Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
MINERVA
No scent has ever intoxicated me like Claudia’s sweat on the night breeze. While I wait for her to get a fair a head start, my body trembling with the urge to chase, I dart behind a tree and divest myself of my toga and chatelaine. Clothes will only slow me down.
It’s been too long since I came to this park at night and just let myself run.
The energy builds up inside me, a sweet ache not unlike the urge to mate.
The moment I can no longer hold back, I unleash the hunting instinct in my taut muscles.
Springing forward into a sprint pushes my body to a glorious burn.
My feet pound into the soft groundcover.
Despite the vicious power my body contains, I can keep near-silent when I want to.
Claudia can’t say the same. Even far ahead of me, I can hear her breath growing ragged.
Her scent intensifies with the heat she’s giving off.
I let her catch a hint or two of my pursuit—a cracked twig, a rustle as I leap over a bush.
She changes direction. I chuff with satisfaction. She’s now heading right where I want her.
In a far-back corner of the park lie the remains of an old gazebo that was abandoned after a tree fell and destroyed its roof.
Over the years, a shelter of bramble vines enclosed its sides, all but hiding the structure from view.
I discovered it years ago on one of my late-night runs, and have kept it my little secret.
I herd Claudia directly into its dead-end embrace.
Her exclamation of frustration when she finds her way blocked by the vines sends a thrill of arousal through me.
I approach, not bothering to mask the sound of my movement.
Savoring the sight of her, panting and emanating the most delicious scent, cornered in a trap.
“You knew this was here,” she accuses. “You tricked me.”
I chuckle deep in my throat, letting her see my teeth in an imitation of a human smile. My powerful leg muscles coil for a jump.
I pounce.
Claudia buckles and falls, catching herself on her elbows as I loom over her. There’s a tang of fear in her scent now, shamefully delicious. I don’t really want her to fear me. But the pretense of being a predator is…
Well, I’ve never been so turned on in my life.
“Clothes off,” I rasp, “or I’ll rip them.”
A spark of arousal lights her eyes. In the dim, I catch the bright flash of her smile. “Yes, madam librarian.”
She has her suspenders down and blouse over her head in the blink of an eye, baring her small unbound breasts. Lifting her hips, she wriggles her trousers down, then gives a breathless, high-pitched laugh as they get caught on her boots.
I bend and catch one of her bootlaces in my teeth, pulling the knot loose with a twist of my head. As my claws work the tightened laces loose, I repeat the motion with the other knot. She toes the boots off and shimmies the trousers after them, and then she lies before me utterly nude.
Such delicate, smooth skin with barely a fuzz of hair to protect it should make a human vulnerable.
The part of me titillated by the predator/prey roleplay loves having her sprawled below me with nothing to protect her.
And yet, at the same time, I marvel at how someone can contain the fierceness of a tyrannosaur, the adventuring spirit of a pterosaur, and the cunning of, yes, a velociraptor, all within the compact, beautiful form of a human woman.
She embraces her earthy humor and rakish ways like no woman I’ve ever met.
She writes with an empathetic yet humorous understanding of humanity I can only dream of.
There’s no denying it anymore. I’m falling in love with Claudia.
Just as I’m thinking it, she reaches up and strokes the downy feathers of my cheek. “Gods, you’re beautiful,” she whispers.
The predator/prey pretense melts away. She pierces right through the armor of sharp teeth and claws, seeing straight into the soft parts of me that long to be cherished.
I drag my claws through her loose hair, wishing I could nip and bite her neck as many saurians do to show affection.
I don’t want to hurt her, though, so instead I dart out my tongue and lick the side of her neck.
She shivers and lets out a soft moan. Heat drenches my core to hear her vocalize her pleasure. I want more.
I flick my tongue against her nipples, working my way down to the patch of hair between her legs. She arches her back and gasps, “Have you—have you been with a human before?”
“No,” I say. “I may have read some erotic texts, however…”
She laughs, then moans again. “You’re…ahhh…going to have to show me where the library hides those.”
“As it happens, I have my own…personal collection.”
Claudia rakes her fingers down my chest, her eyes on fire. “Now I’m even more interested in seeing these texts.”
“Allow me to demonstrate what I’ve learned.” I dip my head back down, then pause. “You will tell me if something feels wrong?”
“Of course.” Claudia strokes me again. “And when something feels right. Ohhhhh.” As my tongue finds the source of her musky scent, her voice trails into a breathy gasp.
My extensive perusal of erotic literature featuring human women has informed me that, while they enjoy penetration, the way to drive them truly wild is to find a small pleasure nub that rests just above their opening.
As I explore her sex with my tongue, Claudia’s hips move, tilting up as if to encourage me in the right direction.
I know I’ve found the right spot when she lets out a short, high-pitched cry and begs, “There, there, please, more.”
I’m unused to using my mouth for such a delicate task.
A velociraptor’s maw is made for pain, not pleasure.
Yet her joyous cries are so fucking sweet and delicious, her flavor a sensual wine I would prefer to any other, that I apply myself with the same precision that I’ve trained for my scriptorial work.
Claudia’s cries become louder, until I’m almost afraid someone will come investigate.
