It is the hardest thing I have ever done.
Her pussy flutters around my cock. The sensation is exquisite and cruel. My instincts batter against my ribs, demanding movement, depth, knot, claim. I hold still and stroke her hair back from her face. She turns into my palm. After a long moment, her hips shift beneath me.
"Okay," she whispers.
I enter her one slow inch at a time. By the time I am seated fully inside her, my body has lost language. She surrounds me in wet heat, so tight it makes every breath dangerous. Her hands grip my ears, not hard, but enough to send lightning sparking through the bond. Her eyes open, and the aura around her blazes clear gold.
The first stroke is shallow.
Her breath catches.
The second is deeper.
Her thighs part wider.
On the third, the sheath forms.
The change rolls over my cock in a wave of living texture, velvet-soft ridges rising along the length of me, made for her body and no one else's. Her eyes go wide. Her body clenches hard, and pleasure rips through both of us.
"What. Is. That?" she gasps.
"True mate response." My voice breaks on the words. "Only for you."
Her fingers dig into my ears. I groan and thrust before I can stop myself. She cries out, but not in pain. The sheath drags against her inner walls, each of the fine filaments catching, stroking, fitting with an ancient precision. Her body answers in slick, clenching pulses, and the bond locks another thread between us.
"Again," she says.
I move slowly at first because she is still new to this. Then deeper as her body learns the shape of mine. The bed takes therhythm, low and solid beneath us. Her breasts move with each stroke. Her mouth falls open. My name finally breaks from her throat, and the sound shatters what remains of my control.
The rut takes me by degrees.
Not mindless. Never with her. But deeper than reason, older than pride. My hips drive harder. My mouth finds her throat, her breast, her shoulder. I mark where I can without breaking skin, then bury my face in the curve where her neck meets her shoulder. She cries out and comes around me so hard the knot starts swelling at the base of my cock. I thrust deep. The knot thickens at the base, stretching her around me with each grinding stroke. She gasps, hands clamped on my ears, body trembling. I slow, giving her time. Her channel works around the swelling knot, fluttering, clutching, trying to take me.
"That's it," I breathe against her mouth. "That's my good girl. Open for me. You can take me."
Her body yields. The knot locks and pulses again. My teeth ache. The thrum burns in my gums, in my blood, in the place beneath reason.
Beatrice makes a sound that would spark wars on less-civilized planets. "Why did you stop?"
"Because I have to ask," I growl.
Her lashes lift. Her eyes are dark, dazed, annoyed. Beautiful. Mine.
"Ask what?"
The English feels too small for this. Everything on Earth feels too small for this. The room. The bed. The fucking planet. I brace one hand beside her head and force the words into the language she understands.
"Beatrice of Earth," I say, and my voice changes. Deeper. Rougher. The old words slipping through the cracks in my control. "Do you accept my bite?"
She stares at me. Then she smiles. A soft, breathless, almost wicked little curve of her mouth. Her hand lifts, trembling, and pats my cheek.
Pats it.
As if I am not holding myself over her with my knot half-formed and my teeth aching for her throat. As if my entire bloodline is not leaning forward inside me, waiting for her answer. Humans are insane. Adorable. Dangerous. Possibly unfit for diplomacy.
"Skylor of Layn," she whispers, voice warm and teasing, "Bite me.”
There’s a joke here that I’m missing. I narrow my eyes. “Do you understand?” I try reading her aura, those bright colors that reveal what few human eyes can see. “On Layn, my bite binds you to my body, my law, my family. If you accept it, there's no walking it back.”
