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  Chapter Six

  To Darek, Lily’s joy was nearly palpable. He rested his chin on her shoulder to avoid being smothered by her hair and closed his eyes, feeling her against him. Her lithe body trembled as the wind carried her laughter away.

  It had been a long, long time since he’d taken to the air for fun, even longer since he’d been aloft in human form. He’d flown on Bane’s back before, but always in battle, armed, with darkness, fear and death bearing down upon them.

  Tonight, the wind bore none of these things. Instead, her heady scent came to him, calling to every part of his being, from his most socially acceptable, chivalrous feelings to his darkest needs. All of him answered that call with a single word. Mine.

  Ours, Bane corrected. The word vibrated along their psychic connection.

  Darek opened his eyes and chuckled as he felt Bane’s hide heat with annoyance. Sorry. I didn’t know you were listening, he replied, forming the idea into words and projecting them to Bane. Possessiveness was a strange beast, he thought, remembering the sounds coming from inside the men’s room as Bane had taken Lily for the first time. His cock hardened and he turned his face into her neck to find that sweet little spot behind her ear. Her own wild, clean scent carried undertones of Bane’s and his own. For the creature that shared his soul, the aroma was a sensory experience akin to the aurora borealis.

  The aerie is still ten minutes or so away. Why don’t you play with her? She hungers, Bane said, his tone reasonable and dispassionate.

  I was trying to show some restraint, Darek replied, frustrated.

  She’s been aroused since we took flight. Her scent is heavy with it, Bane observed. She hungers. Darek resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing from his own experience exactly how the world looked to Bane at the moment—a perfectly, coldly logical place.

  Bane’s flare of jealousy a moment ago had surprised Darek. Human emotion had almost no foothold on them in this form. There was no room for such things in the landscape of a dragon’s heart, already a battlefield on which reason and instinct eternally vied for control.

  Take care of our mate, Bane told him.

  “Lily,” Darek said gently, his mouth against her ear so she could hear him above the wind. “Do you want me to touch you?”

  Her sharp intake of breath, accompanied by a frustrated little sound, was answer enough. All the same, he waited.

  She turned her head to the side and he had to smooth down her hair so he could see. “You guys don’t miss anything, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  He felt her take a deep breath. “Yes,” she admitted, “I’m soaked. I’m flying on the back of a dragon, and all I can think about is sex. Go figure.”

  “It’s normal, Lily,” he said. “You’ve just been marked.”

  Her hands tightened on his forearms in a grateful squeeze. “Since you told me I’m half idana, I can’t help thinking there’s some kind of beast inside me, and if I let it out to play all hell will break loose.”

  “That’s an interesting way to put it,” he said.

  She laughed.

  “Honestly, Lily,” he said, “you don’t have a beastly bone in your body. Your idana blood isn’t going to corrupt you.”

  Bane tossed his head and puffed smoke.

  “I gather that’s agreement from him?” she asked.

  “Yes. He did add that we are definitely going to corrupt you,” Darek said. Keeping one arm wrapped securely around her waist—this was, after all, her first time airborne—he let his other hand drift up her belly and cup her breast, stroking with his thumb. She moaned and laid her head back against his shoulder, wriggling her bottom against his hard cock.

  He bit back a groan. Maybe he should reconsider that part about her not being able to hurt them. “Oh God, Lily, have pity and be still. I have ten whole minutes to wait before I can fuck you.”

  She stopped. “Sorry. But—ten whole minutes?”

  There was an impish edge to her tone that made him suspicious, but he answered anyway. “Assuming I tear off your clothes the second we land, yes.”

  “Mmm,” she replied, her body relaxing against his. Mercifully, she didn’t move her hips. “So how are you going to pass the time?”

  In answer to her question, he flicked open the snap of her jeans and pulled the zipper down, skimming his fingers over the soft triangle of curls between her legs, not quite touching the delicate flesh he knew he would find already swollen and wet with want. The rhythm of Bane’s undulating spine beneath them made sure of that.

