by Starla Night
“I do.”
“You think so because you haven’t seen me naked yet.” She scooted back an arm’s length. “You’ll lose your hard on.”
He rolled onto his knees and gripped his shaft. It quivered from how close he still was to passion. “That’s impossible.”
Her gaze focused on his arousal. She licked her lips and her cheeks stained a dark color again. Her hands went for the hem of her hoodie. “Okay. Turn out the light and I’ll do it.”
That was a terrible insult in the dragon world. She was a human and couldn’t know that, but it still held a sting.
He moved on his knees until he was right in front of her. “Cheryl.”
Her brows folded with concern. She bit her lip. Bargaining. “I could get under the covers.”
“I need you naked.”
“You don’t have to see everything to have sex.”
“I do.”
“No, you really don’t.”
He lowered his head so she felt the entire weight of his need in his gaze. “I do.”
Her forehead smoothed to curiosity. “You’re insistent about this.”
“A dragon who copulates for convenience will slip into a dark place with any partner. A dragon who wishes to take a mating flight with his wife will bare himself completely in the bright light, and her too, showing they know exactly who they are with. You cannot hide from me. Not now.”
She focused on his face again. Cautious hope fought with deeply embedded mistrust. “If I take everything off, do you promise you’re still going to want me?”
“Yes.”
She worried the hem of her hoodie between her fingers. “Um… well, I do want you to feel like this is real. But…” She tugged on the hem as though fighting with herself. “This is hard. I think you’ll have to help me.”
He released his shaft and pounced on her.
She collapsed under him with a willing sigh, as if it were easier to have this conversation when he was hard on top of her, grinding his implacable erection into her soft belly.
Her navy hoodie rubbed against his naked chest and her jeans caressed his cock. It was good to feel her through the interesting fabrics.
She closed her eyes. “This is more intense than I dreamed.”
“I need to touch you. I need to mark you. I need to possess you.”
She moaned. “I’m not special.”
“You are very special.”
“What do you mean?”
He pushed his hands up her hoodie and cupped her swelling breasts.
“Mal,” she gasped and arched her back, pressing her breasts into his hands and opening her body to him.
Although she was fearful of showing her nakedness to him, she did want his caress. Her hands circled his biceps to tug him closer, her legs twined his, and her mouth sought his.
He rewarded her with a long, soul-tingling kiss.
If she needed his help, he would help. Because he needed her.
He shoved the hoodie fabric up her chest, released the creamy globes from her bra, and took one dusky nipple into his mouth. She tasted like heaven. He sucked her unique flavor and swirled his tongue over the hardening pearl. His.
Her hands knotted in his hair. “Oh, god.”
She accepted him.
He needed all of her to accept all of him.
“Off,” he ordered and shoved the hoodie over her head.
She lifted her hands and shimmied out of it. Although she needed his help to start, she was a willing participant. Her beige bra went flinging over his shoulder. He yanked her jeans down, admiring her white cotton panties for one hot moment before tossing them aside to reveal her shimmering pink femininity.
She was magnificent. The line of her softly rounded shoulders led down to full handfuls of breasts, a shapely waist flared to her strong hips and curved thighs, and dark curls fringed her delicate feminine vee. The scent of her arousal intensified, hooking him by the nose like a lure.
His cock throbbed, threatening to stripe her in his juices right now.
She covered her jiggling breasts with both hands.
Cheryl did not want him.
Fear speared him in the center of his chest. He couldn’t get back his breath. The agony—turning away, refusing him after he had broken so many rules to present himself to her, denying his existence—twisted in his soul.
Not Cheryl too.
He reared back.
“Mal?”
“Reveal yourself to me!”
“What? Oh.” She blinked as though she hadn’t realized she was covering herself. “Oops. Sorry. I got distracted.”
“Why does distraction cause you to deny me?”
“I’m not denying you.” She rose on one hand, her other arm locked around her belly, and stared at him like he was crazy. “Hello? We are naked here. Having sex. I am very into this. That is the opposite of denying you.”
“You continue to cover yourself.”
“It happens.”
“It cannot happen!”
“Look, I’m shy! What’s your problem?”
He pushed her down on the bed onto her back. “I need it.”
“Huh?”
“I need your nakedness. It belongs to me.”
“Belongs?”
His implacable shaft pressed against her trembling cleft.
She moaned and rubbed against him.
He held her still. Pressing her bare chest to his bare chest. Her forehead to his forehead.
Her arm around her belly resisted their union. Resisted him. Her arm was her last barrier.
He waited for her to surrender.
She rubbed against him. Enticing him even with her arm crossed. “Mal. I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”
Her words were the balm his soul needed.
He nuzzled her. Their lips touched fire.
She was a human. He was too demanding. This was new to her. But it was new to him too, and he hadn’t realized he needed her to accept him. To accept him fully, as her lover, to reveal her naked body without any barrier between them.
He glowered his need into her shocked eyes. “I must have you. Give yourself to me.”
