Falcon (Kindred #5)

by Scarlett Finn

  “There’s math involved,” he said, and his eyes went up a fraction then relaxed. “You’re not ovulating.”

  Tickled, she stroked his obliques. “I don’t know why, but it’s hot that you know that.” He must have been paying attention during their nights to when she requested external toys only and picked up on the timetable of her cycle. “Would it have mattered if I was?”

  Without the slightest hesitation, he answered, “No.”

  For a man who was averse in so many other ways, this was a compliment. “That’s a risk.”

  His eyes got wider, yet smoldered at the same time. “You’re a risk to my sanity, shy. I’ve been holding on to it by a thread for years. You might be the girl to make it snap.”

  A zap of electricity shot up her spine, awakening every nerve on its route. Anticipating that she’d lose grip of her own control, she admired the definition of his torso with her eyes before she let her hands explore.

  “I’ve harassed you about this,” she whispered. “About making love with me. But I haven’t pressured you into doing something you don’t want to, have I?”

  Usually it was the male pressuring the female for sex. But, the concept was the same in reverse. As sure as she was that he wanted this, she needed to hear him say it.

  “Shy… I’m surprised I held out this long.”

  Pulling her top off, he began to walk her backwards, and she was flat on her back when he crouched to take off her shoes and skirt and everything else that was in his way. The bed cradled her while he got her naked, which he had practice at. Although his belt was loose, he wasn’t nude yet.

  Her anticipation was forgotten when he rose up to lie on the bed at her side. With an elbow on the mattress by her ear, his torso rested on hers and that salacious contact of heated, sensitized skin was enough to empty her lungs in a satisfied moan.

  This was what she wanted. “Zave,” she said, stroking a hand from his pec, up his throat, to his cheek, and around to the back of his head to guide his mouth onto hers.

  He’d resisted her like she was some kind of temptress, a siren sent to drag him from his path of redemption. But if that was who she was, he was the unattainable man to her. A god who stood high above her, observing her meager self, with the power to devour her at any given moment.

  And devour her, he did. The speed and urgency of their mouths became a competition, not for dominance, but in a race to quench the thirst that had been building since they’d first stood together outside her bedroom. His mouth was confident in where it was, but his hands still weren’t on her body.

  Devon didn’t want to lose the momentum of their kiss, so she skimmed a hand down his arm to seek out his hand that was hanging somewhere in mid-air above her body. Bringing it down, she clasped each of his fingers around her breast and that was when he broke their kiss.

  His hand knew what it was doing, it kneaded the flesh in a gentle caress that grew bolder as it recalled the sensations her body was nurturing. Zave watched his hand stroke her, and the concentration on his face was so compelling that her legs opened in expectation of receiving him. Except his hips were parallel beside hers, not on top. Lifting a leg over his, Devon crooked her knee over the back of his thigh and felt the material of his slack still blocking their progress.

  “How does that feel?” she asked. His eyes flashed to hers like he’d forgotten she was there. The question was usually his, it was one he asked while he pleasured her from afar.

  “Better than the fantasy,” he said, scrutinizing his caress. “I’ve imagined this body under my hands.”

  “And this is better?”

  “Yes, and this is just the start.”

  His wet lips met hers just once, then he slid down the bed to enclose his mouth over her breast. Devon understood his reference to fantasy, because this was one she’d had herself. The man who had been dedicated to pleasuring her for weeks was breaking his own rules and enjoying her form, just as she wanted him to.

  The saliva of his tongue proved that he had dreamt about this because it was sure about where it wanted to go next and took its time to savor every second it had to taste her, as though she could be snatched away at any second.

  The weight of his palm on her abdomen made her wriggle. On instinct, he followed her unspoken desire and let his hand descend until his long middle finger pressed to her clit and circled, stimulating her piqued awareness.

  “Wait,” she panted because she was quickly losing sight of the night’s aim. “Wait, lord.” Taking his shoulders as she rolled to her side, she forced him to do the same.

