‡‡
For once, it felt wonderful to be dressed like a princess—especially the one being roused from sleep by a magical kiss.
Corny? Yeah.
Unrealistic? Hell, yeah.
But in the perfection of right now, beneath the power of his body, consumed by the mastery of his touch?
It was complete truth.
A magic unleashed. His magic. Our magic.
I gave in. Let it swirl through me, overtake me, sizzle into my blood and bones and senses, as I jabbed my hands up to touch him too. Anywhere I could. Everywhere I could. I unfastened his doublet, frantically twisting the hooks to reveal the sculpted bronze slabs of his chest. His dark flesh beckoned, irresistible…touchable. I grabbed at him, boldly closing my fingers around his nipple—just as two of his lunged up into my core.
“Samsyn!” It was a perfect scream.
“My starlight.” It was a perfect growl. He was relentless, thrusting rougher and rougher, abrading my pouting flesh until I bucked against his hand, fucking his fingers in return. He pulled out long enough to push my panties aside, giving him better access to my soaked entrance. He worked his thumb into those folds while reinserting his longer fingers into my tunnel, working every part of my sex with long, lunging motions. “By the Creator…how did I get through a fucking week without this?”
I laughed softly—until opening my eyes to find him studying me, brow deeply crunched. I could almost hear his inner dialogue, trying to convince himself I wouldn’t disappear. His expression stabbed tears behind my eyes. I didn’t understand it, but like the enchantment of his touch, I had no will to fight it.
“You survived.” I lifted a hand to his face. “Somehow, we both did.”
He kissed me again. While this embrace wasn’t the full-on maul of before, it jacked my arousal just as violently. Though he’d pulled a Neanderthal move to get me here, now I sensed him needing to feel the same from me—that I needed this too.
If it was need the man wanted, that was what he’d damn well get.
I moaned into his mouth while jabbing my hands into his hair. Yanked the tie free. Hurled it away. With the long, thick silk free between my fingers, I twisted in to pull him close, sucking furiously at his tongue and lips. I didn’t stop there. I couldn’t. My spirit’s desire for him drove my body, arching it against his huge hand, my thighs quivering, my sex flooding.
“Yours. I’m yours, Samsyn.” I spoke it before he could demand it, already knowing he needed it. The effect it instantly produced in him…was a look I’d never seen before. For one moment, his face flared with joy—only the next, to be overtaken by the shadows I often saw in him. But now, they didn’t lurk at the back of his composure. They crowded him, possessed him, transformed him into something dark and intense—
A darkness he focused totally on me.
An intensity throbbing straight to my pussy.
“Say it again.” His dictate began in his chest and curled out his lips, twisting between us like smoke. “Say it exactly the same.”
“I’m…yours.” A gasp broke it apart, as he rammed me deeper with his fingers.
“Nobody touches you like this, but me. Say it.”
“Nobody…touches me…like this.” I raked my hands to his shoulders, scoring the broad shelves, using the grip to keep my sanity…and hold back my climax. “Not like you. Nobody but you, Syn.”
His hand worked me deeper. Spread my walls. Teased my clit. Rubbed closer and closer, lifting the hood until he pressed…
right…
there.
“Samsyn!” I pulsed and pounded. Writhed up as heat roared to the surface. Needing. Wanting. Reaching…
Then screaming, as he withdrew. Moaning, so empty and bereft, but mesmerized by his straining muscles, working to free his erection. With every move he made, my dress rustled against the night, seeming deafening as an air horn. I struggled to keep my whimpers quieter. Impossible. Every time Syn flipped the layers of fabric, letting me smell him, all musky and peppery, mixed with the night flowers and my own light perfume, my mind stole more of my composure. By the time he scooted my ass higher on the table then positioned himself over me, I was an aroused, excited, mewling mess.
He stared hard, watching my reaction as he pressed on my thighs, opening my body for him. I let him see it all: my parted lips, my heated gaze, my feverish breaths. All of it sharpened as he fitted the silken head of his sex to the urgent lips of mine. I cried out, fishing through the tulle for him, but he caught my wrists and lowered them to the table, locking me down as he took my mouth in another wet, hungry connection.
When we finally parted for air, he seared me all over again. His gaze was pure blue-white fire. His face was chiseled in charcoal-dark desire. “Now tell me nobody else fucks you but me.”
As if my clit needed any more reason to burn. “N-Nobody fucks me but you.”
He edged in his shaft by another inch. “Nobody else gets inside you like this.”
I gazed fully at him now. “Nobody else gets inside me like this.” I blinked, letting him see the tears drag down my cheeks. “Inside me…everywhere.”
Once more, I watched a burst of joy overtake his face.
Right before the shadows consumed again.
Worse than ever. Not just darkening him this time. Hardening him. Stripping a swath of his humanity, turning him into a creature of such lethal sensuality, my lungs worked to catch up on breath. I’d always called him my elusive dragon but now that the dragon was really here, his violence was terrifying. His heat, nearly suffocating.