“I am. I’m trying.” She wiggled the arm between them, laughing a little about it and shaking her head in wonder. Her forehead wrinkled, tickling him. “I can’t believe you’re this desperate about me. I’m not special.”
There was that word again. Special. It must have a different meaning than the one he was familiar with.
“No,” he agreed since the other response hadn’t eased her fears. “You are Cheryl.”
She blinked.
“And I need you.” He murmured his truth, down to the great green honest heart of him. “I need all of you.”
Her flushed cheeks darkened at his lingering gaze. She lowered her arm… and covered her mound.
“Reveal yourself,” he ordered, desire roughening his voice.
She bit her lip. “Are you sure you’ll still want me?”
Her question awoke his deepest protective, possessive instincts.
She must never doubt herself again.
“You are life,” he growled. “I want you as I want my next breath.”
The fears in her sweet eyes dissolved under his steadfast promise. She moved aside her trembling hands.
He kissed down the slender column of her neck, squeezing her gently rounded buttocks for the tactile contact he craved.
She pushed into his caresses with pleasure-filled moans.
He trailed his tongue down her trembling belly, swirled his tongue in her belly button, the place that connected life in humans and in dragons, and continued to her soft cleft. Tasting her. Memorizing her. Luxuriating in her.
She was attractively shaped, a slit of pink in the delicate curls, and already damp.
Amazing.
Her hands twitched. She wanted so badly to cover herself.
He gave in to her silent command and stopped studying her. Instead, he delved his tongue
into her and coated the wet lips with her honey in long, groan-inducing strokes.
“Mal,” she gasped. “Wait. This is… you want to?”
He stroked her hot nub. “I want to taste you.”
Her panic receded to hunger. She seemed uncertain over whether she wanted to run or stay. “It’s… sure?”
“Give,” he growled and latched on to her bud.
She whimpered, breathy and needy. He suckled her. She moved her hips to match his strokes. “Mal.” Her gasps heightened with desire. “Mal!”
Beautiful release fluttered across her features. Her body clenched around his fingers. She gasped and clung onto him. Her hips shuddered. Then, she lay still, legs flopping wide, opening herself to him. “Oh. That was amazing.”
She was.
He surged up her body, ramming his elbows into the blankets bunched around her flushed cheeks. She smiled, sweet and pleased to see him so close to her. “Hey.”
His cock head nudged against her hot, wet entrance.
Her mouth opened in surprise. “Oh. Yes.” Her legs twined around him and pressed him deeper.
He obeyed her command and eased in, slipping his rigid manhood into her relaxed, but still tight, femininity. Her channel gripped him like a satin glove. She gripped his butt cheeks. He bobbed deeper, pressing into her femininity.
“Oh. Yesss. Ohhhhh.”
She gave away all at once, and with a sudden shock, they joined completely.
She tightened, holding him in place. Her thighs trembled. Awe parted her lips.
He reveled in their completion. “You are mine.” He kissed her.
She kissed him back.
Driven by the ancient urge, he moved.
Soft, gentle, delicious thrusts united their bodies. His cock massaged her, plunging in and out in the ancient life-giving rhythm of their ancestors. He tasted destiny and infinity. And Cheryl wrapped around him, urging him on, gasping and moaning. She was the reason he lived. Now, and forever.
She cried out and arched. He drove her to orgasm a final, soul-shattering time. Release whipped through her.
As she clenched him from within, he unloaded his hot cum inside her.
They were one.
He collapsed.
She was his. And he would never be the same.
Chapter Nine
He would never be the same.
That thought shot Mal out of bed during the 3 AM alarm.
It was time to listen to the daily broadcast of the Outer Rim Company Rank List.
He shut off the alarm and disentangled himself from his sleeping wife. Cheryl tangled his blankets, scented with his passion. The sight exerted a magnetic force, drawing him in hard. He almost climbed right back into bed.
A narrow shaft of fear drove into his chest, pinning him like a pike.
This was dangerous. What he’d done had been stupid.
Find a wife? Easy. But giving himself to Cheryl, baring himself to her and accepting her naked innocence in return, had permanently altered him. She was not only his wife now. She was his whole life. She was his future.
More than that. She held his heart.
And that was a danger he had never anticipated.
The shaft of fear twisted painfully.
No. He was wrong. Cheryl didn’t hold his heart. Dragons were not sentimental like humans. This powerful, fearful emotion was the after-effect of his first experience with a woman. His first sex in human form. Or in any form.
His first decent sleep.
She was not his heart. Thinking so was a distraction. A weakness. He could not give into the cravings to bury himself in her body and place his soul in her hands. That was madness.
He could not allow himself to get drawn in any deeper.
Right. He had wasted enough time on his desires. Yes. Sleeping in bed was a waste. They had shared nothing but the lust necessary for marriage. For producing a dragonlet to make his mother happy and leave them alone. That was it. No other intimacy.
Forcing the yawn from his body, he grabbed a robe and headed out to the office to tune into the early hour Draconis communication announcing the Outer Planet Rank Listing.
Wife accomplished. Time to move on to the next task.
