Chapter 19
Quinn
I’d never realized how difficult it could be to sleep while the sun was still up, especially blazing away in all its midday glory. Even with the blinds pulled down over the narrow windows in the bedroom area of the boat, an emphatic glow seeped around the edges. And plenty more spilled down the steps from the higher area with the sofa and captain’s seat.
I sprawled on my stomach, my side, my back, and then my stomach again with my face buried in the pillow. I counted sheep and ran through the relaxing meditations I’d learned to help keep my stress levels down—fat chance of that right now!—and still felt not the least bit on the verge of sleep. Finally, I flopped onto my back once more with a thump of my arms against the mattress and a frustrated huff, my eyes popping open to glare at the ceiling.
In an instant, all three of the shadowkind men flickered out of the patches of darkness around the room to peer at me. “Are you all right?” Crag demanded, his gaze roving over the entire space with fearsome intensity, as if he thought some beast might have snuck in here and assaulted me without leaving any visible evidence.
“Maybe we need to chase away nightmares,” Lance said with a chuckle.
I sat up, embarrassed and annoyed that I was embarrassed. “No nightmares. I can’t get to sleep, that’s all. But I don’t want to be exhausted for tonight’s road trip.”
Torrent’s eyebrows arched slightly. “I don’t think bullying sleep into arriving has ever worked out well for anyone.”
I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him. “No kidding. I don’t know what else to do.” I rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t exactly brimming with energy either. I just couldn’t completely unwind so that I’d drift off.
Lance sprang onto the mattress and crouched next to me. He teased his claws over my calf, gently enough that he didn’t break the threads of the sheet draped over my legs. “Maybe you need a little physical exertion to tire you out, baby girl. We could manage that without you even leaving the bed.”
He lifted his hand to hook his claws around the edge of the sheet and tug it off, and my pulse skipped with a rush of giddy heat. But the flush that raced across my cheeks wasn’t only because of the suggestiveness of the dragon shifter’s remark.
“Er, we’re not alone here,” I said, in case Lance had forgotten. Which with his periodic single-mindedness did seem possible.
“The more the merrier,” he declared, leaning in to nuzzle my neck. “I bet you’d enjoy them too.”
“Um,” I said ever so articulately, my face blazing even hotter. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had those sorts of thoughts about both of the other men in the past couple of days. But did I really want to put all my imaginings into reality in one go?
It didn’t just depend on what I wanted, of course.
Before I could even catch his eyes, Torrent swiveled away from us, his posture even more rigid than usual. His voice came out equally stiff. “I’ll leave you to it.” He vanished an instant later.
Crag had tensed too, his eyes widening—but he hadn’t taken off in apparent disgust. He studied me with an unreadable expression and then backed up a step. “I wouldn’t want to presume…”
A brief but fiery light flashed in his eyes, and my throat went dry. Had that been desire?
The thought of him turning away too, of believing I wasn’t at least as interested as he was, made my chest constrict. My heart thumped so hard it took me a second before I could focus on finding the right words. They tumbled out of my mouth.
“You could stay. If you—if you’d like to.”
He paused, his gaze searching but the ruddy gleam reappearing. “You would like me to?”
I wet my lips, struggling to sort out my tangled feelings. Remembering the moments I’d been pressed against his brawny form, when I’d imagined how his powerful hands would feel moving over my body in more intimate ways.
Was this crazy? I’d never hooked up with two men at the same time before, let alone two monsters. But there wasn’t any reason not to, was there? It was another experience, another chance to squeeze every pleasure I could out of this life.
And really, I trusted Crag even more than I did Lance. A lot of the time I couldn’t tell what was really going on with the dragon shifter behind all his jokes and antics. The gargoyle seemed to be exactly who he presented himself as. He was the first to leap to my defense in an attack. As far as I could tell, right now he was most concerned about overstepping my boundaries, not his own feelings.
