Chapter 31
Ever
I PULL AESON’S MOUTH TO mine, and the second our lips meet, I let go.
I stop holding back. I kiss him with a fervor that once scared me, and he drinks it down like he’s waited his whole life for just a sip.
Our lips worship while our tongues revere, and I eagerly offer my body and soul for the devouring.
His fiery, masculine scent invades my senses, and I suddenly want it stamped all over my skin and dripping between my thighs.
Aeson drops his mouth to my throat and traces the lines of my dragon mark with his tongue.
I tilt my head back to give him better access, and he moans his satisfaction as the hand that was gripping my ass reaches between my thighs.
Aeson quickly finds my clit and circles it slowly before moving farther back and pressing a finger inside me. I moan and grind against his hand, and he nips at my ear.
“That’s my girl,” he purrs, and then he adds another finger, pushing in even deeper. “You’re ready for me, aren’t you, Claws?”
“Aeson,” I mewl as he pumps in and out of me once, twice, and then a third time, but it’s too slow, too measured. “Aeson, please,” I beg, and he must like it as much as I do because he groans and I want to eat the sound with a spoon and then lick the bowl.
“That’s right, I’ve got you,” he assures me, and then he’s kissing me again. Only, this time it’s rougher and more desperate, and I swear if he doesn’t fuck me soon, I’m going to spontaneously combust.
Aeson carries me back across the room to the tall mirror and turns me to face it. He slips the fingers that were just in my pussy into his mouth and the way he savors me makes me want to lick him from head to toe.
“So fucking good,” he growls, bending me forward and pressing my hands against the surface of the mirror. “Now watch me fuck you,” he orders, his blue-eyed reflection fixed on my face as he lines his thick cock up, grabs my hips, and finally gives me what I need.
My moan is both censure and relief when he finally pushes inside of me. I watch his reflection drop his head back, exposing every black flame of his dragon mark, while a deep, satisfied groan rumbles out of him. And then a flame grows in his mouth, and I clench with anticipation.
“Are you going to burn for me, Bonded?” he asks around the fire flickering between his sinful lips.
“Always,” I pant, and then he drops his head and spits his flames down to where we’re connected and the fire begins to consume me in the best possible way.
A ring of flames circles the base of his cock and I’m instantly a hundred times more sensitive to every ridge, vein, and thrust. Then the fire splits and flames travel back to my ass, and up to my clit.
I moan and press back against Aeson, fucking myself on his fire and his cock.
He brings a hand to my chest and with a snap of his fingers a blaze rings my nipples while a stream of fire crawls up my chest and collars my throat.
All the flames dim and brighten in time with one another, tightening and pressing against me like dozens of mouths and hands are sucking, kneading, and playing all at once.
My orgasm takes no prisoners. It hits like a burning tsunami and I’m pulled under before I even know what’s happening.
I hit my peak, which is exactly when Aeson grabs my hips again and starts fucking me senseless.
My breasts bounce with the delicious force of his thrusts, and I cry out when he pulses his flames faster to match his deliciously punishing pace.
“Fuck, I want to spend the rest of my days inside of you,” Aeson growls, our bodies clapping together in a rhythm that matches my gasps and draws out my moans.
“Right there,” I pant when he lifts my hips higher to get a better angle. “Yes,” I scream when he adjusts the tempo of his flickering flames again, and I’m given no choice but to detonate around him a second time.
“Light up for me Bonded, just like that,” he grunts.
My orgasm chokes his cock, and pleasure ripples through me as he continues to wring out every last drop of ecstasy.
The sound of skin against skin, the grunts, the moans, the gasps, and the cries are a soundtrack I want to play on repeat all day, every day.
The bond sings in my chest as Aeson thrusts deeper and deeper, and I simultaneously never want it to end and question how much more I can take.
Another orgasm claims me, and I’m lost to the stars and sparks that fire through my synapses as pleasure becomes the only language I know and Aeson the only other soul to speak it.
I flop forward, unable to support my weight against the mirror after four soul-shattering orgasms, and Aeson pulls my back against his chest and demands even more.
Our lips crash together in a feral frenzy, and his large hands knead my breasts and play with my clit while my need drips out of me with every perfect piston of his hips.
“One more, My Soul, then I’ll lick you clean and fuck four more out of you,” he purrs in my ear.
“I can’t,” I whimper as his flames grow hotter and start pulsing a new rhythm. The sensation is all at once overwhelming, and without thinking, I seize the flames off my body and blow them out.
Aeson freezes behind me, his cock pressed as deep as it can go. “What did you just do?” he asks quietly—eerily so.
“It was too much. I need to rehydrate, maybe do some stretches if we’re going to keep going like that,” I plead.
“No, Ever, that’s not what I mean. You just siphoned my fire,” he tells me, shocked. “You took it and doused it—something you shouldn’t be able to do unless you’re a Burner or your affinity is manifesting.”
Awestricken, I look down at my hands and then up at him. “Do it again,” I encourage, afraid to believe.
Aeson conjures a flickering flame on the tip of his finger and then presses it against my clit, circling slowly. I moan as the flame once again starts to stimulate me, and then I focus on making it stop. Just like that, the fire blinks out and I gasp.
“No fucking way, I really did syphon them,” I whisper, my wide eyes finding Aeson’s. “It was like blowing out a candle.”
