by Zara Stark
His tongue warred against mine as he continued to move inside of me.
His hand feathered up from my hip and went under my armor. I shivered at the feeling of his skin on mine. His hand found my breast and began to roll my sensitive nipples between his rough, cold fingers.
"What I wouldn't give right now to have you naked and bare beneath me," Nevada panted roughly, breaking our kiss.
His eyes met mine, his pupils blown from pleasure, black almost swallowing sapphire whole. I crashed my lips into his and softly bit his bottom lip between my teeth.
Nevada let out a groan of masculine pleasure and his thrusts became erratic and fast. His cock was like a bar of iron inside of me, impossibly hard and large. I kept pace with him, I loved the fullness of him inside of me. The angle at which we were having sex made his pelvic bone rub against me at just the perfect spot. I felt perfect. My brain was spiraling higher and higher towards another orgasm. From the rough growls and moans from Nevada, I knew he had to be close too.
He ground against me and I couldn't take it anymore. I broke. My mind shattering, floating away in a mindless cloud of perfect pleasure.
"Oh Gods, I love the feeling of you squeezing me so tight," Nevada ground out and with one last loud moan, he came apart as well. Pulling out of me, he came hard, crushing me against the stone of the bridge, his arms holding me a little too tight. He fell apart against me as waves of pleasure rocked through his body.
"Oh Gods, Tavia, I love you," He whispered into my hair.
"I love you too," I smiled.
We stayed like that for a while, he eased off of me a bit so I could breathe.
I reached under the water and pulled up my underwear and Nevada did the same.
I sighed and rested my head against his chest, skimming the fingers of my good hand over his chest. "Wow."
"Ditto," Nevada sighed.
"I haven't done this before," Nevada admitted, no shame or embarrassment in his voice.
I could feel my mouth drop open in shock. "What? Really?"
Nevada shrugged. "I'm not exactly a people person, I've known my whole life that I was destined to be with you. Why would I waste any time on anyone else?"
My heart warmed at that and I hugged him tightly. "That is the sweetest thing I've ever heard."
Nevada returned my hug, sighing into my hair. "The other guys always considered other women practice."
"That sounds terrible," I cringed. "Raiden, Cobalt and Azar really treated other women like that?"
"Raiden and Cobalt did, Azar hasn't been with anyone else either," Nevada explained.
"What?!" I gasped in shock and Nevada's hand flew to my mouth to cover it.
"Shh!" Nevada chastised me, looking all around us. The water lapped at our skin as we floated together under the bridge. "Yes."
"But he, but you," I started to say but stopped. Azar had not seemed like a virgin at all! Neither had Nevada. Granted, I had never really been with any virginal guys except for my first high school boyfriend. Our first time had been embarrassingly quick in a treehouse in his parent's backyard. We had actually considered out real first time after Homecoming because our real first time had been so terrible. I now felt really bad about taking Azar and Nevada's virginity. Azar's first time had been with a broken leg and Nevada's had been in the cold water in public. Not exactly the most romantic way to have sex with your soulmate for the first time.
"Well dragons naturally have more--," Nevada tapped at his chin. "How to explain it without overselling myself?"
"You couldn't possibly oversell yourself, what we just did was amazing, you were amazing," I hid my face in his chest. "I just feel bad that your first time was in the water in public of all places."
Nevada laughed, an honest-to-god laugh, not his vaguely amused chuckle. "It was amazing, Tavia. You are amazing."
"Really? You promise? I feel so bad that you didn't get like a romantic first time," I laughed. "Is that a thing men care about?"
"You really think I give a shit about romantic things? I'm like the least romantic person on the planet if you haven't noticed," Nevada shook his head as if he couldn't believe I would worry about such nonsense.
His hand left my hip and went to my neck, tracing the sensitive part of my neck where I now wore his mark.
"All I care about is that my snowflake marks that elegant neck of yours," His fingers delicately traced the branches of the snowflake marring my skin.
"We should really start getting back, I haven't heard anyone walk by in a long time, and do you think it's safe?" I sighed before my eyes shot wide open.
"Oh my god, do you think the scrolls are ruined from the water?"
"No, they'll have spells from the original creator on them to prevent damage," Nevada explained. With his other arm still wrapped around my waist, he pulled me along with him as he swam for the bank of the river next to the bridge.
We crawled on to land and lounged on the wet grass for a moment to catch out breaths.
A weird thought crossed my mind. "Do you think that they have spells for tracking missing scrolls?"
"No, I highly doubt it, the library is so heavily guarded, and I doubt they think anyone could get into steal a book let alone escape with one. I bet after today they will be doing just that though, it will probably take a decade to put a tracking spell on each and every scroll in the library. Don't worry, Tavia, we're good."
"Well that's a relief, about time we catch a break," I got to my feet and rung the water out of my hair and stretched my back out.
