And then Luke and Sarah were pronounced man and wife, and romantic fantasy or not, I would have sworn that I could feel their joy rolling off them in waves.
“Congratulations,” I said to them, hugging them both. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Thank you, honey,” Sarah said, squeezing me tightly. “And I’m happy for you, too, Dev. I still can’t believe Maks made this happen for us. Go be with your man. You deserve it.”
Even though it had come together quickly, Sarah had managed to invite a few friends to come witness the simple ceremony, including Wes and his family. He was going to take Holly for the night so that Luke and Sarah could have a wedding night back at the house. Back at my house.
In the whirlwind of wedding and divorce planning, I hadn’t made any plans of my own. I’d just assumed that I’d be going with Maks and would be able to give Sarah and Luke some wedding night privacy, too, but now I wondered if I should have asked, instead of just assuming. We hadn’t talked about any specific plans for after the ceremony, and even though I knew he was impatient to be with me, too, I suddenly realized that I didn’t even know where he lived. Which was odd, given how well I felt like I knew him—but it just hadn’t come up.
Before I could worry about it, he was already at my side, congratulating the newlyweds, and then, as soon as it was polite to do so, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the door. My heart started racing with excitement. No, I hadn’t needed to ask, and I was happy to let him take charge. I had no idea where he was taking me, but that didn’t matter. I wanted to be wherever he was.
Always.
* * *
Maks pulled me down the hallway and into a stairwell, then pushed me up against the wall and kissed me. Every other time that he’d touched me, kissed me, pressed his body against mine, one or the other of us had been holding back. Now, even though we were in a public place, I could tell it was different, and my body responded instantly. Heat shot through me, pouring off of him and through me, swirling into a tight coil of urgency that centered on my cock.
Maks’s hands were on my waist, then my ass, and he ground himself into me until I thought I was going to explode right in my pants. He lifted me up, his lips leaving mine and moving down my throat, sucking at the base of my neck, and I completely forgot about where we were, or that someone might see us. I wrapped my legs around his waist and grabbed the back of his head and let him have his way. He was taking control the way I’d dreamed of, not asking or giving me a chance to say no, handling my body like he owned it.
It was exactly what I wanted.
My head fell back against the wall, and nothing existed except his mouth and hands on me, the burning length of his cock throbbing against mine through the annoying layers of cloth that separated us.
“Oh!”
Maks’s head shot up, his eyes literally blazing, at the sound of the intrusion. The short woman in the bad suit who had interrupted us froze, and Maks lowered me down to my feet and pushed me behind him.
“Leave,” Maks ordered her, his voice echoing in the small space as it vibrated off the walls with a weird resonance.
Her eyes seemed to glaze over, and she turned jerkily, as if her body were on puppet strings.
“Wait. Stop,” Maks said in that same odd voice.
She did, but didn’t turn back around.
“Make sure we’re not interrupted here. Now go.”
She left without a word, and Maks turned back to me and rested his forehead against mine for a second, breathing heavily. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Do you think she’ll do what you asked? Oh, my God… maybe we should go somewhere else. Anyone could come—”
He cut me off by covering my mouth with his and unbuttoning my pants. “No,” he growled as my shaft jerked against his hand. “I’m done waiting. I need you. Now.”
A part of me thought I should care that we were in public. I ignored that part. Overwhelmed by the heat of his hand on my leaking cock, the feel of his large body pinning me to the wall, the trail of fire that he left as his mouth moved across my jaw, down my neck, then lower—I just couldn’t bring myself to care about anything else.
“Are you going to fuck me right here?” I asked breathlessly, clutching at his head.
“No, baby,” he said. “I can’t do that yet, but I need to taste you.”
I wanted to ask him why he couldn’t just fuck me—he didn’t seem to care that we were in public any more than I did, so it must be something else—but he’d continued to kiss his way down my body, and before I could get the question out he’d shoved my pants and underwear down to my knees and had swallowed my cock down to the root. Which made it impossible to ask anything at all.
I’d never imagined… I had imagined… but I hadn’t known that it would feel… like… this…
The world around me disappeared and there was only the hot, wet heat of his mouth and the hard, relentless suction of his cheeks, the incredible feel of his tongue massaging my shaft, the tight fit of his throat around me and oh God—I couldn’t stop my hips from thrusting forward.
“Maks… I’m… I’m…oohhhhhhhhhhhgodddddddd.” My head cracked into the wall behind me, but I didn’t even feel it. My eyes rolled back and I saw actual stars, pouring myself into him as I came with a hot rush that left me gasping and clutching at him as my knees buckled and his relentless mouth milked every drop from me.
I would have fallen over if he hadn’t held me up.
I felt dazed, and I’m not sure I could have moved if Maks hadn’t helped me. I was more than happy to him let take charge, helping me fix my clothes and straighten my hair and adjust my glasses. He kissed me—looking pleased with himself, and tasting musky and hot and like he was mine—and then he led me down the stairs and out of the building and into his car. It wasn’t until we’d hit the freeway and were headed away from the lights of the city that I found my voice.
“Where are we going?”
