“Questions?” I asked.
“Millions of them,” she said, her chin raised as she looked at me, and I knew she was drawing on her inner Princess again, refusing to look cowed. “But I’m thinking maybe I need to think of something else a while before we talk. Maybe a game of chess? Do you have a board and pieces here?”
I nodded. “There are a bunch of board games in the bench beside the front door. Look through them and see what you want to play.”
* * * *
I kicked her ass at chess, of course, and then we had a lesson as we evaluated where she’d gone wrong and how her mind could’ve worked to show her my plans a few moves before she picked up on them. Don’t get me wrong, she was easily playing a dozen moves ahead, but I played twice that many and wanted to stretch her grasp of future possibilities even more. She’d reached the point where every extra move was an exponential leap, and she’d only get there with experience.
I produced a skimpy bathing suit for her, swim trunks for me, and told her we’d bathe together without being totally nude. I could smell her relief, though she did a good job of hiding it in her body language and facial expressions. If I’d told her about the bathing suit from the beginning though, she’d have been uptight about it. Only by letting her think we’d be naked, had the bathing suit turned into something to be relieved about.
As we ate, I said, “Now that you have an idea of what an orgasm is, would you like me to give you one tonight? Without taking your virginity?”
“If I say yes now, and then change my mind later…”
Her voice trailed off and I answered, “You can always say no later, but if you say no now, and change it to yes later, I’ll need to wait until you aren’t aroused for you to change your mind.”
She nodded, but I needed to be clear. “I need to hear it, Soph.”
“Yes. I’d like you to…you know.”
I pulled a bottle of wine out and put it in the fridge so it would be chilled when we ate dinner. I didn’t want her drunk, but she needed something to take the edge off. Most shapeshifters aren’t affected by alcohol, but the birds are the exception, thank goodness.
Chapter Nine
Sophia
I’d asked him why he had wine in a safe house, and he said it kept forever and helped keep people sane. He couldn’t plan for too many personal comforts in a house that needed to be always ready to give shelter to someone for weeks with no trips for rations, but wine and whiskey were easy.
The freeze dried meals weren’t gourmet, but they were tasty enough, and filling. I had to admit the wine helped a great deal, though.
We’d taken a bath together earlier, both of us in bathing suits, though mine was so skimpy it might have been more scandalous to wear it than to wear nothing. Or, maybe not.
I’d survived, but now, when he told me to go climb in bed with my panties and bra on, I just stood and looked at him.
“Are you brave, Soph?”
I closed my eyes, shook my head, and asked, “Can we maybe go in there together? I’ll help you clean. I know I’m clumsy at it, but if I don’t practice I’ll never learn.”
He shook his head and smiled. “I live next door to a vampire, and I’ve already figured out which of his flock I’m going to hire to clean house for us. I’ve had someone come in and take care of the once-a-week stuff, but I’m thinking with two people living in my house, and as busy as we’re both likely to be, we’ll need someone daily. You don’t have to learn to clean, Sassy. I’ll take care of it. We’re filling your head with too many other things right now, you don’t have to learn everything at once.”
I’d seen what happened to people who belonged to vampires, and my heart sank into a dark place, smothering me in disappointment as I asked, “You’d take advantage of someone who’s already a slave?”
He muttered, “Fuck,” as he took two steps to me and moved to pull me into his arms, but I moved back, away from him. I didn’t want him touching me.
“Things are different outside of South Carolina, Soph. The Abbott doesn’t allow humans to be kept against their will. His flock are there of their own choosing, with no mind-games. He pays them a salary, helps them with school tuition, arranges for transportation to and from classes if they need it. He takes care of them.”
I’d heard of The Abbott, and knew my father didn’t like him. I also knew we’d been close to all-out war with him at one time.
“You’re friends with this Abbott?”
He nodded. “Close friends. He’s my neighbor, and he’s one of the long-lived I frequently move with, when we need to change cities.”
“My father doesn’t like him.”
He smiled. “The feeling is mutual. The only reason they aren’t at war is out of respect for me.”
“How can you be friends with both?”
“Abbott is aware of my reasons for befriending the Swans. He’s left South Carolina alone primarily for me.”
“And if you and I become a thing?”
“You’ll need to speak with him, tell him of your intentions. If you intend to rule the Swans from South Carolina, you have to know you’ll have a fight on your hands if you want to clean the state up, but Abbott will likely help.”
I suddenly felt very small and insignificant, and sat in a chair, defeated before I even started. “The vampires are awful, they act as if humans are less than animals and only on the earth to do their bidding and feed them. Plus there’s the Eagles…” I shuddered as I remembered having to dance with so many of them a few months ago, and added, “The Alpha Wolf my father is friends with has always terrified me, the look in his eyes makes him seem more animal than human.”
“The bad guys have all banded together in South Carolina, Princess. No single group or ruler will be able to take care of them all. It’ll take a mustering of the good guys to clean the state up.”
Aaron had been cleaning the kitchen while we talked, and I addressed the other part of his statement that’d bothered me. “I know I was raised as a Princess, but I don’t want to live with people taking care of me anymore. I want to learn to take care of myself.”
