by Ophelia Bell
He reached up and placed his palm against the center of her chest. The simple touch stole her breath. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I really want to know everything there is to know about you.”
Evie found it hard to fill her lungs enough to speak. Finally, in a near whisper, she said, “What if I never trust you enough to share my secrets?”
“Then I’ll have to prove to you that you can.”
She sighed, relieved that he told her the truth, but also more anxious than ever that she hadn’t heard any hint of a lie. If she had, she’d have had an excuse to avoid following through with her crazy plan.
She urged him to stand and laced her fingers through his again. Taking a deep breath, she found that steely will of hers, along with the wicked streak that had urged her to seek him out to begin with.
“Rutting stag, huh? I think I like the sound of that.” She grinned up at him. Abruptly he wrapped her in his arms and laid a hot, hungry kiss against her lips. In spite of the cold brick wall he had her pressed into, all she could feel was his heat flooding through her thin dress. She clung to him, melting against him, both of them oblivious to the traffic on the sidewalk passing by like nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. Like she wasn’t on the verge of letting this man fuck her silly against the wall right out in public on a cool spring evening.
The honk of a cab made Marcus jump and draw away from her. She held on, reluctant to lose the warmth of his body and the sweet pull of his mouth. A small, petulant sound came out of her and he groaned in response. He placed his hands against the wall on either side of her head and peered down into her eyes.
“You’ll be the death of me, Evie North. But I think you’ll be worth it.”
After placing a chaste kiss on her forehead, he pulled her to his side, leading her down the sidewalk again. In only a few steps, he pulled keys out of his pocket and opened a door in the front of the brownstone he’d just had her pinned to.
“You mean to tell me we were ten feet from your door?” Evie laughed.
“I was overcome,” he said, smirking at her. “Besides, if you were a bad kisser, I’d have made some excuse and sent you on your way before letting you know where I lived. Picking up strange women in Central Park is a good way to get murdered.”
She gaped at him. “And only murderers can be bad kissers, I take it? I suppose I’m glad you found my skills acceptable.”
Marcus stepped through the door, propping it open with his body and gesturing for her to walk through. As she passed by, she caught him subtly adjusting the bulge that filled the front of his trousers.
“More than acceptable,” he said, flushing when her eyes went to his hand at his crotch and her eyebrow shot up.
Evie took his hand and stepped close, leaning against his solid form. She threaded her fingers through his, amazed yet again at how thoroughly he stole her breath. He seemed to have stopped breathing as well, his mouth partway open and his gaze fixed on hers. She raked her fingernails up the side of his neck and pulled his head down. When their lips met again, she let herself savor the velvet softness of him and the stiff pressure of his erection against her belly. She pressed her hips harder against his, enjoying the way he moaned into her mouth.
She suddenly had the urge to tease him, to see how long she could draw out his need for her. It was the kind of thing she’d heard dragons would do to their partners, to increase the draw of the magic and the payoff when their partner finally found release. Her kind subsisted on the same magic, but the music was what drew it to them. That wasn’t to say she didn’t crave the intimate connection that sex provided. After all, there was a kind of sublime rhythm in making love that was as beautiful as any song she had ever sung.
She wondered whether Marcus had ever played an instrument. He had long, strong fingers that had already set her strings humming with pleasure. She pulled his hand to her breast, unclasped his fingers, and pressed his palm against the small mound of warm flesh. Her nipple ached for his touch, but he didn’t respond at first. Then, as though reacting to the steady pulse between her thighs, he brushed his fingertips over her stiff bud again. The pleasure vibrated through her so acutely she could almost hear the music of it. Again he stroked his fingers over her through her sheer top, teasing as gently as he might the strings of a guitar, coaxing from his instrument a soft, reverberating thrum.
The music came out as a soft sigh from her lips.
“I’d like to make you sing again, just for me,” Marcus murmured into her ear. His fingers found a slow rhythm over her breast, each pass causing vibrations of ecstasy to flow through her. She could only sigh again and nod.
Abruptly, the world tilted and she found herself cradled in his arms. He stepped the rest of the way through the door and kicked it closed behind him, mounting the stairs blindly as he bent his head to kiss her again. Moments later he crashed through another door on an upper landing, elbowed it shut and carried her across the room.
Evie opened her eyes when he finally pulled back from the kiss and set her down. She stood in a dimly lit and very Spartan studio apartment. The full-sized bed was neatly made and the kitchenette pristine. The only signs that the place was lived in were the books and papers strewn across the surface of a wooden table that appeared to serve as Marcus’s desk.
“You’re a student?” she asked.
His eyes clouded briefly. “For now.” He didn’t elaborate, but the dark tone carried with it a sense of helplessness that was at odds with his earlier eager lightheartedness.
Evie raised a hand and brushed it tenderly down his cheek. He had a secret that weighed heavily on his conscience. She was more convinced now that, regardless of their lack of a deeper connection, somehow she had chosen him for a reason.
“What would you like me to sing for you?”
His wicked grin returned and he stepped in close, crowding her backward until the backs of her legs hit the side of his bed.
