I’d darted a look at Bodhi, but yanked my gaze away, heat rising to my face as Keagan continued talking me down from whatever imaginary ledge I seemed to have perched on.
“You know this can work,” he said. “You have no reason to believe it won’t. What’s the holdup?”
“Nothing. It just feels strange now that I know what we’re going to do. I guess I’m worried it won’t work if we try to force it.”
Keagan’s scruffy cheeks creased with a smirk. “We’re going to go upstairs to our hotel suite and fuck, princess. Consensually, so there will be no forcing anything. And at some point during the proceedings, I have plans for something a little more in-depth. Don’t you trust me?”
“I do,” I said, surprised both by the question, and my utter lack of hesitation to answer.
Rohan set his hand on my thigh under the table and squeezed. “Don’t worry about us, baby. We booked a full suite. Bodhi and I can hang together unless you need us, and the hounds will keep watch outside like you asked.”
The hounds themselves had perked up. Jewel in particular was standing now, her purple eyes wide and blinking at us both. When I failed to take Keagan’s hand, she emitted a deep warble that I interpreted as impatience.
“See, she thinks you need to come too,” Keagan said.
“I think all of them have gotten just a little too comfortable.” I eyed the posse of beasts. “After today, we’re putting you guys to work finding Bodhi’s mom a soul mate, got it?” Four sets of eyes blinked at me, disconcertingly in sync with each other as usual.
Before I could lose my nerve, I reached out and placed my hand in Keagan’s. His fingers enveloped mine and he pulled me to my feet. I glanced back down at Ro and Bodhi, still ensconced in their corners of the booth. They lifted their beers in a silent toast, their gazes fixed on me with a longing I understood. The second I shifted my attention back to Keagan I knew my own longing would be eased just a little bit after tonight.
Hand-in-hand we walked through the hotel restaurant, back out through the marble- and gold-appointed lobby and to the bank of elevators. My entire body vibrated with anticipation and I almost jumped when Keagan released my hand and placed his palm at my lower back.
“Settle down,” he murmured, pushing me gently toward the elevator doors just as they slid open.
“It can’t be this easy, can it?” I asked, peering up at him once we were alone in the elevator car on our way up to the suite.
“Getting me into bed? All you had to do was ask.” He gave me a wicked smirk.
“No, finding my soul. I never thought I’d have one but now it seems . . . too easy.”
“Don’t jinx it, princess. If you believe it’s too good to be true, that’s just asking for something to go wrong. Besides, I’m only one piece of your puzzle. The way I see it, Rohan’s right. You need Bodhi, Oz, and Llyr to be complete and the three of them are not exactly the embodiment of uncomplicated men. Bodhi may come across as laid back but the fucker’s got principles he won’t let go of easily.”
“Do you think he’s really part of the puzzle too?” I asked. I knew I was equal parts all five races, but doubted a human had the same ability to fragment his soul the way Rohan had done . . . the way Keagan was about to do for me . . . and I didn’t even know what a piece of Bodhi’s soul might awaken in me, if he came around.
“I think he’s in love with you. We all are. Whether that’s enough for you is something you’ve got to ask yourself.”
“Ozzie isn’t in love with me,” I said. “And Llyr . . .” My stomach flipped at the thought of Llyr and the last time we’d spoken. He would lay down his life for me, but did that constitute love? Did his proclamation that he was my mate the day he showed up constitute love? Or was it just some kind of possessive drive resulting from what we’d shared on my birthday? And if it really was love, could I forgive him and accept him?
“You’re thinking too hard,” Keagan said. He turned and faced me, pinning me against the back of the elevator, hands at my hips, his sand-brown eyes darker than usual in the interior lighting. He smelled of Bodhi beneath the lingering scent of antiseptic that had coated his wounds before I healed him. I wanted to double-check . . . triple-check that he really wasn’t giving up on something better, but we’d been down that path already. If I trusted him, I had to believe him when he said he wanted this.
