Chapter Nine
–Katana–
THE LAST THING I wanted to do when Torsten asked me if this side of him loving me was enough, given his darker side never said it, was to lie, so I didn’t, despite how difficult it was.
“I don’t know,” I said gently, squeezing his hand. “I want it to be because I feel the same way about you, but...” This was harder to say than I might have expected, because of how strongly I felt about both sides of him. “I love him, too, Torsten. Both of you. All of you.”
A mere week ago, I could hardly imagine loving a man over a thousand years in my past, let alone a Viking dragon with dual personalities.
Yet here I was, and the feelings were very real.
Even though I hadn’t known him in person long, we shared a history through our dreams. Moments of warmth and laughter, tears and sadness, flitted through my mind like fireflies, creating a tapestry of memories that had been lost to me, just like he was.
“As I love all of you,” he said, pulling me back to the moment. While I could tell my response didn’t entirely please him, he didn’t try to dissuade me, almost as if he had expected the answer.
“I saw flickers of you here recently, you know,” he went on.
“Running through the halls of the Keep with the silver crown in your hand, and I knew right away you were mine...her...the woman from my dreams.” His eyes met mine.
“However things unfold, you should know I will always feel that way. Even if I can no longer say it.”
My heart broke at his assumption that his darker side would ultimately prevail.
That somehow, he would not rise to the top in this strange three-way romance we shared.
Yet I understood where his reasoning came from.
He might be a great warrior who wanted to do right by his people, but he hadn’t shared the deep intimacies I had with his other half.
He hadn’t held me in his arms and felt that level of closeness, even if only in dreams.
“Yet I can give you something he hasn’t had,” I said softly, knowing he would understand I followed his thoughts.
That I understood his worries. Even though I wasn’t typically forward by nature when it came to intimacy, especially with fellow dragons, not just my human half but my inner beast wanted him, us, to have this moment.
To feel what we never did across time in dreams.
So, despite my heart slamming in my chest at the thought of what I was about to do and what it might feel like, I went to him, sat on his lap, and cupped his cheek.
Gazing into his eyes, I told him what was in my heart.
“I can give you me here and now, in the flesh. I can let you feel my love for you in ways he never could.”
Even as I said it, I knew his other half might very well feel it too. That he might be hovering in the back of Torsten’s mind, waiting for an opportunity to surpass his kinder side, given he had already experienced erotic moments with me in our dreams.
“But not here,” Torsten said, his voice hoarse with unmistakable need.
His dragon eyes raked over me possessively in a way his other half might have, but it wasn’t him.
Just this version of Torsten. And he seemed to see something clearly now, a small, triumphant smile curling the corners of his mouth.
“He never had you in this chamber and didn’t intend for us to end up here when he influenced me to bring you this way. ”
“He thought we would go into the Liege’s chamber, but we didn’t,” I realized.
“No, we didn’t,” Torsten echoed. “We went another way, and so the Keep’s magic adjusted accordingly.”
“Otherwise, your other side might have been able to sidle past this one.”
“No doubt he would.” He trailed the pad of his thumb along my jawline, seeming to marvel at the feel of me.
Crave me as I had never been craved before.
“So soft...so beautiful.” His gaze dropped to my lips as he wrapped his big, warm, weapon-roughened hand around the side of my neck. “Every part of you.”
Then he kissed me like it was our first time, soft and gentle, only for our kiss to intensify when our tongues met and danced. I couldn’t help but groan in pleasure at the taste of him. The feel of his strong body beneath my backside, and his already rock-hard erection straining against me.
Aching with an almost painful need for him, I repositioned myself between ever-hungrier kisses until I was straddling him, desperate to feel his hard length between my thighs. Desperate to ride him. Feel him from the inside out, not in a dream but right here, skin to skin.
I was so desperate, I didn’t realize I had chanted away not just my clothing but his in my frenzy to be closer.
In my need to assuage the terrible yet deliciously sinful ache that seemed to consume every inch of me.
Yet all of a sudden, there he was in all his gorgeous, tattooed, well-muscled glory.
