RAWN

by Bonnie Burrows

  With a final post-coital tingle, Joanna kissed Rawn’s nipple and followed him into sleep.

  To her toe-curling delight, Rawn was the first thing she saw when she awoke in full daylight. He lay there beside her, his mesmerizingly handsome face shadowed with morning stubble. The air and the sheets smelled of what he’d done to her for so many hours, and her nipples hardened at the sight of him and the scent of his sex.

  As if he sensed she was watching him, his eyes fluttered open and focused on her. A smile stretched across his face. “Good morning, Joanna,” he said in a sexy, rumbly voice. “Come over here.”

  She slid across the bed to him and, at once, was in his arms with his mouth on hers. The kiss lingered, and he lifted one leg over her thigh. As he did, she felt something down there that was not his leg that made her grow wet with the memory of how she’d spent the night.

  Sucking at her lips, Rawn said, “Perhaps you’d like to go down there and give me a proper wake-up.”

  “I’d say you’re already awake down there,” she chuckled at him. And after another peck on his lips, she kissed her way down the sculpted muscles of his body, staying at his chest long enough to nuzzle its expanse of hair, and rustling the sheets away. At her destination, below the perfectly cut path of his abs, lay the musky forest of his pubic hair and the colossal pillar of his morning wood.

  He made rumbly noises of growing pleasure as she took his length into her mouth once more. She gave him a long, slow, deep sucking that made his muscles flex and release in appreciation, and paid careful attention to the soft and bulbous treasure below his root.

  At length, he stroked her hair and said, “Allow me to return the favor.” Almost not wanting to let his pole slip from her mouth, Joanna climbed back up beside him and let him kiss and lick his way down her own body, making her tremble at the touch of his lips and tongue on her skin, until he found the thicket of hair between her legs and rustled through it with his nose.

  Then, he took his mouth below her pubes and sucked at her dewy petals, and slipped his tongue between them and into her, giving her the most intimate kind of kiss that a woman could receive. She bent her knees and pushed her sex up into his face, feeding herself to him, and he partook fully of her, finally bringing his tongue to the place where it would give the greatest pleasure.

  He licked and strummed at it with his tongue until he brought forth the desired response. Her body rocked as if it had changed physically into a wave of euphoria. She called out his name ecstatically: “Rawn…oh Rawn, yes! Yes!” Her breathless calling of his name and the undulation of her body let him know his work was done, and there was one thing more to do. He

  eagerly did it.

  Feeling as if her every cell were vibrating from the climax of his oral sexing, Joanna took Rawn on top of her and inside her again. He took her with the same endless and deep stroking that he had given her all last night, and she reveled and gloried in the feeling of his body and the thrusting of his huge tool.

  As she had called out his name, now he called out hers in a drunken-sounding expression of his masculine need: “Joanna…Joanna…oh, you’re so wet…you’re so good…I love being in you so much…” She whimpered under him, receiving the strokes of his massive and incredibly long piston in and out of her, soaking up the sensations of his screwing and wishing he could never stop.

  She wanted his body to belong to her, and the way he pumped himself inside her, she felt as if it truly did. She grabbed his buttocks and dug her fingers into their flesh, making him roar the “F” word again and making him wish he could do it to her as hard as he could without hurting her.

  With all his disciplined passion, Rawn pumped Joanna to his climax and let his white male syrup flow freely into her again. He kept their bodies locked together and his pole deep inside her for long, dizzyingly sensuous moments before pulling out and rolling them into a post-coital

  embrace. Holding her close, he muttered the “F” word over and over again, turning it to an echo of what he’d done to her once more.

  They settled into another afterglow, and Rawn, holding her against his chest and stroking her hair, said, “Joanna, there is something I must tell you.”

  She lifted her face from his chest to look at him. “What?”

  “Since my return home, there has been so much excitement and celebration about me. And I understand that. I accept that. I’m grateful that people are so happy that I’m home and have welcomed me the way they have. I know what I represent to people, and I’m so very touched by the love that people have shown for me. But Joanna…being this ‘hero’ that people see when they look at me is only part of who I am.

  And I love it that I can protect people and protect my world and the Commonwealth and do things that matter. I’m grateful for this to the bottom of my heat. But there is only one thing that matters more to me, only one thing that I want more than that. What I want most of all is what I did in this bed all last night: sex. Deep, beautiful sex with a woman I find most beautiful. There is nothing more wonderful to me than the way I felt being inside you all last night. The sex I have with you is everything I needed most. You know this, don’t you?”

  There was no doubt in Joanna’s mind at all. “I know, Rawn. This is the most beautiful time I’ve ever had too.”

  He kissed her, a long, deep kiss, pouring into it all the feelings he had just expressed.

  Rawn continued, “Then you know, Joanna, that it’s not only just the sex itself, not only just the humping and the screwing and the coming all night long, and now this morning. I’ve had such a homecoming since that day I arrived at the spacedock.