  Their warmed bodies were pressed together, and he steadied her balance with his forearms flanking her spine. “Changed your mind?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, so blinded by raging hormones that she couldn’t tell if he was concerned or amused.

  “Do you need some help? I can get the toys if this isn’t—”

  He worried it wasn’t enough, when it was actually more than she could handle. “No,” she said again and panicked when his embrace loosened.

  Pushing him onto his back, she imagined he expected her to retreat. Instead, she moved to her knees and down the bed to pull his pants off. “If you’re not sure…” he said, grabbing her wrist to stop her getting far.

  Leaning over, her breasts grazed his chest as she kissed him. “I’m the aggressor here, remember?” she whispered.

  Well that was a joke, he was bigger, stronger, and much more confident, but she hadn’t interrupted their seduction because she was unsure, she did it because once again he’d been pampering her. As the balance of their relationship stood, she had masses of orgasm credit and he was in severe debt.

  She abandoned his mouth to move back to her previous task of stripping him. At some point, he’d toed off his shoes, so it was easy for her to work the clothes off his lower body, and he sat up to help. Once he was as naked as she was, Devon pressured his shoulder until he laid back down.

  It wasn’t in her nature to stare, but she was mesmerized by the thick column of his engorged shaft, so hard and long, and ready for her. Insistent in its jutting pride, it had been neglected for so long, yet now stood willing and able to cater to her.

  “Come here,” he said, opening his arms for her.

  But she was still ogling him. Tracing a single fingertip from hilt to head, satisfaction spurred her on when his dick twitched in response to her attention. Without his permission, she pulled one of his legs toward her to make space for her to climb between his limbs. Bending forward to kiss his abs, she wanted to give him what he deserved.

  “Shy,” he said.

  “I owe you,” she whispered with her lips against his bulging base.

  “Nothing,” he said. “You owe me nothing.”

  But it wasn’t about debt, Devon cared about this man so much. Her heart was heavy that he’d deprived himself of pleasure for such a long time. Wrapping her fingers around him, she held him still to run her tongue around his crown and up over the smooth head she’d have inside her soon. Carrying on down the full length of him, she cradled his balls and kissed them as she caressed.

  Zave didn’t let her stay down there for long. He sat up again and took hold of her to put her on her back. Pinning her down flat, he rolled on top of her and tightened his grip on her arms.

  The thick length of him imprinted itself on her inner thigh, but she didn’t want it there, she wanted it to be under her mouth again. “I want to know you,” she said. “Like you know me.”

  “You will, shy,” he said. Using one hand, he stroked the hair from her face. “But it’s been a long time for me, and there’s only one place I want to be when I come inside your warm, willing body.”

  So he didn’t want oral to break his dry spell, Devon wouldn’t argue with that. He’d taught her to always comply with him anyway. “Zave,” she said in the instant before his lips met hers.

  “Hmm?”

  “This is going to be amazing.”

  “It’s going t
o be quick,” he said, rubbing himself on her leg. “You feel fucking incredible.”

  That was his opinion already, and he wasn’t inside her yet. “I wasn’t talking about the sex,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. “It’s a given that you’ll blow my mind. I’m talking about us.”

  Lifting his lips further from hers, he met her eye. “You’ve made a dangerous decision, shy, asking for this. Once we do it, there’s no backing out. There’s one thing you’ve missed in all your talk of me punishing myself…”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t just dedicate myself to giving up things. I dedicated myself to taking responsibility. After I take you, you’ll be my responsibility for the rest of your life.”

  Pulling him down to kiss him again, she smiled. “I can’t wait.”

  He controlled the next kiss, and his hands were quick to fondle her now that they’d crossed this line. Devon assumed he would be rushed in his caresses, eager to take advantage of the chance to feel the female form again after being starved for so long. But he wasn’t.