And for some reason that turns me on even more, imagining some hapless human or dinosaur stumbling into our grotto and watching the absolute magic we’re making.
Claudia wet and trembling under my tongue, her smooth pale skin glowing in the moonlight, and I the lucky predator who gets to feast on such a perfect woman.
“Minerva, I’m going to come, please don’t stop—”
I keep lapping at her nub until she convulses under me, fragrant moisture seeping from her opening. She pulls me close, kissing and biting my neck, and I’m startled by how desperate I am for the contact.
In fact…I pause briefly to catch my breath, huffing out my nostrils as I take stock of my body.
My cloaca clenches in heated longing. My feathers have been standing on end for some time, a mating display to impress potential partners.
My scent has grown sweeter, barely detectable to other species but irresistible to velociraptor males.
I’ve gone and triggered a heat cycle.
“Curse it,” I pant.
Claudia lifts her head. “Minerva? Are you well?”
With a short laugh, I say, “Too well,” and quickly explain.
“That’s hot,” is Claudia’s reaction. She pulls me close, reaching for the base of my tail, where my opening burns for her touch. “Can I help? When this happened before, what do you do?”
“Hide,” I admit, closing my eyes.
“You don’t seek out relief?”
I take a deep breath and admit, “I have not mated before.”
Her head snaps back up. “Never? Minerva, I—”
“It’s different from human culture,” I say quickly, before she gets tangled up in the frankly ridiculous notion of virginity.
“My people don’t often mate for partnership reasons.
It’s a procreational transaction. And when a raptrix goes into heat who doesn’t want children, she simply sequesters herself during the cycle and… takes care of it.”
Her eyes gleam with interest. “And what do you do to take care of it?”
I huff out a breath. “Read my erotic books, and…”
“And?” Claudia’s fingers delve deeper, breaching my opening. “I’ve been with a few saurians before. You can’t come without penetration, can you? How does that work if…”
I groan, then pull away from her to scrabble for the jewelry box I keep hidden deep behind a growth of vines in this secret grotto.
I never dare take advantage of it when I’m in a heat cycle, but an outdoor run does excite me, and on occasion it’s nice to have an object of self-satisfaction ready when the urge takes me.
Opening the lid, I reveal a phallus with much the same dimensions as the one we found in the storage closet. Mine is polished wood, not crystal, but it’s thick and long with just the right amount of curve to hit the sweet spot inside my cloaca that’s necessary to get me off.
Claudia hisses out a breath. “Oh, clever girl,” she whispers. “I knew you figured out what the crystal one was way too quickly.”
She runs her hand over its curve, then plucks it from my claws and drags its tip down the side of my flank. She smooths her fingers after it, still imitating partner-grooming in a way that makes my legs feel weak.
“Show me how you like it,” she whispers.
I’ve never been this vulnerable with anyone else. Bracing against the rickety, thorn-choked gazebo railing, I lift my tail and present my opening.
She slides up close behind me and begins to circle my tight cloaca with the thick end of the phallus. “Tell me if there’s anything you don’t like,” she says. One hand sinks into the feathers at the nape of my neck as she slowly presses the toy inside me.
I purr with relief and pleasure. “Please don’t stop. Deeper, faster.”
“Oh, sweetie, you’re fucking beautiful,” Claudia murmurs in my ear. “You’re doing so good. Look how eager you are. Gods, I could eat you up.” She bites my shoulder, and I clench involuntarily, my purr turning into a growl.
Then she twists the toy ever so slightly, pushing it in deeper, and she hits the spot that turns my vision to stars.
I don’t even know what comes out of me after that, but I’m pretty sure it’s some embarrassing combination of begging and moans, and all the while Claudia keeps up the dirty praise in my ear.
When she bites me again, this time at the back of my neck next to where she’s got her hand fisted in my feathers, I come harder than I ever have in my life.
I sink to the ground, boneless, and Claudia moves with me, wrapping her arms around me and leaning her head into the crook between neck and back as I settle into a roost.
“You’re amazing,” she says, muffled, her lips pressed to my feathers.
Me? I’m going to be fantasizing about this whole encounter for years. From the chasing, to the eating, to her fucking me from behind while telling me I’m a good and clever girl, she’s unwittingly played out a dozen fantasies I didn’t even realize I had.
“Ah, the thing about heat cycles, though,” I say when I recover enough mental capacity to speak, “is that my scent is going to attract any male velociraptor in a several-mile radius. So I should probably go back to my room and lock the door.”
“Mmm.” Claudia nuzzles her face into me again. “Can I be with you inside the locked room? Because I have a bunch more ideas I want to try out. Like both of us using that toy at the same time.”
“A velociraptor’s heat cycle can last up to a week,” I warn her. “Do you really want to be trapped with me for…”
“I was already on board. You didn’t have to convince me further.”
I lunge out of my roost and flip over to pounce on her, raking my tongue down her neck again. “Also, I can go about five rounds in a row without getting tired. You’ll be exhausted by the time I’m done.”
“Oh no, as much sex as I can physically take? How will I suffer this hardship?” Claudia laughs. “Listen, if I die, I die. There are worse ways to go than being…eaten…by a velociraptor.”