  All playful pretense gone, Lily whimpered. Obliging the unspoken plea, he took pity on her and covered her clit with the pad of his finger, pressing down gently. With his other hand, he cupped her breast, stroking the tight bud of her nipple with his thumb.

  Her back arched and she moaned softly, grinding against his hand. He let her pleasure herself, holding her tightly and listening to the erotic music she made with her whimpers. When her cries rose in pitch and became more frequent, he lessened the pressure, not wanting her to come too quickly. He lowered his head to nip, taste and kiss the vulnerable skin of her neck, reveling in the scent and texture. Experimentally, he bit down on the muscle at the base of her neck, just hard enough to leave a mark, and held on.

  Lily jumped, tensing. He eased the pressure a fraction but didn’t release her, wanting to see how she reacted. With his other hand, he stroked her tender clit. Her back arched and she gasped.

  We’re almost there, Bane said in his mind. Make her come. I want to hear it with these ears.

  Darek ran his tongue over the tender skin caught between his teeth, eliciting a moan from her. Very well.

  He opened his mouth, releasing her neck. “Time to come, pretty girl,” he murmured, thrusting his fingers deep into her wet heat and stroking her clit with his thumb. Her hungry walls clenched tightly around him and she gasped, arching. He felt the first flutterings of her orgasm begin and moved his other hand up to caress the mark on her throat. She came for him, crying out, her hands clenching his forearms so tightly her nails left marks.

  She was still breathing hard and gripping his arm tightly when Bane’s back legs found a foothold in the small island’s sandy beach. Darek’s cock ached like mad, but he wanted to take her in the Aerie playroom, not here on the beach. Taking the opportunity to rub his fingers over her sensitive clit one more time, he slid his fingers out of her and turned her chin, wanting to look in her amber eyes while he licked her juices from them. Her gaze narrowed, heating, and she surprised him by half-turning and kissing him, tasting herself on his lips.

  A low, rumbling growl from beneath them made Lily laugh, a musical sound he found as erotic in his mouth as her slick wetness. He zipped her jeans with a tug. Bane’s scales released her legs and she climbed down, jumping the last few feet down to the sand. Darek followed, dropping the bags in the sand beside her. As soon as they were off, Bane moved silently away down the beach, slipping into the quiet surf with a little puff of steam.

  Lily frowned. “Where is he going?”

  “If I had to guess,” Darek said, “I’d say he’s getting dinner. Want to look around a bit?”

  Lily slipped off the sandals she’d purchased that afternoon and scrunched her toes into the coarse sand. With the full moon rising, she could see quite a bit of the landscape in silhouette. The cattail-covered dunes seemed to stretch for a long way behind the beach, ending in what appeared to be a forest of short, scrubby, weathered trees. There were no signs of human presence. No lights dotted the landscape, peering yellow from the windows of houses, beaming white from streetlights, or blinking red from radio towers. The only sounds were the soft lapping of the surf and, if she listened hard, the occasional cry of a bird.

  When she looked out over the ocean, she couldn’t see the mainland. “How far out are we?”

  Darek shrugged noncommittally, slipping off his shoes as well. “Far enough,” he said. “This one’s quite a few miles offshore. It’s on the maps, techn
ically, but Anthony took a liking to it years ago and has ensured that humans remained uninterested in it.”

  Lily looked up at the brilliant stars in the clear sky. She liked his thinking. Darek took her hand and moved toward the surf, drawing her along with him. Darek stopped at the water’s edge, digging his bare feet into the sand. The waves quickly covered his feet.

  “What’s he like—your leader?” she asked.

  He shrugged, his eyes drifting closed as his feet sank into the sand beneath the swirling water. “Anthony’s a good man,” he answered vaguely. “I don’t know. He keeps to himself. Less so since he found Chloe, but he’s hard to get to know.” The small waves washed up hundreds of tiny butterfly mussels, their white shells gleaming in the moonlight. Lily bent down to watch them as they righted themselves and wriggled down into the sand, seeking protection. A few yards away, she noticed a group of sandpipers that had been making its way down the beach, fishing for mussels in the incoming waves. The small birds hesitated, eyeing them, forming a loose semicircle around the unexpected company.