“I need to show you something, love,” he said, his hand resting possessively on my thigh. “It’s something you need to know about me before I can ask you for more.”
I was still feeling boneless and satisfied from what he had just done, and I couldn’t muster the curiosity to press him about that cryptic comment. I trusted him. There was nothing he could tell me that would change how I felt. I lay back against the seat and enjoyed the feel of his hand on me, and when I caught his eye in the rearview mirror a spike of heat shot through me again.
I shivered, swept with the inexplicable certainty that my life was about to change.
15
~ Maksim ~
I still had the taste of my mate in my mouth, and my otherself was pushing me to pull over and finish claiming him—now. I was impatient, too, but even though Devin was my mate and I knew he wouldn’t deny me, I didn’t want to take him, claim him, change him with my fire, without him knowing what he was getting into, and what it meant for him.
There was more than just fate between us. I loved him, and I needed to show him my dragon, and explain that my heat would make him fertile. That I wanted him to bear my child. That my fire would bind him to me forever, his life literally becoming tied to mine.
Once that happened, the subtle awareness we both had of each other would grow into a full bond, allowing us to share every thought, every feeling. My dragon’s powers would flow to him through that connection. His body would gain my fast healing, my longevity, and just enough of my shape shifting ability to allow him to carry our child.
In subtle ways, too, it would separate Devin from the people he knew. My kind generally didn’t allow humans to know about us—keeping our existence secret, compelling them to forget if they stumbled across the information—but it meant that the kind of closeness possible between lovers, friends, family—the kind of closeness that Devin enjoyed with Sarah and Luke—just wasn’t possible for us. There were exceptions of course, like Ty, but in general being my mate would mean that he would always live a life slightly apart from t
he rest of humanity.
I wanted him to know all of it before he said yes. I didn’t ever want him to have any regrets once he was really mine.
“Can I ask you something?” Devin said, shifting in his seat so that he was facing me.
I glanced over and nodded, squeezing his thigh.
He was blushing.
“Back there, in the, um, courthouse…” He was biting his lip, turning even redder when I gave him my attention. The sight made my cock start to swell, and when I saw his eyes dart down to my lap I groaned. I wanted to be inside him. I wanted to bury my cock in the tight little ass I’d had my hands on a few minutes before, and whether he knew it or not, he was feeling that desire through our bond. Just like I could feel his.
I forced my eyes back onto the road. I really, really, needed to stop thinking about sex until I could show him what I really was. He wasn’t going to make that easy, though.
“What did you mean when you said you couldn’t fuck me… ‘yet?’” he asked. “I mean, it obviously wasn’t because we were, um, in public, because you… you…” His eyes were still glued to my cock—I could feel it—and it was eagerly responding to the attention.
“Oh, my God,” he said, the words coming out on a sexy little moan. His breath started coming faster, and the pulsing wave of his lust hit me like a blow. I wasn’t sure if I could make it out to the state park to shift for him if he was going to keep looking at me like that. “Maks, I need— please, pull over.” His voice sounded almost frantic, and I looked at him sharply, doing what he asked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I parked on the shoulder.
Instead of answering, he unbuckled his seatbelt and crawled onto my lap. Somehow he managed to straddle me in the tight seat, licking his way into my mouth and grinding against my now painfully-hard cock before I knew what hit me. He tunneled his hands through my hair and reached between us, fumbling to undo my pants.
“I know you want me, Maks,” he panted. “I need you. Why won’t you fuck me? I don’t care where we are. You just had me in a stairwell. Please, just do it already.”
“Devin, st-stop, oh, fuck… baby… yes.” He’d finally managed to free my straining erection, and for a moment I forgot myself. My dragon roared to life, and my vision blurred from the heat rising within me. I could see my eyes reflected in the mirror behind him, glowing with the fire that blazed inside. For him. “No,” I ground out, coming to my senses. “Wait, love. I have to—oh fuck, yesssss…” He wasn’t waiting, and now I was the one panting. “I need to… tell you something… first.”
“Tell me what?” he asked, frustration making his voice tremble.
My hands were already on his ass, kneading it, but I made myself stop and lift him off me in an attempt to clear my head. “Dev, listen. I want to do more than just fuck you, and you need to know that before you say yes.”
“You can do whatever you want to me,” he said, pushing his long bangs out of his face impatiently. “Really, Maks. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. I want you, and my answer is already yes, to anything. Please, just… do it. I’m yours.”
“I’m talking about more than just sex,” I said. “I want to do more than just fuck you. You’re my fated mate, my other half, my… my everything. I want a family with you. I want you forever.”
I tried to imagine how that would sound to a human. Was it too much? I swallowed. Yeah, that might have been too much. Then again, I still had to tell him that I was a dragon… so as a matter of perspective, letting him know that he was it for me, even though we’d only known each other for a month, really sounded kind of tame by comparison.
But he’d gone still, and he wasn’t saying anything, which had me a little worried.
“I love you, Devin,” I added desperately, my mouth going dry as I said those words for the first time… ever. “I know you might think it’s too soon, but I know.”
He cocked his head to the side, his eyes softening and a smile playing over his lips. “This is why you’ve been waiting to fuck me? Because you love me?”