  But when I first moved inside you, and came in you, and made you come, that was when I truly came home. That was why I needed so much to be in bed with you and be inside you. Because the first person that I saw when I returned was you. My real homecoming, Joanna, is you.”

  More moved than she had ever felt at any other moment in her life, more deeply touched than she had ever been by the words of any other person she had ever known, Joanna flung herself into Rawn’s kiss. Arms and legs entwined, hands grasping at each other’s body all over, they rolled back and forth on the bed, drinking deeply of the pleasure of their kiss, until Rawn rolled her onto her back and slipped his renewed erection back through her folds and into her wet passage. He humped Joanna and drove his full, pulsing length into her with all the ardor that he had shown since last night, and turned their morning into an encore of everything they’d felt since they first went to bed.

  On the window ledge overlooking the bed, a little green grass dragon sat in the morning sunlight, unnoticed by either Rawn or Joanna, engrossed as they were in Rawn’s impassioned screwing. The little reptile watched Rawn hump the human female, oblivious to anything else in the universe, for several prolonged moments, seeming more interested in humanoid copulating than such a creature ought to be. Then, he picked himself up and climbed away down the wall of the guest house, swishing his tail behind him.

  Grass dragons were ubiquitous residents of the planet Lacerta. They were as common in the cities as squirrels and pigeons were in the cities of Earth. Like those other urban animals, grass dragons congregated in the parks where people fed them. People hardly ever gave them a second thought. They were everywhere at the Spires, and the Knights and Corps considered them practically mascots. The little animal skittered down the outer wall and leaped onto the grass of the guest house lawn. He bounded across the grass, jumped into the air, and took flight with his wings, disappearing over the treetops in the direction of the Spires.

  He flew a short distance to the place in the courtyard where Rawn’s memorial statue stood in the courtyard. A broodingly handsome young apprentice Knight in silver armor leaned calmly and quietly against the pedestal of Rawn’s statue. The Knight looked up and saw the small reptile descending overhead. He held up his hand and the dragon flew down onto it. The Knight smiled.

  Gazing at the scaly animal that had just perched on his ha
nd, the smiling Knight lifted the dragon to his face and looked into the dragon’s eyes. The animal perched peacefully as if it were the most natural thing in the world to perch on a humanoid, and looked back at the young man. They stayed that way for a long moment, dragon man and little dragon, and something unheard passed between them.

  The Knight lowered his hand a bit, taking his eyes from those of the dragon, and looked up into the sky, either at nothing or perhaps at something that only he could see or know. And he smiled again.

  “Sabian will be pleased,” he said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  With the day of the ball to welcome Rawn home drawing nearer, Rawn and Joanna spent every night together and stole every other opportunity they could to slip into her bed or his for joyous and impassioned sex. Each time Rawn entered her, they felt fused together in flesh and mind and heart and knew they would never have enough of each other’s body.

  Which made it all the more poignant to know that their time would soon be over.

  Joanna did her best not to think about it for the time being. The night after their first night, she appeared at his suite in the Spires. When the door slid open for her, she found him

  already naked and ready for her below the waist. She smiled with pure delight, and he pulled her through the threshold.

  What immediately followed in Rawn’s bed was epic. He carried her to bed and kissed her

  ferociously along the way; he stripped her, spread her out on the bedspread, lowered himself onto her, and went right to work. A half hour later, after thunderous and wet climaxes, they propped themselves up on pillows against the headboard and rested up for the inevitable next coupling. Joanna took in the sensations of his chest and arms and legs and petted the thick and moistened length of his maleness, and sighed deeply. “Oh, Rawn, what are we going to do?”

  “If you continue doing that,” he said, “as I know you will, you’re going to lie back down, and I’m going to climb onto you and screw you senseless.”

  “No, not that,” she replied. “I know that. I mean…what are we going to do after the ball? How are we going to make this work?”

  “We’ll do whatever we must,” Rawn replied, feeling himself start to grow hard down there once again. She really knew how to handle him, and he loved it. “We will still be together as much as we can, no matter where your Bureau sends you, no matter where the Knighthood sends me when I return to full duty. We may be apart, Joanna, but we will never be parted.

  To be in bed with you and do the things we do to each other is the best thing I’ve ever had in my life.” He lifted her head from his chest and gazed soulfully into her eyes. “You truly are my homecoming. You’ve brought me back, not just to my home, but to myself. I was in pieces, and you made me whole again, dragon and man. That’s what our being in bed has done for me.”

  Joanna’s heart melted, and she grew very wet someplace else. As he’d said a minute ago, she lay back down and reached out to him, inviting him onto her and into her. Rawn did not

  hesitate. Another long, humping ride of ecstasy followed.

