Chapter 21 More Criminal Curiosity
More Criminal Curiosity
Ragnar
“If you want my cock,” Ragnar huffed between thrusts, “you’ll behave and take your punishment like a good girl for me next time.”
He knew Brioni had no intention of behaving, but that was exactly what he was counting on, listening to her pant and whimper as he fucked the slickness between her thighs.
He wanted to spill inside her, to fill her like she asked and claim her while she screamed his name, but that was part of the problem—someone would hear if they hadn’t already.
Certainly someone would smell. Brioni’s arousal was so thick in the air he practically choked on it, though that would be the most welcome of deaths.
But there was also the rest of the problem, the much bigger part that could also be inconveniently called the truth.
Ragnar strode into Heck that evening with every intention of spilling his heart, but instead, his nerves and Brioni’s neediness clouded his thoughts, and he was closer to spilling his seed than anything else.
That was just an excuse, though, wasn’t it? He had simply been too afraid. Afraid to ruin her. To ruin this.
Ragnar had suspected this might happen and at least arrived prepared.
Unfortunately, Brioni had almost entirely ignored the gift that would have done the explaining for him.
He should have been thrilled—Brioni dismissing sweets in favor of his presence was the surest sign she was utterly smitten—but fear being what it was, Ragnar over-thought the whole thing, and now he was mating with her thighs instead of professing that he wanted her as a mate for life.
Not that there was really anything to complain about because her complaints were driving him wild, and that handy little barrier between his cock and her hole was making her delightfully squirmy.
Brioni sounded as though she was getting close again.
She’d fallen so hard asleep after the first time he’d pleasured her, he wasn’t sure if human women were capable of multiple peaks, but he desperately wanted to find out.
Truly, the way she had held on through his earlier ministrations was impressive, but a second would be even better.
Ragnar released her thighs, thrilled to feel her squeezing without having to hold her there, and slipped a hand under the silky fabric that shielded away her breasts. She gasped as he pinched her nipple, and he was quick to cover her mouth again.
“Keep my cock nice and snug, Bri,” he whispered in her ear as he caressed the swell of her breast and silenced her muffled cries.
His hips were thrusting under the weight of her, cock rubbing just against the place he wanted to bury it, but the sensation was no less exhilarating.
She was struggling on the edge of another orgasm, and perhaps it was too much.
“Remember, you can bite me. Do you need me to stop?”
She shook her head under his hold with newfound ferocity, and Ragnar fucked faster.
What he would give to have her naked and writhing on the end of his cock, but then what?
Would she be done with him if she got what she wanted like so many others?
The risk seemed too great when the feel of her body pressed against his felt so right.
Brioni made a muffled, shivery sound behind his hand, and Ragnar teetered on his own pleasure’s edge. He slowed his movement and slid himself lower, the soft heat of her slick flesh enveloping him completely. When the head of his cock nestled between her thighs, she twitched and gasped.
“Do you like that?” he moved slightly, slower but more precise, knowing his flared crown was teasing that tumultuous human place.
Brioni nodded, and he gave her more speed, focused on her satisfaction again, but his own was impossible to ignore.
He squeezed her breast, wrapping himself around every soft, palpable inch of her.
Stroking fingers across her cheek as he muffled her panting, even that skin was soft and kind and inviting.
I need every bit of her, he thought, fangs buried in his lip to keep the words within. This must be what love feels like.
She didn’t fight his hold like before, but this blissful wildness was much more difficult to contain. Brioni bucked and shivered and squealed—there, that was the second one, and thank blazes because Ragnar’s need was already pushed to its limit, no help from her thighs spasming around his cock.
The knot in his stomach released as he came, seed spurting up between her legs with the next thrust. She was still writhing on him, the last of her pleasure wrung out against his pulsing cock, soaking that little strip of fabric between them all over again.
Shit—now her bedchamber was even messier.
Ragnar clenched his jaw as he stifled the roar that wanted to follow his orgasm, thrusting slower, fingers squeezing whatever soft flesh was beneath them.