  He was interested in her shoulder, the skin of her arms, the ticklish spot on her ribs. He wasn’t racing to any finish line and wasn’t caressing her to aid his own desire or even to stimulate hers. He was doing it to learn her every crevice, and he took his time doing it.

  He liked her nipples, liked to stimulate them into peaks, to soak them with his mouth and blow cool, circular breaths to strain them further. When he exhaled in her cleavage, she sighed. And when he turned her onto her front and kissed each of her ass cheeks before slowly trailing the tip of his tongue all the way up her spine to the nape of her neck, Devon fell into orgasm and he hadn’t penetrated her yet.

  Boneless and exhausted while completely enlivened, Devon whimpered. “You’re doing it again,” she said, struggling to catch her breath when he rolled her onto her back again so he could kiss her mouth. “You’re spoiling me and neglecting yourself.”

  In response, he pulled her legs wide apart and speared the head of his dick between her folds, enveloping himself in her cushioned heat. Yelping, Devon bucked up.

  He bit her bottom lip. “Playing with you gets me off,” he growled, his voice deeper and huskier than she’d ever heard it. “The power I have over you. I want to know how to use it. I want to know how every inch of your body reacts to me and how you like to be touched. I have to know where you want my tongue to be and when you like a hard press”—pushing himself in deeper, he squashed his flat palm onto her breast—“and when you want it soft.” Pulling his hips all the way back until just the tip of himself kissed her threshold, the edge of his fingertip circled her nipple before it ascended to trace the outline of her lips.

  “Zave,” she exhaled.

  “It’s not all about you, shy. See, when I touch you, I’m learning how to get you off, how to control your pleasure.”

  He began to move inside her with more insistence, and the timbre of his voice worked, as it always had, even when he was standing far away from her, stimulating her body with his toys. It had been the caress of his voice drifting over her responsive skin that had heightened the intensity of their connection and her arousal.

  “I want to work you in every room we’re in,” he murmured. “When I know I can look at you and fuck you with my eyes. I want you to feel my hands on you when we’re standing a room apart. I want you to remember how my tongue felt right here.”

  Forcing it between her lips, he occupied her mouth, her pussy, her mind, her soul, all at the same time. His pelvis worked harder. But she couldn’t react to the increased friction that made the pressure of orgasm build because she could barely draw breath until he chose to relinquish their kiss.

  He wasn’t done using his voice to push her deeper into desire. “You’re going to know when I do this.” He brushed his hand from the side of her neck, over her shoulder, down her arm, all the way to her fingers. “That I possess you. Your body is at the mercy of mine. Your sweet, tight cunt will respond to my training, and when I tell you to come,” he growled and licked her lip. “No matter where we are, right there, on the spot, you’ll come.”

  And right there, she did. There was nothing holding her back. Her body went into spasm, her hands gripped for the sheets, hit his shoulders, clutched his ribs, Devon couldn’t stop moving or calling out for him. Only when he seized her forearms and slammed them on the bed did she stop the manic movement that had stimulated him into his own growling release.

  Tension twisted his expression, and then he was still for half a second before he flipped away from her to land on his back. Separated from her, he lay there, staring straight up with a hand over his heart.

  Devon gave him a minute and when she felt that she was able, she kissed his mouth. Out of either exhaustion or reluctance, it took him a minute to respond to her in kind. Eventually, he did and that was when he ran his hand down the back of her hair and gripped the ends to pull her back.

  “You made a big mistake.”

  He could try to warn her all he wanted, she felt like a million bucks. “How did I do that?” she asked.

  Zave was still holding her hair when he rolled his head to look at her. “There’s nothing stopping me now. I have an appetite for you, one I intend to satisfy whenever I crave you.”

  “Ok,” she said, kissing his shoulder. “You can feast on me any time you want.”

  He didn’t mean what he said as any kind of threat, and he wasn’t mocking her. This was his way of letting her know that this was just the beginning, and that was exactly what she wanted to hear.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Something buzzed, and the noise was jarring enough to startle her eyes open. Her body didn’t move. She heard the sound again, and she blinked at the vaulted ceiling towering above her, trying to remember where she was.