He wiped his hands, settled the towel on the counter, and looked at me a few seconds. “If you take the throne then your days will be filled with your Queenly duties, and you’ll need people around you to take care of the things you don’t have time for. I agree you need to learn to do these things, but I’m not so sure you need to become skilled at them. When things settle down, you can learn to clean. Right now, there’s too much other stuff we need to cram into that beautiful head of yours.”
He stepped to me, pushed my hair away from my face, and said, “Come on, Soph.” He grabbed my arm and started walking, and I had no choice but to follow him to the bedroom, my heart racing.
When we reached the bed he pushed me backwards onto it, and then climbed on it and over me until he was leaning over me while I was flat on my back.
I opened my mouth to say his name, but his hand landed on my hipbone, moved up my waist, and curled around my breast. I stopped breathing as his thumb swiped over the top of my bra and electric shocks shot through my nipple even through the fabric.
“That’s better,” he said. “Didn’t want you terrified. Nervous is okay, but you’d worked yourself up too much, Soph.”
He swiped his thumb over my clothed nipple again, and I gasped this time as heat pooled in my groin, and the thing I’d learned is my clitoris throbbed with my heartbeat.
My mouth went dry as I watched him sit up and raise his shirt over his head, and then casually toss it away. He adjusted me so he could sit me up, and a half-second later, my shirt was over my head and gone, too.
I forgot how to breathe again as Aaron leaned in, his warm breath on my neck, and I jerked as he unhooked my bra in the back. He kissed my neck, up to my jaw, and then pushed me back down on the bed as he tossed the bra in the floor and took my mouth with his.
While his mouth ravaged me, his hands felt of my now naked breasts, and th
en his fingers zeroed in on my left nipple. My hips squirmed and I stilled, mortified.
“Move for me, Sassy. Nothing wrong with showing me what I’m doing to you. This is normal, healthy, sharing, Soph.”
I let my hands drift up to his arms and shoulders, and ran my fingers through the ridges between his muscles. His mouth left me and I whimpered, but he moved his face to my throat and drew in a long breath, smelling me as if he were a beast, predator, which is exactly what he was. His mouth moved down and I moaned as his lips sealed around my nipple and he did something with his tongue.
My back arched and I screamed as he bit — it didn’t hurt, but I felt teeth and my mind seemed to turn inside out on itself at the unexpected, carnal, naughty things he was doing to me. Instead of letting go at my scream, he sucked, and it felt as if a line went from my nipple to between my legs, with electric current flowing between.
I let my hips move now as I focused on what he was doing to my breasts, and my skin blazed hot under his hands. I moved my lips to his neck, kissed, and then licked, and he moaned.
It caught me off guard at first, but then it hit me — I had the power to make him moan, to make him feel this good, too.
His mouth captured mine again and I whimpered into the kiss, but he didn’t back off. This kiss was raw and feral, wild, and I wrapped my legs around him.
“Yes, Soph,” he growled as he ended the kiss. “That’s it, take what you want from me if I’m not giving you enough.”
He kissed his way down my neck, between my small breasts, down my abs, and I gasped as he hooked his fingers in my yoga pants and pulled them off as well as my panties, and tossed them on the floor without looking.
I gasped again as his fingers went inside my most private lips, and then I gave a long, breathy moan as he slid a finger inside me.
Aaron Drake was inside of me. Maybe it was just his finger, but it was him. I raised my head to look at him, and my heart stopped beating when our gazes met.
“Mine.” His voice was quiet, deep, but it was fierce, and in that moment I agreed with him. I nodded my head, and he lowered his mouth to me and I screamed as his tongue touched my clitoris.
The book had been right — this was a very sensitive part of my body. My hips froze now, to make sure I didn’t buck him off because it was suddenly very important he keep doing exactly what he was doing — his finger moving inside me, touching me in places never touched before, and his magnificent tongue doing the most wicked things. I was scandalized with his mouth there, and yet I didn’t want him to stop.
The things I was feeling were beginning to overwhelm me, and I heard myself saying, “Yes, yes,” repeatedly while I fought to keep enough oxygen in my body and waves of bliss threatened to drown me in their pleasure.
He lifted his head and adjusted his hand, and I gasped as his finger hit a different spot. A better spot. “Move with me, Soph. Move your hips like you did earlier, my Sassy girl. Give it to me.”
My knees were bent and spread, and I experimented with pressing my feet into the bed so my hips came up, and Aaron helped me find a rhythm so it was a kind of dance.
Suddenly overwhelmed, I screamed his name, terrified over the loss of control as my body moved and gyrated on its own and I thought I might drown in the sensations.
“It’s okay, Soph. Let it take you over, let me take you over. Just go with it. Don’t fight it.”
Suddenly, the world stopped and my body splintered into countless points of light as pleasure rolled through my body and I could only exist as I was submerged by waves and waves of ecstasy.
When I came back to reality Aaron gently pulled his finger from me and fell beside me on the bed as he pulled my face to his chest and simply held me.
