Chapter Thirty-One
By the time we returned to the palace, the towers had dimmed their lights to mimic the moon.
I floated through the corridors, happier than I'd ever been.
Jucai had shown me what life with him would be like, and I wanted it.
My worries about losing the surface vanished. I wasn't losing anything—I was gaining.
Jucai escorted me to his tower bedroom. I paused just inside the room. The second bed, the one that looked like a stage, was gone. Jucai didn't even glance at the empty spot where it had been, just undressed on his way to his massive round bed.
Looking back at me, he paused. “What's wrong?”
“The bed is gone.” I motioned to where it had been.
Jucai grinned and finished undressing. I watched him climb onto his bed, his arousal swinging beneath him, and then he sat back against a pile of pillows, arms spread and hair draping him as if he'd arranged it just to entice me.
He looked me over. “I told you that I only want you. Now, come here and give me what I want.”
Dear Gods, how could I have ever considered leaving this man?
Holding Jucai's gaze, I undressed on my way to the bed. But unlike him, I took my time, letting the fabric slide over my skin and trailing my fingers over the flesh I exposed. It didn't take long before Jucai was leaning forward, his cock weeping.
My undershorts went last, my cock bobbing forth. Then I crawled onto the bed and sat beside Jucai.
The Sea King rolled over, easing between my legs. I spread them wider, thinking he wanted to mount me instead of me riding him. That wasn't what he wanted at all. Licking his lips, he propped himself over my leg, one arm bent to support him on the bed while the other took me in hand.
There was no preamble, no passionate looks or dirty words.
The Sea King simply took me into his mouth and worked me like a sailor.
Not a dock whore, mind you. A sailor—a man who had been to sea with other men, lost on the waves where, after seeing to the ship, there was nothing much to do beyond lying in the sun, eating, and fucking.
Those men not only knew what they liked, but also what many other men liked.
That was how the Sea King sucked cock—as if he knew exactly what I wanted.
I was bucking in seconds, biting my lip and gripping the bedsheets. Then he looked up at me.
As soon as his eyes met mine, I was over the crest, filling his mouth with my release.
And Jucai drank it down. I held his face between my hands and held his gaze with mine as I came.
It was something I'd never done before, and it made me feel vulnerable.
But the way Jucai watched me, the way he stroked me through it, made that vulnerability vanish.
Then my legs were over his shoulders, and he was inside me.
I barely had time for a gasp to complete my orgasm before he brought me roaring back to need.
My body and mind spun, bewildered. Lost to sensations I shouldn't be feeling so soon.
Dragons had a fast recovery time, but this was insane. Then I remembered.
The mating magic.
Was this it? Would it rise again? More importantly, would it settle?
I grabbed Jucai's shoulders and pulled him down into a kiss.
Into that kiss, I poured all of my hopes for us—things I'd always feared and now wanted more than anything.
Jucai returned my feelings upon a wave of passion, multiplying them with his.
I felt it in the way he softened, the way he teased me with his tongue, and the way he moved his lips over mine.
They wove together to form a tapestry that would be ours alone.
If only the magic would bind us.
Jucai came with an echoing roar, his body bowing forward.
White hair lashed at me like billowing silk, catching the light of lanterns hung around the room.
Then he straightened and met my gaze with wide eyes.
I felt it too—the rising magic. The need.
The hint at wholeness. My body arched, and I came.
Glittering liquid lashed Jucai's belly even as I felt a tingling inside me.
It was mating essence. We were completing the bond!
“Jucai!” I shouted as I came.
“Nadar!” He pulled out of me and came across my stomach in a shimmering stream.
It was happening!
Cock still releasing essence, giving my mate a part of my soul, I rubbed his essence into me. Intense need, aching release, paradise within my grasp. I reached for him with more than my body. Jucai reached back for me. We were there together, spinning in divine magic.
Until it stopped.
We both cried out from the sudden loss of it, our bodies locking up as we shook into stillness.
Jucai's mating essence dried on my skin, the magic gone, and he rolled onto his back to gasp through the pain with me.
Mating magic wasn't meant to be paused. This wasn't merely a turned-off tap. It was a denial.
I screamed as the parts of Jucai's soul that had seeped into me tore free and rose from my skin to surge back to him.
Jucai writhed beside me, his teeth clenched, but that wasn't enough to hold back his moans.
A shimmering mist rose from his skin, twirled through the air, flowed past the mist that had seeped from me, and then dove into me.
The pain stopped abruptly as my soul was made whole.
But that didn't stop the emotional exhaustion and weary trauma of almost having it all.
Loss wrung tears from my eyes, and I wept without trying to hide it.
My pain was too raw; the rejection too cruel.
Folding in on myself, I went fetal and sobbed.
I sobbed until I was gasping for breath.
When I opened my eyes, Jucai was gone.