  When she moved her leg, her muscles screamed, and she remembered exactly where she was and who she was with. It took a second for her smile to spread, and she turned her head in time with the shift of the mattress. Zave was on his side on the edge of the bed, his back muscles moved, and she had a great view of his tight ass that almost made her purr.

  Before she could reach out for him, he spoke, “What is it, Bess?” he mumbled in a gruff morning voice.

  “Oh, it’s terrible!” Bess exclaimed, her disembodied voice coming from nowhere Devon could see.

  But it was the panic in her tone that made Devon sit up. Anything could’ve happened, and Bess would know about it first. Maybe it was Jennifer. Could the girl have hurt herself or be sicker than they thought?

  “What?” Zave asked.

  “What did you do? You have to tell me what happened!” Her quick, worried words made Devon forget about her tired body.

  “What are you talking about?” Zave asked, his words slow as he extended a bent arm to rub his eye.

  “You didn’t bring her back. Devon. Did you? You left her there! What did you do? You chased her off or scared her away!”

  “What are you talking about?” Devon liked learning that Zave wasn’t quite with it when he first woke up. “What’s the problem? Is it the girl or Zara?”

  Bess squawked. “No. No. No! It’s you!” Bess insisted. “You broke it! That girl was crazy about you, and she hasn’t been back to the manor. I know that you left her there in the city! Alone! She hasn’t slept in her bed. I went to find her, and she’s gone. You have to fix it!”

  It was nice that Bess was so worried about her and sort of funny that the woman didn’t know Devon could hear every word. Crawling over the bed, she kissed Zave’s shoulder then propped her chin on the same spot, draping an arm over him to take her lips to his ear.

  “Should we tell her?” Devon whispered so Bess couldn’t hear.

  A little green light was glowing on the long speaker beneath Zave’s alarm clock. Devon had thought it was a radio; apparently, it was an intercom. “You better say fucking something, or I’ll never get more sleep,” he said.

  Picking up her arm, he
urged her away so he could lie on his back again, but that put Devon farther away from the speaker and her knees were digging into his ribs in a way that couldn’t be comfortable.

  Climbing over him, she sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m here,” Devon said. Zave moved onto his side again, bringing up his knees to give her a nook to rest in.

  He snagged the pillow she’d been using and stuffed it under his head, content to go back to sleep and leave her talking to Bess. “You’re there? Wait,” Bess said, her initial relief became confusion. “This intercom, it feeds into Zave’s bedroom. No one’s allowed in Zave’s bedroom. No one’s ever been allowed in Zave’s bedroom.”

  The compliment from the speaker was joined by another that was making itself known against her ass. Leaning back, Devon laid one arm along his thigh and the other on his ribs. “We had a talk last night,” she said, admiring the form of the man who’d agreed to give her everything she wanted.

  “You figured it out? You’re together?”

  “If you want to gossip, go down the stairs,” Zave grumbled, thrusting his hips forward as if to nudge her off the bed, but it was a half-hearted attempt that only moved her a couple of inches and she quickly managed to seat herself again.

  “No, no, you stay there,” Bess said. “I hate to do this, but… Zave, you have business to deal with.”

  “Tell them to fuck off,” he mumbled, punching the pillow between his head and his other crooked arm. “We didn’t get back until after dark.”

  It was late by the time they got back to the manor, but that wasn’t why he was tired. He was tired because every time they took a break for long enough that one of them might drift off, the other initiated another session. They’d still been awake when the sun started to rise.

  “Not Knight Corp business,” Bess said, becoming more solemn. “Kindred business.”

  Zave swore under his breath, then inhaled. “Give me ten minutes,” he said and stretched himself out.

  “Devon, dearie,” Bess said. “You enjoy being up there. He might never have you back.”