Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Ella
It played out much like my dream.
If you included a nervous run through secret passageways filled with stealing kisses and touches, until we crashed through the door into my quarters, stumbling over my dress and falling to the floor.
Dirk caught me and saved me from the fall, though the puffiness of my dress proved hard to contain, and I rolled to the side, both of us laughing yet still locked on to one another.
“Let me,” he growled, hopping to his feet and lifting me into the air, waiting until my feet were under me to set me down.
“Thank you, Lord Dvorak, Protector of Dignities and—”
His lips covered mine, stealing the moment and my voice. I hissed in delight as he held my face in his, deepening the moment until our tongues leapt and danced against one another.
My dragon was fully awake in my head, urging me on and setting my body on fire.
Dirk’s claws shredded the awful dress, and I stepped free, clad only in black underwear.
The room trembled under the growl that filled it. Dirk stepped forward, his eyes only for me, possessive and bright.
“Perfection,” he rumbled, running a single finger down my neck, across my clavicle and around my breast.
I trembled at his touch, unused to such exotic, loving contact. I had expected him to claim, to take, to be in control.
But instead he moved slowly and deliberately, circling my body with kisses.
Never pinning me tightly, never lingering long in one place, he always made sure I could step away if I felt the need to.
He kissed my shoulders, my back, my chest and my upper arms, covering me in tiny pecks, all the while circling me like the predator he was.
The yin and yang of the two sides of him, gentle yet dominant, left me breathless and wanting more.
Much more. It showed a side of him that I had yet to see.
A thoughtful and caring thing. Because it wasn’t done by chance.
He knew I was struggling, despite the mate marks, and he was doing his best to show that he would not force himself on me.
When his mouth finally started to kiss down from my breastbone, I could no longer stifle the moan. It slipped out just as he caressed my nipple with one hand, tweaking the hardened nub just right.
It was perfect. Everything about it was perfect. Except for one thing.
“You. Out of that,” I ordered, stopping his mouth a hair short of sucking on my tits for the first time. “I can’t take you as seriously as I want with that getup brushing against me at every move.”
Dirk grinned and ripped the formal clothes from his body until he was in nothing but a black undershirt and boxers that did nothing to hide his hard-on from me.
“Now, where was I?” he growled, advancing on me, one hand snaking behind my back to settle on my rear, the other cupping a breast.
I pushed it to his mouth, hissing with delight as he took it between his lips, sucking and licking it until my head fell back.
His hand slid down from my breast, across my ribs, over my stomach and between my legs. When he encountered my panties, already wet from the excitement, he rumbled delightedly but didn’t stop.
Long fingers pressed the fabric down, putting pressure on my lips through it and teasing me with tiny sparks of a deeper, needier sort of pleasure. One I’d buried for so long I’d completely forgotten what it felt like.
The stroke of one finger down the center of me was the crack in the dam. His hot breath and lips on my neck widened it further, until I was quivering, desperate for more.
When he finally slid his finger under my panties and touched my slick opening up to my clit, I moaned loud and long, clasping his head and pulling it in tightly to my body.
His arm tightened around me, holding me firm.
It was a subtle reminder of the strength of his muscles, so different from the gentle nature of his strokes as he drew slow circles around my throbbing clit.
There was no holding it back. I was woefully unprepared for how good it felt, the touch of my mate between my legs, teasing my most sensitive areas while our almost naked bodies touched together.
“Dirk, I’m going to come,” I whispered in his ear.
He growled loudly into my neck. “Do it. Come for me, my mate. Let go.”
It wasn’t a matter of letting go because it was happening no matter what. My jaw fell open, and I sucked in air, my muscles flexing and tightening down as he continued to rub my clit.
I came in his arms, twisting and writhing, my legs little more than rubber in the moment. The pleasure rushed out from between my legs, punishing my body as I cried out over and over again.
The warmth followed, but it was banished swiftly as Dirk continued his motions. His fingers danced against me, spreading my lips, finding my hole, teasing it, and returning to my clit until I was a panting, whimpering, soaked mess.
That’s when he made me come a second time. He laid me back onto a table so I could relax into it. He fingered me and played with my clit, and I stood no chance. Once more I came while he watched with greedy eyes, drinking in my bared body.
And then, when I thought I was done, he rubbed just inside my opening, finding my spot there and driving me over the edge one more time. I clenched my legs around his waist, twitching violently from the beautiful agony of being made to come.
