Chapter One #3
Which pretty much validates my whole point about that charged electricity between the two of them.
Even though I don’t trust him—Vasili, I mean—paradoxically, I want him to want me. Good grief, it’s more than that. I absolutely need him to want me.
“You want me thinking about you and only you?” I suck in a great big breath, grip my courage in both hands, and lock right onto his stare. “Make me.”
Geez, I must be crazy, jerking his chain like that. His touch on my bite drives me insane. Must be this mating heat frying my brain.
Squirming with tension and embarrassment, I bite my lower lip.
Which I know perfectly well is another one of his triggers.
He hisses like a teakettle and snakes in to lock his mouth over mine.
Ohmygosh, yes.
This is what I want.
This.
Not his dark and snaky games. Not him all difficult and complicated and evasive. Just the simplicity and directness of his mouth on mine.
He runs cool like any Scorpio and his lips are cold, especially by contrast, with me all feverish and all sexed up. But his hot tongue darts inside my mouth and just plunders me like he means business.
He tastes like juniper and Russian vodka and Vasili, all abrasive and unapproachable but totally addictive. I suck on his wicked tongue and chase his ruthless mouth and basically do every single thing I can think of to entice him.
The sharp sting of his fangs against my tender lower lip draws blood.
A husky moan rolls up my throat. Yikes. That was loud enough to be embarrassing. But he swallows the sound with a little growl of his own and deepens the kiss like he’s trying to crawl inside my mouth and down my throat.
Wow. Just wow.
He kisses me like he wants to gut me.
Some belated sense of self-preservation finally jolts awake and kicks in. I’d have to be seriously crazy to trust him. I try to ease back, just so I can tap the brakes and breathe. But he’s having none of it. His free hand spears through my wet curls to trap me.
His casting hand falls to his side, but stays curled in a fist. That’s because he’s still holding me immobile against the wall with his telekinesis.
And he’s nowhere near ready to let me go.
He’s my predator.
I’m his prey.
Need pools in my balls and pulses hard and heavy in my dick.
My chest clenches till I can barely breathe and butterflies flutter in my tummy.
Just the bare possibility that he can do what he’s threatening, he can make me take his cock, he can do whatever he wants to do to me and I’ll have to take it (Lord, that’s such a turn on!)
Just the possibility of that makes me tingle all over.
“You’re such a naughty boy,” he murmurs between deep, sucking, juniper kisses that totally ruin me. “It’s all rather shocking, truly, given your tiresome reputation as an apple-polishing teacher’s pet.”
“I’m only Lucius’ pet,” I mumble against his lips. And yours.
Since Vasili’s provisionally on the faculty now, though he’s under Lucius as our headmaster.
V hums over my secret confession. “And you’re so… deliciously… needy. Aren’t you? I can sense your greedy hole just aching for me to fill you. Your insatiable little hole that’s going to milk me dry.”
“God, will you stop talking about it,” I mutter with my eyes squeezed shut. I swear, every time he mentions my hole, another spurt of precum drizzles down my dick.
“I’ll say whatever I please. You certainly should have learned that much about me by now.” He nips my lip until it stings and I whimper. “I’m your alpha. You’re my mate. And, starting tonight, we’re both going to begin acting that way. Aren’t we?”
My brows rush together in protest. “Are we?”
If this jerk thinks I’m just gonna bend over for him now that he’s (sort of) claiming me as my alpha, he’s definitely got another think coming.
But, tonight, he owns me.
At least, he owns me right now.
But I want to own him . I do. If I have to feel this way about him, I want us to be equal.
I lean into his kiss.
But he’s such a tease he backs away. He makes me chase his kiss. I strain forward and coax his cruel mouth with mine until he relents and gives me the kiss I’m craving. The hot wet slide of our tongues lacing makes him hum low in his throat with pleasure.
A dart of happiness wiggles through me.
I’m pleasing him. I really am.
His horrible casting hand’s still balled at his side.
But he’s finally loosened his grip enough to give me a free hand myself.
My palm falls away from the wall behind me where the rest of me’s still pinned.
My hand drifts forward to nudge against his.
Slowly my fingers curl around his casting hand, teasing gently at his little finger until it unfolds.
That telekinetic clench around my body loosens a little bit more.