As I regained my breath, I said, “I had no idea.”
He chuckled and said, “You were always a fast learner, and I’ve always adored your sassy side.” He held me tighter, and we lay together in comfortable silence with only the sound of our heartbeats.
Eventually, he said, “This is probably as good a time as any for me to teach you some words the book I gave you left out.”
“Can’t you give me book two or something? You know, to keep us from having to talk about it?” Though, he’d chosen the timing well, as I could probably handle it without being terribly embarrassed right now. Still, I was glad he’d pulled the covers over us, so I could momentarily avoid facing the fact I was naked. After his hands and mouth had been, well, everywhere, I wasn’t sure it was logical to be embarrassed anymore, but I kind of was.
He pulled back and moved my head so he could kiss my forehead. “No, Soph. You’re going to get used to talking about it. You need to be able to tell me what you want, and “put your penis in my vagina” doesn’t have the same punch as “please fuck me” or “I need your cock.”
I blew out a breath, a little aggravated. “I didn’t say that! And I don’t think I’ll ever say the other, either!” I shook my head and added, “I’m assuming cock is some kind of slang for penis?”
He kissed my forehead. “Yeah, and fuck is considered one of the worst of the cuss words, and is slang for intercourse.”
“Why would someone name it after a rooster?”
He gave a short laugh and said, “No idea, Sassy, maybe because it rises first thing in the morning?”
My brow wrinkled. “It does?”
“Yes. Most men awaken with a morning hard-on, which is another word for an erection. If we have someone in bed with us, morning sex can be a wonderful thing. Otherwise, we either beat off, or take a shower and ignore it until it goes away.”
I assumed beat-off was another word for masturbate, but I desperately wanted to change the subject so I thought back to my royal training — get him talking about himself, but in a way that fits in with the current conversation but steers it ever so slightly away.
“You’re thousands of years old, right?”
He nodded and I followed up with, “Don’t you get tired of having to keep up with the latest words and slang? How many times has the worst cuss word changed over the millennia?”
“Mmmm, nice. Not many people would even realize you’d just expertly changed the subject. As for the vernacular, I look like I’m eternally somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, and if I’m to have a decent sex life I have to speak like someone of my apparent age. I may not always keep up with when the thing in the living room you sit on changes from settee to divan to chesterfield to davenport to couch to sofa, but I do keep up on whether to call a penis a doodle or a tallywag, a johnny or a cock.”
The idea of him having a ‘decent sex life’ bothered me on a level I hadn’t expected. “You’ve had intercourse with a lot of women?”
He sighed and kissed my cheek. “It should be worded to ask if I’ve had sex with a lot of women, and you have to know the answer without asking, Soph.”
I nodded, unexpectedly upset with the idea of him with anyone else, but also wondering how I could possibly please him after he’d been with women who were likely much more experienced.
“Sometimes, Soph, sex is just a physical act, with no emotions. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s a completely different thing when you care about someone. I feel so deeply for you — whatever we have is special, and whatever we do will be special.”
“It’s been special with others though, right?”
“I’m somewhere around nine thousand years old, Soph. My heart has been broken more times than I can count. I’m not going to ask a lot of you, but I need you to value what we have right now, and not think about the past, okay? I promise you while we’re together — while we consider ourselves an item — I won’t have a sexual or romantic moment or moments with anyone else. Not even for work, and you have to know I’ll be limited in what I can do by not being able to seduce a mark, but I already know you’ll never be okay with it, so I’ll work around the limitation.”
“You make it sound so casual,” I told him, “but what we just did, it was
…it was…”
I didn’t know how to express my feelings, but he filled in for me. “There was nothing casual about what we just did, Soph. It was so far beyond special I have no words for it, either. You gave me a gift, and I hope I returned the favor. Whether we go farther or not, I’ll always treasure what we have.”
I smelled the truth in his words, saw the truth in his eyes, and heard it in his voice. My muscles relaxed and I curled into him, my cheek to the side of his throat.
“My Sassy little Sophia,” he rumbled. “So special, so sweet, and yet so strong.”
Chapter Ten
Aaron
I let Sophia get comfortable with her eggs, sausage, and oatmeal the next morning before I brought up the next couple of conversations we needed to have.
“I have a close friend, someone I work with a good deal, and when you meet her I’m going to need you to like her and not be jealous.”
She considered my words a few seconds and said, “When I meet her? You’re thinking the two of us are going to be able to go out into the real world as a couple?”
I smiled, happy she’d gone there first. “I’m hoping.”
“There’s too much to think about right now, but my initial thoughts are that as long as you haven’t done any…sexual things…with her. As long as I know I have that and she doesn’t, then I won’t have a reason to be jealous.”
I shook my head. “Soph, whether I’ve had sex with someone in the past isn’t the point. She and I are friends now, and will never be anything more.”
Sophia stared at her oatmeal without answering, and I smelled anger and grief. “Sassy. It didn’t work between Kirsten and me. You have something she doesn’t, because what you and I did last night worked. You have no reason to be jealous of her.”
The Dragon King Page 7