When I looked back down Nevada was watching me with an intense, hungry look in his eyes. His stare traveled down from my face to the way my wet leather armor clung low and tight to my chest.
I gave him a cat-like grin. "Do these look good in my armor?"
"Yes," Nevada groaned.
"Next time, you'll have to see them without the armor on, no barriers between us, just skin on skin contact," I told him and Nevada shivered at my words.
"I can't wait," Nevada groaned, his voice rough with desire.
I grinned at him as he stood up and shook out his curls, splashing me with water droplets.
We held hands as we sprinted back to the castelli. We opened the door before entering after the door closed I deactivated my Alpha of Shields. The magic dissipated slowly, the shadows slithering back into the card.
"What-- the-- hell-- happened," Raiden's voice boomed at us, jabbing every word at us like the stab of a knife. His voice was a deep growl, rocking the walls of the castelli. He rounded on us with wide us, shaking with anger and worry.
"Just went for a swim," Nevada monotoned to Raiden, he went to walk by Raiden while still holding my hand but Raiden stepped in front of him and glared down at the ice dragon.
"Don't bullshit me, Nevada," Raiden snapped. "Not right now."
"The Atrium Libertatis was almost completely unguarded, we wouldn't have had a better time to break in, we did just fine, we got the books we needed, escaped without them knowing who or what broke in," Nevada defended himself. Of course, he left out the man-eating sphinx, scrolls dragon, being cornered by the Concilium and almost dying by drowning while plunging into the Tiber river from high up in the air but the way he told it everything was summed up pretty nicely.
"You've been gone for six hours, you're soaking wet and Octavia is wearing your snowflake," His aquamarine eyes locked onto the new marking on my neck. "Did you two run off to the library, got turned on by all the books and fucked between the shelves?"
"Give or take," Nevada shrugged. All of the passion and emotion I saw in him earlier was gone, he was back to his sarcastic and apathetic self. I could tell his lack of care was pissing Raiden off even more.
"So you're more worried that we slept together than that we got home safely?" I scolded Raiden and he swung around to look at me, his eyes going wide.
"No that's not--" Raiden started, holding his hands up like he was defending himself from a physical attack rather than a verbal o
ne.
"Nope, don't try to backtrack now, you've already said it," I crossed my arms, wincing when I bumped my broken forearm a little too hard. "Honestly, instead of coming at us in anger, all screaming and yelling, the second we walk through the door, you could have maturely waited to ask us what happened. Maybe let us dry off a little first? You didn't ask if we were okay or that we got what we needed, you went right for the snowflake on my neck."
"How am I supposed to not focus on that?!" Raiden looked stricken but his voice was still sharp with anger and disbelief. "How can my eyes not immediately go to your neck when you've got three markings and one blank spot? When the only marking that isn't there is my lightning bolt? When will it be my turn? Why am I last?"
"You're not entitled to sleep with me, this isn't the butcher, you don't take a number and wait in line to sleep with me, you need to earn it by being a nice, caring guy," I growled at him, my teeth gnashing together as I bit down hard. I clenched my good fist so hard my knuckles cracked and I could feel my cards flare and beckon for me from my deck, responding to my intense emotions. "Some girls out there like fucking assholes. Not me. Been there, done that, got the souvenir t-shirt. Do you want me? Act like a grown-up adult man and stop throwing temper tantrums! Do you want to get lucky? How about you go screw yourself?"
I stomped away, leaving Nevada and Raiden standing shocked in the living room. All the post-sex feelings of elation and pleasure were gone and I was left cold, achy and pissed off. I made it to the room, walked right past Azar napping on the bed and stripped my wet clothes off. I stepped into the hot tub and let it soak my worries away. Steam curled off of the surface of the water and it might have well been my temper at that very moment. The sheer mind-blowing audacity of Raiden to think he could be a gigantic ass and still think he deserved to claim me. It honestly painted a very bad picture of the mates thing. Was the rest of my life just the guys waiting to take turns? Did I need to buy a planner and start scheduling all of my fun time activities? That sounded horrendous. Before it had seemed all overwhelmingly romantic, forever attached to my four childhood best friends. Now I felt reduced to little more than something for Raiden to use.
I shook that thought away as soon as it popped into my head. I knew Raiden wasn’t like that. Raiden was kind and intelligent, he just had a chronic case of foot-in-mouth syndrome, as a sufferer of always-says-the-wrong-thing-at-the-wrong-time I understood in a way. It hurt my ego a bit that he had said that but sometimes my ego needed to be taken down a peg.
I dunked my head under the water, letting the water scald away all of my terrible negative thoughts. When I surfaced, I rung out my hair. I hadn’t seen Cobalt yet, I was sure he was working on my cards. I dried off, ran a comb through my hair and put on a gauzy soft gold color, almost champagne and slipped on my sandals. I walked out of the room, Nevada was at the breakfast table, already working on translating the scrolls. He nodded to me as I passed and I smiled at him. Raiden was nowhere to be found. Cobalt’s forge was close to the castelli, perhaps the equivalent of one city block away but I brought my remaining cards with me anyway, holding them in my hands. I turned the corner to his forge, avoiding merchants and shoppers crowding the streets. Everything seemed to be normal, there was no city-wide panic about the Atrium Libertatis being broken into. Either most people didn’t care or the Concilium was hiding it.