Grunting with approval, his dragon eyes flared as I admired all the hard flesh at my disposal, scraping my nails lightly down his slightly hairy chest as I rocked my throbbing center back and forth over his heavy, hard length, eager to sink onto him, but wary too.
He was larger than anyone I had ever been with.
“’Tis alright, mate,” he said, his voice thick with arousal as he eyed my body with just as much desire. He rubbed my clit, while clasping my backside and steering me back and forth, pulling a taut nipple into his mouth, making me cry out in pleasure this time at the combined sensations.
“Come closer, my mate,” he urged, coaxing me in the soft, confident, sensual way of a man that knew what he was doing. One confident in how he could make me feel as he encouraged me to wrap my arms around his shoulders and give myself over to him. Trust him.
So I did, letting him take the lead, not expecting how deeply impactful and outright romantic it would be as he kept sliding his erection back and forth against my folds and clit.
He gathered me close, still grasping my backside with one hand while caressing and stroking me all over with the other from the back of my neck and shoulders down to my hips, relaxing yet arousing me a thousand times over.
“What are you doing to me?” I whispered hoarsely as he nibbled along the side of my neck in a way that drove me crazy, making me squirm with need, loving the feeling of his big, strong body against mine.
“What my inner beast wants me to do,” he murmured in my ear. “What I want to do.”
Whatever concerns I had over his girth were long gone by the time he closed his lips over mine again.
He kissed me so deeply and lovingly in combination with my building pleasure that I couldn’t help but release a ragged groan against his mouth when mini orgasms washed over me, making my whole body tremble against him.
“Oh my...” I began, my voice ragged and broken with need as he kept moving against me, only drawing out the mini quakes if not increasing them while he resumed nibbling along a particularly sensitive area on my neck, as if sampling me before consuming me.
Sweat broke out all over, in wonderful odds with the cool wind gusting in, chilling my skin as the increasing friction between our bodies made me flush with heat.
We kept moving against each other, sweat glistening on us both, making everything feel that much more erotic.
It was a form of slow, easy romantic lovemaking that felt so damn good, I was hardly aware a tear had leaked from the corner of my eye until he flicked his tongue over it.
“You taste as sweet as you smell,” he groaned, peppering kisses along my jaw until our lips came together again.
This time, we were so hungry for each other that the kiss was deep and consuming, making the pleasure already ebbing and flowing through every last part of me begin to crest, and I moaned in need of even more.
All he held back.
Understanding, he gave me what I wanted, what I was more ready for than I possibly could have imagined when he locked his hands on my hips, nearly spanning my waistline entirely, and steered me onto his shaft.
Gasping at the stretching sensation, I dug my hand into his hair, met his eyes, and struggled to breathe as he slowly pressed deeper and deeper.
Took more and more of me until I whimpered in pleasure, adrift in pure ecstasy at the sensation until my vision burned red with my inner beast, and my whimper turned to a lusty growl of approval when he fully seated himself.
“Are you alright?” He cupped my cheek and eyed me with concern, his voice guttural with his own pleasure. “Have I hurt you?”
“The very opposite,” I managed, brushing my lips across his. I swirled my hips slowly, and my eyes about rolled back in my head at how good he felt inside me. “So very the opposite. So very...”
I trailed off as not just my pleasure spiked, but my desperation for more, my vision not just burning red but blazing fiery crimson.
“Sweet Odin above,” Torsten growled. He inhaled sharply, and his dragon eyes flared as well, his gaze possessive in a whole new way when he took me in. “You just went into heat, so you should know if you don’t already that—”
Whatever he said next was impossible to hear as blood pounded into my ears, drowning out everything but the driving need to feel more.
To claim him in all ways possible.
I understood what it was to be in heat. I’d felt it before and steered clear of males, and it had been easy enough, but this was a different story altogether. There was no turning back from it because my dragon was taking it out of my hands.
My instinctual, uncontrollable needs were taking it out of my hands.
So I moved, knowing he would have no choice but to allow it because he wanted it just as badly. Wanted to bury his seed deep inside me and sire offspring. It was the most basic, primal, raw need of our kind, and there would be no stopping it.