Itskat her, still holding her chin where I want it. “That is not what I said,” I purr. “You’ll beg me to suck my cock.”
“Fuck me,” she gripes. “Fine. I’ll beg you.”
“To suck my cock.”
She stares at me for twelve beats of my heart, eyes spitting flames the entire time, before snapping, “To suck your cock.”
“When I give you permission,” I continue, waiting for her to repeat my words.
And then she gives in, but fuck if it isn’t the most defiant concession I’ve ever received. Straightening her back, her tits grazing my chest, she snarls the rest. “When you give me permission, I’ll open my lips and let you fuck my mouth. And then I’ll lick every drop of cum from the flabby dick I’ll leave behind.”
“And why should I believe you? Your word is worth little to me.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her eyes still shooting flames at me, and I suspect she’s waging an inner battle about what she might offer me. Finally, she dips her chin again, and makes her offer. “You haven’t forced me, and I don’t think you will. But I’ll give you permission now. If you take me to Panta and I don’t suck your cock, you can fuck me.”
I could come just from the thought of a willing, wide awake Finaan wrapped around my cock. Wrath is writhing inside me, desperate to plunge into our mate.
“You’d like that as much as me,” I point out, “if our time in the water is any indication.”
“Trust me when I tell you, Wregen, that screwing you is the very last thing I want to do.”
“That will change, and soon. But that’s not enough. I need … a down payment. And you owe me.” I grin as I give her my demand. “A kiss.”
Her eyebrows slam together, and I barely hold back the laugh that punches up from my gut. I’m going to enjoy surprising her. A kiss today; her hands on my cock tomorrow. She’ll never know what to expect from me.
And as pathetic as it makes me, I crave the feel of her lips on mine. Maybe it’s the mating bond, thrumming more urgently inside me with every step I take by Finaan’s side. I never took that from her in Helheim. It’s too intimate, a gesture borne of emotions. I can’t allow those weeds to fester in my soul in that accursed place. But I can have it here, simply to know how it feels.
I’m a sad excuse for a fiend. My mistress would never receive me back in Helheim if she suspected I’d ask for something so soppy.
“I’m not kissing you,” Finaan declares. “And I don’t owe you anything.”
“Then we have no deal.” I shrug, turning to walk away. “You’ll follow me,” I tell her as I leave, “or you’ll regret it.” Shedoesn’t see the smile that emerges as I walk away. I’ll train her yet. But not so much as to stanch her flame. This push and pull of defiance and surrender is exactly what Wrath and I crave to fill the centuries that lie ahead of us.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she yells. “I need to find Panta.”
“Then kiss me.” Spinning, I stride back toward her, closing most of the distance between us as I hold her gaze. “What are you afraid of, mate?”
She watches me in silence for a few seconds, but then her breath quickens and her fingers start to twitch. I’ve got her. She wants this as much as me. Well, the fates want this. She’s in a losing battle, trying to fight our connection. If I have to use her dragon to break down her barriers and get her to fuck me the way we both need, that’s what I’ll do.
Because I am exactly the male she thinks I am.
At last, her hands still and she flattens them against her thighs. Her gaze tracks down to my mouth for a moment before lifting again.
“We’ll go back down this cavern?” she asks, “until I can find Panta?”
“When you place your lips on mine, let me feel them move against me, we’ll return to where you spoke with her. That’s all I’ll promise.”
Finaan doesn’t move at first, hands fidgeting again while she watches me. But then she strides forward quickly, as if she decided to give in before she changed her mind. When she’sless than an arm’s length away, she pauses, lifting her head to look at me.
And I see her—truly see her, without the weight of the disdain she carries like a weapon—for the first time.
My skjaldmær is so fucking beautiful. This close, I notice black flecks in her eyes nearly the same color as her hair, crinkles at the edges of her lashes that can only come from the laughter she managed to experience in the midst of Hel’s abyss, and a little bump on her nose that somehow didn’t heal following a wraith’s attack in Niflhel.
His skull is decorating my bedroom wall today, one of my favorite mementos.
My heart beats wildly as I catalog her features and wait. I nearly retreat—emotions I can’t tolerate trying to push their way through my barriers. Before I can, though, she dips her chin a bit and huffs out a sigh. Closing her eyes, she takes one more step, rests her hands on my chest, and lifts to her toes to graze her lips against mine.
Wrath rises, grunting his pleasure as we feel our mate’s mouth. Groaning, I open to her, satisfaction thrumming in my veins as she responds, stroking her tongue against mine. Rumbles of ecstasy—there’s no other word for it—shoot out from every bit of flesh she touches, rocks barreling down a hill to bury us. It’s the purest, most erotic sensation I’ve ever felt, a gift from the gods.
