Acceleration
Acceleration
R uven moved with the speed of a striking serpent, like he was afraid I’d change my mind, kicking the sheets down and yanking them back up with his tail before he even stopped moving. He plastered himself against me with a dark sound of pleasure, one hand shoved under my shirt to haul me closer, his legs tangled with mine.
It put his bare groin against my skin and the heat of his thigh between my legs, grinding my underwear up against me. He panted hard against my throat. His tail wrapped around my lower leg, the forks spreading to grip my calf.
“Fuck, Avalon,” he groaned, starting to shiver. “Don’t smell like that.”
“Don’t smell like what?” I asked, desperately trying not to focus on his naked dick against my thigh. It was a losing battle; with every beat of his heart he was growing harder, and the demanding heat of that length commanded my attention.
He panted out a whine. “Like you want me to fuck you. Like all I have to do is ask.” Ruven’s fingers tightened on me and his hips bucked once. The thick length of his cock curled, more of a tentacle than an erection. Several shorter tentacles slid against my thigh like they were exploring me.
Welp, that’s definitely not standard-issue , I thought, wide-eyed and soaking wet. “Would that be so bad?” I croaked out.
“You don’t know me. I don’t know you,” he said, biting off the words as he held himself still. “Didn’t you hear me? This ends one of two ways. That means it ends . Have me like this and I’m yours . I won’t even be able to want someone else.” Ruven panted against my throat, holding himself so stiffly that his muscles started trembling. “I don’t imagine you’re ready to bind yourself to me forever, so do me the kindness of loosening your grip on my leash. Send me away, or refuse this stupid fucking mating drive I can’t control, but don’t—” He shuddered violently, burying his face against me. “Don’t claim what you aren’t certain you want.”
Heat throbbed in my belly and groin. Need had me by the throat. I still closed my eyes and put my fingers in the dense waves of his hair, and said, “Ask me tomorrow.”
Ruven stilled, his grip easing. “What?”
“You can sleep next to me tonight,” I said carefully, swallowing back my desire. “That’s all. If you want something else, ask me tomorrow night.”
“Oh,” he said in an exhale, all of the stress dropping out of his powerful body. “That’s perfect. I can do that.”
“Good.” I tilted my head back. “I’m going to get up and go to the bathroom. I’ll be gone for a little while, and when I come back, I want you to be, um.” I licked my lips. “Uh, satisfied? With sleeping?”
I could practically feel Ruven trying not to laugh. “Are you giving me permission to stroke myself off in your bed?” he asked, amusement in his carefully-formal voice.
“Don’t leave a wet spot,” I said, my cheeks going hot.
He gave my neck a quick lick. “Shapeshifter,” he reminded me. “I’m fully capable of orgasming without spilling my seed.”
I had to bite my lip not to laugh. “Hell of a birth control method.”
“Riskier than you might imagine, given that it’s me. You’d have to trust my control, which is demonstrably poor, and which is why I have an infertility spell on me, instead,” Ruven said lightly. He loosened his grip on me and gave me a hard nudge with his nose. “Go swiftly, so you can return all the sooner.”
Part of me wanted to never move again—wanted to spend the rest of my life with Ruven’s skin against mine and his breath mingling with my air. The rest of me, however, was not in agreement with spending literally forever with a man I barely knew, no matter how charismatically arrogant he was or the way I wanted to ride his custom-built dick. Fuck, he probably does custom-build it , I thought, a reminder of the very insistent presence of his aroused body and the slick state of my underwear.
I fled the room, chased by the throaty sound of his laughter. The lady’s bedroom shared an ensuite with the lord’s bedroom, which was both convenient and troubling: convenient, because I could fling myself into the bathroom without having to go into the hall, and troubling, because the likelihood of me walking in on a naked Ruven was so much higher than it would otherwise have been.
Ruven, who was naked in my bed right now, hand on his cock, getting off because the scent of my skin was like a drug for him.
Under no circumstances should I have been thinking about that. So, of course, I sprawled down onto the plush bath mat, shoved my hand down my panties, and thought about exactly that. His strong hand wrapped around his prehensile shaft, his mouth open in need and brows creased in bliss. I imagined the sharp jerks of his arm, the scent of his skin, the low needy sounds I knew he would make—
I came in maybe sixty seconds flat, one hand pressed to my mouth as I shook in pleasure, my pussy spasming and pulse pounding. Bliss flooded my veins, hand-in-hand with shame. Was I seriously doing this? Getting off to a man I barely knew—a man who was barely a man —and aching for more? Even though we were somehow magically suited for each other, that was a pretty damn fast acceleration from getting bought at auction.