  “We’re in their way,” Lily said, taking several steps back. The birds watched, interested in the water, but didn’t come forward with Darek still in their path.

  “They can go around us,” Darek said.

  Lily grasped his forearm and tugged. “Or we could find another spot. Look, this is prime hunting ground for them,” she said, gesturing at the sand as yet another pack of mussels washed up on the beach.

  He smirked but gave in, following her a few yards down the waterline. Lily watched, pleased, as the birds eagerly filled the vacancy.

  Her small kindness was undone when Bane, still in dragon form, emerged suddenly from the surf with a thunderous splash. The birds took flight, looking for safer ground. Her heart pounding, Lily thought about doing the same. He looked like an ancient sea monster as the water coursed over his shining blue and gold scales, running in rivulets down his body and back into the sea.

  In his jaws Bane held an enormous fish that was still fighting hard. With a toss of his head, he threw the fish in the air and caught it, snapping its spine audibly in the process.

  Lily winced.

  “Ah,” Darek said, unaffected by the display. “Dinner. Excellent.”

  Lily gaped at him, taking an involuntary step back. He grasped her arm, keeping her still. “Seriously?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

  Darek’s mouth curved into a smile that reminded her quite a bit of the dragon standing not far from them. Bane moved closer, his sinuous body curving as he walked. He dropped the huge, bleeding fish at her feet with a thud, as though for her approval.

  In spite of herself, Lily squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her lips together to hold in a scream. She didn’t like being in the water with fish. They were nipping, biting things she couldn’t see. She liked them even less bleeding and thrashing on the ground in front of her. Darek laughed, resting his hand in the small of her back.

  There was a flash of blue light. When Lily opened her eyes, Bane stood before her, his human form reassuring and positively, edibly naked.

  Lily felt a wanton smile spread across her face. “That’s more like it,” she murmured.

  Bane pointed at the fish, looking hurt. “I bring you a twenty-pound king mackerel, and you jerk away like I’m a cat dropping a dead mouse at your feet?” He shook his head.

  Lily covered her mouth, trying not to laugh at the image he’d put in her head. He seemed genuinely offended.

  “It’s a beautiful fish,” she tried, blinking.

  Bane rested his hands on his narrow hips, seeming to consider her compliment. Behind her, Darek snorted.

  Lily scanned Bane’s body with open appreciation, a wicked idea forming in her mind. She took a step toward Bane.

  He looked at her warily. “What? I chased that school for half a mile.”

  She nodded in what she hoped was an appreciative manner and closed the gap between them, putting her toes just inside his wide stance. “And I’m very, very grateful,” she said smoothly, placing her palms on his damp, hard chest. She leaned forward, feathering kisses along the ridge of one of his scars. His cock stiffened against her belly.

  She reached down to grasp him with both hands, her fingers overlapping a little. Oh please let me do this right, she thought urgently. She’d never sucked a man before.

  He groaned, his knees nearly buckling. “Lily—”

  She stood on tiptoe and parted her lips, her eyes drifting closed. With a sound like a starving man offered a feast, Bane cupped her face and claimed her mouth with his own. His cock twitched in her hands and Lily stroked the velvet skin gently with her palms, unsure. Bane pressed his hips forward, trapping himself between her fingers and her belly, thrusting into her hands.

  He seemed to be asking for more, but more what—more pressure? More friction? Both? “Teach me,” she whispered against his mouth. “Show me what you like.”

  Behind them, Darek grunted. Lily broke the kiss and turned toward him. “Darek, wait!”

  He smiled, hefted the fish and headed up the beach. “It’s fine, Lily,” he called. “You guys play. I’ll get dinner started.”

  Something primal and demanding stepped forward inside her. She wanted both of her mates. Now. “Please stay,” she purred. She knelt in front of Bane and kissed the tip of his erection. He moaned. “I’ve never done this before. I’m going to need a lot of instruction.”