“I think Lance is right,” I said, earning an approving chuckle from the dragon shifter as he nicked his emerged fangs against my shoulder. I sucked in a gasp and did my best to stay focused on Crag. “I think I might enjoy it a lot. If you would too. I don’t know—I realize shadowkind don’t necessarily indulge in this kind of thing…” Lance had been a virgin. Had Crag ever had sex?
Crag appeared to pick up on my unspoken question. He shifted his substantial weight from one foot to the other. “Many of us do,” he said gruffly. “I haven’t with— Because of my size and my looks—” He motioned to his rocky jaw. “I’ve only had occasional encounters with shadowkind women. I’m not very practiced.”
Lance snorted, propelling a wash of heat over my neck. “I had no practice at all. Our mortal is good at showing what she likes.”
Crag hesitated again, and my resolve solidified. I held out my hand to him. “Come here.”
He moved the second I beckoned him, making it even clearer that his concern for me had been the only thing holding him back. The mattress dipped with a faint squeak at his weight. He sank down at my other side, his gaze fixed on my face.
I lifted my hand and cupped his jaw. As my fingers explored the only currently monstrous part of his body, he held perfectly still.
The stone surface of his jaw was as warm as skin—like all of him was in his gargoyle form. It felt less pliant to the touch than regular flesh but still had a little give that stopped it from feeling totally inorganic.
I traced the line where it merged with his bronze-brown skin below his cheekbone and then skimmed a fingertip across his lower lip, which was smooth but firm like polished marble. A sudden, searing desire unfurled low in my belly.
“Can I kiss you?” I murmured.
Crag let out a rough sound, and then he was kissing me, his thick fingers tangling in my hair as he gripped the side of my face. The contrast of the harder lip below with the softer one above, both of them growing hotter by the second, set off a quiver of delight right between my legs. The bulk of him looming over me overwhelmed me, shocking the breath from my lungs, but I couldn’t say I found it unpleasant.
Lance laughed and grazed the tips of his claws up and down my bared legs from my ankles all the way to the hem of my shorts. I had to resist the urge to squirm at the tingling pleasure his dangerous touch provoked. If he stabbed me, it’d be my fault, not his lack of care.
Crag rumbled more emphatically and tucked his other arm right around me, enveloping me with his brawn and solid warmth from the waist up. His mouth pressed harder against mine, not as artful as Lance’s kisses had quickly become but with a passionate intensity that electrified me. I flicked my tongue between his lips experimentally, and he parted them to allow me entrance.
“She likes the shadowkind bits coming out to play,” Lance advised. “I’ve seen your gargoyle tongue—it could be a lot of fun.”
He reached for my shorts at the same moment, and I eased away from Crag long enough to halt the dragon shifter before his claws severed the fabric. “These are my clothes from home,” I chided him. “I don’t want them in shreds too. As much fun as that is.”
Lance’s violet eyes glittered with mischief. “Fine, fine. We’ll get extras for plenty of shredding next time.”
The way he said that sentence really shouldn’t have sounded so sexy. I tugged off my shorts, knowing my panties were now damp—and they became absolutely drenched when Crag helped me slide the shorts over my feet.
He slid his palm up my leg, over my knee, and down my thigh like Lance had with his claws, watching my expression intently the entire time. His massive hand engulfed my leg, putting my muscles honed by urban exploring and rock-climbing at the university outdoor recreation center to shame. When he reached my hip, he paused.
“If I use too much pressure or if anything hurts, tell me,” he said.
“Of course. It’s all felt very good so far,” I assured him. Then, with a spark of boldness, I set my hand over his and guided it over to the spot where I was aching most.
When Crag’s fingers prodded my sex, I couldn’t hold back a gasp. A growl escaped him as he stroked my panties, feeling how wet the two of them had already made me.
I arched into the gargoyle’s touch, and Lance captured me in a kiss. The dragon shifter dipped his ridged tongue between my lips to twine with mine, caressing my other leg with his claws. I moaned into his mouth.
