Dragon's Moon (31 page)

She let that feeling of safety wash through her like a cleansing tide. If he could give her this sense of peace, it was almost worth the pain that would inevitably follow.

Finished with thinking, she focused entirely on the sensations he elicited in her with his kiss.

Her hands went to his chest of their own accord, sliding over hard muscles and brushing the tiny nubs they found there. His big body shuddered at the contact and she had to do it again, circling her fingertips around his small male nipples.

Then she traced the lines of the leather straps that held his sword scabbards to his back. They crisscrossed the golden skin of his chest in the most fascinating way. She followed each line, brushing over the brown disks of his nipples again, but moving on as she explored the delicious combination of the leather and his smooth skin.

With a growl he tore his mouth from hers. “Do that again.”

“What?” she asked in a husky voice she barely recognized as her own.

“Touch me there.” He grabbed one of her hands and guided it to rest over his hardened nub.

She did, no thought to the contrary. Circling and pinching the tender flesh, she exulted in the power she exerted over this giant warrior who shared his nature with both dragon and raven as he shivered with each caress.

“Yes.” He threw his head back, pleasure etched in every harsh line of his face. “Excite me as only you can,
faolán
.”

She let her hands explore every spot she could reach, but now the leather straps from his sword scabbards were in her way. “Take these off.”

“Aye.” The look he gave her was hewn from the granite that had used to protect her heart.

Within seconds all of his weapons lay on the ground within easy reaching distance. Not that a dragon who could partially transform needed a sword to defeat his enemy. His boots and kilt followed his weapons in short order and then he stood before her, gloriously naked in the moonlight.

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

—K
HALIL
G
IBRAN

N
o hint of embarrassment or shyness for this prince of the Chrechte. Eirik accepted her intensely fascinated perusal as his due.

A foot taller than her and so broad with muscle only a fool would challenge this man in battle, Eirik's gaze burned through her with promise.

And with a challenge
she
would be a fool not to meet.

He drew her to him without a single gesture or word and she willingly submitted to the siren's call of his body, moving closer. A faint echo of that frightened voice that had lived deep in her heart for so long warned her that like the siren's this man's song of desire would lure her to her doom.

But that voice was not loud enough to stop Ciara reaching out to touch that which held her attention so assiduously—the erection jutting from his body. Her fingertips did not quite touch in their circling of it, but he did not seem to mind, if the bliss crossing his features was anything to go by.

Long and thick, the hard phallus was much too big to fit
inside her, she was sure. Though her wolf argued otherwise, snarling for the chance to be impaled by the Éan prince.

For a moment, Ciara wondered at the sanity of her beast.

That moment was lost as Eirik's hand curled around hers, increasing the tightness of her hold. The dichotomy between his hard, callused fingers over hers and the soft, silky skin covering ungiving hardness beneath took her breath away.

“'Tis amazing,” she said on a sigh, looking down at their joint hold on his erection.

“Aye.”

He began to guide her in movement, taking their joined hands to the base of his length and pushing his foreskin down so the broad purple head winked up at her. “Like that, sweet little wolf.”

“You should be vulnerable here, but you do not feel vulnerable at all.” He felt hot, hard and strong beneath her hand.

He gave out a choked sound that could have been a laugh. “Make no mistake, even a dragon shifter's cock is susceptible to pain as much as pleasure.”

“There is so much heat,” she whispered in wonder. “Are you sure your dragon is not getting ready to cast fire again?”

This time his laugh could be mistaken for nothing but. “It is a kind of fire, but I assure you, it will not burn you,
faolán
.”

“Oh, I think it will.” Her heart, if not her body.

He shook his head, his expression turning more feral than she'd yet seen it. “Take your clothes off,” he demanded in a guttural voice.

She nodded, once again ignoring that tiny voice that tried to tell her she was swimming in waters too deep. He'd brought the waters with him and they would not recede unless he took them away again.

She undid the pins holding the small shawl over her shoulders first. Why it should feel so very revealing to remove a garment that actually covered cloth, not skin, she did not know, but in that moment she felt truly defenseless.

His look of savage desire did not help. And yet if he looked away from her, she would not be able to continue.

He did not look away and her blouse came next. As she pulled it over her head, for a second, she could not see him and her heart stuttered with atavistic fear.

“Faolán.”
That was all he said, just calling her his little wolf in a tone that wrapped around her desire and breathed flame into it.

And she was all right, dropping her blouse to the ground. Then she undid the tie on her pleated skirt made to look like a plaid from the Sinclair tartan and let it slide down her hips as well. That left only her shift and her shoes. She knew that even in the moonlight, her shift would do little to maintain her modesty, being of fabric spun very fine and bleached so white it was almost sheer.

His hands fisted and released at his sides, as if he wanted to touch her but dared not.

“Eirik?”

He nodded, as if to himself and strode forward, only to drop to his knees and bend down. He untied her sandals, his fingertips lingering on her ankles, his thumbs brushing the side of her arches. And she felt a curious hitch in her chest looking down at him.

Her wolf whispered,
“Mate,”
and her heart whimpered,
“Dangerous.”
All her mouth could say was a
“thank you”
so quiet she wondered if he even heard.

But he inclined his head in welcome. “Step out of them.”