  Darek halted and half-turned, watching them.

  “Stay,” Bane grated, his teeth clenched.

  Darek dropped the fish and walked back to them, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. “All right then. I guess you can’t be the teacher and the demo model at the same time.” he said. He stepped up behind Lily, resting his hands on her shoulders. “You are one wicked little surprise after another.” He knelt behind her and slid his hands under her shirt to cup her breasts. He took her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, pinching lightly. Her pussy clenched and she inhaled sharply.

  Darek spoke, his breath hot against her ear. “Wrap one hand around his cock, nice and tight, and stroke from the base to the tip.”

  Bane pulled his hips back and she tightened her grip on his cock, stroking its full length.

  “Your hand is taking the place of that sweet cunt of yours,” Darek said.

  She lengthened her strokes, entranced by the way his penis flexed and pulsed in her hands. She glanced up, over the ridged, muscular expanse of his torso. His eyes were closed, his mouth open a fraction. A drop formed at the tip.

  “He’s on another planet, love. Listen to me. The head is the most sensitive part, but his favorite…” Darek stopped with a groan as Lily touched the clear drop with the tip of her finger and brought it to her lips to taste the wetness she’d touched. Slick. Salty. She liked it—wanted more.

  “Damn, Lily,” Darek breathed.

  “What’s his favorite part?” she asked, caressing the soft skin of Bane’s heavy sac.

  “See how the ridge of the head comes to a crest, right under the slit?” he asked.

  Bane groaned. The sound rang in her ears, a clear plea. “Uh-huh,” she answered.

  “Lick him there.”

  With the tip of her tongue, she laved the spot Darek had shown her.

  Bane fisted his hands in her hair. Slowly, he pushed farther into her mouth. She met his half-lidded gaze, loving the sounds he made. His grip tightened in her hair and he held her still as he withdrew slowly. She whimpered, frustrated, as his cock sprang free from her mouth.

  Bane chuckled. “Strip, Lily. I want to watch him fuck you from behind while you suck me.,”

  Excitement pooled low in her belly. She loved it when he used that tone. Quickly she did as he asked. Behind her, Darek took off his jeans as she knelt before Bane.

  Bane’s thick, heavy cock bobbed in front of her lips. Another bead of moisture formed at the tip. Eager for more, she wrapped her hands around his length and swiped the droplet away wi
th her tongue. His taste was intoxicating. He stroked her hair and growled his approval, an encouraging sound that resonated deep in his chest.

  Darek knelt behind her and sat back on his heels. He grasped her hips and lifted her onto his lap, poising himself at her wet entrance. “Suck him, Lily.” The delicious girth of his erection stretched her wide.

  With a moan of pleasure, Lily took as much of Bane as she could manage into her mouth, careful not to graze him with her teeth, marveling at the contrast between his soft skin and the iron heat beneath.

  “That is the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen,” Darek said. She smiled around a mouthful of Bane’s cock. Feeling mischievous, she released Bane for a second and turned to wink at Darek. Feral arousal flickered in his dark-brown eyes and he grasped her hips, lifting her off him until only the tip of his cock was in her. And stopped. Lily gasped, surprised, then whimpered. She wanted him back inside her, but he held her firm.

  “Suck him hard, little imp,” Darek grated. “Make him come, then I’ll give you what you want.” He grasped her hips and lifted her up just a little, thrusting shallowly, stroking her with the head of his cock.

  The sensation destroyed what was left of Lily’s control. She sucked Bane hungrily. She wanted what Darek offered, and she wanted to know what Bane tasted like when he came. Bane’s thighs trembled under her hands and he fisted a hand in her hair. She wrapped one hand around the base of his cock and palmed his tight balls with the other. Following his urging hand, she slid him in and out of her mouth, letting the head of his cock hit her hard palate.

  “That’s a good girl. Can you swallow him?” Darek asked. He held her hips up and thrust shallowly, making her mad with want. “Do that, and I’ll give you what you want.”

  Bane growled, his cock stiffening, twitching in her mouth.