Chapter Five
“Get up, my faithless mate,” Vasren's voice yanked me out of my dream.
How long had we been in his suite? I couldn't think straight.
The numbness had passed. Was this a version of the stages of grief?
Numbness would be acceptance, right? But didn't that come at the end?
Fuck, grief wasn't something I thought a lot about.
All I knew was—I wasn't taking his shit anymore.
That stage had passed. Maybe it would return.
But at the moment, I was in the angry stage.
“Fuck you,” I muttered.
It wasn't that I was too tired to fuck him.
I felt incredible. It was him—his essence.
All that Dragon immortality was running through me, making me stronger than I'd ever been.
I was immortal now. I was also bound to a man who despised me.
But I'd be damned if I played his whipping boy for eternity.
“Yes, that's exactly what you're going to do.” He rolled me onto his waist so that I straddled him. “This is what you wanted, Katai. You told me to give it to you. So, you're going to take it.”
“Gods, you're an asshole when you're angry.” My entrance was so slick from all the fucking we'd been doing that I just had to angle him at myself and sit down. He went right in.
We both groaned.
“We are finally getting to know each other,” Vas snarled. “Now, show me what a slut can do. Squeeze me with that traitorous channel.”
“Ugh! Enough, Vas! You don't get to call me a slut.” I pushed myself off him and then got out of bed. “I'm not into that.”
His cock bobbed from my movement, glistening in the sunlight that streamed into the room. Did that mean it was morning? Damn, that had been a long night. I stumbled toward the bathroom.
“Get back here!” he shouted. “The least you can do is see me through the claiming.”
“The least I can do?” I looked at him over my shoulder. “Fuck off, dickhead.” I went into the bathroom and straight to the toilet, muttering, “The least I can do is nothing, and I'm going to do that.”
I was in the middle of emptying my bladder when he walked in. Vas propped himself against the doorway and watched.
“Now, you're being disgusting.” I finished, flushed, and went into the shower.
“Be careful, Mate.” Vas grabbed my wrist and spun me toward him. “Dragons are the most volatile during this time.”
“What are you going to do—kill me? Go ahead, Vas. You'll save me the trip to Kochan.”
Vasren froze. His eyes started to glow. Every muscle in his body clenched so hard that he started to tremble.
“Vas?” I whispered. Then I grimaced. “Fuck, did you forget? Did you really forget that you're taking me to prison? I guess we'll have to postpone that until you're done with me. When will that be? Three days maybe?”
“Don't speak of it.” He leaned in and grabbed my throat. “You are not going to die.”
“I think we both know that's a lie.”
“You're my mate now. Killing you would mean killing me as well.”
I blinked. “I . . . won't it free you of this bond?”
He laughed cruelly. “Free me? No, you fucking bastard. We are bound forever. If you die, I will follow. You just got what you wanted—a Dragon protector. The King won't kill you now. He can't.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “I didn't know that part.”
Vasren leaned his head down until we were face-to-face. “I don't believe you.”
I shoved him away. “Oh, so you think I did this on purpose? That I somehow tricked your Goddess into binding us? Come on, Vas! Think!”
He shook his head like a dog flinging off water and growled.
“Right. Not much of that happening at the moment.” I went into the shower and turned on the water.
A roar echoed through the room as I hit the tiled wall.
With a grunt, I pushed against Vasren, but he pinned me.
Then he lifted me by the knees and pushed me up the slick wall.
My hands went to his shoulders, instinctively bracing myself, and he slid me down.
It was as if our bodies were drawn together.
Magnetized. He didn't even have to guide himself into me.
His cock knew where to go. And my body knew how to angle itself to accept it.
“Vas,” I moaned and lay my head on his shoulder. “Vas, please don't hate me. Please.”
“Shut up.” He pounded faster and faster. “Just stop talking.”
With the numbness gone, I felt physical pleasure again.
It was impossible to reject. Even brutal, Vas was the most magnificent lover I'd ever had.
Maybe even more so like this. I slid up and down the wall with every thrust of his hips, jostled into a screaming orgasm that echoed off the ceramic tiles.
Vas kept going.
“I love you,” I whispered in his ear. “I never stopped loving you. You were my only regret.”
With a wounded cry, Vas locked up against me and filled my channel. The process of claiming started anew—him jerking against me, filling me, my body absorbing him, and then filling again. I held on, nuzzling him and kissing his neck. Stroking his hair. Whispering words of love.
“Gods damn you!” He shouted and pulled out.
The water pelted his back, streaming down his massive body. Rivulets ran over his shoulders. They coasted along his chest, down his belly, and over his cock. It was still hard. Still ejaculating. He lowered me to my feet and then pushed me down to my knees.
“Bathe me, Mate,” Vas snarled.
I started to reach for a cloth.
“No!” He grabbed my chin and jerked my head toward his cock. “With your tongue. I want you to bathe me.”