She did, the only thing left between her and total nakedness, her sleeveless, almost sheer shift.

Still kneeling before her, he took the hem in his two hands but did not lift. “Now this.”

It was not a question, but he still did not move to remove her last garment.

So, she nodded. “Yes.”

His smile melted a place in her heart that had been frozen so long, she had not even known it existed anymore.

Pure trust.

He would not hurt her intentionally. He would protect her to the best of his abilities, even from his own lusts.

One moment she wore her shift and the next, she did not. Then she stood naked before him in the moonlight, feeling a strange juxtaposition between the coolness of the night air and the heat of his body so close. Her nipples were already hard, but they tightened into turgid peaks that ached deliciously at the dual sensations.

The flare of his nostrils said he noticed, but how could he not? He was dragon shifter, with senses far superior to human and even other Chrechte.

He leaned forward and kissed the tips of each, before lowering his head so he could give the same homage to her stomach right below her belly button.

It did not feel sexual, though they were both naked and he had just put his lips on her breasts. It felt more like a benediction, like an ancient Chrechte rite she knew nothing about.

And as sacred as the moment felt, she could not stifle the need to go back to touching him. Perhaps because to do so would feel equally blessed.

He seemed to read her mind, because he stood in a fluid movement, his arousal brushing up her body as he rose to his full six and a half feet.

Her wolf's keen senses became aware of a musky scent that he left behind on her skin where his penis had touched and she felt the growl of the wolf's approval in her chest. Without thought, she reached down and fondled the end of his shaft where it glistened with some kind of wetness. The nearly clear fluid was viscous and gave off a mouthwatering aroma.

She brought her fingers to her mouth and tasted, the flavor of her dragon bursting on her tongue.
Mine,
her wolf howled.

“Do you like it?”

“Are you supposed to ask that?” she queried, wanting to avoid an answer and knowing she would not be able to.

Her pleasure in his taste had to be as obvious to him as his lust was to her.

“We are Chrechte,” he said quietly, but firmly. “We do not hide from our true natures.”

He might not, but she had spent seven years doing her best to tamp down parts of her wolf. Still, she acknowledged his words with a nod.

“I need your touch,” he said in a gravelly voice.

The air around them shimmered with Chrechte power and she knew his beasts were close to the surface. As incredible as she found his dragon and as much as she wanted to meet his raven, at this moment, she would scream in frustration if either took over his form. There was only one way to keep the beasts at bay.

Satisfy their hunger.

She took his arousal in both her hands, this time automatically using the grip and movements he taught her. Sliding his foreskin back and forth over that hardened shaft, she found as much pleasure in the doing as he seemed to find in being done to.

“Oh, yes…just like that,
faolán
.”

“I am not so little.” She was not as tall as some of the Chrechte women, but not as short as some of the human females, either.

“You are my little wolf,” he said without apology.

And she could not disagree. Not in that moment. Her wolf simply would not let her, nor would that part of her heart he'd managed to unearth.

He made a sound deep in his throat and she could tell his control was slipping, though he was no longer in danger of shifting. Not at all. She increased the pace of her movements, enjoying how slick he'd gotten from the fluid seeping out of the slit in the tip of his penis.

Her wolf loved the scent and wanted another taste, but she could not stop touching him long enough to indulge herself.

And suddenly with a shout, his erection throbbed in her hand and hot ejaculate hit her body. Her head dropped back and she let out a howl in triumph, her human throat emulating her wolf more closely than it had ever done before.

He yanked her into his body and slammed his mouth down on hers in a kiss so hot, she melted under it. Even
after his release, his shaft was still hard against her and his hands were busy rubbing his seed into her body.

Her wolf understood what he was doing and approved. Eirik marked her with his scent in a way that unmistakably said she was his.

“Thank you,” he whispered against her lips. “Now I can take you without losing control this first time.”

His concern for her warmed that place deep in her heart further.

“My wolf liked it.”

“I could tell,” he said with a smile in his voice.

“She wants to scent you,” Ciara admitted.

“After.”

Her wolf purred its approval as Ciara's thighs tightened, that place between them throbbing as she agreed with a nod. “After.”

He spread her bedding fur on the ground and the blanket on top of it. Then, without warning, he swept her up and laid her on their makeshift bed on the forest floor.

“This is where you belong.”

“In your bed?” she asked.

“Aye.”

“The plaid and fur are mine though.”

“Then 'tis
our
bed.”

And why did that sound so good? So perfect to both her wolf and her heart?

He leaned down and nuzzled against her stomach, her breasts, a pleased rumble sounding from his chest. “You smell like me.”

“That was the intent, was it not?”

“Aye. My dragon likes it. My raven is cawing in triumph inside me.”

His openness and honesty amazed her. “You sound kind of awed. I don't believe you are a virgin.”

He was too knowing, and besides he'd implied as much earlier.

“I am not, but my beasts have never craved the same lover.”

She realized two things at once. The first, that she had two Chrechte spirits wanting to claim her. Her wolf preened in triumph at the thought.

Ciara's second insight was not so pleasant—
she did not like hearing about his other women.
When her wolf snarled her displeasure at the secondary import of his words, she didn't even try to keep it inside.

“You don't like knowing I have had sex with others.” He sounded much too satisfied by that observation for her liking.

But she could not deny it. “No.”