Because if he didn’t bury himself in his work, if he didn’t distract himself, he might be forced to acknowledge what his siblings were trying to get him to admit back in the office conference room.
They didn’t need him.
He was unnecessary.
They could run the company very well without him and he might as well disappear from their sight.
And Cheryl didn’t need him eith—
No!
He stopped and rested a hand on his desk. The pain stabbed harsher than the shrapnel he’d taken after an improvised bomb in the Colony Wars.
Mal sucked in his breath through his teeth.
He couldn’t disappear! His siblings thought they could handle the company without him, but they were wrong. They needed him. Only he could push them to number one.
And Cheryl…
Well, she was perfect without him.
She had never needed him and would never need him. She produced beautiful art that gave great joy. He had interrupted her class when a great number of her peers crowded around appreciating her creativity. She had essential talents no dragon could ever duplicate.
Why had she married him?
He sucked in another breath. The shudder of the truth went through him. She had married him, but unwillingly. She had only bared herself to him because he insisted.
Now she was his wife.
But he must not crave her. He must not give in to the desire to go back to the bed, make human love to her again, possess her, bind her, have her with him always. Because if he let her in any closer and if she ever, ever denied him…
He shuddered.
Her betrayal would destroy him.
Chapter Ten
Cheryl woke in a giant bed piled with silky blankets.
She was naked.
And alone.
In Mal’s bed.
She buried her nose in the sheets and took a long, deep breath. It smelled like him. The way the sheets tangled around her, cupping and caressing her skin in their protective embrace, felt like the way she’d been loved by him. Fiercely, aggressively, completely.
Today was the best day. After last night, of course.
He had blown away all of her doubts. In this bed, she had existed only to discover the limits of her passion and the depths of her capacity to love. Not just love him, but also to love herself.
For the first time in her life, she was good enough just as she was. Not too fat, too awkward, too ugly. No, Mal made her feel beautiful, desired, and powerful. Like she was someone amazing. That was how he made her feel.
For that, and for so much more, she loved him.
Mal.
And they were engaged!
She dropped her head into the impression where his body had been. It felt cool and empty. He’d been up for some time. She was sleeping the day away.
Cheryl rose and stretched… and collapsed. Ouch, ouch, ouch! Everything hurt. Jeez!
She dragged herself out of bed. Her thighs trembled like she’d been squeezing weights and she stumbled across the warm stone floor to the master bathroom. She was sore in weird places and stung too.
In the wall-spanning mirror of the luminous bathroom, she caught sight of herself.
Oh, god.
Her eyes sank into black pits of exhaustion. Her hair hung like limp snakes from her skull. And that pasty, white fat was not at all beautiful.
Also, her mouth felt dry like she’d been licking the sheets all night. She found a cup—well, a crystal goblet—filled it with tap water, and gargled. Then, she set about trying to clean herself up.
Despite all of her pains, the awareness kept flashing into her. She was changed. She was engaged. And she was no longer a virgin.
Although she’d never had plans about her virgini
ty, it had worried her to graduate from college with it still intact. If she didn’t meet someone in her outgoing student days, what were the odds she’d meet someone once she was chained to a desk in the isolated tower of some advertising company? Especially if she was still unable to make eye contact or hold a normal conversation. So, thank goodness, at least this was done.
She had expected it to hurt. But any pain disappeared in the amazing revelation of two intense, soul-shattering, life-revolutionizing orgasms.
So that’s what they were supposed to feel like.
The perfect temperature rain shower found another stinging bit down there. Cheryl sucked in a breath. Funny it hurt this morning, but not last night.
She knew when it had happened. It was startling and fulfilling. Experiencing the world through cellophane and then having a clear, intense view of real life.
She’d taken a few deep breaths. Getting used to the feeling of his cock inside her. All the way in.
He would always be a part of her now. Her first lover. For always.
Thank you.
She hugged herself. Thanks to herself for being willing to try with him, and thanks to Mal for creating such an intense reality it blew all her fantasies away.
He’d looked down at her last night with star-struck wonderment. His green eyes flashed, intent on her. She was grateful now he’d insisted on them both being naked. He saw her. He really saw her. And that possessive desire in his eyes meant he was certain of what he wanted.
You are Cheryl. He kept saying that. And then he started moving and the delicious tingling feeling came back and swept her away.
Mal had been… he’d been amazing. So himself. Fierce, fearless, demanding. Even though it was his first time too, he moved as though he knew everything about her. He had made her feel sparkles inside.
Touching herself alone at night was like nice, tinny stereo, and he had introduced her to surround sound with a full, New York level orchestra. Sure, she could go back to stereo, but now she wanted to hear the maestro live.
Speaking of Mal, where was he?
Cheryl finished her relaxing shower, dried herself in the fluffy towels, and went looking for him.
He was not working at his palatial mahogany desk. He was not pacing in front of the roaring fireplaces while shouting into a phone. He was not at the rustic dining benches, in the empty stone hall, on the frozen exterior landing pad where they’d arrived, or in any of the barren rooms.