An erotic shudder ran through me. Again, that feeling of submission came, and it was delicious. As delicious as he looked, standing over me, legs spread. His cock spurted again, essence hitting my cheek. It tingled and sank into me.
“Do it!”
“All right!” I bent my head and sucked his sacs into my mouth.
“Oh, fuck,” Vasren moaned and set his hand on my head. “Lower. Use your tongue.”
I let him slip out of my mouth and licked him. Bathed him. I nuzzled his sacs up to get under them. His masculine midnight scent was strongest there, and something inside me responded to it. I wanted that scent all over me.
Moaning, I rubbed my face along his cock. His essence fell over my shoulder. Down my arm. Vasren's hand clenched in my hair. I licked his thigh, still nuzzling his shaft. Turned back to lick up his length. Then his other thigh. Then his cock again. I sucked him into my mouth and drank him down.
Vasren yanked me away and turned around. Spreading his legs wider, he leaned against the wall. I knew exactly what he wanted.
Nestling my head between his thighs, I nudged upward, nosing his sacs. Licking my way back from them, I tickled that tender place with the tip of my tongue. Vasren shouted, and his essence hit the tile. I didn't like it wasted on the wall, but I did like his reaction. So, I went further.
Using my nose to split his ass, I licked at Vas. Tongued him. Breathed on him. Worked up to his puckered pink hole. Once there, I gave up with the nuzzling and grabbed his cheeks to spread them wide. A tortured sound shot out of Vas as I bathed him there.
“Inside too,” he growled.
I slipped my tongue into him.
“Oh, fuck!” Vasren went into a full-body spasm.
I kept tonguing him. In and out, my hands holding Vasren's ass open. Then I licked. Sucked. Tongue-fucked him again. I was so excited by it that my cock lurched and released without a single touch. I groaned through my orgasm, smiling as I heard him take himself in hand and work his cock.
Vas had never asked me for this. I'd wanted to.
I nearly offered, but I knew it went against Kat's personality.
He had the most glorious ass—plump and firm.
High. It was irresistible. I massaged the thick globes as I tongued his hole.
I assumed he felt it was too emasculating to have me do this.
But he didn't care about things like that now. Because he didn't care about me.
The sting of the truth cut my climax short.
But I kept going. I kept tonguing and licking until Vas jerked away from me and turned off the water.
With a grunt that was part growl, he picked me up and carried me out of the stall.
But he didn't get far. Just to the bathtub.
There, he set me on my knees, bent me over the rim of the tub, and shoved into me.
Pushing me down so that my head hung into the basin, Vas held me there and fucked me hard.
“How many have there been?” he demanded.
“How many what?” I panted.
“Men. Before me. How many have you had?”
“Oh, fuck you, Vas.”
“How many?!” He pounded harder.
“Fuck you! Get off me!” I jerked up.
He shoved me back down and went still. Lowering his head to the level of my ear, he hissed, “How many men have you let bend you over and fuck you?”
“Fine, you want a number? Eight. All right? I've had eight lovers in my entire life, including you. How many men have you fucked, Vasren?” I jerked my head to push him away.
“You've been with seven other men?!”
“Oh, for fuck's sake! You've probably been with hundreds. So, you can just get the fuck off me!”
He kept holding me down. “All of that was done in search of you—my mate. But your men weren't just affairs, were they? You had relationships with them.”
“You say that as if it makes it disgusting when it's the opposite.” I finally pushed hard enough to get him off me, but the momentum took me onto my ass.
Glaring up at him, I said. “You're the disgusting one.
Fucking all those people only to move on because they weren't your mate. You would have done the same with me. At least I formed real connections.”
He bared his teeth at me and snarled. “They weren't real.
I am real! You and me! And I wouldn't have left you.
Fuck! Can't you see that? I went after you, knowing that you probably weren't my mate.
But I loved you so much that the bond didn't matter. That was pure. Special. But you tainted it with lies. Gods damn you, Kat.” He bent forward with a cry that was partly a roar.
“This is all I've ever wanted, and now that I have it, it's cursed. We're cursed.”
“We're not cursed.” I leaned forward and laid my hand on his arm. “We had a bad start, but we can fix this. I want to fix us, Vas. Please, will you forgive me?”
His body shuddered. Another roar ripped out of him as he lurched forward. I was suddenly on my back, my legs pushed out to the sides, his hands bracing them beneath the knees. And then he was in me again. Pounding, pounding, pounding.
“Mine,” Vas growled.
My eyes went wide.
“Mine. Mine. Mine.” It became a chant, the word erupting with every slam of his hips. “Mine. Mine. Mine.” He kept going, fucking me mindlessly with that chanting, coming over and over, until he gave one last thrust and collapsed on top of me.
My legs fell to the floor, but I brought my arms up, around him, and held him. Vas lay his head on my chest and let out a shuddering breath.