Chapter 27 #2
It was Milo’s turn to laugh. “Ah yes. The Great Cremating.”
Rowan winced. “You gave it a name.”
“A spectacle like that needs to be recognized. The story will be told for years to come.”
“Please no.”
“Please yes. That and the story of how we met.”
“A little less embarrassing, at least,” Rowan grumbled.
“It is? Even though it’s a popular GIF?”
Rowan rolled his eyes. “Other dragons won’t find it embarrassing because the biting really is a mate thing. It’s an instinct to mark and claim. You marked me within five minutes of meeting me.”
“Oh.” Milo blinked. “Well, go me. Locking that shit down ASAP.”
“I did it to you too,” Rowan said, reaching out and running one finger down Milo’s neck until it touched a spot that made Milo hiss. “Right here.”
“You bit me?” Milo asked.
Rowan nodded. “Claimed you right back. Just like you did to me.”
“Are these forever?” Milo asked, craning his neck as if he’d somehow develop birdlike abilities and contort enough to see his own bite.
“They need refreshing every once in a while,” Rowan said. “You’ll notice when it starts fading a bit.”
“Oh no!” Milo placed the back of his palm against his forehead and swooned against the pillow. “I will have to bite you. Repeatedly. However shall I cope? Woof is me.”
“You mean woe is me?” Rowan asked.
“I really don’t.” Milo shook his head.
Rowan snorted, but he was wiggling in that shy, pleased way he sometimes did when Milo showered him with compliments or did something he liked.
“Is my obsession with your wonderful nipples a mate thing too?” he asked suddenly as it popped into his brain, moving his arms to peer down at them in all their holy glory. They were puffy and surrounded by bites.
Rowan blushed even brighter. “Uh no…that’s exclusively a you thing.”
“And a you thing,” Milo said slyly, slanting a look up under his lashes. “You like it.”
“I don’t think I can get hard again,” Rowan said, reading his mind before he started in on them again.
Milo pouted. “Is eight times your limit, dragon boy?”
“It was more than eight!”
“It was?”
Rowan rolled him onto his back in the nest and loomed over him, his hair a red curtain around them. “Yes, it was.”
Milo wrapped his thighs around Rowan’s hips, nudging against his thickening member. “Downstairs Rowan doesn’t agree with upstairs Rowan.”
“We need to have a building meeting.”
Milo burst out laughing. “Fuck, I love you.”
Rowan stared down at him, wide-eyed and frozen.
“What?” Milo asked.
“You just said…”
Milo’s brain caught up with his mouth and he flushed, suddenly self-conscious. “Doesn’t that make sense? We’re mates.”
They’d said it while they were shifted, but they’d been hazy and far away then, caught in the moment. This was just them. Quiet and vulnerable with no scales to hide behind.
“I loved you before I even knew we were mates,” Rowan said. “It makes all the sense in the world. And even if it didn’t, I wouldn’t care.”
“You’re trying to make me cry again.”
Rowan kissed him, deep and hungry, nudging for entrance immediately. Milo popped claws and scratched all over his back, adding to the tapestry he’d already created as he met him tongue to tongue.
They traded needy kisses for a while as Rowan rutted against him, until his dick caught on Milo’s hole.
“Fuck,” Milo moaned against his mouth, feeling sore but wanting it so bad. “Get in me.”
Rowan fumbled for the lube, squirting it all over before spearing right into him. They both cried out their ecstasy. This felt so right inside this nest Milo had built for them. After they were done it would be even more perfect, essences of both of them seeping into the fibers.
“Will it always be like this?” Milo panted, licking at Rowan’s neck and holding on as he began to pump his hips.
“Mating is intense,” Rowan grunted. “But I don’t think there will ever be a point where I don’t want you.”
“Over eight times a day?” Milo asked, nipping at his ear.
Rowan couldn’t even laugh properly, ending it on a moan of pleasure. “Whatever you want.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” he said just before he pushed Rowan onto his back so he could be on top.
He sank deeper like this, so fucking deep. He closed his eyes in bliss as he ground down on Rowan’s lap, savoring the breadth and feel of him. Rowan growled and grabbed his hips, and when Milo opened his eyes it was to see Rowan staring at the spot where they were connected.
Fuck it was hot.
He picked up the pace, bouncing up and down as Rowan watched, and his hands eventually landed on his favorite spot. Rowan’s chest.
Rowan hissed, arching up into his grip as Milo squeezed and tortured the bountiful mounds, bucking his hips wildly as Milo took his nipples between his fingers.
“Oh fuck,” Rowan yelled as he came, head thrown back and veins standing out.
Milo came directly after, just the feel of Rowan’s come sending him over the edge.