Aeson pulls out of me and spins me to face him. I don’t know what to think. Is he mad, worried, going to make me promise not to do it again? My kind was persecuted for this, and here I’m using it for orgasm control.
Suddenly I’m lifted off my feet and Aeson is spinning me in his arms while he shouts excitedly.
“First your scale armor and now your affinity!” he exclaims, kissing me soundly and then peppering them all over my face and neck until I’m squirming and begging him to stop between my peals of laughter.
He plops us down into a chair and runs his fingers through my hair while my mind spins. “I’m going to reveal,” I murmur, like I’m afraid to say it too loudly. “I’m really going to find my dragon.”
“You are a dragon, and yes, you are going to reveal,” Aeson repeats matter-of-factly, his warm gaze raking over me, not a glimmer of doubt anywhere to be seen.
A tear slips down my cheek, followed by another, and another.
Gently, Aeson wipes them away, his hands ready to catch as many as I need him to.
I rest my forehead against his and let myself feel the magnitude of everything that’s happened today.
Aeson clears my cheeks and massages my neck and shoulders as I process the impossible.
I lean back and stare at the male I’m straddling, bewildered as to how we got here, and yet so grateful that somehow we did.
“What would happen if you disobeyed an order?” I ask quietly, studying his face.
“It depends on who gave the order,” he answers, just as quietly.
I kiss him gently and then pull back, searching his eyes. “Who ordered you not to complete the bond?”
His gaze flicks back and forth between my eyes and then he blows out a deep breath. “My father.”
My heart sinks, but I hurry to catch it. “What happens if you disobey your father?”
Aeson pulls me to him and kisses me slowly, his soft lips and skilled tongue consume me like we have all the time in the world, but when he pulls back, his looks crestfallen.
“On a personal level, my father would be happy for me?.?.?. for us,” he answers. “But it could start a civil war between my kindred and the nobles that question the validity of our connection.”
I sigh and shake my head, frustrated. “Fine. We’ll wait.”
Aeson watches me for a moment, and I can tell he’s debating something. “On your Naming Day, after our dance, why did you?.?.?. Why were we together?” he asks.
“What do you mean?” I ask, bewildered.
“Why did we fuck?” he clarifies, his bearing suddenly resolute.
“Because I wanted to,” I hedge, unsure where he’s going with this.
“And?” he counters.
“Is that not a good enough reason?” I question, unease displacing the comfort that was settling between us.
“It is, but is it the entire reason?” he presses.
Understanding breaks through my puzzlement like spring ephemerals through snow, and I sigh.
“I was with you because I wanted to be with you. And because Lorn had just explained to me how dangerous an unrecognized bond could be. I didn’t want something like that to happen to either one of us in case?. .?.”
“In case what?” he demands, like he already knows but needs to hear me confirm it.
I shake my head, annoyed by this sudden line of questioning. “In case we were separated,” I finish, knowing no good is going to come from this conversation and suspecting that’s the entire point of it.
“And completing the bond?” he queries. “You’ve brought it up twice now. Is it because you can’t wait to be bonded in full, or is that decision strategic too?”
His eyes are angry and his mouth is pressed into a firm line, as though I wasn’t just kissing those lips minutes ago and feeding him pieces of my soul while doing it.
“Why can’t it be both?” I defend. “Why can’t I want you and also recognize the strategic importance of our connection?”
Aeson shakes his head and moves to stand up, unseating me from his lap. He calls his scale armor and hurries to put distance between us, but I don’t move and I don’t cover myself.
“Because how will I ever know which you want more?” he growls. “Do you want me, Ever, or are you simply making the most of the hand you were dealt?”
“Why are you doing this? You were inside me less than five minutes ago. My cum is still drying on your dick, and you want to pick a fight. Why did you fuck me if this is how you feel about me?”
“I hoped it would knock down the last of the walls between us and you’d stop hiding things from me,” he snaps.
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you, Noctis.
Want to tell me what you know about the fae hiding in Drameric?
Why has no one asked me anything else about that little revelation?
Or what’s happening with the Fae Gate? I’ve certainly been kept out of the loop on that too.
I know you’ve been monitoring the nobles since my Naming—what’s come of that?
Any leads on the dragons that murdered my family? ”
Aeson’s scowl darkens with each question.
I huff out a hollow laugh. “Pot meet fucking kettle, amirite?”
Aeson strides for the door. “I’m going out for a glide.”
“You do that! Oh, and warn me the next time you want to fuck my secrets out of me; I’ll be sure to do the same right back!” I shout after him as he leaves.
Silence stretches through the room, and it sets my teeth on edge.
I sit back down in the chair and drop my head into my hands.
Why? Why is it always like this between us?
I’m genuinely trying to figure this out, trying to let him in.
So why does it feel like every time I do, he punishes me for not slicing myself open and bleeding out for him. It’s maddening.
The massive bedroom stretches out before me, and all of a sudden it feels so…empty. Is this what my future holds, me chasing after someone who has no intention of understanding me? How many empty rooms will I bear witness to in one lifetime?
Angry, I rise from the chair and head back to the bathroom to get cleaned up. Well, fuck Aeson and his endless demands. I’m not alone, and it’s high time he sees that for himself.