“So soft and tender but so much strength,” Crag rumbled. He bent his head toward my shoulder. He must have taken Lance’s advice, because a tongue that felt twice as long as any I’d encountered before slicked along the crook of my neck, provoking a tremor of bliss. His solid fingers continued to massage my clit and the folds beneath like he was going to mold them into the perfect orgasm.
I was totally okay with that.
Lance had additional ambitions. “I think this shirt needs to come off too, baby girl,” he murmured by my ear, giving me a chance to handle it before he brought his claws to bear. I tugged the tee off, and Lance unsnapped my bra with a deft twist of his finger. He nudged me down on my back and grinned at Crag. “Dig in.”
Lance swiveled his claws over the peak of one breast while the gargoyle’s eyes shimmered starker red. Crag leaned down and swiped his tongue, which had turned several inches long and gray but not at all stony, over my other nipple. His firm hand kept up its massage between my legs. Pleasure rippled through my chest and flared across my nerves. As a whimper spilled out of me, I bucked with the movements of his fingers.
Crag bent to twine his tongue all the way around my nipple, and Lance teased the other with tiny pinpricks of pain that had me gasping all over again. I’d thought hooking up with just the dragon shifter was amazing—I hadn’t known sex could get even that amazing—but this was some completely new level of heaven right here.
I was starting to pant, heat surging in faster and more urgent pulses from my pussy with each stroke of Crag’s hand. I could feel myself rushing toward the edge, but suddenly this wasn’t how I wanted to go. I needed one of these men right inside me.
Maybe both of them.
That thought came with an even headier thrill. I tugged at my panties, and Crag gave me room to strip them off. Before he could continue his passionate attentions, I glanced at him and Lance. “I shouldn’t be the only one naked here.”
If I was going to have a threesome with a couple of monstrous men, I wanted all the goods on display, thank you very much.
Lance performed the same trick as before, blinking out of and back into view while leaving his clothing behind in the shadows, however that worked. Crag watched the dragon shifter’s example and then copied it, lingering a few seconds longer in the darkness before he returned.
The sculpted muscles bulging across the gargoyle’s limbs and chest stood out even more impressively without their coverings, but I couldn’t stop my gaze from shooting to the spot between his legs. He was already erect—and oh, boy, was there a lot of him. Both thick and long, jutting from between his immense thighs. Lance was at least approximately regular human-sized. Imagine what Crag would sport in his even larger gargoyle form.
The image would have melted my panties again if I’d still had them on, but Crag stayed standing beside the bed almost warily. Was he worried I’d be intimidated—that he’d be too much for me?
An impulse gripped me, and I followed it. I crawled across the bed and closed my mouth around the head of his stunning cock. What better way to show that I was completely on board, after all?
I could barely fit my mouth around the head, getting nowhere near the rest of his length, but Crag gave a stuttered groan and grasped my hair. “Quinn,” he muttered, and then something inarticulate that conveyed his appreciation better than any words might have.
I wrapped my fingers around his shaft and gave myself over to the act, swiveling my tongue around the head, tilting to slick it along the underside of his cock, pumping him firmly but slowly. His grip on my hair tightened, provoking just the tiniest jolts of pain in my scalp that I welcomed whole-heartedly.
As I worked Crag over, Lance knelt behind me. At the brush of a claw over my clit, my breath stuttered over Crag’s erection. Lance chuckled and repeated the gesture, caressing my hip with his other hand.
“I think I should get you warmed up for this giant hunk of rock,” he said playfully. “You like my dragon claws and fangs and tongue—how about the dragon cock?”
Before I could ask what he meant—and anyway, my mouth was full—a rigid length pressed against my slit. As Lance sank into my slick opening, I understood what he’d meant. The head of his transformed cock bulged noticeably wider than before, stretching me until I gasped. As he started to pump in and out, the expanded head stroked against my channel with the most amazing sensation, as if he were curling multiple fingers into the most sensitive part inside me over and over again.
Oh, hell. I whimpered and panted over Crag’s cock, squeezing it and lapping at the head with the limited concentration I had left. The most ecstatic burn I’d ever experienced expanded through my body.