His passion…something I’d never wanted more.
He reared up a little higher. His head rose between his shoulders…the dragon preparing to incinerate its prey. From the rich curves of his lips, another low growl emanated. “Nobody fucks you but me.”
“Nobody fucks me…but you.”
He entered me in one ruthless drive. Impaled me to the point of delicious pain. Stretched my pussy to its limits, blowing my mind off its damn doors. “Nobody makes your body quiver like I do.”
“No.” I gasped it, curling my fingers around his, using him for purchase as he propelled into me. With the leverage of the grip, I was able to give back as good as he gave, meeting every thrust with the force of my own potent need. “Nobody…but you.”
“And nobody makes your cunt come like me.”
My mouth went dry. My body went up like kindling of the same texture. His wicked, filthy words enflamed things inside. Everything.
“Oh, God. Ohhhh, God.”
He started twisting his hips. My dress rasped with every perfect, erotic thrust. Our bodies smacked again and again and again, primal passion in a savage, stolen moment. He didn’t let my stare go, binding me with his dark, determined beauty, twisting my soul with his as he cleaved me, became part of me. Just as he threw off his barriers, I pushed aside mine. Let him have me, all of me, as I stamped this moment to my memory forever. Made myself take in every detail of this incredible sight: his stark, impassioned face, set against the endless Tahreuse stars. Forced myself to cherish this feeling, of being connected again to the one man on Earth who moved me like no other.
“Say it.” Syn’s clutch tightened on my wrists. His gaze zeroed in, watching every inch of my face. “Say. It.”
I gritted my teeth. Balled up the air in my lungs. “Nobody…makes me…”
And then…I couldn’t.
Because…I was.
A scream replaced the words. The fire became explosion. My sex clenched, vibrating around his cock, as white-hot ecstasy ripped through my body. I was mindless. Weightless. All of me tumbled out yet sucked the world back in, knowing its light and dark, its good and bad, its angels…and its dragons.
“Coming,” I finally gasped. “I’m coming, Samsyn! For you.”
He gazed like the words were an incantation for immortality. Never in my life had I felt so adored, so worshipped, so desired—and even more as he suddenly stilled, letting me feel the shudders that overtook every inch of the shaft embedded inside.
“And I, astremé…for you.”
His eyes closed. His lips twisted. His nostrils flared.
He poured into me.
We began to rock again, riding the tiny bursts of aftermath, but not letting each other go. Though Samsyn slid his hold free from my wrists, I slipped them back up to clutch him again, holding him near, head tucked against my shoulder, heavy exhalations warming my neck. Gone was the dragon. He was back in knight mode, tracing the line of my jaw, down my neck, out over my collarbone. I could still feel his cock inside, semi-soft, and was happy with that circumstance. More than happy.
I know. Stupid.
On more than a few levels.
I didn’t worry about the obvious. I was still on birth control; nothing had changed over the last week—
Except that everything else had.
Everything else. The not-so-easy to deal with stuff, now parking their asses at this table like the giant elephants they were—getting ready to feast on the two of us.
One of us was going to have to start this conversation.
“Brooke.”
And thank God it had been him.
I almost expelled a sigh of gratitude. The gravity in his voice confirmed he saw the elephants, too. That meant I wasn’t crazy. Now I wondered if we saw the same elephants.
“As a member of the Arcadian military, I am tested for many things every year.”
“Oh.” Wasn’t the first subject I expected him to broach—but I was glad it had been. We were talking rationally. This boded well for addressing the rest of the elephants at the buffet. “Okay,” I added. “Ummm…”
“I am clean. I can get you a copy of the lab results—”
“Not necessary.” I cleared my throat, ending with a laugh. “In case it’s not clear,”—I nodded deliberately, indicating our very connected bodies—“I really do trust you, big guy.”
My levity went over like a boulder plunking into the lake. “I know,” he replied, voice edged in impatience, “but your respect is just as vital. I shall not have you thinking that I—” He grimaced. “Well, I am usually in the habit of carrying, and wearing, protection.”
“The habit?” I punched my discomfort into the word. “You mean like racking your weights every day? Business to take care of, huh?”
My tension pushed his cock a little farther out. Though looking loathe to do so, he separated his body the rest of the way. Not that he went far. He stayed there, lodged between my legs while bracing my face between his hands. “I will not let there be lies between us—no matter how uncomfortable they are.”
“Well, they’re uncomfortable.” I closed my eyes, battling for perspective. “And that’s the stupid thing about all this.”
“Stupid?” His upper lip curled with insult.
Sigh of long-suffering…if a bit exaggerated. “Yes, Your Highness. Stupid.”