Gods, he wanted more, wanted to growl and cry out her name, wanted to show her she was his, but not here, not while she was collapsing against him and so utterly spent.
Ragnar eased himself backward, lying down and taking her along.
She was limp atop him, one arm weakly reaching overhead with what little strength she had left.
He took a deep breath, her arousal still making him feral to fuck her despite having just spilled.
He could certainly go again, but she was a mumbling mess even when his hand came away from her mouth.
“What was that, little human?” He traced his fingers along her ribs and waist, memorizing every swell and dip. This human that had somehow made him feel more like a demon than any other ever had. He seared how perfectly she fit atop him into his mind.
“Again?”
Ragnar chuckled and rolled her to her side to gaze at her face.
“Greedy.” Her eyelids drifted down, and her cheeks blazed red under the purple lanterns, but her need persisted, and that was perhaps one of his favorite things about her.
She wanted him, even if it was just for the moment, and that was more than he ever thought possible.
But there would be no again for her, not when she yawned and nuzzled into his chest. He pressed lips to her forehead, wanting to wrap himself around her like he had that night in his loft, but he couldn’t stay, he had already told her.
If she did choose to seek out a better mate, she didn’t need his presence the morning after their night out to sully her reputation.
Demons weren’t modest about mating necessarily, but they might consider her tainted for being with someone like him.
But he also couldn’t leave Brioni so…sticky.
He slipped out of her bed to a quiet protest, but that was silenced when he stripped her of the drenched bits of satin she thought were adequate undergarments.
He found a linen to wipe her off, eliciting sleepy giggles as he swiped over her thighs and between her legs to remove the remnants of himself.
She let him shift her into the center of her bed, and once he pulled blankets over her, it was like she had been asleep for hours.
He collected the things on her floor and made a pile against the wall so she wouldn’t trip in the morning—surely she would be wobbly after that—and returned to the bed once more to properly tuck her in.
Her face was smashed against the pillow, body curled into a ball, a blanket of ruddy hair hiding away her lovely features. Ragnar brushed the curls from the rounded tip of her ear. “Please, come see me tomorrow, Brioni,” he said. “I’m still here, and I already miss you.”
Brioni’s response was lost amid gentle snoring.
That was another odd human feature, he supposed—the ability to fall so hard and fast into sleep—but then, he was unsure if he wanted to burden her with the sentiment anyway, especially if when she finally looked at his gift, she decided she didn’t want to accept it.
Ragnar kissed her cheek once more and went to the door where her satchel had been abandoned on the floor. He lifted it, hesitating for a moment because this was his chance to take it all back, but of course he wouldn’t—he couldn’t—so he hung the bag on a hook and crept out of the post.
***
A howl roused Ragnar from a vivid dream of a foreign forest where everything was green.
He had fallen asleep on the earth beside the firepit just behind the barn hours prior, Moar pressed to his side.
There were too many unappealing things about climbing the stairs to his loft the night before, chiefly that Brioni would not be joining him in his bed.
Her scent lingered, though, and a grin broke out on his face before his eyes opened, a vision of his human frolicking amongst the greens of his dream one last time, as brilliant and playful as her eyes.
The lone veilhound called again from the true woods. It was closer than the times before, but only just. Dawn’s moonlight cast a silvery pall through the thickness of the trees when Ragnar finally sat up, back sore from the hardness of the earth but mind curiously settled.
After a quick rinse under the faucet Brioni had so graciously repaired and a change of clothes he kept in a cabinet in the barn, he gathered up three of the Cer’oth pack and set out for the barracks.
He tried to ignore his lack of hesitation, worried that acknowledging his confidence would ruin it, but then he was thinking about it anyway and still trailing the edge of the Veilwood without slowing.
Perhaps overthinking wasn’t always the worst.
The on-duty veilhounds were kept in a makeshift stable just outside the barracks, and they sensed Ragnar right away.
The creatures yipped and huffed as they propped themselves up to peer over the stable dividers, smart enough to know it was too soon for his arrival.
Rand, however, didn’t have a veilhound’s intuition.