With a curse about my turning gears, he cupped my head with both big hands, his fingers threading into the hair at my nape, warming my skin. Then his mouth covered mine in a kiss gentle, sweet, and deep enough to rival Rohan’s kiss when we’d finally made love two nights ago.
The elevator stopped but Keagan didn’t. I let out a muffled protest when the doors opened, then shut, and he responded by reaching behind himself to smack the STOP button. He released my mouth and caged me in with his hands behind my head, peering down at me.
“After we walk out of this elevator, it’s all you, Deva. You either choose me or you don’t, but if you do, I want there to be no mistake. Make me yours all the way or don’t bother, got it?”
My pulse fluttered rapidly in my throat and I nodded. I owed him no less than Rohan. More, perhaps, since I’d taken Rohan from him—made him believe he was cursed to be alone, which was no small ordeal for an ursa male. By doing this, I was giving Rohan back to him, so in that sense it was absolutely worth it.
I felt another pang of regret about Bodhi but told myself he wasn’t an ursa, and like Keagan said, Bodhi had principles he wasn’t prepared to compromise for love.
“I promise,” I said, though I was uncertain whether I’d be able to follow through if he expected the full ursa mating treatment. I frowned up at him, a thought occurring to me. “Keagan, you’ve already been mauled twice in the last two days. Are you sure you want to do it that way? I can give you a dragon mark.” A dragon mark wasn’t a pain-free endeavor, but it was more elegant than the traditional ursa method in which the female clawed her mate’s flesh and sealed it with their shared essence. The fertile magic of the combined fluids would bind them as mates. Would bind us as mates, if we went that far.
Keagan dipped his nose to my neck and inhaled deeply, his warm lips and stubbled chin grazing my skin and sending a flood of warmth down my body to pool between my thighs.
“I’d rather have my last memory of having my skin ripped open be the moment you claimed me, princess. My life flashed before my eyes the last time, when that hound was on top of me about to rip out my throat. All I saw were your sweet lips and all I could think about was what a goddamn fool I’d been for not kissing you the day we met. I don’t want to fucking wait any more, so unless you’ve got a really good reason to stall, I’m going to assume you want to get it done right here in this elevator.”
I let out a shuddering breath, already lightheaded from his proximity and the distracting way his lips brushed the skin beneath my earlobe as he spoke. His voice was a husky rumble in my ear, vibrating straight to my core. I’d been entranced by it the first time I heard him sing, his deep timbre capable of coarse, wild notes in complete contradiction to Rohan’s smooth, honey-sweet tenor.
“Let’s get to the room, then,” I said, keeping my gaze fixed on his face as I leaned past him to un-stop the elevator. The doors slid open with a friendly ding and I put my hands on Keagan’s thick chest, hyperaware of the thud of his heartbeat beneath all that sturdy muscle and bone. I tried not to pay attention to the ever-apparent glow of his soul and the green thread of power still flowing out of him.
He grabbed my hand and we both picked up the pace down the hall. Our suite was in the corner farthest from the elevators, but it had a private balcony designed with dragons in mind, so we could theoretically fly at night if we wanted. I didn’t expect that’d be part of the plan for any of us tonight.
He smacked his key card against the pad on the door and shoved through, pulling me in. I took the liberty of dispelling the conjured clothes I’d provided him, along with my own. Keagan paused and glanced d
own his body, chuckling softly. “You know what you want don’t you, princess? So why all the hesitation before?”
He turned toward me and pushed me against the wall in the narrow entry. His hot erection brushed against my belly and I arched my chest into him, craving more contact and already breathless from his proximity. He loomed large in front of me, the dark hair on his broad chest dusted with crystals of salt and sand. I wanted that soft textured heat against my skin. I wanted to drown myself in the musky scent of his naked body. He was earth and life and hard, solid, weighty flesh, and the part of me he’d awakened days ago resurged with a vengeance.
“I wanted to be sure, that’s all.” I slid my hands up his arms and hooked them around his neck, my back bowing with the effort to press as much of my body against his as possible while still keeping eye contact. His aura should have been enough to confirm how certain he was of his feelings, but the look in his eyes helped drive it home, not to mention the hard urgency of his arousal digging into my hip. “Fuck me now, Keagan. It doesn’t have to be special yet. I just need you inside me.”
