“Stop with the nervous explanations,” Teal said, putting his hand over my mouth. “You’re allowed to want stuff without explaining why. Now, shush up with it and get on my dick.”
I blushed and swallowed hard. Why was I nervous now? It wasn’t like we hadn’t been touching and licking all over each other since the first day we met. Teal’s big, strong hands slid to my hips and I leaned in for a kiss. Against the odds, kissing him made it easier to think as if the magic rewarded us for giving in a bit. I shifted my weight forward and reached down to wrap my hand around his thick cock. I stroked him slowly, stopping to toy with the mushroom-shaped head of his dick with my thumb before sliding my fist back down. His breath caught for a second and I smiled to myself as I leaned forward enough to rub him between my cheeks. I coated him in my slick arousal before wiggling around to line up our bodies.
I pressed my forehead against Teal’s as I slid onto him. A storm of desire danced through his eyes and I rode it out with him. His fingers dug into my hips and my cat whispered something about the claiming vows into my thoughts. I hadn’t forgotten. We just weren’t there yet.
“How’s your dragon holding up?” I whispered.
“He’s so ready to bite you. He was ready to bite you in the nest that day we first smelled you,” Teal admitted. “So fucking ready to be inside that beautiful, vicious head of yours.”
“No more secrets then, huh?” I teased him and bit my lip as the thick head of his dick pressed into my body.
“No more big secrets,” he growled. “No more hiding from me. No more trying to downplay who and what we are to each other. Maybe it’s just throwing around my privilege but if someone wants to give you a hard time about being a matedomega, I will end them. Anyone who thinks loving someone makes you weak is the lowest lifeform.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned in close as I started to ride him. His breath hitched again and again as if he were the one sliding up and down a dragon-sized dick. Every last inch of him was more sensitive than the last. I smiled, silently thanking his rut for making him come as undone as I felt. I kissed up and down his throat, stoking the fire inside him. He burnt up with desire and dragon flames and I couldn’t get enough of it.
His scent was the strongest around his neck and I couldn’t stop myself from following it all the way to the tautly pulled skin of his claiming gland. He let out a long, slow breath as I licked around it. His fingers dug into my ass as he tried to keep his composure and match my pace. Teal’s every muscle was tense as if it took all his control not to push me onto my back and take over. His struggle only made me want to tease him more.
“You’re going to make me knot, mate,” he whispered. “I’m going to knot and you’re going to be the one---”
His words turned to a moan and a prophecy as his dick swelled up inside me. I leaned back to see his face and he flashed me a ‘told you so’ look. I bit my lip hard as he expanded more and more, filling me up and trapping me in place before I ever got a chance to work up a momentum.
“You’re so tight,” the words tumbled off Teal’s lips in a half growl. “So fucking tight.”
He was one to speak. It wasn’t my dick taking up all the room and demanding more. I opened my mouth to speak but the words came out unintelligible. Teal’s big, warm hands stroked my thighs, coaxing me to relax but all I could think about was the way his thick dick knotted up against all my sweet spots.
“Are you going to claim me or not?” The words rolled off his tongue sounding like a challenge.
Now I had to bite him. I had to gather up whatever was left of my wits and bite this dragon.
“Sometimes you are such an alphahole,” I growled back, leaning my weight against him. The slight change in position made us both make undecipherable noises.
“Can I?” he growled a moment later.
“I’m gonna take the whole gland and chew on it,” I grumbled and licked the skin covering my prey. “See if it gives me more than the average gland that way.”
Teal chuckled and squeezed my ass, pushing my cheeks together as if he could make me draw up tighter around him. I growled against his skin and borrowed my liger’s canine tooth. It was long, sharp, and shiny and sunk into his skin like a hot knife into butter when I bit down. He groaned, thrusting up even though his dick was knotted into place and neither of us were going anywhere. I hissed and bit him again setting off an explosion of the clear magical fluid into my mouth. His memories went off like fireworks filling up the backs of my eyelids.
“So much gardening and food,” I murmured against his shoulder as I lapped up the good stuff. Seriously. It was everywhere. I could’ve lived inside of some of the produce grown in Heartville. Could’ve carved out a living room and set up a television set. Cobalt and Indigo were everywhere too. In almost every memory there they were.
Teal froze under me as if he realized I might see something he didn’t want me to. Shit! What would mine show? Too late now. I’d already started the ancient magic. After the fruit came the blood. So much fucking blood. The man could’ve bathed in the blood of his enemies and had some to spare. Teal was good at killing. Concise and efficient. Taking out the threat with minimal mess and effort. I recognized a few of the dead assholes from the news. Execution was definitely one way to keep the territorysafe. And he had the audacity to look so fucking sexy while doing it. Maybe it was the big cat inside me but something about the way his muscles flexed when he cut down would be assassins and kidnappers made me even harder. My heart thudded against my ribs, and I let out a long, slow breath. I was out of the clear magical fluid but still hungry for more of Teal. His cat was out of the bag, and it was crystal clear why he ran off to protect Morvan. They were doing more than seed bombing fields of various varieties. That was a convenient and charitable cover up.
“It’s okay,” I said, pushing myself just upright enough to look into his eyes. I pushed a green lock of hair away from his face and kissed him. “Someone has to take the trash out. I’d be surprised if you weren’t stepping on Clarence’s toes that way.”
“It’s not often. It’s too often because once is too often,” he murmured against my lips, “but it’s not that often. Things really kicked up when they had Meda and AJ. Now, there are a few assholes who thought it would be okay to consider harming ----” he lost his train of thought as I rolled my hips, testing how much give his knot had. None. It wasn’t budging at all.
“Baby Robin?” I filled in the gap for him.
“Yeah. The baby. The tiny little baby. They—”
“They’re making more work for you,” I sighed. “I know, baby. They won’t just be normal fucking people. They have to go and threaten kids and blow up cabins. Whatever happened to using their words?”
“I don’t know,” Teal chuckled, his eyes narrowing in on the claiming gland on my shoulder. I let out a long, slow breath. My childhood wasn’t as traumatic as Odie or Ambry’s. My parents died fighting because they were warriors. I always used that fact to comfort myself. They must’ve known the risk going in. Hell, even when you just start guard training they make you have a will drawn up and what you want done with your body and how much medicine you want if you become a vegetable. They makeit clear that you might die and if you do it probably won’t be a pretty death. Before I didn’t care what happened to me as long as I went out fighting. I never wanted to go out cowered down in a corner and still don’t. Still wouldn’t. Only now, I needed to avoid the dying part. I just found Teal and for the first time in a long time had a reason to be attached to this very mortal body.
Borrowing his dragon’s eyetooth, Teal bit into my claiming gland. I hissed, the hair on the back of my neck rising up. He held me in place as my cat squirmed as if he’d carry him off by his scruff. Slowly, my inner beast relaxed into the bite and the liquid pouring into our mate’s mouth. Teal had tasted sweet – like something sugary I couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe it was a recipe I’d never tried before or perhaps the taste of Teal. To him I tasted like catnip and coffee. It wasn’t a combination I’d ever tried before but it was acceptable. The memories the magic chose to show him was a line up of me getting arrested over and over. He chuckled more than once. He’d have both of his giant hands full with me but something about that tickled him. Perhaps I was the next distraction while he took care of business. That might be acceptable occasionally.
“Hey!” I said when he’d finished lapping up all the clear magical good stuff. “How do you know what catnip tastes like?”
“Uh… Other people are allowed to taste it. It’s not like it’s only for cats.”