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Her nose flared. “Is that what we're doing? Pretending? I've had enough of pretending to last me three lifetimes. Give me what I want. What I know you want.”

His hand wrapped around hers as she tried to unzip his fly.

“What you want is to feel good. Have I disappointed you yet? If it’s going to be my last time in your bed, you’re going to have to compromise.

This is about both of us getting proper closure, isn’t it?

” He kissed her forehead, and he watched as color flooded her cheeks.

A smile curled on his face. “Unless you can’t handle a little intimacy. ”

“I’m not the one who can’t handle their emotions.” She huffed before relaxing against his hold. “Fine.”

Through the cracks of her windows, bronze dawn sunlight crawled into bed. He watched as it caught in her hair, then in her eyes. The sun lit her up as if mocking him. He could never get inside her like it could.

He moved her to the shade as his hackles rose at the thought.

He leaned down once more to recapture her mouth, one hand resting at the curve of her back, the other curling around the curve of her ass, down the underside of her thigh and hooking underneath her leg to bring her opening in line with his still clothed cock.

Her skin heated under his palms. Anticipation had her fingernails digging into his still clothed back in a delicious lick of pain as he deliberately took his time undoing the zipper of his pants.

She left the kiss, her mouth traveling to the spot under his ear that drove him mad.

His groan when she took the smallest bite was unbidden.

Did she know that if she went just a few inches lower and found purchase when his neck met his shoulder that she would claim him? Like he ached to claim her?

“This is torture.” Her lips brushed the shell of his ear with her whisper.

Torture?

Yes.

She was.

Sliding home, Alessandro felt every single other thing besides the woman underneath him melt from his mind.

He seldom left her mouth as he rocked into her, hands exploring her curves, the dip of her back into the slope of her ass.

His thumb worked her clit as he filled her.

Each hit elicited a soft gasp from their kiss.

He pulled back as he opened her wider and wider.

The flexibility of the minx was pure seduction.

Color flushed her cheeks, the bridge of her button nose and her kiss-swollen lips.

Her eyes glazed with lust, and he pulled all the way out before he slammed back into her.

His hand massaged the back of her knee, and he felt her tighten around him at the action.

He smirked, and she threw a smirk of her own back at him as she bore her weight on her forearms and her hips began rolling, making the sinking into her that much more powerful.

The movement pronounced her breasts.

Intrigued, he thrusted and watched her breasts bounce in perfect rhythm. Glowing lavender eyes watched him as her tail curled in between them and swiped against her clit as if saying she could bring herself to pleasure better than he could.

He bit the air with his annoyance and reached down to grab the extra appendage. Warmth radiated under his fingers, and she let out an inhuman sound that reminded him of a hissing snake.

Was that good or bad? He cocked his head to the side as he stroked the tail with a firm grip and smirked when he realized it was beyond good. It was something she wasn’t used to. Her increased heat and slickness sealed the deal.

He slid a hand around to support her lower back as he rocked into her and worked her tail at the same time.

Her mewls of pleasure had never been so breathless.

They made his cock ache with its desire for release, but he was determined to get her there first. He tightened his grip on her tail as if it was his shaft.

She let out a strangled sob and her legs were so tight around him that he could no longer move.

“Feels good, doesn't it?” He growled into her ear as her walls pulsed around him. “You hate it when my cock leaves you, don't you, little elf?”

Her nails slid under his shirt leaving trails of pain behind. She didn't answer, but her hips rolled around him barely letting him out before pulling him back in with incredible pressure. He managed to squeeze a hand between their bodies, finding her clit with practiced ease.

“That’s right, grind your sweet pussy all over me. Come for me, Rowan.”

Her mouth found purchase where his neck met his shoulders and she bit. His dragon roared his release.

The fucking little cheat.

She didn’t even give him a chance to catch his breath as she toppled him back onto the collection of her pillows and began riding him, keeping his pace, but lost in her pleasure.

Her eyes were closed as she sought her own release, and he was breathless as her hips began rotating around him.

