Chapter 17
ELENA PIERSON
“Och. I’ve no doubt Vivian doused you with a hefty dose of her magic and I know she was using as much as she could to keep us there. It’s an aphrodisiac. Let me help you,” he says.
I melt.
Lachlan doesn’t hesitate. Seeing the distress I’m in, he pulls me into his arms, and his mouth finds mine in a pleasure inducing kiss that instantly softens the desperate edge I need slaked.
He lifts me easily, moving us toward the four-poster bed and shifts his weight over me, providing my body with the heavy and solid pressure my overstimulated senses are screaming for.
When Lachlan finally pulls back and allows me breath, I’m trembling, and my hands are gripping the flannel of his shirt like a lifeline.
True to my nature, I scramble to make sense of the oncoming sensations using the only framework I know. “It’s just a dopamine surge going through my body,” I gasp out, my voice shaky as I try to gaze at him through a haze of desire. “I can barely think.”
I try to explain, knowing I’ve never felt this rush before, this needy sensation that seems to center on only him. Logically, I know it’s a stimuli going through my system, he’s obviously triggered my hypothalamus, and I can’t stop my response.
Lachlan lets out a low husky laugh that seems to reverberate through my skin. His hands slide firmly up my waist, completely unphased by my word vomit. “Elena, my wee woman, let go and let me make you feel good, aye?”
Knowing the science of what he can do to me only makes me more intensely aware of every chemical reaction I have to his caresses. And it’s quickly driving me to a fever pitch that leaves me breathless and helpless in his capable arms.
He leans down and his lips press to the sensitive skin at my throat, his hands finding the hem of my shirt. The intense deliberate focus of his touch completely shatters my ability to form coherent thought.
Instead of clinical definitions, sharp moans cut off my explanation.
“Lachlan, I need you,” I gasp when he reaches out and tugs at my nipple.
“I know, and I need you more, but we must take this slowly, aye?”
He pulls away, taking my shirt with him, and I’m left in only my bra, panties, and leggings, but what feelings I have about how overdressed he is in comparison fly out the window when he bends to kiss me.
With the soft bed at my back, and Lachlan caressing me at my front, our lips meet in a hot, wet slide, and a groan of surrender climbs my throat. His mouth works mine as the kiss turns more possessive and greedy, and I become consumed by the smell of cucumber melon and him.
He breaks the kiss and my hands bury in his thick red hair, pulling him down until his rough breath stutters against the crook of my neck.
The heat rolling off his body is intoxicating, and I arch my hips upward, trying to get him even closer.
I want and need him with every particle of my being, but he freezes, his entire frame locking into an unyielding wall of muscle above me.
I press a palm to his chest and gasp. A strange heavy vibration, a low rumble, that seems to resonate right through my own ribs and doesn’t sound human.
“Slow,” he rasps against my skin.
His voice is thick, painfully deep, as if the words are being dragged up from immense depth. I let out a frustrated grunt, my fingernails digging hard into his flannel covered back, demanding he give me more. For a split second, his eyes snap open and meet mine.
My breath catches.
His pupils are gone, leaving bright green light that seems to have swallowed his irises whole, turning his eyes into two endless turquoise pools that mirror the cool waves of the ocean.
He blinks, squeezes his gaze tight, and the illusion of the man returns.
But his touch changes. The frantic urgency of before is gone, replaced by agonizingly deliberate restraint.
When his lips press to my pulse point, they trace my skin with terrifyingly gentle precision, leaving goosebumps in his wake.
His hands glide down my waist, so featherlight it aches, yet I can feel the sheer uncompromising strength of his grip.
My impatient movements begin to dissolve under his absolute control, and I let myself just feel for a moment. My hands slide up his chest, and I can almost imagine the roughness of his hidden scales rippling beneath his skin.
He watches my face closely, searching for any hint of unease, but finds only my stark hunger. As if reassured by me, his large hands skate down to the waistband of my leggings, his touch torturously slow as he begins to peel the fabric from my legs.
Every inch of my skin he exposes is met with the heavy warmth of his gaze, treating me like the most precious treasures, and making any misgivings about my first time vanish like they never existed at all.
“Alright, my flower?” he asks.
“Mmhm. I’m more than alright.” My heart melts, and when his gaze locks onto mine, his fingers reaching for the hem of his shirt, it practically comes out of my chest and my breath catches in my throat at the sight of him.
Along his forearms are rows of iridescent green scales that shimmer blue and ripple into view, as he doesn’t hide from me.
Instead, he reaches forward, using those heavily muscled and scale-covered arms to bracket my hips, pinning me softly into the mattress.
“Still too fast,” he murmurs, his voice low, a gravelly vibration that goes right to the core of where I want him.
A shuddering groan rumbles from him, and I shiver with an arch of my back.
The sensation of him atop me is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and I find I love the solid weight of his body above me. I feel sheltered and cherished in a way I’ve never felt.
He must sense what I need, because his strong and knowing fingers reach down between us, raking one long digit under my panties and touching me where no man has ever touched me before.
Blue blazes from his gaze once more, as if he can’t help it as he slides my panties and bra from me, leaving me completely uncovered to his gaze.
“By the gods, Elena. You are by far and away the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen,” he says, and his hands begin to tremble as he reaches out to touch me again.
