Page 95 of Tears of Gold

She smiles the purest, sweetest smile and trust shines in her eyes as she replies, “I already am.”

That’s all the permission I need. I back my mate up to the tree and her breath catches as she bumps against the trunk and I lean down to steal the gasp off her open lips. The beast inside me quivers with eagerness, pressing against my awareness with the desire to seal our fates together forever. I relax, letting the true me merge forward in a way I never have before, stopping just shy of shifting. After all, he knows what needs to be done better than I.

I run my hands up her ribs, tugging her shirt over her head until she’s bared to the faint glow of the long-long tree. The silver light catches on the round fullness of her breasts, shadowed at the tip which point toward me, her black hair curling softly over her shoulders to frame her sensuality. My cock leaps to attention, straining against my pants.

Fuck, she’s beautiful!

Instinctively I press my knee between her legs, closing the distance. Her desires pulse like my own heartbeat as I stroke down her sides and undo the button of her stiff pants. Jeans, I think she and Harper call them.

Ava’s breath catches again as she feels my rigid cock digging into her thigh and she reaches around my waist, cupping my ass and tugging me harder against her. A groan slips between my teeth. Who’s the hunter here? Hunger floods me and I wrestle the tight fabric off her hips and down to the ground where she kicks free of them.

For a moment we’re all desperate hands and heavy breathing as she peels my clothes off, and then I push her back against the tree. She arches from the cool touch of the bark, pressing harder against my chest.

“Dragon Stars, Ava,” I gasp, lifting her with my knee and finding her pussy damp and steaming warmly against my skin. Our lips meet, hunger driving both of us to lick and nibble and suck until our mouths are swollen.

Ignoring my instinct to sink deep inside her immediately, I trail kisses across her jaw and down her heaving chest, each passionate draw of breath notching my intense desire higher. Across her ribs and into the shadowed crevisse drawing my path ever lower, I kiss, sometimes licking and nipping a little, rewarded with a jerk of her body for each trace of my teeth.

Gently I kneel and lift her knee onto my shoulder, balancing her upper body with a hand on my hip. She whimpers as I kiss the soft dark down over her pussy, already dripping against my lips. Fuck!

I growl possessively. “You’re already weeping for me, beautiful butterfly.”

“Yes,” she murmurs, bracing a hand against my shoulder.

“Give me another minute and I’ll have you shaking all over,” I promise, working my tongue between her folds. A tremor runs through her and she leans her head back against the smooth trunk with a faint moan as I taste her.

Then I mouth fuck her clitoris until she’s gasping and trembling, hands winding into my hair in a desperate attempt to keep herself upright. The harder she tugs, the faster I go until she stiffens all but tearing my hair out. When she’s one second from falling over the edge, I slow, chuckling wickedly as she groans.

I lick every drop of foam clear, then rebalance her quivering hips and drive my tongue deep inside her slick pussy.

“Oh shit, Skye!” Her legs sag and I hold nearly all her weight as she whines and opens wider, pressing my face deep with a desperation to have me consume her. The burn of her rising orgasm flames my own so strongly that I have to force myself to stay in my two-legged skin, grabbing at my own straining cock as the strength of desire nearly undoes me.

“Don’t stop,” Ava begs.

A roaring in the old dragon language sounds in my head, calling with a deep urgency I can’t dismiss. Water seeps up around my knees, sparkling with reflected silver light as my qi leaks.

“Skye, Skye!” she calls, shattering as she tumbles over the edge and soaking my tongue with her sweet nectar. I lap her up like a parched man in a desert. Mine.

Ava releases her death grip on my hair and tugs on me weakly. Grinning, I gently lower her leg to the ground and slide up her quivering body.

“Are you ready for me, baby girl?” I ask breathlessly, trembling with both uncontained desire and the gravity of what I’m about to do.

“Yes. I want you.”

I press my bulging tip to her entrance and she gasps as I sink ever so slowly inside, lifting her with my hands under her smooth ass. She’s a river in my hands, malleable, parting around me as I dip into her depths. Her fingernails dig into my skin as she clutches at me, almost lost from her mind with pleasure.

“Oh, fuck, Skye!” she groans, struggling to breathe deeply, and I grin as I suck on the pulse in her neck. She rarely cusses heavily, and I like knowing I’ve drawn it from her lips.

I don’t care that Ava doesn’t know what I’m doing. Her simple trust shines out of her eyes as she clings to me, delirious with ecstasy. My heart knows she found her way, impossibly, across the entirety of the Twelve Realms to be here because she’s bound to us, destined to be my mate, and I’ll protect her from anything that’s coming at us.

I sink as deep as she can tolerate, then draw back and do it again, and whimpers fall from her trembling lips with every redraw, as if protesting my absence. The hidden draconian magic within me rises in answer to my summons, powers known only to those of dragon blood.

I could never risk placing a piece of myself inside Erritt, because it would be discovered, but with Ava I don’t have a choice. It’s a primal need, outweighing any consequence—making Ava my treasure is the only acceptable option.

Ava arches into me and as if she knows exactly what she’s doing, she clings to my neck and whispers, “Be mine.”

I thrust deep into her, slamming her against the tree trunk and crying out as my dragon soul lurches and splinters. I press my lips to Ava’s, sliding my tongue straight inside with a possessive growl. Light fills my inner vision as a piece of my soul passes through our locked lips and careens into her soul, which throbs with the cadence of her human heart beat.

Dragon Stars!