From the other side of the door, I heard a panting groan, and then a pleasure-soaked, “oh, fuck.” I bit my lip, the mental imagery redoubling the throb in my groin. I was not going to get myself off twice in five minutes to this man. I was not .
Four minutes later, I slunk out of the bathroom like a chastised dog, body temporarily satisfied and underwear in one hand. They were far too wet to wear to bed, especially when Ruven could smell me being turned on. That was asking for trouble.
I chucked my undies in the hamper and made my way over to the dresser in the dark, feeling my way for it.
“I can see in the dark, Avalon,” Ruven said in a low purr, his voice caressing my name. “You’re quite the temptation clad in only a thin shirt. Are those cast-aside underthings my fault?”
My blush hit me like a semi truck. I grabbed another pair of underwear out of the drawer and yanked them on, then added a pair of light linen pajama pants for good measure, earning a disgruntled sound from the man in my bed.
“Wear underwear tomorrow night, and I won’t wear pants,” I informed him, shuffling over to the shadow of the bed.
He grumbled again. “That doesn’t help me tonight.”
“Shoulda thought of that before you crawled into bed naked.” I felt my way onto the bed and promptly planted my hand on Ruven’s bare chest. Fuck, that was a nice chest. “You’re lying in my spot.”
An arm snaked around my waist and tugged me down against him. “I was informed that I wasn’t to leave you a wet spot,” he muttered, manhandling me so that I was halfway on top of him, straddling his thigh with an arm across his ribs and my head resting on his chest. “I told you my control is poor, and my body desperately wants to complete the act of breeding you. Pleasuring myself with your scent in my lungs was probably a mistake.”
I snorted, already drifting back towards sleep with his heartbeat under my ear and his heavy arm draped over my waist. “New favorite activity?”
Ruven huffed and stroked his tail up along my leg. “Go to sleep, Av,” he said, not answering, which was answer enough.
I didn’t bother with a retort. Ruven seemed like the kind of man who would demand to have the last word, but I was too sleepy, and lying cuddled up with him was comfortable enough that I didn’t want to get into a pissing match. I closed my eyes and sighed out my breath, letting myself melt into his warmth.
The morning light found us in almost exactly the same position, save that Ruven’s tail had migrated up my pants to coil around my calf and thigh, and his warm hand was under my shirt, resting on the bare skin of my stomach. He was purring, too, in the silent way of a nearly-sleeping cat, the vibration felt but not heard. The purr redoubled when I traced my fingers down along his muscular arm, pairing with a soft sound of pleasure.
He shifted, thumb sweeping against my belly, and his purr stilled. “Avalon,” he said in a sleepy voice, like he was surprised. “You’re still here.”
“S’my bed,” I said, slurring a little. “Where else’d I be?”
“Making your escape.” Ruven nuzzled my hair. “Thus, anywhere but here.”
“Where the fuck would I even go?” I asked, unwilling to get out of my comfy bed or off of my comfy soulmate. “Zero dollars, zero skills…”
“All you need to do is empty out the vault while I’m passed out in your bed, grab a horse, and pick a direction,” he said. The twin tips of his tail flicked along my thigh. “You’d lose my scintillating company, of course, but also my pathetic neediness and associated moodiness, so I imagine it wouldn’t be much of a loss, all told.”
Dread crept along my skin in cold clamminess. “Well, that’s right out,” I said with forced bravada. “I don’t know that I could get back on a horse.”
Ruven’s hand stilled on my side. “Weren’t you sold as a hostler?” he ventured, sounding hesitant.
I pushed myself up and flashed him a smile that I knew didn’t reach my eyes. “Sure. Big-time rider. Won some regional championships and everything.”
His eyes narrowed. “But?”
I tried to smile again, narrowly covering over the terror. “You never asked how I almost died.”
