Hunted Warrior (25 page)

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Mal slipped the fingers of his right hand down between their torsos, where the sweat hadn't yet dried from their blazing encounter. He didn't stop until he rested the pad of his thumb against her clitoris. “Don't move,” he said, using the moment to gather his will, his strength, the entirety of his being as a Dragon King.

He leaned forward and rested his forehead on hers. Eyes bright. Clit so slick. And Mal holding his breath before a surge.

Avyi jolted on a breathless shriek. Her fingernails tightened along his ribs, deepened, until she broke skin. Her eyes lolled back.

Mal's fingers were flooded with the moisture of her climax.

He caught Avyi against his chest and held her close. He buried his face in her hair and crossed his arms around her back.

“What”—she gasped—“was that?”

“I don't know.” He held her closer, genuinely confused and upset at himself for being so. Yes, he'd mastered his control, but perhaps not all of his gift's possibilities. That was unsettling. And knowing she could take his power—take it and
enjoy it
—was earthshaking. “I'd intended it as a warning.”

She laughed against the stretch of muscle between his throat and his still-healing shoulder. “ ‘Here, Avyi,' ” she said, mimicking him with a breathless voice. “ ‘This is what would happen if we mixed business and pleasure.' ”

“Something like that.”

“Backfired on you. Because
that
was amazing.” She smiled again. He felt it on his skin without needing to see it. “Are all Tigony this dangerous?”

“Dragon damn, Avyi. I hope no one is as dangerous as I am.”

“Good, because womankind would never be the same.” She clasped his fingers in hers, where sizzles of power still sparked tiny lights, like a sparkler held between their near faces. She kissed his thumb and gasped. She did it again, finger after finger. Mal was speechless, even as his power increased with his arousal. His cock jutted up between them. She licked the sweat from the tense column of his throat, stopping just behind his earlobe. “I want another.”

“Avyi . . .”

She glanced down and grinned. “Don't even try lying to me.”

Without pretense, she lifted on her knees just enough to align their bodies and sink down. They both moaned, and Mal knew he was both lost . . . and found.

*  *  *

Avyi struggled to catch her breath as Mal grasped her ass in hands that fizzled and tingled. He was still holding back, and she knew that was for the best. She knew what he could do, how dangerous he could be. But every gift from the Dragon had degrees and varied uses. She felt like she'd discovered a new toy. There was no way she would let him take it away from her.

Using his upper arms for leverage, she lifted and lowered, relishing the feel of his return each time she sank toward his lap. Her body was made for this—for him—and she'd never known.

He could take her mind and throw it to the stars. That's where she wanted to be.

“You're so anxious,” he groaned, as she picked up the pace. His hands were strong, commanding. He slowed her to the point of sensual agony. “Dawn will come soon enough. This is worth savoring.”

“Says you. One touch and you could make me come again. Don't blame me for being hungry for you. And don't tell me that ability is anything less than heady. You were surprised—” She gasped when he hit a particularly sensitive place deep inside. “And you enjoyed the result.”

“More than I can say.”

He thrust up, harder now, his skin electric and tempting. Avyi petted to feel his masculine textures, his flexing muscles and his glistening skin. How much of him could she take? She already knew she could take the full measure of his passion, no matter how thick and hard and demanding. She wanted to know how much she could take of his other skills. He was so reluctant that she knew she was the first woman to experience him this way.
That
was heady.

They were breathless and slick with sweat. They sounded beautiful—erotic animals who craved and craved, so primal now. She was close. His eyes were glazed with passion, but also with the concentration she'd seen when he summoned the majesty of the heavens. Avyi grabbed his thick wrists and brought his hands around so that he gripped her thighs. His thumbs arrowed toward her sex, where friction edged her so near to another shattering climax.

“No,” he groaned. “You can't.”

“You want to. I see it in your eyes. And I want you to.”

She pushed his hands closer together along her skin, until his thumbs closed over her clit from both sides.

“
Avyi.
”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face there, using his strength as her anchor. “It'll be just as powerful for me, too,” she whispered. “Are you scared, Giva?”

“Fuck you.” His voice was that of another man—or maybe not a man at all. He was a Dragon King in the most pure, potent sense.

Biting his earlobe, she rocked her body, faster, more urgently, as her breasts scraped the barest static along his chest hair. They were charged, on the edge of exploding. “I'm so close, Mal. You want something even more potent? Something more powerful to soak into that arrogant ego of yours? I've never begged. Not ever, no matter what's happened in my life.
Never
. I'm asking you, please. I'm begging you. Do this. I want to be free.”

For the briefest moment, he stilled. He looked into her eyes. “So do I.”

He flipped her onto her back and angled her legs to open wide. She dug her heels into the mattress while he bowed low over her body, his forehead heavy between her breasts. He looped an arm behind the small of her back, bracing them both as he took over.

