Iona #3
The slick flare presses between my folds. A raised band below it catches at my entrance. His cock is wet with his own heat and with everything he drew from me, but the first stretch still bites.
He drives the crown inside and stops with the ring pressing just past the tightest point, giving my body time to take him.
I breathe. Push back. The hard lines along his underside drag through me. I take another inch, then another, until the thick shaft fills the space his fingers opened.
His claws dig into the cloak beside my hips.
His base has already begun to swell, adding pressure where our bodies meet without holding me. I rock back against it because I know what the fullness means now.
His growl breaks over my back.
When I have all of him, he bends over me and bites the safe place where shoulder meets neck.
His back teeth clamp the muscle. The fang points remain outside the bite.
His hips pull back. The raised ring catches. The underside ridges scrape deep.
Then he takes me the way I asked.
The first hard stroke knocks the air out of me.
The next finds deeper.
He holds my hips exactly where he wants them and drives into me with the force he has spent two weeks containing. My hands slide on the wool. I cannot brace. I cannot get away from the pressure or the sound of him behind me.
I do not want to.
His growl never stops. It breaks with each thrust, rougher when I tighten, almost a snarl when I push back to meet him.
I reach behind me.
He catches both wrists in one hand and pins them at the small of my back.
The position opens me further.
The stretch drags a broken sound from me.
He pauses for one breath.
I turn my face enough to speak.
“Continue.”
He does.
Harder.
The old voice comes down over me.
“Take it.”
My body answers before my mouth.
I take every stroke. The fullness. The scrape of his hair against my thighs. His hand locked over my wrists. His scent worked into my skin. The marks burning at shoulder, breast, hip, and both thighs.
He lets go of my wrists and reaches beneath me.
One arm hauls me up against his chest. The angle changes. His fingers find me again while he keeps thrusting.
My head falls back against his shoulder.
His mouth opens beside my pulse.
Fangs near. Never touching.
“Mine,” the old blood says.
I turn my face toward him.
“Say it right.”
His hand tightens over me.
“Mine to protect.”
“Not enough.”
He drives deep and holds there.
“Mine because you came.”
Heat breaks through me.
“Yes.”
“Mine because you ran.”
“Yes.”
“Mine because I caught you.”
“Yes.”
His fingers move faster.
“Mine because you chose me.”
The orgasm hits before I can answer.
My body locks around him. The whole garden drops away. I hear myself shouting his name and feel him lose the last of his rhythm behind me.
He bends me forward again and thrusts hard through every contraction.
His teeth close on the mark at my shoulder.
His climax comes with a roar against my skin. He spills deep, hips locked to mine, claws tearing the cloak instead of me.
For several breaths we remain like that.
His chest on my back. His cock still inside me. His mouth open over the mark without biting.
Then his grip changes.
He releases my shoulder and licks the bruised skin. His fingers pass over the claw lines on my thighs, checking them. He turns me carefully and pulls me against his chest.
I am shaking.
“So are you,” I say.
“Yes.”
My ruined gown lies in three pieces around us.
He draws his cloak over my body.
I touch the dark crescent on my breast. “Will that show?”
“If you choose the right dress.”
Dry humor returns to his face.
I smile.
“I own several.”
His gaze moves over every mark.
“The court will know.”
“That was the point.”
He bends to smell the line of my throat, careful of the pulse.
“They will know I caught you.”
“They will know I ran.”
His gaze meets mine.
He gathers me in both arms and stands.
“I can walk.”
“No.”
“That was not one of the agreed terms.”
“The hunt is over.”
“So you become unreasonable again?”
“Yes.”
He carries me through the west passage wrapped in his cloak, my thighs bare above torn wool stockings and riding boots, my shoulder and one marked breast visible above the fold.
The first pair of guards at the boundary looks at the wall.
The second pair looks at the floor.
By the time we reach the main stair, the entire hold knows.
I rest my head against his chest and let them.
At my door he does not put me down immediately.
His face turns into my hair. One long breath.
“The next time you run,” he says, “I will catch you sooner.”
“Then next time I choose the terrain.”
His lip lifts from his fangs.
“Good.”
He sets me on my feet.
I catch his wrist before he can leave.
“Torgan.”
He waits.
“I was afraid.”
His face closes.
I tighten my grip.
“And I wanted you. Both were true. You never made me regret either one.”
The tension leaves his shoulders by degrees.
He presses his mouth to the mark on my shoulder.
No bite. Just heat.
“Sleep,” he says.
“I doubt it.”
The gray leaves his eyes again.
“Then lock the door.”
I do. Not because I fear what is outside. Because if he comes back before morning, I will ask him to hunt me through my own room.