Cobalt didn’t turn around as I came in and continued to pound the metal he was working on.
"So it went alright then?" Cobalt asked over his shoulder, pounding his hammer into a metal sending sparks flying around us. I tried to notice how his muscles moved under his skin as he hammered the metal relentlessly against the anvil.
"We got the books and no one knows it was us, so I consider that to be a success," I chuckled.
"That means you almost got caught then," Cobalt stopped hammering and looked over his shoulder, his crimson eyes alight with fury.
I almost stumbled back from the shock.
"Why are you so angry?" I asked, confused.
"You put yourself in danger again, for no reason!" Cobalt through his hammer down and turned around to face me. His blackened hands going to run through his hair.
"No reason? Finding out about my power is an important enough reason for me," I shook my head and glared at him.
He stomped over to me, staring down at me with fury in his eyes. "You were just supposed to scout the area, you weren't supposed to go in yet."
"Spare me the lecture, Nevada and I already justified ourselves to Raiden, I don't need it from you too," I rolled my eyes. I knew what we had done was risky.
"Just supposed to scout the area and you come back with a few ancient scrolls and a snowflake on your neck," Cobalt's eyes went to Nevada's mark on my neck before lifting his gaze back up to mine, he bit his bottom lip. "Got a kink for outdoor sex do you?"
I felt my face heat. "Maybe, seems like it is Aurelius outdoor sex specifically though. Definitely a first for me."
"What is it about fucking outdoors that you like? The danger?" Cobalt asked. "That anyone could walk by and see?"
"Nevada and I were invisible, under a bridge and in the water," I rolled my eyes.
"I didn't ask for the play-by-play," Cobalt shook his head once.
"You kind of did, asking so many questions," I countered.
"What's the problem?" I asked. "Are you mad that we took a big risk or that I had sex with Nevada outdoors? I didn't know that was supposed to be specifically our thing."
Cobalt sighed heavily. "I'm not mad."
"Really? You seem pretty pissed off."
Cobalt grabbed me by my upper arms and leaned his massive frame down to meet me eye-to-eye. "I'm not mad, I'm freaking out because I can't fathom the thought of losing you. You took a gamble and it paid off this time but what if next time it doesn't? I can't lose you."
I was frozen, this was far more raw emotion than I had ever seen from Cobalt. I had no idea what to say.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, looking up at him.
"You're sorry but I didn't hear an 'I won't do it again'," Cobalt scolded.
"I can't give you that, I don't understand how you could possibly think I could honestly say that, not only do we have four more battles to the death we have a bunch of feasts and god knows what other hoops the Concilium will make us jump through before we get home," I defended myself. "Seriously, Cobalt you can't ask that of me."
Cobalt let me go roughly and stomped away from me, grabbing the hammer once more and began to pound his creation again. "I know, I know."
He shook his head and continued to work the metal, unable to speak.
My heart panged for him and I approached him, hugging him from behind. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I pressed my face into his back.
"I'm sorry okay, I know you don't want to lose me," I mumbled into his back.
"Last tournament, you have no idea what kind of agony I went through, wondering if you would be okay without me, that night when I found you and Azar fighting those assassins, I was ready to call it quits there, I didn't care if the Concilium decided to kill me, I just wanted to hold you in my arms and keep you there, keep you safe," Cobalt groundout.
"I do have an idea, I felt that exact same feeling every minute you were gone," I told him.
Cobalt let the hammer drop from his hands and he turned in my arms to face me. I craned my neck to look up at him. "I can't lose you."
"I know, I feel the same," I hugged him closer to me, pressing my face into his chest hot and sweaty from the forge, breathing in his masculine earthy scent.
"I hate that you're in danger every day from us, you would have been better off never meeting us," Cobalt whispered, his large hand went to my chin, lifting it up so I could look in his eyes. He gave me a grave look.
I shook my head. "That's total bullshit, you guys are my everything, my life would suck without you guys. I honestly can't even imagine what it would be like with you. Don't say things like that. Don't think of try
ing to leave me either."
"I could never leave you, I'm a selfish creature, your life might have been better off without us but you have us anyways and we're not going anywhere. I'm not a good enough person to ever let you go," Cobalt whispered to me and chills ran down my spine. His serious words were like the caress of a hand. "You're mine. Ours."
"Who said I wanted to get left, you are just as much mine as I am yours. You guys were gone for ten years, I don't think I could survive another separation from you guys again. Coba, I'm all in. I'm forever yours," I hugged him tightly.