He caresses his way back down my body, squeezing and kneading until I’m a languid mess against the sheets.
Lust burning in my brain, I can think of nothing else and almost cry from relief when his hand finally grazes the apex of my thighs. Urgent with my want for him, my hips come off the bed when one of his long fingers glides inside me.
“Yes,” I hiss through my clenched teeth, my fingers gripping the sheets like a lifeline.
Raw need meets pure unadulterated desire when he begins to move there.
“Och, you’re small, but oh so wet,” he says at last, like he can’t quite believe it, just before he bends to sweep me up in an earth-shattering kiss.
The kiss goes on forever, ratcheting up the ecstasy floating in my veins. Kissing Lachlan is like fireworks, a field of discovery and champagne rolled into one cataclysmic person I know I’ll never get enough of.
He twists his palm, and I cry out as he shoves me over the cliff. He thrusts his fingers inside me, and it’s all I can do to hang on as my orgasm takes me under as he holds me to him.
A guttural answering groan leaves him, but I can’t think while my whole body is on fire with pleasure. Awash in a sea of sensation, my toes curl and my back arches as I come in cascading waves that seem to roll forever while he finger fucks me to oblivion.
“Oh my god, Lachlan. That was amazing,” I finally breathe when I come down, smiling as he rains small kisses over my face.
“Aye? Feel better?” he asks, sweeping the hair from my eyes as he stares down at me.
“Aye,” I answer, feeling my skin heat anew when he kisses me again. “But it’s my turn now.”
Lachlan Macbeth
The heat of her skin burns against my palms, a stark contrast to my own body temperature that remains chilled like the depths of the sea.
I brace my weight on my forearms, careful not to crush her with my heaviness, ignoring how my scales ripple openly across my arms. I frown down at her and shake my head.
“That may not be such a good idea, Elena.” She could drive a saint to debauchery and then some.
And it is taking everything in me to not fall on her like a madman.
I try to anchor myself when her thick bountiful thighs caress my own hips, and the thought enters and leaves my brain just as her sure fingers slide over my jean-covered erection.
“Fuck me,” I groan, the muscles of my throat convulsing when her wee hand strokes down me again, like she knows what she’s about.
A delighted gasp crests her lips. “That’s my plan. I just need you to take a few more clothes off,” she whines, causing my cock to leap in her palm. “Let me see.”
I try once more to take hold of my control, but she refuses to let me remain an observer.
This night hasn’t at all gone to plan. I thought to get her here to safety, unaware of her predicament, and now it seems I’ve no control at all when it comes to her.
Never mind that I know my cock is easily twice the size of her wrist, I’ve no way of telling this exquisite creature no, and I’m fairly sure she knows it.
Her hands slide up my chest, firm and sure, threading into my hair to pull my face down to her own. She doesn’t want my restraint anymore.
A fierce expression overtakes her, and with breathless determination, she shifts beneath me, reversing our positions until she is looking down at me, her fingers pinning my wrists to the mattress.
“I want to make you feel good too,” she whispers, her gaze locking onto mine without a trace of fear.
The sight of her taking initiative brings a grounding echo of stillness to the usual restless energies inside me. This woman looks at me like no one else in the world.
She looks at the parts of me I normally try to hide, my scales and fins that can’t seem to stay away when she’s near, yet she meets them with unwavering acceptance.
“Will you please take these off,” she says, lifting the edge of my jeans before tugging at my beard and wrapping it through her fingers.
I raise up and do just that, watching for any sign of unease. But she just stares unabashedly as I undress myself for her, awaiting to see if I pass muster.
“You’re beautiful,” she breathes.
When I finally drop my trousers, letting them fall to the floor so she can look her fill, I can’t fight the grin from my face as her eyes dilate.
She reaches out to touch me, running one palm down my abdomen, and my cock jerks for her, reminding me of what’s at stake in this moment.
“You’re the beautiful one,” I murmur, kissing her as I fall back into the bed beside her.
Her fingers trace over the shimmering lines where I know my scales to be, and a hot wave of blood rushes to my face.
I look away when a familiar awkward shyness grips my chest. I’ve worried over this moment for so long, and now that it’s here, finding that she treats my abnormalities like they’re something worthwhile.
It makes me feel exposed in a new way, stripped of all my armor I usually rely on.
“Look at me,” she commands softly, cupping my bearded jaw.
I force my gaze to meet hers, knowing I can’t hide the vulnerability inside that terrifies me even now.
Her gaze is steady, filled with open sheer affection and warmth that melts through my walls of hesitation.
She leans down and presses a soft kiss to my forehead, then one to my nose, another to my ear fin.
She deliberately soothes the tense lines in my shoulders and back, while letting me know she’s entirely unbothered by my true nature.
The nervous knot that’s been biding its time waiting for her for centuries start to untangle, even as my being starts to quake with its want of her.
“I’m terrified of hurting you,” I whisper, the confession scraping raw against the back of my throat.
If nothing else, she will know how much she means to me. I gaze upon her, and my heart thuds in my chest and skips a bit at the realization.
Elena is the oceans of my heart; she’s the tides, the salty mist of air on the breeze, my homeland wrapped in one person, and I’d not ever hurt her for all the world.