I lay there, his hands moving to hold my legs while I recovered, basking in the cloudlike floating warmth of the afterglow.
My shin bumped against something, a reminder of the one-sided nature of our interaction. I sat up on the table and eyed the bulge between his legs, noting the wet spot near the tip. A clear sign of how turned on he was by me.
Nervous but determined not to be a leech of any sort, I reached toward his cock.
Just like in my dream, Dirk’s fingers encircled my wrists, holding them tightly and stopping me short.
“Not tonight,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss me softly but plenty thoroughly.
My head was still swimming when he pulled away.
“We’ve pushed you far enough,” he added. “More than I intended to, truthfully. I know you aren’t completely comfortable with me, with this, yet, and I don’t want to overdo it.”
“But, Dirk,” I said, looking at his cock. “You’re so hard. You need it.”
“Trust me,” he said, tilting my chin upward.
“I don’t need it. I want it incredibly badly.
I want you, incredibly badly. But, El, I want you when you’re ready.
When you’ve processed this and chosen it ahead of time.
Not when it’s all spurred on by the heat, passion, and intensity of the moment, not to mention our dragons. ”
“Oh.”
“Then, when you’re truly ready, when you want it at all times, when you want me truly and completely, I will take you.
I will fill you. And I will make you scream my name until your voice is gone and the orb is bright and the night is behind us, filled with nothing more than your pleasure, and us together. ”
I licked my lips, trying to swallow against the giant lump in my throat.
“But my hope, my desire, my need, is eternity with you. That is a long time.”
“Forever,” I said.
He grinned. “Quite right. And because of that, I can wait longer in the here and now.” His eyes ran over my almost naked body, taking it all in. “Trust me when I say you’ve given me more than enough tonight to be … happy.”
That was one way to describe using the memory of my body to jerk off, but I was okay with it. Somehow, in some way, hearing my mate say he was going to pleasure himself to the thought of me was wildly fulfilling in a way it would never be from someone else.
I wanted to actively do something, however, regardless of how sexy his words made me feel. I wanted to participate in tonight. Somehow. But he wouldn’t let me touch him.
An idea came to me. It was wild.
“Let me do one more thing to make you happy,” I whispered as throatily as I could manage, considering how far outside my comfort zone I was about to step.
“What’s that?”
Getting off the table, I stood up, locking eyes with him. Then I slowly stepped out of my sopping underwear, sliding it first down one leg and then the other.
Dirk’s eyes were wide.
“Catch,” I said and tossed them at him.
He caught them without moving his eyes away and brought them to his nose. A shudder ran down his spine.
“You are evil and amazing,” he growled, stepping closer and kissing me thoroughly, before stepping back. “Let me get some clothes for the walk to my room.”
I followed him to the closet that held the common sweatpants found everywhere in the citadel.
“Wait,” I said as he moved to put on a sweater.
“What? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, stepping up to him. “Nothing is wrong. But … there’s something I want you to do. One more thing.”
“Which is?”
“Take this off.” I tugged on his undershirt. “I want to see your marks.”
Dirk was silent but obeyed, tossing his shirt aside.
I stared at his chest and the marks on his pec. Swirls of earthen brown all gentle curves swoops, shot through with sharp bolts of golden amber.
My dragon preened over the sight, much like she had back at the chalet, only this time it was over the brand he wore. Our brand.
What will the full thing look like, when we mark him completely?
Dirk hissed, and before my eyes his skin darkened and changed color, more marks extending up to his neck and heading over his shoulder.
Remembering the outcome of my marking, I reached down and yanked his underwear out and over his cock.
“Ella,” he growled through the pain. “What are you …”
The growl became a groan, and I watched as his cock twitched and exploded, spraying his seed across my stomach and leg as he slammed one hand against the wall trying to remain upright.
The warmth of his cum plastered against me was a marking I would never forget, nor was getting to watch him orgasm in front of me.
Dirk shuddered and leaned against me, breathing harder than before. I held him now. My marked mate.
Something shifted inside me in the moment. Because this, this was something I found I liked. If this was what being a mate was all about, this sharing of moments, of depth between one another, I could do it.
No, that wasn’t the change I realized, kissing his neck and running a hand down his braids.
The change was that now I wanted it.
Wanted Dirk.