Chapter 17 #2
“Right now, I can,” I insisted. “I enjoy it through you. And I really like how you’re pressing me into this mattress. I believe you weigh a little more than a satchel of gold now. I’m glad I bought you a month ago. I wouldn’t be able to afford you now.”
She laughed loudly. Her laughter resonated with a shake through my body and cascaded with shimmering mirth through my emotions.
“Where I’m from, you’d never get a date talking like this, Timur. You’re too honest for your own good.” She poked a finger in my chest.
“In your world, do men lie to get women?”
“All the time.”
“Is that the only way to have a mate?”
“No. Of course not. But some see it as the easiest way.”
“Did you have a man? A mate?” I asked.
I’d learned so much about Elaine. I knew what she liked to eat and where she loved being touched. But until today, I knew nothing about her past. The little I knew about that, I’d learned while lying on the beach during the storm, with her being on top of me, just like she was now.
And now I feared she might’ve left behind someone she cared deeply about. The next moment, however, I realized my fears might be for nothing. I found no deep sadness in her heart, not even a big regret.
“No,” she said with ease. “No mates, no husbands, not even a cat. Men didn’t particularly fight each other for the privilege to date me, but I had a few dates, nothing too serious. One I actually just met before the shadow fae took me.”
“You met a man?”
“Yep. On the Internet. We have a few dating apps back home…” she cut herself off with a close look at my face where my confusion must’ve been obvious.
But she waved a hand instead of explaining.
“It’s a thing where I’m from, but it doesn’t matter.
Anyway, we matched up, chatted remotely for a while, and got together for a coffee.
He seemed nice enough to have a second date with.
I was going to have dinner or maybe a movie with him after I came back from visiting Dawn, but…
Well, Prince Rha’s guards showed up and messed up those plans. ”
“Do you regret parting from him?”
I didn’t sense much regret in her, but decided to ask anyway.
“I have many more people that I regret parting from, like my parents and even my cocky little brother. My colleagues, my students. It pains me that I’ll never see them again, never talk to them either, not even on the phone.
But Owen?” She shrugged. “I knew him so little, there’s nothing to regret other than the possibilities of what might’ve come from that relationship.
But even then, who knows? It could’ve all turned sour if it went any further. Now that I have you—”
She stopped abruptly, casting me a shy glance from under her eyelashes.
“I don’t mean that I have you or that you’re mine…” she corrected quickly.
I hated the doubt marring her joy.
“But you do, my sweet. And I am yours,” I said to clear it all between us. “I’m no one’s but yours, Elaine. And you will always have me, for as long as I live.”
The doubt lifted in her, and I was glad to see it gone. She crawled a little higher up my body to place a small kiss on the corner of my mouth.
“You’re so sweet,” she murmured.
“Am I?”
“I mean, I can’t taste your emotions, but you’ve made me feel all gooey inside with your words on more than one occasion already.”
She smiled before giving me another kiss, this time aligning our mouths perfectly. With a hand on the back of her head, I kept her close, parting my lips for her.
Tenderness overtook us both. It enveloped us like Elaine’s fluffy blanket, creating a world all on its own and only for the two of us to share.
She kissed me slowly, as if savoring every moment. I saw her desire glow inside her, and it was nothing like I’d ever felt before.
For me, lust had always been brutal and punishing. It slammed like a fist, and only the release would bring relief.
With Elaine, the desire traveled along the calm river of relaxation.
It drifted through me languidly, filling every part of my body like warm, liquid honey.
Lust sparked softly throughout my body, exciting but not demanding, at least not yet.
I surrendered to those sensations, gently returning her kisses.
She did nothing more, just kissing me, smiling against my lips, and whispering sweet little things in between.
“And they say that shadow fae don’t kiss,” she marveled.
“We don’t.” I lifted my head to catch another kiss from her.
“Yet look at you go,” she teased. “You must be a natural.”
It did feel natural, as if I were born to kiss her, to be with her, to be hers.
Gathering her tightly into my arms, I rolled to my side, then plucked another kiss from her lips.
“I’ve never done this with anyone before.” She smiled.
“You’ve never kissed either?”
“No. I’ve kissed but…never like this. Never just kissing for this long and enjoying it so much.”
I saw her joy. I felt it. And it was the most magical thing I’d ever experienced in my life.
I love you.
The words danced in my heart and on the tip of my tongue, but I wouldn’t let them out. It wouldn’t be fair for me to say them, not when I couldn’t give her a future together. Pressing my lips to the side of her neck, I trapped the confession inside.
“Touch me, Timur,” she whispered.
Oh, I knew exactly where and how to touch her to bring her pleasure. I didn’t even need the tendril for that, I’d learned her body by the clues it gave me. I ran my hands down her sides then up her back, mapping the route of her joy.
She loved my kisses, and I wished to kiss every part of her.
Sliding down her body, I kissed down her neck, then along the valley between her breasts.
She gasped with a spike of pleasure when I reached the tip of her breast and kissed her nipple.
I couldn’t help doing it again, then licking and nibbling on it while her desire flamed higher.
Replacing my tongue with my fingers to play with her breasts, I slid my kisses down her belly, then to the triangle of dark curls between her legs where I found the hot little bud that brought forth her orgasms when I touched it. I swirled my tongue around it now.
“Timur…ohh,” she moaned.
Her arousal tightened, spreading through my veins like a day storm.
