She jerked and bit back a strangled sound. She said, “Again.”
He walked around her, struck at her buttocks and watched as a reddened welt raised against her pale skin. While he was no stranger to whipping scenes, his experiences had always before had a sense of playfulness to the game.
This wasn’t playful. This was raw. He felt so strange, heavy and aching and his chest started to burn again, and all he wanted was her inner pain to ease so that she could get some peace for a little while.
“Come on,” she said. Her nose sounded clogged. “Do it.”
The crop rose and fell across her back, that beautiful back with the etched muscles that was so strong and feminine at once. He said from the back of his throat, “Please tell me if this is helping.”
Her head nodded jerkily. “ I—I think so.”
His arm rose and fell.
Rose and fell.
Every time he watched her jerk under a blow, he seemed to step outside his own body. He struck her again, and the crop almost fell out of his nerveless fingers. He honestly didn’t know how much more he could take.
Then he walked around to face her. Her eyes were closed and her face had turned peaceful. All strain had eased from her features. As soon as he saw that, his own crisis of strain eased until he felt light-headed.
He asked her softly, “Do you need more?”
She fingered the welt on her thigh. “No,” she whispered. “The pain’s all on the outside now.” She looked up quickly and searched his gaze. “Did we go too far?”
He shook his head. “There isn’t anywhere I wouldn’t go with you.”
The truth, laid out between them.
Wrapped in a double negative.
Perfect. Kinked.
Her mouth pulled into a wry smile. She walked over to him and kissed him gently, her lips caressing his. “There isn’t anywhere I wouldn’t go with you either.”
“You owe me now,” he said. As he licked her lips and caressed her breasts, his cock hardened.
She didn’t even try to quibble. “I do, don’t I? What do I owe you?”
“A collar around your neck, and your wrists handcuffed,” he whispered.
She drew back her head and looked at him askance. “We’ve had that conversation already.”
“Yes, and we’re not finished with it. Remember—I said, what would it take?
She started to laugh, her face creased with genuine humor. “You got me. You rotten son of a—”
He put a hand over her mouth. “Stop talking. There are much, much better uses for your mouth than that.”
She ran her hands down his body as she knelt and unzipped his jeans. He stroked her hair, staring without blinking as she pulled out his penis and kissed the tip. Then she took him in her mouth and suckled at him until his breath sawed in his throat and he pumped into her.
She reached up with one hand. He laced his fingers through hers and held on until his own climax ripped through him. A harsh, shaken groan broke out of him as he spurted into her mouth.
Afterward, he whispered, “My turn.” And he nudged her onto the couch so that he could spread her legs wide. Her fluted sex was so beautiful, so drenched, he bent his head and feasted on her until her body jerked underneath his hold. She gave her own climax to him, crying out sharply as she shuddered.
He pushed her to climax again, and again, until finally she lay lax, eyes half-closed and drifting. Then he couldn’t stay outside of her a moment longer. He eased his cock inside of her, rocking gently into the warm, tight home she made for him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, nuzzling at him as he moved.
He thought their joining this time was about tenderness, but then something happened, some switch flipped between them. She growled or he did. His rhythm picked up urgency. Gods, he could not get deep enough inside of her. When they both climaxed that time, it felt wrung out of them, all wildness, all passion turned inside out in the blaze that consumed them both.
Afterward, as she stroked the back of his neck and he looked down the length of their entwined bodies, he knew one of the deepest reasons why they fit together was that they drove each other until they finally achieved peace.
Quentin wasn’t about to leave anything to chance. He talked with her late into the night and made plans for when the fourteen days were up. He knew that having something concrete in her mind would help, and it did.
She would try a short flight at dawn. If she couldn’t manage it, they would head out immediately for the nearest regional airport and he would give her the first paragliding lesson. One way or another, she would be in the air that day. All day, if she needed.
And that did help. Her volatile emotional spinning stopped, and she was able to calm down and focus.
They asked Dragos and Pia to join them on the rooftop of the Tower.
“I don’t think I can stand a lot of spectators,” Aryal said. “But I want them there. Dragos can be my spotter in case—well, in case. And I wouldn’t even be trying without Pia.”
“I agree,” Quentin said. “It’s a perfect plan.”
Both Dragos and Pia responded readily and said they would be happy to be present.
Quentin and Aryal spent a sleepless night on the rooftop, wrapped in blankets and watching a fabulously clear swathe of stars. As a bright dawn broke over the water, the rooftop door opened and Dragos and Pia walked out. Dragos wore black camouflage pants and a T-shirt, and Pia wore something fleecy that looked soft and comfortable. They had left Liam with a nurse.
“There you are,” Aryal blurted out. She shot to her feet, a hectic flush staining her cheekbones.
Quentin rose almost as quickly. By the time he had straightened to his full height, she had already shapeshifted into the harpy. She held her wings closed and tight along her back, her feral face miserable and fists clenched.
“Good morning,” Pia said. She smiled at Aryal.
Quentin couldn’t stand it. Waiting the last two weeks had been such an agony for Aryal, and pleasantries were like rubbing salt into the wound. He nodded to Dragos and said to Aryal, “Let’s go. Do it.”
She jerked her head in a nod. They walked together to the edge of the building, and she hopped up on the ledge. Then she turned back to face him. The tension came off her in palpable waves, and she still had not unclenched her wings.
The harpy looked at Dragos, who walked over to stand by the ledge as well. He regarded her calmly. “If you need it, I will catch you,” Dragos said. His gold eyes were as steady as the earth.
Quentin might never like the dragon much, but in that moment, because of Dragos’s steady promise to his unnerved mate, Quentin loved him.
Aryal glanced at Quentin. She appeared to be frozen.
So she preferred the element of surprise, did she?
He shook his head as a fitful wind blasted his face, and he struck her in the middle of her breastbone with the flat of his hand. The blow was so strong it knocked her off the ledge.
As she went backward, he said, “Time to rip off the Band-Aid.”
Something about that wind must have irritated his recently healed eye, because his vision blurred with wetness as he watched her tumble in the air.
Then her wings snapped out.
She reached for the sky with both hands.
The harpy surged into the air with a joyous scream so primal it raised the hairs on the back of his neck and damn near pulled his heart out of his chest. She soared, wings hammering down, and he roared back at his mate as he soared with her in spirit.
Distantly, he heard shouts and cheers. Word must have gotten around, because a crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. A quick glance down revealed that all the other sentinels were present, their faces tilted up to watch