“It was a riding accident, wasn’t it?” he said slowly, as realization hit. Ruven pushed himself up, the muscles of his arms and shoulders bunching as they took his weight. “How bad was it? No, that’s stupid, obviously it was bad.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and looked away. “I was riding a big hot-blooded gelding. I wasn’t doing anything fancy. Trail-riding in the local woods.” I closed my eyes, taking a careful breath. “He almost stepped on a rattlesnake neither of us saw. Spooked. I got thrown and hit the rocks at exactly the wrong angle.” I let out a heavy breath. “Broke my neck, just low enough that I didn’t instantly die, and high enough that, well…”
“You lost everything else,” Ruven said, his voice quiet.
I nodded. “It’s been, you know, all of eight days, so.”
He made a thoughtful noise. “You’ll need to be able to ride if you want any freedom of travel.”
That wasn’t news to me. I’d seen the landscape coming in. There weren’t a lot of roads, and they were mostly packed dirt. Travel was probably mostly on horseback, over rough ground.
“I know,” I said softly.
Ruven drummed his fingers on my hips. “Then here’s a bargain for you: the day you manage to ride me, I’ll let you ride me.” At my frown, he gave me a lazy grin. “Your soulmate is a stunning and incredibly talented shapeshifter. I’m quite capable of taking non-fae forms, horses included, which is a secret I probably shouldn’t have told you and definitely shouldn’t demonstrate, but absolutely will if you agree,” he said, not looking at all abashed. “Ride me in the form of my choice, then ride me in the form of yours. You’re not a virgin, though, are you?” Ruven asked, making a pained expression. “That would be a terrible shame.”
“Really certain that I want the ride, aren’t you?” I asked, almost in awe of his ego. “I refuse to believe that you’re so good at sex that it would be wasted on a virgin.”
He flicked the tips of his tongue out at me with his lashes lowered, leaning his saber-teeth and ears forward. “Believe what you like. If you are a virgin, though—”
“I’m not,” I said.
“Oh, good,” Ruven said, sounding relieved. “I wasn’t sure when humans started doing that. You’re so young when you die, so I was hoping it was early, but given that you’re not shriveling up with age, I didn’t know if it would be early enough.”
I flattened my mouth at him. “I’m twenty-eight, asshole. I lost my virginity at fifteen.”
He made an expression of over-exaggerated disgust. “ Fifteen ? Gods, that must have been disappointing.”
“How old were you ? Eight hundred?” I shot back.
Ruven barked a laugh, his eyes dancing with good humor. He swept his tail out of my pajama pants and planted a quick kiss on my cheek. “What would you do if I said I was sixty-nine?”
There was no way he’d lost his virginity at sixty-nine, of all numbers. I couldn’t imagine he didn’t know what that meant. “I’d call you a liar, and if you told me it was true, I’d suspect it was just so you could say you were sixty-nined for the first time at sixty-nine.”
He flicked his tongue out again playfully. “I was twenty-seven, no oral was involved, and it was terrible,” he said in a cheerful voice. “I’ve since gathered a great deal of experience, wearing a vast array of forms, though, ah,” Ruven said, ears dropping down and cheeks going ruddy, “never this one.”
I blinked at that. “Never?”
“Never,” he said, getting up off the bed. “And before you ask, yes, I’ve offered, and to people I wasn’t scent-tied to. In my nearly six centuries of adulthood, I’ve discovered that most women like their dicks recognizably fae, that those with unusual tastes tend to be quite specific about them, and that I’m not a flavor any prefer.”
The bitterness in those words scalded the air. Ruven gave himself a hard shake, tail lashing, and turned back towards me in time to find me ogling his extremely nice ass, which left my eyes pointed directly at his dick.
I yanked my gaze away, turning crimson. “And yet you’re spending almost all your time with me au naturel,” I said, busying myself by getting out of bed to dig through the wardrobe.
“You didn’t scream,” he said, softly enough that I stopped rummaging. Ruven walked across the room to me, his bi-cloven hooves clacking gently on the stone floor. “You didn’t even flinch.” His knuckles traced down along my spine, warm even through my shirt. “In fact, I don’t think I’m flattering myself in saying that you actually admired me—or my thighs, at least. Not that I blame you,” Ruven added with a curl of humor. “They’re excellent thighs. Well-worth admiring. As are my haunches.”
He was close enough to me that when I dropped my head back, I clonked it against his broad chest. “You’re very full of yourself,” I informed him, looking up into his dark eyes.
Ruven gave me a smug smile, fangs leaning forward and ears tilted towards me. “You could be full of me, too,” he said in a low purr. “So long as you ride me, first.”