Blood Warrior

Tallis tasted and teased her honeyed sex. Every lick dragged him closer to the moment when he would need to be inside her. Somehow. Anyhow. He could become addicted to her as easily as he’d become a supplicant to his dreams.

But no.

He stood abruptly and kissed her again, sharing the taste of her by plunging deeply, giving no quarter. This was no dream. He was with Kavya. She moaned. The sound reverberated down his throat and his chest, until that humming excitement ratcheted his arousal. This was real because it was imperfect. A laundry room? The basement of a hotel he’d broken in to? Imperfect, yet just what he needed when the perfection of Kavya’s responses raised his suspicions that she was too good to be true. Too much like his dreams.

Her slender hand grasped his cock.

“Bathatei!” He snatched her wrist and pinned it against the cinder block. “Don’t do that again.”

She held his gaze, flames watching flames, and smiled. “I have before.”

The shock of her other hand was just as powerful. Only this time, Tallis didn’t pull her away. “Fine,” he ground out, closing his fist around hers. “If you want to play, play.”

Her rhythm was more assured this time. Long strokes down. Long pulls up. Tallis pressed harder so that their hands became overlapping vises to torture his engorged flesh. He’d taught her the rhythm he liked, the speed he liked, but he hungered for the closeness of his closed fist around hers as they pumped.

“You’re big. Did I forget to mention that?”

Grinning felt out of place, but then again—no, she was smiling and he wanted to as well. “I am. And you did forget.”

“You’re practically monosyllabic. Although I’m impressed I can talk at all.” She wiggled the wrist he’d pinned against the wall, silently asking permission to be freed. He complied. Cupping his cheek, still gripping and caressing his cock, she gazed up at him with an expression of wonder layered over with frustration. “I didn’t think I would, but I wish I could read your mind right now.”

“I’m glad you can’t.” He grunted on a particularly fast trio of strokes.

“I wouldn’t like what I found?”

“No. Just . . . pointless. Thinking. Feeling. Inseparable right now. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Kavya closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall. The hand holding his cheek slid down, down, until she found the meat of his upper arm. She smiled softly, contentedly, although her body still hummed with want and pent-up energy.

“You’re not wrong,” she said. “Thinking, feeling. All the same. When I think about your size, my body aches. Thinking, feeling . . .”

“Come here. Up.”

He cupped the back of her head to drag her to face level. Her eyes were hazy, yet sharp with curiosity. He would’ve loved to fuck her against the wall, just taking, which would scrape the living hell out of her back. The demon in him wanted that overload of sensation.

Tallis released her hand and forced her to release his shaft. “Hold on. Your arms around my neck.” She complied, and he lifted her off the ground. The crooks of her knees locked over the inside bend of his elbows. He gripped her ass, then braced himself with his back to the wall.

“This is your first time, Kavya.” He shook his head. “I can’t trust myself.”

“Tell me,” she whispered.

Tallis closed his eyes. “Against the wall. Or down on the ground.”

“You’d lose control.”

“Yes.”

She purred in the back of her throat, with a cat’s smile to match. “Someday, maybe. But for now?”

“You’re going to fuck me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

His words jolted through Kavya with as much force as every physical torment he layered over her body. He wasn’t kissing now—not anywhere—although the memory of his mouth between her legs released another rush of wet, hot readiness. He was enormous. She was ready for him.

He held remarkably still, considering how closely they were perched on the edge of falling. It felt like falling, into an abyss of sensation that would fill her mouth, flood her lungs, and drown her. She sucked deeper until those sensations became air and untold boldness. She leaned forward and licked from the notch at the base of his throat to his thin lower lip.

“Again,” he rasped.

Because he’d complied with her equally blunt demand—when he’d bit her tongue, just shy of pain—Kavya returned the favor. That was the best part of sex so far. Returning favors.

He was sandalwood-scented, as she’d imagined, but retained a slight hint of salt and musk. The scent and taste of Tallis. Although the notch was smooth, his skin turned rougher, pebbly and scratchy with stubble as she dragged her tongue up his throat, over his chin, and back to the utterly sleek welcome of his kiss.

“Put my cock between your legs.” He swallowed tightly. “I’m holding you. But I can’t be the one who starts this. But once we start . . .”

“You’ll set the pace?”

A ragged grin turned up one side of his mouth. “Yes, I will.”

Kavya reached a hand between their bodies and grasped his thick, hard shaft. She’d loved the rush of power that came with stroking him. Now . . . now her body would do the same. Perhaps her youthful fears of being forced had made the act seem so one-sided. There was only penetration and being penetrated. But Tallis would be just as helpless as she, sucked into her warmth and pulled by the need for more and more pressure. She saw it so clearly now.

There was penetration, and there was being consumed.

They were devouring each other.

She rubbed a drop of slick fluid around his throbbing head. He hissed. He shifted his grip. “Do it, Kavya.”

“I could tease you all night,” she said against the hollow behind his ear. She licked there, then applied a test of teeth to his lobe. His reply was a thrust and a squeeze. She loved that call-and-response.

“No teasing.” His voice was suddenly brittle. She heard bitterness and emotional pain. “Kavya . . .”

“You’re right. No teasing. That’s not what I want. I’ve been curious since those first moments in your tent. I’ve been hungry since you stripped for me. I’ve been half-mad since you tasted me in the sunlight. It’s been long enough. More than that, it’s been more than enough since meeting you.”

With a shift of her pelvis, she angled so that the head of his cock nudged between her slick lips. She took a breath. Looked him in the eyes. Smiled.

She kissed him when he slid home.

Pain bolted through what had been perfect pleasure, leaving aftershocks of surprise and a gasp that he swallowed with a deeper kiss.

“So full,” she gasped again, barely able to connect words. “So . . . Tallis, oh, Dragon damn.”

“Big.” He thrust up, deep. She’d thought once was spectacular enough. “Right now you can’t believe it’s possible. How I’m filling you.” Dipping his head, he licked the tops of her breasts. “You’re greedy to learn how much more you can take.”

With her temple pressed down against his, she laughed. “Now you can talk.”

“Only one of us at a time.” He caught her gaze. The animal—his great gift—was staring out from Tallis’s