I shriek playfully and try to veer around him.
The bond between us crackles — then as if suddenly anchored fully, it pulses with pure essence. As if all it took to fulfill that potential between us was for us to play together. Or, perhaps more fundamentally, more primally, for the beast to chase and capture … me. His soul-bound mate.
I stumble, feet sliding in the sand as I accept the energy shifting between us, opening myself up to it wholly. Accepting and welcoming the intense connection and trying to radiate my own energy back at the dragon.
More essence contracts behind me. I hear bones shift and snap painfully.
I spin back, and it’s wholly human arms that wrap about me, lifting me off my feet.
I kick and flail. Laughter is wrenched from me as I’m twisted in the air and then gathered against a very wet, very large, very naked body.
Amber-ringed hazel eyes capture my attention a moment before a hot mouth crashes over mine. I melt into his verging-on-too-tight embrace, opening my mouth to his — as I opened my soul to the dragon — and just letting myself savor his touch, his taste. Tangling my tongue through his, I suck on his lower lip. He moans.
Rath.
More essence, more energy twines around us, hiding us from prying eyes even as Rath pulls back just enough to press his forehead to mine and peer down into my eyes. Always checking, even when being completely overbearing, to see if I’m okay.
If I’m with him.
I press my hands to his face, holding him as I held the dragon. The amber is still in his eyes, both my mates present for this moment.
“Hello, mate,” I whisper a second time.
Rath closes his eyes, and a terrible shudder racks through his huge body — grief, anger, fear? His hands grip me harder, tugging me impossibly closer.
Then his mouth is over mine again. I cling to him, utterly needy and greedy. Another intense pulse of essence shifts between us, feeding into me, then back out to him. His power is staggering.
Rath pulls back, almost forcefully. And I know, even before the words start pouring from his mouth, that his brain has caught up to the moment.
“Never again, Tempest. Never fucking again!”
“Never fucking again?” I echo, deliberately widening my eyes and pouting at him playfully. “But I want you buried deeply in me, Rath. I want you so deep that you’re lodged under my skin, embedded into my bones.”
Anger wars with desire on his face as one hand drops to my ass and the other cups the back of my neck. I pretend to fight against his hold, managing to shimmy down just enough that I almost get his hard cock right where I want it. Except for the presence of my clothing, of course.
“Zaya,” he growls. “Maybe I need some words.”
I tug his head down to mine. Not that I could move him if he wasn’t willing. I whisper across his lips. “Maybe, while you interrogate me, you could give me just the tip?”
“Fuck,” he snarls. Then he throws me — perfectly gently — over his shoulder, pinning both my legs against his chest. Leaving my upper body and head dangling, he strides up the beach toward the nearest house.
Or at least that’s where I’m guessing he’s going. Because I really can’t see much but his glorious ass flexing with each stride.
I moan, writhing against his hold wantonly. I’m not playing now. All the essence called forth through the chase and riled up even further with our almost-feral kissing crackles between us. My nipples are hard against my wet clothing. Desire aches almost painfully through my —
Rath slaps my ass. “Stop that, Zaya. I’m not fucking you on the fucking beach.”
I spank him right back, harder than he hit me.
He groans, his step actually faltering. “Fuck,” he snarls. “I nearly fucking came, don’t do that again.”
I giggle. Maybe it’s all the blood rushing to my head, but I feel light and gleeful. Safe. And I know I’m about to be completely and utterly taken care of. If only for a few stolen moments.
I don’t spank his ass again. I want all that come inside me. I might actually need his come. That’s not a rational thought. I don’t have a breeding kink, because I can’t have a breeding kink, because I’m the —
“Stay with me,” Rath says, climbing up a short set of wooden stairs. As if he can feel my mind wandering toward everything that has been brought sharply forward by finding and finally dissolving the bond that was supposed to tie me to Reck, to the cu-sith.
Wet hair hanging all around my face, I smooth my hand down Rath’s leg, focusing on the tattoos etched into his skin, including the phases of the moon ringing his calf. As I do, he crosses a narrow, weather-worn patio and wrenches open a sliding glass door — shattering the lock as he does.