His lips parted with a sharp exhalation as if I’d startled him, and his eyelids slid halfway shut. “Gaia save me, Deva. Do you realize that tone makes it hard for me to say no?”
I pushed my hips harder against him, stretching up on my toes in an effort to align my pelvis more with his. “Why would you say no?”
“Because I’m fucking filthy right now. Head to toe covered in sand and salt and grime. And Bodhi. As much as I’d love sharing you with him, this isn’t how I imagined it. I need a shower before any part of me is going inside any part of you.”
I pushed him backward and he stumbled before catching himself on the frame of the door leading into the bathroom. He glanced over his shoulder then back at me. “You want a bath, then let’s not waste time,” I said, reaching inside and flipping on the light switch.
The bathroom was more gold and marble with a long counter sporting two glass bowl-shaped sinks. One corner held a generously sized shower stall and beside it was an enormous tub slightly raised with marble steps leading up to its edge. The tub was empty so I slipped around Keagan to the shower, reaching in and flipping the lever. Water sprayed in two directions reminding me of Rohan’s shower back in Malibu and the fun we’d had, singing and making love in it not twenty-four hours earlier. I didn’t think the experience with Keagan would be anything like that, not with the strange sense of urgency that pushed us on. Not when his warm, hard body pressed against me from behind and his hands cupped my breasts, thumbs teasing my nipples into achingly hard peaks.
I arched into his touch, nudging the shower lever with my hand impatiently, hoping for the water to heat soon, and on the verge of yanking him under it cold to get things moving. I craved him with an ache that went all the way to my toes and his hands on me were nice but not enough.
I leaned against him, letting my head fall back on his shoulder as his mouth grazed the column of my neck and he continued torturing my breasts with light, teasing flicks alternating with sharp tweaks and pulls. He slipped a hand down my belly and a deep rumble vibrated through his chest into my back as his fingers parted me and slipped into my wet heat. I gasped when he applied pressure to my swollen clit, and I turned my face into his neck, murmuring a plea against his skin as he began to stroke me.
“I have half a mind to tease the fuck out of you, but I don’t think that’s what you want right now, is it?” he asked. “Tell me what you want and I’ll do it. Prove you’ve got it in you, princess.”
“You already broke all the rules, Keagan,” I said. “Why stop now?”
A deep chuckle tickled my ear. “Just humor me for once, all right? At least let me have the illusion that you’re the one taking what you want from me.”
“But I am, aren’t I? I dare you to stop touching me. You can’t, can you? Because even though I haven’t said it out loud, you know exactly what I want.” I turned in his arms, the steam from the shower heating my back as I took a slow step backward beneath the spray and away from him.
He followed as though tethered to me, his eyes fixed on mine. I kept moving until I reached the low tiled ledge at the rear of the shower and sat, spreading my thighs. He was fully beneath the spray now, steamy water cascading over his chest and abs, wetting his thick, shining cock. His gaze kept tripping up and down my body but lingered between my legs.
All it took was a nod from me and he was on his knees, big hands resting on the tops of my thighs and sliding up. I wasn’t sure how I understood that this was what he needed from me. Some deep instinct awakening perhaps. The ursa female in me must have recognized the male in him and realized the only thing that would sate his particular desire would be to serve me this way.
I leaned forward and placed my hands on either side of his head, carding fingers through his thick, wet hair and brushing my thumbs over the sideburns that extended down along the hard lines of his jaw. His gaze was wet and feverish when he looked up at me, eyes pleading for me to command him into action.
I could have anything I wanted from him in that moment, I realized. Even though we’d only just begun this mating dance, he was already mine and likely had been from the start. I bent and kissed him, licking the water off his lips and slipping my tongue between. I grazed along the line of his teeth until he tilted his head, opening for me as if he were the supplicant and I was a priestess bestowing a blessing. His fingertips tightened on my thighs and I pulled back, gripped his head and pushed him down.