“You’ll see,” he said. His hands came up and cupped the sides of her head, his mouth descending again, tongue darting between her lips in the sweetest, most urgent kiss yet. The fervor with which he consumed her set her heart racing and her hands groping, trying to find purchase on his sides. He pressed closer, one arm wrapping around her and urging her down to the bed, while his mouth descended to her throat and the bare tops of her small breasts, on display above the ruffled fabric of her blouse.
He tugged her laces loose and spread the fabric wide, tracing his lips down her sternum and pulling the blouse lower as he went. Evie laced her fingers through his thick hair, stroking as his tongue darted out to tease one pert nipple. He captured it in his mouth and sucked hard, the sharp sensation making her gasp and arch up off the mattress, pulling harder at his hair.
Marcus chuckled around the stiff, pink flesh. “That’s right, sing for me.”
“Oh!” she gasped louder when he cupped her other breast and tweaked her nipple.
“Christ, Evie, you’re destroying me. Do you have any idea how perfect you are?”
She really had no ideas whatsoever, at the moment. Her body was nothing more than a bundle of senses, experiencing every little teasing touch, the lush scent of his masculine musk mixed with the clean aroma of whatever shampoo he used. The small bit of awareness she managed to cling to outside of him was the whisper of the Wind, confirming again and again the truth of his desire and the incongruous rightness of her choice to be with him right now.
He pulled back and simply gazed down at her half-naked body, her blouse shoved down to expose her breasts. With a determined look, he grasped the top of it and pulled it farther making her yelp as she was briefly bound up in it when he tugged it down to her wrists. He pulled even farther, snagging the waist of her skirt and panties, peeling her clothing off until she was fully naked for him.
With a low curse, Marcus raked his gaze down her body and collapsed to his knees on the
floor beside the bed. His eyes brimmed with fevered lust and he dug his fingertips into her thighs, sliding his hands higher to grip her hips and pull her toward him. Evie’s backside hit the edge of the bed and she wondered if he intended to pull her all the way into his lap, but he stopped and bent to press the most reverent of kisses against her navel.
The warm caress so close to her core caused her to quiver with anticipation. His mouth turned up at the corners and his eyes twinkled as though he sensed her eagerness. Sliding his hands back down, he slowly caressed, rubbing along the tops of her thighs, his fingertips grazing perilously close to her already wet folds with each pass. At the same time, his mouth drifted lower, tongue sweeping out and tickling wetly at the top of her dark triangle of hair.
Marcus slid his hands in another slow stroke up the insides of her legs, pushing them apart, then cupped the backs of her knees and separated them high and wide, spreading her open for him. Glancing up at her, he raised one eyebrow in silent query. Evie only responded with a languid smile, but that was all the acknowledgment he needed. Abruptly, he wrapped each arm around the tops of her thighs and bent his head, teasing her folds open at the same time as his tongue darted out, the warm, pink tip snaking through the slick furrow with deliberate care. Evie nearly came apart from that one lick.
With his mouth latched onto her, he allowed his hands to drift back up her torso to cup her breasts. His thumbs resumed their earlier rhythm, stroking in maddening circles and sweeps over her nipples in time with the steady strum of his tongue over her clit.
In Evie’s mind, a composition began to unfold, sweet notes playing for her alone with each note of pleasure he drew out of her. Soon he began to hum along with the beat of her pulse, the soft sounds vibrating over the slick, sensitive flesh of her core. Sounds erupted unbidden from her own throat, ringing sweet and clear through the small apartment. At first the sound was an incoherent collection of random syllables, but gradually converged into words of a song heard long ago in another era, another country. The first love song Evie had ever learned matched the rhythm of Marcus’s attention perfectly, but as he conducted her body’s reactions toward a growing crescendo, the true meaning of the song became bittersweet.
She kept singing even as her breath hitched and her body writhed, consumed by her climax. His mouth remained tight against her, tongue sliding more slowly over her quivering flesh and drawing out the orgasm for an endless moment, as if he were testing the strength of her lungs to see how long they could hold that final note together.
The last note came out as a breathy sigh, her body finally relaxing, but still tingling with remnants of pleasure. Marcus pressed a soft kiss on her inner thigh and looked up at her, licking his lips.
“Encore?” he said, grinning.
“Who are you?” Evie asked, incredulous. She sat up as he rose from the floor.
“Just a man who knows how to appreciate a creature as exquisite as you. You must have been lying to me when you said you weren’t an angel. Only angels have such beautiful voices.”
“Oh? And how many angels have you made sing like that?” She reached out and hooked her fingers into the waist of his jeans, tugging him close. His eyes darkened as he looked down at her.
“Now that I’ve met one in the flesh, I’m sure the rest weren’t the real thing. You’re too perfect to be human, I’m sure of it.”
Evie ignored the comment, though the words tugged at an old memory. She couldn’t put her finger on why the comment should worry her—she was still too absorbed by the sense of helpless surrender the lyrics of her song had incited in her. Instead, she tried to distract him by slowly unbuttoning his shirt and sliding her hands up the contours of his taut stomach and broad chest.