Lance pounded into me without restraint, his own breath turning joyfully ragged. He clutched my thighs, his claws only just nicking the skin, and propelled himself even faster. Even more pleasure blazed through my nerves, and I unraveled.
I cried out, glad that we were out at sea dozens of miles from any fellow humans who could have heard me. My body clenched and shook, and Lance roared his own release. The bliss surged through me in a tidal wave and left me with my head pressed against Crag’s taut abdomen, still quivering.
The gargoyle caressed my hair, his breath coming roughly. Before I could pull myself together enough to finish what I’d started, Lance was flipping me around.
I found myself sprawled on my back again, with my legs dangling over the side of the bed in front of Crag. The dragon shifter nuzzled my temple and flicked his claws over my breasts.
“Kneel down, and you’ll be just the right height to fill her,” he said to his friend, and swiped his ridged tongue across my earlobe. “If you’re ready to explore even more, baby girl.”
God, how could I say no? I managed to nod, scooting even closer to Crag. His eyes outright smoldered as he got to his knees as Lance suggested, which did bring his cock almost perfectly aligned with my sex.
He eased my legs apart and moved between them, but then he simply bent over me to recapture my lips. He kissed me long and hard, with a growl reverberating through his chest. I slid my fingers over the sheen of his hair and down his corded neck.
“My Softness,” he rumbled against my lips, the new nickname sounding far more fervent than the old one ever had. Drawing up a little, he rubbed his cock over my pussy.
We both groaned at the sensation, mine extending into a longer moan when Lance nibbled on my shoulder. I spread my legs even wider.
Crag eased into me one inch at a time. Even after Lance’s expanded cock had stretched me, the gargoyle’s girth brought a fresh burn. But it was a giddy heat, one that sent shivers of pleasure all through my body from my hips. I’d swear everything from the tips of my toes to the crest of my scalp tingled with it.
Crag palmed my breasts as he sank deeper, rotating the heels of his hands against my nipples. The sparks of delight relaxed me even more into the pressure building inside me. I gasped and started to rock into him, urging him on. With a breathless grunt, he pushed forward the last few inches.
I’d never felt so full, and it was the most searingly heady sensation I could imagine. I made a choked sound, bucking up to meet him. “Yes. Just like that. It’s really good. Don’t stop.”
From the ragged snarl that escaped Crag next, I wasn’t sure how easily he could have if I had wanted him to. He thrust into me with increasing power, his breath quickening. My body quaked, rising with each pulse of his cock inside me. I was splitting apart and melting together in a puddle of ecstasy all at once.
Lance was still there with us, punctuating the maelstrom of bliss with nicks of his claws and grazes of his fangs. “Oh, what a pretty picture you make,” he murmured.
I moaned and bucked and clutched at Crag’s forearms where he’d now braced them on either side of me. He pounded into me harder, deeper, claiming every empty place inside me, and I kept flying, higher, higher?—
Lance reached down to swivel his knuckle over my clit, and I exploded, a keening I barely recognized as my own voice echoing through the yacht’s bedroom. Crag drove into me again, and bowed over me as he followed me into release. Heat flooded my sex.
For several seconds, I couldn’t move one fragment of my body. My bones had dissolved; I was nothing but putty in these monstrous men’s hands.
Crag pulled out of me and lifted me farther onto the bed with surprising gentleness. “You are—all right?” he asked haltingly, looking abruptly apprehensive.
A giggle spilled out of me. I grasped his arm again and beamed up at him. “Very, very all right. We can do that again any time you want. Well, not right now. I’m not sure I’d survive a third orgasm like that in a row.”
I squeezed Lance’s thigh and grinned giddily at him too so he wouldn’t feel left out of the compliment. I couldn’t seem to do much more than that. My eyelids were drifting shut. That whole physical exertion thing seemed to have done the trick just as Lance had suggested.
The two men tucked the sheet over me. Lance might have left again, but Crag’s weight remained on the bed beside me until I slipped completely into sleep.