“Yes. Actually… no.” I groaned. I was not good at this shit. “I mean, yes, I do love you, but no, that’s not why. There’s something else.”
His glasses had been knocked askew when he jumped me, and now he straightened them out and raised an eyebrow, squirming into a more comfortable position as he waited for me to continue. Actually it was more than just “comfortable.” It was distracting, and he knew it.
He was wiggling that sweet little ass on top of me in a silent dare for me to do something about it. I’d wanted him for too long, and good intentions or not, there was only so much I could take. I was going to have to kiss him again. But just once. Just a quick taste before I got back on track with doing the right thing.
This time, he was the one who pushed me away after a few minutes.
“Okay,” he said breathlessly. “What else?”
“What else?” I repeated. I knew it was important to make sure he understood what he was getting into, but the feel and taste and utter perfection of him were too much. I was lost.
He put a hand on my chest, holding me back when I leaned toward him again. “Maks, please tell me anything else you need me to know—right now—because if you keep kissing me like that and then don’t fuck me? I don’t think I can handle it.”
He was right.
“I’m a dragon,” I blurted out, eager to get it said already and get back to what we’d been doing.
“A what?”
“A dragon.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Wings. Scales. Breathing fire. I’m really big.”
“A… dragon?”
I nodded.
“Is this a sex metaphor?”
I shook my head, and he stared into my eyes for a moment as if waiting for the punch line. When it didn’t come, his face fell.
Okay. I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my face. He hadn’t seemed to mind the “I-want-you-forever” thing, but the dragon bit had definitely been too much.
16
~ Devin ~
I kept stealing glances at Maks. He still looked like… Maks. I still wanted him. I kept waiting for him to tell me he had been kidding about the weird dragon thing, but he stayed silent. I didn’t know where he’d been intending to take me, but after the awkward conversation on the side of the road I’d asked him to turn around and head back to the city.
He had, and now, as he drove, I couldn’t stop looking at his eyes. I had to admit, the way they reflected the glowing tail lights of the cars ahead of us looked almost supernatural. I rolled my eyes, stifling a sigh at my own ridiculousness. I was desperately searching for reasons to believe him. What did it say about me that I didn’t want him any less, even now that he’d revealed his inner crazy?
It didn’t help that he didn’t look upset. A sexy little smile kept flitting over his mouth, as if he had a secret that he couldn’t wait to share. As if he thought that what he’d said to me wasn’t a deal breaker.
And, God, the worst part was that I wasn’t sure whether it was.
I wanted him.
I wanted him.
Oh my fucking God I still wanted him.
“I don’t think Luke and Sarah would appreciate it if I took you home tonight,” he finally said, glancing at me for a second.
Jesus. It was dark out now, and the lights reflected in his eyes danced like bright flames. When he turned them on me, I felt the heat of his gaze move through me. I swallowed, looking away as I realized that I was searching for signs that couldn’t exist.
“Will you come home with me?” he asked.
I didn’t even know where he lived. In the month since I’d met him, he’d always come to me. But he was right about Luke and Sarah. It was their wedding night. Wherever his home was, it only made sense—for their sake—to go there tonight. A part of me knew that I was just looking for an excuse to say yes, a reason to justify still being with him, at least for a little while longer. B
ut no matter how rational I tried to be, I couldn’t bring myself to say no. I nodded.
He smiled, reaching for my hand. “We just have to drop the car off to Dane and Wes,” he said, his smile growing bigger when I didn’t pull away from his touch. I knew I should, but I just… couldn’t.
“This is their car?” I asked, trying to distract myself. He was rubbing little circles on the back of my hand with his thumb, and it felt so good that it made me want to cry.
“Yeah, they let me use it whenever I visit.”
“Visit?”
Oh, God. I really didn’t know anything about him. I realized that my hands were shaking, and he gave me a tender smile as he squeezed the one he was holding. I desperately wanted to go back to the part of the day when I had still believed that we were meant for each other. I squeezed my eyes closed, unable to lie to myself. I did still believe it, but now it made me feel anxious instead of excited. Who was this man?
“Where do you live, then?” I asked him.
“Wisconsin.”
I blinked, still desperately hoping for a sign that he was kidding. Wisconsin.
Wis.
Fucking.
Consin.
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
I stared blindly out the window, neither of us speaking again until he pulled up at what I assumed was Wes and Dane’s house. They weren’t home, but he dropped the car keys off inside the house and scribbled a quick note, then took my hand and led me into their spacious backyard.
“What now?” I asked, pulling my hand free and crossing my arms. Trying not to be irritated at the way he still looked like he was trying not to laugh at me.
“You said you’d come home with me.”
I frowned, not appreciating the joke. He’d told me he lived in Wisconsin.
And then he did laugh at me, as if he thought my irritation was cute. He also stepped closer, pulling my arms open and wrapping them around his waist. Kissing away my crankiness for a minute. I melted against him, embarrassed that it worked. God. I didn’t know what to make of him.
Scorch: M/M Gay Shifter Mpreg Romance (Dragon's Destiny: Fated Mates Book 2) Page 9