He collapsed at Rowan’s side, one leg still hanging over his hips and come leaking from his used hole.
“Don’t clean it up,” Milo mumbled. “It needs to go in the nest.”
Rowan rumbled happily, letting Milo’s dragon know that he was very pleased with Milo’s efforts and brilliant ideas. Milo loved it.
Rowan began running his claws lightly up and down his arm and back, lulling Milo into a doze of happiness. His brain was quiet, his limbs relaxed, his eyes closed.
“Did you really have no idea we were mates all this time?” Milo mumbled.
“You were very distracting.”
Milo grinned. “Distractingly handsome.”
“That too.”
“I can’t believe your brother had to point it out to us.”
Rowan growled at the mention of Ruben, and Milo realized they hadn’t cleared that up properly. Or at least, not in a way that wasn’t incomprehensible.
He popped his eyes open and clutched Rowan’s arm as he raised his head to meet his eyes. “What you walked in on wasn’t anything bad. I would never do that to you. Or anyone, because it fucking sucks to be on the receiving end. But especially because it’s you.”
“I believe you,” Rowan said simply, calming Milo’s anxiety. “Normally I’m more rational…but you make me lose my head.”
“That’s a mate thing too?”
Rowan hummed in acknowledgment. “Mates are even more precious than hoards. We’ll go to war for them, even against family.”
“How did Ruben know?” Milo asked.
“Because he was looking at us from the outside. All the signs were there. You smelled right to me from the start, and the accidental run-ins weren’t accidents, we were being pulled toward each other. Being away from you…”
“I spiraled,” Milo said.
“I did too.” Rowan nodded.
“The Ruben thing… He looked like you. He…he was similar enough to you that it was soothing for a moment,” Milo said. “But it was wrong. He was all wrong.”
“Everyone else will be wrong to us.”
Milo could feel the truth of that in his heart. “Have mates ever cheated on each other?”
“No. It’s not possible,” Rowan said confidently. “Mates are for life, until death.”
“Okay, good. I didn’t like being cheated on.”
“Whoever did it to you deserves to never be happy again!” Rowan said, a growl forming in his throat.
“He doesn’t matter anymore. Ray and I forgot all about him!”
“Ray?” Rowan asked.
“The guy was dating both of us at the same time,” Milo said. “It’s how we met.”
“I’ll never do that to you. I’ll never want anyone else. Never look at anyone else.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’m stuck with you,” Milo teased, elated.
“If you’ll have me,” Rowan mumbled shyly.
Milo splayed his hand over Rowan’s chest. “And let somebody else have these? No way.”
Rowan’s laugh was music to his ears. He sounded happy. Because of Milo.
“I’m glad you came back early.” He sighed, eyes closing to a lazy half-mast. “Things felt all wrong when you were gone.”
“They did for me too. Normally mates can be apart for lengths of time, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything but coming back. I may have been rude to a few business partners. My dad will be mad at me.”
“I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Rowan hummed. “He will, but his expectations of me are so high. I don’t know how to meet them.”
“You meet them by being yourself. And if that’s not good enough then that’s his problem, not yours. Because you’re amazing just as you are.”
Rowan took a shaky breath. “Even when I’m ditching business trips to bring you a new coffee cup?”
Milo blinked and sat upright. “What?”
Rowan gave him an embarrassed smile. “You said you forgot your cup.”
“And that’s why you came back? Because I forgot my cup?”
Rowan nodded.
Milo’s heart felt so fucking full he couldn’t take it.
He bent down and pressed a thousand kisses to Rowan’s mouth.
“You idiot, dragon. I just needed an excuse to hide the fact that I was texting you weird thoughts. I thought you were at the pool letting other people see you all naked and gorgeous and flipped out. But you took it seriously and brought me a cup. I fucking love you so much.”
“I spent all my free time in my hotel room,” Rowan managed to get out through his kissing assault. “I went to three stores to find a cup big enough before driving four hours back here.”
Milo finally let him breathe and pulled back, gleefully asking, “Where’s my cup? I want to add it to my nest.”
Rowan flushed. “I…may have thrown it at Ruben’s head.”
Milo wanted to cackle out loud, but the larger part of him was bereft. His special cup!
“We need to fly back and get it right now,” Milo said seriously.
“Now now?” Rowan asked.
Milo was already tugging him up, shoving mismatched clothes at him. “I need my cup, Rowan.”
The words alone, like they were magic, lit a fire under Rowan’s ass, and he got dressed lightning fast. Now he was the one tugging Milo toward the bedroom door and then to the balcony.
Milo had the stray thought that if this was what his life would look like from now on, then he was the luckiest surprise dragon in the universe.
Notes:
Kicky feets!!!!!