Her moans shook the glass of her windows, and he saw in that moment the wild woman that Rowan truly was.

He knew she could feel him growing larger inside her until her breathing came out short and he thought he heard a prayer of thanks being sent to the gods before he grabbed her hips and railed into her from below.

“I am the only god you fucking pray to.” He roared.

She leaned forward to catch herself on his shoulders, wings enclosing them in a world where it was only the two of them.

Her eyes were glowing so bright he was sure he would see stars if he closed his own, but he didn’t dare look away because in the depths of them was something he hadn’t expected, but was more than a little intrigued by.

She looked at him as if she’d been waiting her whole existence for him.

She was mapping every detail of his face, her lips moving as if she was counting each of his eyelashes, committing him to the deepest memory bank she possessed.

The expanse of what lay in her eyes made him finally see what his dragon desired.

The long awaited resonance between beast and man shook him to the core.

He bared his teeth as he realized what he was giving up by walking away from her. No one had ever wanted him like she did. Even afraid of the commitment of the mark, her heart was shattering into pieces with his choice.

She needed time.

Time he could not give because his dragon and his sane side were now of the same mind.

He pumped in and out of her at the speed of a machine and, just like that, she closed the gates to whatever had encouraged her to bear herself to him.

And she was screaming yes again, and he slammed deeper and harder into her.

He felt her climax running down his thighs, mixed with his own, and the thought got him so turned on that he felt his fangs growing in his mouth.

She wasn’t ready. That knowledge was the only thing allowing him to keep his genuine desires from becoming a reality. To keep from marking her, he had to get her sweet, open neck away from him, but he refused to stop fucking her.

He shifted her, so that she was face down, ass up, and he entered her from behind. The arch of her back and the round curve of her ass motivated him to smack it and his handprint glowed red on her fair skin.

She hissed her sound of approval. He noticed as he slammed in and out a small line of three beauty marks on her hip and he traced them with his fingers, lulling her into a false sense of security before he smacked her again.

“Fuck yes.” She was breathless, and he was too. But they weren’t there yet. He reached over to grab her shoulders to steady her, and then he pulled her down as he slammed forward.

It only took three more strokes, and they were both roaring their releases.

With one swift motion, he turned her to face him again. Her chest was red from the force, her eyes had spilled tears from their exertion and she looked so satisfied it made him cum again.

His fangs throbbed in his mouth and he leaned down to give in to the roaring demands of his dragon. He might have been able to keep him at bay if he had never seen that vulnerability in her gaze, the softness he hadn’t expected, but he had and there was no way of unseeing it now.

She seemed to register what was happening. With her breathing ragged, she shook her head.

It astounded him that his beast listened to her when it had so easily overridden his own will on that beach.

“Goodbye, Alessandro.” She laid a flutter of a kiss on his cheek and then phased out.

Alessandro roared from the bed once he realized what had happened. Where the fuck had she gone, naked?

Chapter 17

This time, when she popped into Chloe’s apartment, Rowan did so, dressed in a soft green lounge set.

Still reeling from the shock, Rowan walked through the rooms, realizing Chloe wasn’t home. She made herself comfortable in front of the TV and began flipping through channels that couldn’t take her mind off of what had just occurred.

Alessandro’s dragon wanted to mark her. Something about her intrigued the beast so much that he wanted to chain them together for the rest of their natural lives.

On principle as a succubus, she’d never really thought she could intrigue anything as territorial as a shifter. The idea of his rage if someone ever aroused her hunger made her tremble.

Julio and Kin had been the embodiment of hyper jealousy that she associated with mated pairs, and she couldn’t see herself willingly going through that.

It didn’t seem the sane part of Alessandro did either, because he’d showed up only to clear up the fact that while the beast wanted her on the most primal of urges, the man didn’t concur.

She wasn’t good enough to be his queen.

On a deeper level, she knew she was not queen material for anyone, let alone the oldest race of mystics, but that didn’t stop her pride from picturing herself leading them. She had a ton of attributes that would allow her to fulfill the job if it ever came down to it.