I smile against his mouth and start tugging at his next finger—
“Goblin King?” Zara’s queen voice freezes us both in our tracks. “What the fuck are you doing to him?”
A frisson of tension zings through his body, pressed so close to mine. His fist clenches hard under my touch. The sudden vise of telekinetic pressure makes me groan. His mouth wrenches free from mine. Which almost makes me whine in protest.
But his gaze locks on mine and doesn’t veer.
“Tormenting him until he begs for mercy,” he says coolly to Zara, his stare biting into mine and daring me to contradict him. “What else do you suppose?”
“Huh.” I can’t see my precious fated mate with V’s tall body still standing obstructively between us. But it sounds like she might be fighting a grin. “Well, stop it this instant.”
“But he makes it so easy , little queen.” Heat races across my cheeks (of course) and makes him smirk. Then his gaze drops to my blatant erection. “Besides, rather obviously, our Mr. Mercury is enjoying my horrible advances. Aren’t you, darling?”
I just blush furiously and don’t answer. Anyway, it’s not like I can lie about it. Not with the physical evidence of my raging hard-on staring them both in the face.
Not to mention I’m a horrible liar.
Like really awful at it.
And Vasili’s such a snake he always knows.
“At least stop pinning him to the wall.” Zara still sounds amused, because she definitely has a major soft spot for our snake. But I know she means what she says. “We’re not having any kinda dub-con situation going on in this harem.”
“Oh, why, when we all enjoy it?” When V pouts, his voice turns to velvet. “You as well, little queen. Don’t deny it.”
“Yeah, no. We’re not talking about me right now, so no changing the subject.” Under all that badass, she’s fighting not to laugh.
Great.
Even my beloved one is laughing at my dilemma.
But underneath, she means it. She always has my back.
“Then indulge me, darling, do .” V’s gaze locks on mine, one eyebrow lifting with a wicked smirk. “Whatever will you do if I refuse?”
“Sure you wanna know?” she volleys right back. “Don’t make me come over there.”
My belly warms and flutters and my heart goes all soft and gooey. My love for her—my first alpha, my fated mate, the confident queen I adore—pulses through the bond between us.
And because we’re seriously bonded, she can feel everything I feel.
“Whoa.” That arc of connection to my various physical discomforts strips all the laughter from her tone.
The quick patter of bare feet on the tiles precedes her sudden appearance at Vasili’s side.
“Yo.” Her teal brows pucker under the wild sea of blue curls tangled around her frowning face. “Vasili. You’re holding him way too tight. Let him go right now. I mean it.”
Now she’s definitely using her queen voice.
Electric witchcraft crackles at her fingertips and lifts the heavy mane of curls to float around her tiny body. Through the bond between us, I can sense her inner dragon bugling and beating her wings.
Yeah, my Zara’s definitely what you’d call a badass. Not only queen of the whole witching world. Not another weak witch like the current queen regnant and all the inbred Aquarius queens before her. But finally the powerful queen in waiting we’ve all been waiting for.
The Gemini queen.
As an added bonus, she’s also the only fully manifested dragon shifter queen we’ve ever had, in millenia of witching world history.
She’s not the queen we deserve. But she’s the queen we need.
And even V, snake that he is, knows it.
My bully’s stare veers from my trapped and blushing face to the force of nature that’s our queen. Their gazes meet like flashing blades. Zara’s inner dragon screams her dominance. That flying serpent coiled inside V rears and hisses in challenge.
Yowsa.
Those two together in dragon form, which none of us have seen yet, must really be something.
V’s pretty lips curl in a mocking smile. But he flicks wide the fingers of his casting hand in a gesture that manages to be both dismissive and contemptuous.
And, suddenly, I’m free.
“Master has given Dobby a sock,” I mutter with a glare. I hide behind the cheesy pop fic reference because I’m disgruntled that it took my beloved Zara’s intervention to free me from Vasili.
V fizzes with a spurt of surprised laughter.
Which of course he chokes right off.
“Welcome to the world of the clothed, baby.” Zara’s lush lips quirk with humor. Her mischievous gaze drops right away to my hard-on, which is still totally a thing. “But not too soon, I hope. Because, um, right now? I kinda like you naked.”