She cried out. She'd thought what he gave her before—that force—was all he was physically capable of. Not even close. One wave crashed over her until she was a shuddering, heaving mess beneath his relentlessness. She almost wanted to tell him to stop. Instead, she grabbed his ass and dared fate. Rend them apart. Die in his arms. She didn't care anymore.

He began to moan, low in his chest. With his free hand, he slid lower and lower down her body, until he gently held her clit between his thumb and forefinger. The control he must be exerting—the thought was enough to send tremors of pleasure to chase her orgasm.

“Please, Mal,
please
 . . .”

He drove deep with an animalistic groan. She barely felt the explosion of his release before the electric effect of his climax shot down his arm, down his fingers, and directly against her most sensitive nerve endings. She arched on a scream. She thrashed when he didn't let up, didn't let her escape, as one, two, three—endless pleasure—made her an animal, too. She scraped him, bit him, cursed him in the ancient language of their people. The world shook to pieces as his gift tingled and shocked her to complete mindlessness.

He gently eased back until he was petting her with nothing but skin to softest skin. “Avyi.” He stroked her nipples and the tops of her thighs. “Come back to me. I need you to come back to me.”

“Here,” she mumbled, smiling. “I'm here.”

She flung her arms around his neck and pulled him close. It was the last thing she could manage with limbs so heavy and limp. But she needed him all around her. There was a moment . . . a moment before he had spoken . . . when she'd been certain he would pull away completely. Why? They'd just shared something uniquely beautiful.

The tension left his upper body as he encircled her, arms and legs and his big, strong frame. The sheets were tangled around them. She smiled secretly against his chest.
This
was the moment. Telling Mal would probably freak him out again, but she thanked the Dragon. There she was, living in the present. Maybe seeing something this earth-shattering in advance would've scared her off. She grinned more deeply. Or it would've spoiled the fun, taken the surprise out of such an unexpected present.

She thanked the Dragon for that, too. Her present. Mal was her present.

She'd never been given one before.

“I don't know what to say,” he said, voice rough, lips against her crown.

“I do.”

“Enlighten me.”

Ah, there it was. The return of his humor. She needed it. She needed to know he was still with her, not pulling away as she'd feared.

“That wasn't just something to get over with.”

“No?”

“Amazing,” she breathed on a long sigh.

He laughed and kissed her lips, softly, but with the leftover intensity of what they'd experienced. “Finally.”

“You said you spent four years on a mountaintop mastering your powers. That you held on for me, and made it good for me even before . . . And then to concentrate and keep me safe even as you came . . .”

Grinning, he slid his hand down her back to cup her ass. It wasn't sexual. It was merely comforting. And nearly possessive. He was so strong. Avyi couldn't have gotten away from him had she wanted to. She didn't. They were entwined physically just as they were entwined in destiny.

Good. She couldn't think of a better partner for facing the challenges that lay ahead.

“See? Even you can't find the words,” he said.

“I could go back to being silent and mysterious. Slinky and devious.” She angled up on one elbow. “Or I can be the woman Malnefoley of Tigony rendered speechless.”

He eyed her with that curious distance again. She shuddered, and even shuddered again when he pulled her back into his embrace. “Thank you, Avyi.”

CHAPTER

A
vyi lay awake, listening to Mal breathing. She had nestled her head in the hollow between his good shoulder and his chest, and had yet to move. The afternoon was long gone. So was early evening. They should've been hungry or restless or . . . anything. At least, that's how she imagined she would feel. Yet she didn't move, as if the smallest inhalation or reflexive sigh would break what had become an overwhelmingly seductive spell.

Stay.

Like this.

She shouldn't want it. Shouldn't even be thinking it. But Mal's hand on her hip and his mouth tucked against her temple were achingly beautiful. The more time that passed between their shattering lovemaking, the more time she had to realize the truth. She'd thought this the peak of a mountain, but she had no vision to replace it. She'd been thrilled and bold when they'd dared each other so roughly. The real dare was how long she could lie in his arms and still be able to walk away when the future inevitably caught up with the present—a future she couldn't see.

Did she need to walk away?

She couldn't, she realized with a sudden shock. She couldn't when the emotions were all wrong.

Dragon damn. That was it. The emotions. She'd seen the image, but something was still missing.

No, no, no . . .

It couldn't be. Her gift said they wouldn't just be lovers tangled in sheets, but that they would be
in love
when that moment arrived.

Her heart quickened. She was halfway in love already—and had been for a long time, thanks to the long buildup provided by her vision—but he would never love her in return. In all honesty, she didn't think him capable of love.

It couldn't be true.
This
was the moment.

Wasn't it?

Yet no matter how she tried to look through the mists, the same predictions remained, including her and Mal lying tangled together—but not there. How to get from here to there? She didn't know how to operate with so few clues.

Maybe that was why Mal had come into her life. She needed to trust him. Fate—no wonder he hated the idea so much—said she needed to adore this man. No matter how much she doubted herself at that moment, she knew one more thing with utter certainty.

The Honorable Giva needed to believe—in her, and in the Dragon—or their people were doomed.