He emitted a low noise, half groan, half sigh of surrender when his mouth met my core and he parted me the way I’d just parted his mouth with my tongue. I sighed and leaned back against the wet tile, letting him move my feet up to his shoulders while he slowly licked his way between my folds. His tongue found my opening and teased around it, slipping higher to toy with the bud of my clit until I quivered with pent up need. With his mouth pressed between my legs he lifted both hands and covered my breasts, his thumbs deftly finding my nipples and teasing them in tight circles while his tongue mimicked the motion on my clit.
I clung to his head, hips bucking into him as I gasped with each quickening stroke of his tongue against my swollen flesh. The teasing flicks turned to urgent sucks and his movements at my breasts changed too, shifting from gentle swirls to almost punishing pinches of both nipples. But I wanted it all, craved every bit of his wild nature he chose to share.
Before I knew it, the pleasure of the orgasm exploded through me and I cried out his name. His hands dropped from my breasts to grab my bucking hips, holding me tight against his mouth as he claimed my core and drew out my climax to its very limit.
The world swam when he pulled away, his lips pink and swollen from his attention and his eyes glassy with need. I was too dazed to react, merely blinking up at him as he rose, reaching back out to the dish of soaps and washcloths on the counter just outside without shifting his gaze from me.
He stepped under the spray once more, squeezing shampoo into his hand and lathering up his wet hair. Leaving his head coated in white suds, he wet a cloth and squeezed a measure of body wash onto it before proceeding to lather himself up. I took advantage of the moment to enjoy the sight of him and how very different he was from the other men I’d been with. No less beautiful to my eyes than Llyr or Rohan, but harder, more rugged, with his unshaved face and dark hair that covered his chest, denser along the tops of his pecs and lighter down his belly except for a dark trail down the very center of his defined abs. The soap suds distracted me, fluffy clouds of them slipping over the surface of his body. When he reached down to begin soaping between his thighs, I stood, reaching for him.
“My turn,” I said, pressing my palms to his belly and sliding them down. I wrapped both hands around his hard length, squeezing and sliding at the same time to distribute the soap. Keagan gritted his teeth and growled low in his throat, staring down between us where I gripped him. He lifted a sudsy hand and grazed my cheek with one finger, the tender ge
sture at odds with the ravenous hunger in his eyes.
I pushed back against his chest with one hand, urging him beneath the spray of water again, then lowered myself to my knees before him. When the soap had washed away from his cock, I leaned in and wrapped my lips around his tip, curious about Rohan’s description of how Keagan tasted. I’d experienced the flood of power his orgasms provided, their magic as potent and invigorating as a late summer storm. But I had yet to physically taste him.
“Deva,” he rumbled from above me. “Gaia fucking save me.” His hand went to my head and he tilted into my mouth as I slipped my lips over his length and took him deep. His fingers barely touched my hair at first, but when I reached my limit with his cockhead pressed at the back of my throat, he cursed and coiled my hair around his hand and held me tight against him.
I peered up his body, eyes wide and tearing up from the difficulty to breathe. I blinked at him and flexed my tongue as though trying to swallow. The reflex only made him groan again. “You’re driving me crazy,” he growled.
I couldn’t really smile to express my pleasure at that statement, but my eyes must have given something away because he laughed and relaxed his hold on me, allowing me to slip back along his length, sucking the entire way. Halfway back to his tip, I recalled the delicious torture Rohan had inflicted on me with his dragon tongue, and with the minutest effort transformed my own into the agile twin-tipped appendage. I tickled the underside of Keagan’s length with it until I reached his tip again, enjoying the rough groan of pleasure he let out and the way his fingertips tightened on the back of my neck. Holding him with one hand, I teased my tongue tips around the head of his cock, looking up at him the entire time.
“Keep fucking teasing me like that and you’ll get your wish, princess. I’ll nail you against the fucking wall right now.”
I gave him the smallest shake of my head and stroked my tongue along the underside of his cock once more, swallowing the warm water from the shower that cascaded off his skin. “I want to taste you. Rohan said you taste like life. Show me.”
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