“Einin!”
The power of the gods’ lust outside crested then ebbed. Draknart shifted his body to move away.
Einin held on to his shoulders, her eyes clear. “Don’t go.”
He stilled. “Einin?”
“Stay.”
“You don’t want this,” he warned her.
Choice was important to her. She wanted to decide her own fate. Not only did he know that by now, but he fully understood it at last. As a dragon, nearly all the choices in his life had been his—except for the goddess’s curse. Einin’s life had been the opposite.
He was never going to take a choice away from her.
“If you wish…” He held himself in rigid control. “If you still wish, at another time, we could…”
“I wish now.”
His body trembled with need. “You choose this?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
“You would choose it even if the gods hadn’t—”
“Even if.”
A fierce, fiery pleasure spread through him. He sank into her inch by slow inch. He died and was reborn at least twice before he was fully sheathed inside her incredible heat at last. He needed all his strength to hold still for a few more moments so she could adjust to his size. His lungs bellowed. He wanted to talk to her, but he found himself without the ability to speak.
He held back, and held, and held, and held, until tremors shook his entire body, until steam replaced his brain in his head, until all coherent thought evaporated.
After endless, impossible, torturous moments, he eased back, then forged forward, into her, all the way, again. They were both gasping for air, her tight sheath strangling him. He reached for strength he didn’t know he had as he began to move in her gently instead of the urgent, violent coupling he craved.
He glanced between them as he worked himself in and out of her, her juices glistening on his manhood, along with the smears of her virgin blood. A single, savage, primal thought drummed in his brain, that she was his. She would hate that thought. He knew it, but he couldn’t stop it. He was too much of a beast.
He dipped his head and kissed her deeply and thoroughly, then moved his lips down her throat and drew her tight nipple into his mouth. He didn’t have enough restraint left to be gentle there, so he sucked hard.
She squirmed against him again, the hands on his shoulder pulling him closer once more instead of pushing him away. When he looked up at her face, her eyes were rolled back in her head from pleasure.
Another wave of the gods’ lust rose outside.
Draknart lost the last of his control then and plunged into Einin as he craved. He took her roughly, madly, deeply. He ground himself into her, one hand holding her by the back of her neck, the other sliding between them to caress her swollen nub.
She spent with a cry that echoed through the cave, her muscles gripping him so tightly, he felt light-headed from the pleasure. As he spilled his seed deep inside her, out of his mouth came the roar of a dragon.
He waited to pull out until he softened a little, to make it easier on her. Not that he softened much. He dropped to the ground next to her, then rolled on his back as they panted side by side in the semidarkness of the cave.
“Have I hurt you badly?” he asked when he could speak.
Long moments passed before she answered, courage glinting in her eyes. “I’ve been hurt worse.”
He remembered the scars on her back. He flinched. “I am sorry, sweeting.”
“My body feels…” She trailed off, then she tried again, “My body feels…” But she couldn’t finish on the second try either.
“I swear, if I could have stopped it, I would have. I would have if it killed me.” He gathered her against him with all the tenderness he possessed. “Is it terribly bad?”
“It’s an ache, but it’s more than an ache. I need… I still need…” Once again, she didn’t know how to finish, but she rubbed the juncture of her thighs against his thigh in a tentative gesture of seeking.