“You are not—”
“The hell I’m not. Or can’t be. Especially when it comes to—” You. The restraint didn’t help a damn thing. He was capable of discerning the answer for himself, and the silver glints in his eyes betrayed that he had. “Look. I meant what I said last week, when things…happened…between us at the Residence Rigale. I was ready to accept we’d only have all that for one night. Even then, I knew you were skittish about it—”
“Brooke.” He glowered. “I do not dabble in ‘skittish’.”
“Fine.” I sighed again. “Whatever you were, then. Uneasy. Unwilling—”
“Oh, I was willing.”
“Scared of hurting me,” I finally flung. I smirked just a little. He had to let that one stick. “Your own words, big guy.”
He jerked his head to the side, making his hair as much a statement as his seething mutter. “Fuck.”
“And there’s my point.” When his glare tightened in confusion, I persisted, “You, having to even say that. Having to even generate the thought behind it.”
“The…thought…?”
“The worry. The stress. About me.” I scooped a hand against the side of his face. Pushed it back over to align his gaze with mine. “Syn, I may have been a virgin before last week, but I wasn’t an innocent. I’m aware of the pressures you face, and how you like…things…in your life.” I took in a measured breath before clarifying, “Of how you like your women.”
I expected that to bring back a little of the dragon. Maybe a lot. Instead, he unveiled more of his inner knight, rolling to his side next to me as if the picnic table were a luxurious mattress. With his head propped on a hand, he rejoined, “Is that so?”
I lightly smacked his face. “Don’t be glib.”
He sobered. Too fast. “How do I like my women?”
“Plentiful.” It was practically knee-jerk but I stuck by the conviction—noticing he didn’t flinch, either. “Not all at once, of course—but if that’s how you jam then I’m not going to judge.”
“One at a time is usually my preference, even if there are plentitudes.”
I should’ve jumped his shit for the fall back to the glib, but it’d only be feeding cream to the ox. Plowing on was the better option. “You also like them curvy. Compliant. Sweet. Simple. Big eyes and bigger boobs always help.” Though that all shut him way the hell up, I tacked on the finish for my sake as much as his. “And brunette. Definitely brunette.”
For a long moment, he remained silent. Finally, his taut lips released a harsh bite. “Fuck.”
It weighted the air between us—but maybe right now, we needed to anchor the balloon back to Earth. I’d spoken the truth and we both knew it.
I lowered my hand. Dipped it beneath his doublet again, to the warm groove in the center of his chest. “My eyes are wide open, Syn. But so is my heart. Closing one would mean disaster for the other. I’m aware of your…experience.” I kicked up one side of my mouth. “Hell, I even appreciate it. But discussing it isn’t necess—”
He ripped the rest of it from my lips by smashing his over them. Took my breath next, as he deepened his claim. I moaned as he rolled me to fully face him. As he tangled our tongues, he twined our legs. The sound of tearing tulle was barely audible past the new tumult of my heart. I couldn’t get enough of his taste, his hardness. I didn’t care if I never breathed again—point proved when he finally released me, and we sucked air into heaving lungs.
Syn braced my face with his hand. Heat suffused me. And, despite the wildness of my senses, peace. Completion.
He finally spoke, with lips against mine. “It is necessary…because you are necessary.”
His confession moving through me like a rake in gravel. No. No. I couldn’t get used to this. Couldn’t want this as badly as I already did. “Syn—”
He kissed me into silence again. “I know it is confusing. But—”
“No.” I pushed back. I had to. Dipped my head then shook it. Nothing was confusing. I knew exactly what was happening. I was falling deeper in love with him—and if I let the dive continue, I’d get the damn bends. Danger zone. Punch the red button. Now. “Samsyn, this—you—” I pushed out a heavy breath. “Thank you. For all of it. But—”
He growled low. “But what?”
I lifted my gaze again. Curled my fingers in against his chest. “We’re not confused, big guy. We’re just…conflicting.” I pressed harder, cherishing the steady beat under my touch. “You know what I want from you. What I’d eventually demand. And what you cannot give me.”
He dove into his surreal stillness once more. Everything except the brackets of his eyes and mouth, which visibly tautened. “What I cannot give anyone, Brooke.” His fingers clenched against my hairline. “What I do not even have to give.”
I raised my other hand, meshing it into his. “I know you think that. Perhaps even believe it. And I hope that one day, someone will help you learn it’s just not true.” My whole head suddenly felt heavy. I blinked against the pressure but felt tears spilling anyway. “I’m just sad it’s not me.”
“Brooke—”
A violent crackle cut him short. The ground glass grate of a comm line hail, at full volume—
Coming from the wig he’d shoved off my head, now hanging from the side of the table like a murdered animal.
“Badger!” Jag. Sounding like the pissed-off soul of that animal.
“Shit.” I bolted upright, grabbing for the wig. “My comm must’ve come off with the hair.”
“Badger! Where the fuck are you? We have a situation. Get your ass to the Tower’s main entrance, stat!”