Marcus slid out of the garment, letting it fall to the floor. He simply watched with that same stormy gaze as she unfastened his belt and undid the closure of his jeans. A little surge of breath escaped his lips when she tugged his zipper down over the tight press of his erection. She didn’t overtly touch him, though—not yet. She wanted to draw out the anticipation as long as possible. Instead, she leaned close and rested her lips lightly over his navel, mimicking his treatment of her earlier and teasing at the small cleft with the tip of her tongue.
Careful not to touch him too much, she pushed his pants down his legs and watched with unabashed appreciation as he bent to pull his shoes off, then step out of his clothes. He was more magnificent than any man she’d ever been with. His skin was lightly tanned, with smatterings of darker freckles over his shoulders and chest. Out of his clothes, he seemed even bigger than before, the definition of thick shoulders and thicker thighs evidence that he was a very active man who cared about his physique.
The best part was the thick curve of his cock jutting out of a reddish thatch of curls where the vee of his abdominal muscles ended. She licked her lips, heat surging between her thighs at the sight.
Unable to resist any longer, she took him in her hand, startled by the velvet heat and solid hardness of him. He hissed through his teeth when she gave his entire length one long, slow stroke. His legs nearly buckled when she reached between his thighs with her other hand and cupped his heavy sack.
With a growl, Marcus gripped her shoulders and pushed her back on the bed. She scrambled backward as he followed, prowling across the mattress toward her, his cock swaying like a dowsing rod seeking the vital wetness hidden in her depths. Hovering over her, he reached to the bedside table and opened a drawer, pulling out a small foil packet.
Evie snatched it from him and shook her head. “Angels can’t get pregnant,” she said, though the truth was that only with her true mate would she be able to conceive. Marcus may be something incredibly special, but he was far from her One. That, and she really didn’t want to dull the sensation of having him inside her for the first time.
Marcus’s eyebrows twitched. “Are you sure?”
Evie lay back and hooked her feet around the backs of his thighs, pulling him toward her. “If I am an angel, do you really want a barrier between your cock and heaven?”
He grunted and let her pull him lower. Bracing his hands on either side of her head, he bent to nuzzle at her neck and collarbone. “Fine, nothing can come between us, then. Not now, not ever. But you should know I mean to have my fill of you.”
“Good,” she said, clutching again at his head as he captured her nipple in his mouth and rolled it around and around against his tongue.
His hips rocked forward, pushing his cock along the smooth skin of her belly. She tilted higher, aching for deeper, closer contact. His hips shifted back again and on the next tilt, the tip of his cock slid up through the center of her sodden folds, the friction of the contact making her cry out for more.
One more forward sway of his hips and he hit home, his thick tip seating itself right at Evie’s entrance. She lifted up, her channel so tight and hungry it clenched in a painful spasm. She needed so badly to be filled by him she was only barely aware of the soft pleas spilling from her lips into his shoulder.
When he finally entered her, she sang her pleasure into the air and an answering breeze blew through the room, an affirmation from the Wind of its approval of her choice.
It still made no sense to her, but the Wind and Fate and the magic that permeated her life surely had a plan. The fact that he seemed to be able to see some of her true nature must mean something, too—though what it meant, she had no clue.
At the moment, she didn’t care about why or how, or anything else. All she cared about was urging him to fuck her harder, deeper, and, oh, yes, to tilt his hips just so and rub the tip of his cock against the sensitive bundle of nerves inside her.
Her climax built more quickly with the combined sensations of his lips on hers and his skin sliding against the insides of her thighs. His pace quickened and he pulled back, staring down at her in wonder, as though he couldn’t quite believe she existed. For a spl
it second she nearly confessed the truth of her nature, but held back, clenching her eyes shut and gripping him tighter around his hips with her legs.
With a stuttering moan Marcus dropped his head, burying his face against her neck. His hips jerked hard, slamming deep into her with such force it ripped her orgasm from her in a crash of sensation. Suddenly, the hot flood of something more potent than his semen flooded through her and her eyes shot open.
Magic? How is he feeding me his magic?
She only had a second to wonder; when he thrust again the power surged through her, sending her to another peak that made her cry out with renewed ecstasy.
Chapter Eight
Marcus
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean
Present Day
Marcus had often dreamed of flying under his own power since that terrible day decades ago when he’d undergone his change. But today was the first time the sensation of being carried along on invisible currents outside the confines of a cockpit was actually real. His body may have been near death, but his mind was vitally awake and excited, his strong wings stretched taut with the wind.
No, that wasn’t right. They weren’t his wings. They belonged to the massive black dragon who carried him. He had a strange affinity with this creature who seemed so adamant not to let him die that he was now carrying him away to who-knew-where. Of all the dragons he’d encountered and captured over the last five decades, he’d never once been so attuned with one that he could believe they were one and the same. Ked’s wings were his wings, his strength carrying Marcus through the air, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
When he opened his eyes, Marcus didn’t see the cage of talons that held him. He saw an endless stretch of clouds and sky, tinged red-gold with the rising sun. He didn’t feel the dull ache and dizzying weakness of being bled dry, but the chill stream of wind over his body in contrast to a dark and dangerous swirl of power and rage entrenched deep within his being.