I smelled my seed on her. My scent blended with hers, making it the most intoxicating combination.
Feral lust pounded inside my skull and throbbed in my groin.
My cock grew hard like a bone. But it was so much easier to control now that I had her emotions to focus on. Her pleasure was everything.
She fisted her hands in my hair, rocking her hips against my mouth, and slowly losing control herself. Her need made me feel lightheaded. I wished to be a part of it in every way. I wanted to become one with her.
Pressing my hands into the mattress, I shifted back up her body in one quick move.
“Ready for me?” I whispered.
“Yes,” she replied with no hesitation.
Her trust humbled me. I shook with impatience, eager to shove my cock in her and find my release, but I drew in measured breaths, stilling myself.
Slowly, I pressed the head of my cock to her opening, and just as slowly entered her.
My cock slid inside her, one ringed ridge at a time.
Each ring flashed with a new spark of pleasure through her emotions.
It was incredible to watch and to feel with her.
Like me, Elaine had wild lust and eager need, too, but they were both powered by the most amazing pleasure, not by pain like it had been for me.
“You feel so good, Timur…” she moaned, sending a wave of joy through my system.
Carefully, afraid to frighten away her pleasure, I moved out of her a little. She hooked her legs around my hips, keeping me close. I thrust back in, my mind spinning from the bliss radiating from her.
“Nothing feels as good as you do,” I panted.
Following her lead, I increased the tempo of my thrusts. Need burned through me, urging me to use her body to satisfy it. But her desire promised pleasure, not just a release, and I focused on that with all my senses.
“Timur…I…”
Her breath hitched. Her pleasure spiked, blinding me. My mind, my body, and this entire world seemed to rise to an unimaginable height, then spin in a twister of so many emotions, I feared I had died.
I must’ve blanked out because I remembered nothing but blinding light in my vision and the sweetest ecstasy spreading through my body in swells.
“Are you okay?” A voice reached me through the dreamy haze of this amazing sensation. I felt like I was floating, weightless, painless, carefree…
“What?” I tried to remember where I was or who I was.
“Timur, sweetie, did I hurt you?” Concern laced her beloved voice.
I searched for her with my hands before opening my eyes. It had been wonderful to get lost in pleasure. But the reality was even better.
Elaine leaned over me, brushing my hair away from my face. Her own hair had been whipped into messy waves around her lovely face after all the fucking I’d put her through tonight. She smiled, meeting my eyes, and it felt like the sky cleared and the stars shone brighter.
“Are you in pain? Is it because of me?” She ran her fingers over my tendril still connected to her leilatha.
Reluctantly, I disconnected and withdrew it. I could see why Ray would trade his sanity for human pleasure. I also understood that many would fight and die for just a drop of what she’d so generously given me.
I lifted my right hand and ran my claws through her messy locks, failing to tame them.
“I’m not in pain. Not even a little bit. The pain is gone, and yes, it’s absolutely because of you.” I held her eyes, with my heart full of love and wonder. “You are my salvation, sweetheart, one I don’t deserve and never thought I’d be blessed with.”
After I’d taken her to the bathing area to wash off the traces of our wild night together, I brought her back to bed.
I closed my wings, laying on my side, and she snuggled into my chest.
“Are you comfy?” she asked, glancing up at me.
“Very much so.” I pulled the covers over us both.
“When was the last time you slept in a bed instead of a chair?”
“I can’t remember. Probably a few years ago.”
I slept little in the past decade, surviving on occasional naps instead.
I figured the less I slept, the smaller the chance of having a nightmare.
Once I’d discovered that sleeping while sitting had less risk of rolling over and painfully jolting my feet, I stopped going to bed at all, living and sleeping in my chair instead.
“Will you stay in bed with me then?” she asked, blinking sleepily.
“If that’s what you want.”
“Yes, I do. Please.”
I no longer had access to her emotions, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel her tenderness or her love. It shone in her eyes when she looked at me and rang in her voice when she spoke. It was in the trust with which she let me hold her, in her soft contented breathing, and in her gentle smile.
“Rest.” I kissed her hair, holding her close. “I’ll stay.”
The echo of her emotions still warmed my chest as she drifted to sleep. I wished I could follow her in her slumber, but as the glow of her presence inside me waned, the troubled memories of today kept me awake.
Over the years, my body had been slowly taken over by the dragon. Each loss was devastating, making me wonder which one would be the fatal one.
Now, I had wings. As useful as they had been today, they were another foreign addition, another unwelcome step on the way that led me further from who I was. These steps had been coming faster and faster now.
Then years ago, I would get a new scale a month. A little later, they came weekly, and lately, nightly.
It took years for my legs to turn to claws as the dragon bones grew, absorbing my skin. But things had been happening at an increasingly faster rate now. Just yesterday, I felt a slight twitch along my spine. And today, the wings sprouted from my back.
I felt them even now. The entire expanse of my back buzzed with magic under my skin, in a similar way it used to feel when I still had the tendril between my shoulder blades.
What was going to happen next?
Would I lose the rest of my skin as scales covered me whole?
Would both my eyes turn red?
Was I going to lose my left hand too? The only one that allowed me to feel every dip and curve of Elaine’s body in every tantalizing detail?
Or would it be the worst of all and I’d finally lose my mind? Like it’d already happened earlier tonight, the dragon would take over, and my very essence would be tossed out into the dark sandstorm of oblivion.
That’d be a future bleaker than death.