  _______________

  The night of the ball welcoming Rawn home arrived, and it was everything that Joanna expected it to be: every bit as glittering and glamourous, and every bit a reminder that in

  obeying her heart and surrendering to her desire for Rawn’s body, she had surrendered other things as well.

  The chosen setting for the gala was the Colonial Arboretum at the Ruling Aerie from which the planet was governed. It was a space covered with a transparent dome and filled with the rarest and most beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers, not only from Lacerta but elsewhere in the quadrant. For the occasion, some of the flora were cleared out to create a dance floor and buffet and table space, and light drones were floated in to create the appearance that the air was filled with gold, white, blue, and red stars. Everyone was dressed formally and elegantly. This included the Knights and Mentors, who all donned dress uniforms of basic, shiny black with bands and stripes of the colors of their respective ranks.

  As a member of the press, Joanna arrived early to cover the arrivals of all the prominent guests and dignitaries, including the Alpha Family and the guest of honor. When their levitating chariot pulled up before the Arboretum, Epaulette, over Joanna’s shoulder, captured the moment when the Alphas stepped out of the floating vehicle and onto the red carpet leading into the gala.

  The Alpha Dragon and his wife emerged first, smiling and waving to the press and the crowd of onlookers, and started down the carpet—and behind them, the dress-uniformed figure of Rawn Ullery, looking positively regal, stepped into view, holding out his hand to the lady he was

  escorting. The long legs of Evette Veles unfolded from the craft, followed by the rest of her in a gown of jet black adorned with ruby red filigrees from shoulders to hem. Rawn gallantly took her by the hand and helped her up, and they walked arm in arm down the carpet behind Evette’s parents.

  At the end of the carpet stood Joanna, feeling as if her stomach were filled with fluttering baby dragons and fearing that this was only the first of many moments during this evening that she would absolutely dread. She had no worries about speaking to the Alpha Couple, but when Rawn and Evette reached her and Joanna had to talk to them, she would have to meet their eyes.

  Would Rawn’s eyes show to Epaulette—and thereby to the entire quadrant—that Rawn had a much more intimate relationship with the woman at the end of the carpet than the woman on his arm? And would Joanna’s expression when she looked at Rawn betray to Evette the same thing? Joanna called upon all her memories of her theatrical training from before she decided to become a mediate. She would have to act as if she was not sleeping with the guest of honor and play the part convincingly.

  After Joanna recorded the requisite niceties with the Alpha Couple and they went inside the Arboretum, Rawn and Evette came up to her, and she greeted them. “Ms. Veles, that is an absolutely lovely gown,” Joanna said—anything to deflect her own feelings about who was

  escorting the planet’s First Daughter. “It’s perfect for the evening—and for your escort.”

  “Of course,” said Evette, flashing a stellar smile. “I chose it very deliberately. I knew, after all, I was going to be on the arm of a Knight in formal armor skin.”

  Yes, didn’t you just? thought Joanna, turning her attention directly to Rawn. “Sir Rawn,” she said, “the whole Commonwealth is celebrating in spirit with you tonight. I know how good that must make you feel.”

  Rawn fixed his gaze on Joanna in a way that made her feel pinned in place and replied, “It has been a very happy homecoming for me, Joanna, and tonight is the height of it.” He said the word height in a way that seemed to suggest climax, which put a shiver down Joanna’s spine. “The affection that has been shown to me has made me very happy, and I look forward to

  moving on to other duties when the celebration is done.”

  He had not said it in a way to make it obvious, but the layers of meaning in his words were all there for Joanna. He had told the quadrant one thing and told Joanna quite another, and she smiled softly in understanding, cautious not to let on anything to the young woman in black and red on Rawn’s arm.

  “Enjoy your evening, Sir Rawn and Ms. Veles,” said Joanna, “and I’ll look forward to recording you on the dance floor.” And the guest of honor and his date smiled and nodded, and stepped past her and into the Arboretum.

  Joanna turned and watched them go in, and maintained her own smile. But she could not dismiss the thought, That’s right, enjoy your evening, Evette. But I’m his homecoming, not this fancy dress ball and not you. When the party’s over, he’s spending his after-party with me. As the thought and the feelings passed through her mind, a pang of guilt came with them.

  Though she had successfully put on her little performance as just a mediate and not the woman who had been enjoying Rawn’s body for the past several nights and not a few stolen hours during the past several days, the fac
t remained that in lying with Rawn she had done exactly what she’d resolved not to do.

  She had told Rawn that she did not regret it, but at the time, she had been speaking as a woman, not as a member of the press. As a member of the press, she still had trouble reconciling the breach of her ethics. And the fact that Rawn would never breathe a word of it only compounded the

  feeling. Not only had she let her subject have relentless sex with her, but the two of them were covering it up. It was not conduct becoming of a trusted journalist. While she was in bed with Rawn, she could live with it far more easily than she was living with it now.