He nods as a morose look fills his eyes. “Are you not excited? Isn’t this what you’ve been chasing for years?”
He closes his eyes for a moment, and I watch his throat bob as he swallows. Finally, he meets my gaze again. “It is. It’s just… I’m enjoying just being with you right now, holding you, feeling your soft skin against mine.” Heruns a soft hand down the side of my thigh, and tiny bumps rise all along my arms in response. “What’s a few hours longer?”
The air becomes thicker and heat gathers between my legs. He looks at me, eyes heavy with desire, and I lean in and kiss him with all of the desperation, worry, and sorrow I’ve felt the last few days. He matches my intensity, swirling his tongue in my mouth as he grabs my leg and places it over him, then pressing his hard length against me. I moan in response, which only makes him hungrier.
I reach into his shirt, feeling the hard muscles of his chest, when my hand halts on a nasty lump that wasn’t there before.
We lock eyes as he places a hand over mine. “I’m fine now,” he says.
“You weren’t though?” I ask in a panic. “What happened? Let me see.”
He dips his head, taking a deep breath before conceding. Then he lifts the lightweight black shirt over his head and I gasp.
“Daegan. What—”
“It happened outside of the castle. But clearly, I’m fine, so you don’t need to worry, okay?”
“How is it healed so well already? Your dragon healing works that fast?” I don’t understand. His words don’t assuage the sick, worried feeling settling in my gut. Someone did this to him. He was nearly taken from me.
“A kind Arryzan.”
I swallow, reaching out tentatively again, and he lets me touch it.
A nasty, fresh, raised pink scar now colors the left side of his chest. Almost right where my head was just resting, and I somehow didn’t even notice through his shirt. It’s like a blade ran right through him. Like… Rhydra “How did you survive this?” I whisper. Tears fill my eyes when I realize how close I truly was to losing him. I don’t know nearly enough about battle wounds, but this seems like it was dire.
“I was very lucky.” He grabs my hand that’s resting on his chest and places a kiss on the back of it as he looks into my eyes. “And I had an unrelenting will to get back to you.”
He wipes at my cheek as soon as one of the tears escapes my eye, and then he places a kiss where I still feel the ghost of it, his lips so warm and real.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
His lip pulls back in a sad smile. “I’ll try my best.”
He leans down and begins to kiss me again. It starts slow but becomes more heated and desperate, our breaths becoming more urgent as we hold each other close. The thought of almost losing him makes me want him even more. It makes me want to pull him as close as possible and never let him go.
He rolls his hips into me, reaching into my shirt and palming my bare breast, pinching my nipples. Heat and throbbing and wetness overpower everything else, and I become desperate for him.
I reach down, undo his pants, and free him. Then I run my hand along his smooth, hard length. “I need it. I need you,” I say through a moan as he rubs my nipples even harder, bordering on pain. But I like it. A lot. My hips move into him against my will, and he groans into my mouth at the feel of our bodies pressing against each other.
“Fuck,” he growls.
“Give it to me. Don’t hold back.” I tilt my head back, locking eyes with him, and it feels like my heart is outside of my chest. I could almost come with just the look he’s giving me. It’s emotional, but also laced with a carnal, feral desire.
He places another kiss against my lips as he shifts to hover over me, then he leans his forehead against mine in a tender moment. “Anything you want, it’s yours.”
He yanks my pants off, shocking me for a moment as I watch him pull my shirt apart, exposing everything.
“So fucking beautiful,” he says in a deep voice as his gaze travels along my body.
He places his hands on my inner thighs, pushing my legs apart so I’m completely exposed to him, then he leans in slow and torturously, finally meeting that spot between my legs that’s desperate for him. He licks me hard and slow in one long, languid swoop. Then he stops, meeting my eyes. “I’m done holding back with you. From now until we break that curse, I don’t care where we are. I’ll fuck you in the forest or in a closet. I’ll have my taste of you up against a tree. I don’t fucking care. You’re mine now.”
“Please do,” I reply with a breathy moan.
He leans back, looking down at me with all of his mouth-watering muscles on display just for me, then reaches out a hand and inserts a finger, making me gasp.
He watches my face with a smirk. “I love that sound.”
I make a similar sound in response.
