gentle swirl. “Tell me what you need and it’s yours.”

Alashiya lifted her head from its hiding place against his neck. When she looked at him then, his heart broke and was remade in the span of a single breath.

Her dense lashes were heavy with tears that glittered in the dappled light. They streaked down her flushed cheeks and made her already bright eyes that much more alive. Her lips were swollen and red, and when a shaky breath escaped them, it smelled like honey.

The air around her shimmered, too bright, too vivid. The colors were dreamlike and unnatural, and the air itself seemed heavier than it had a moment before. It seemed to hum with the very thing of life.

Taevas stared at her in awe. He’d been adamant that he was doing her a disservice by allowing her first time to be in the woods of all places, but in that moment he became utterly certain that he was out of his fucking mind.

This was the only place it could’ve happened.

The only place it should’ve happened. Not in the nest. Not in a luxurious bed or high up in his tower.

It was there, amongst the earth and the plants and the living things that she was so very connected to that he saw the real Alashiya at last — broken down into her raw elements and the intangible substance of her soul.

To have her anywhere else would’ve dimmed her, diminished the sanctity of this holy moment.

“I only want you,” she breathed, bracing her hands on his shoulders.

Taevas’s chest heaved. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath as she began to rock up and down, finding a rhythm that suited her.

Their gazes never wandered, never wavered, as she rode him.

It was all he could do to hold on, his hips canting to meet her, to make it easier to find that perfect spot and pace that would send her over the edge again.

He’d never worshipped the gods. He’d only ever been to ceremonies and services when it was absolutely required of him, and though he was careful to never say anything publicly, he thought that the obsession with beings who didn’t exist was all a little silly on its best day.

On its worst, it led to endless strife and bloodshed.

But there, sat in the dirt and undergrowth of a birch forest, his cock buried in his mate’s slick cunt and his name on her lips…

He understood worship.

He’d tasted the divine in her, and now that hunger would never be sated. It would never fade or dull. It was as a part of him as his fire was, and it was the new goal of his life to feed that hunger every chance he got.

They fell into a rhythm that gradually began to pick up speed. Taevas’s hips kicked upward everytime she came back down, sending his cock as deep as it could go. Everytime it happened, her lips popped open in a surprised little O and her nails dug into his shoulders, urging him on.

“Yes, yes,” she chanted, moving faster.

Taevas’s hips left the ground completely on his next thrust. She gasped, her expression pinching, and her rhythm faltered as her walls began to ripple around him. Knowing she was close, he doubled the efforts of his tail and prayed he could hold on just a bit longer.

“Let me have another one,” he begged, pressing their foreheads together so he could feel her breath across his cheeks. “Let me feel you come again, naine.”

He could feel the moment it began. Her muscles locked up one by one, stiffening her spine, her fingers, her thighs. It seemed to him to happen in slow motion, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever witnessed.

Alashiya went slack against him. She draped herself over his chest and shoulders, her face once more tucked into his neck, and shuddered with the aftershocks as his tail slowly rolled over her skin, prolonging them as much as he could.

Taevas’s hips moved restlessly upward in shallow thrusts.

Their bodies made wet, sloppy sounds as he chased his own pleasure.

Feeling her so soft and sated against him was a heady thing.

Knowing he’d done that and that he was now free to do as he pleased with her supple, willing body, was an unmatched thrill.

Hanging onto his sense by the thinnest thread, Taevas grated, “Where, my Shiya? Tell me where.”

She nuzzled his neck. Soft, painfully loving kisses were pressed against his pounding pulse and the corner of his jaw. Her hands drifted over his shoulders and chest, petting him, stroking him, driving him past the point of wild and straight into madness.

“Inside.”

At any other time, with anyone else, Taevas would’ve been humiliated by the whine that whistled from his throat.

White-hot need flashed through him, but he still somehow managed to choke out, “My Shiya, that’s— We didn’t talk about—”

She lifted her head again. There was no hesitation in her expression, just heavy-lidded desire and satisfaction. Holding him by the nape of his neck, she rocked into his thrusts — each one an explicit encouragement.

“It won’t take,” she assured him. “And I want to feel it.”

He wanted to ask why it wouldn’t. Taevas was fairly certain she didn’t have a birth control implant, considering the general state of her access to healthcare.

Of course, he knew that he had the shot.

There was no risk of pregnancy from his end, but that wasn’t the point.

They hadn’t discussed it. So she believed for a reason unknown to him that there wasn’t a chance.

And that didn’t sit right with him because he damn well wanted a chance. Not now, not when they were in danger and their mating was so new, but soon. The thought of Alashiya carrying his young was searing in its pleasure.

But all of his questions, his fantasies and his now crystal-clear desire for their future, fell to the wayside when she murmured, “Give it to me, argaman mlk. Now.”

He was completely undone. There was no fighting it and no denying her. Everything he was, everything he would be, now rested in the palm of her hand — and the hot well of her cunt.

Taevas buried himself to the hilt and came with a soundless cry. Alashiya’s back arched. She pressed their hips together so there was not even the tiniest space between them and held his gaze as his orgasm raked its claws through him.

Dazed, he could do little more than submit as she tilted his head back to press a gentle kiss to his lips. “That’s it,” she whispered. “That’s everything, argaman mlk.”