Page 5 of Rescued By the Cursed Phoenix

Ava scrunched up her brow, her eyes taking on something I could only call a guilt-stricken expression. This was going to be interesting. That she was embroiled in my world, the hidden supernatural that most humans had no knowledge of, had been obvious. Not just any human ended up chased by two shifters through my woods.

They weren’t locals because the local shifters knew to stay out of my territory. That meant this pair of males was chasing myguest for a very specific reason, and they had followed her from wherever she came to get her. Protective instincts roiled through my chest. This female was in trouble, lots of it. I shoved them away because, in my current state, this couldn’t be my problem.

“Well… You see…” she waffled, and I had to fist my hand against her back to prevent myself from reaching up to cup her stubbornly pointed chin. Her glasses were perched on the tip of her nose, they had slipped when she stumbled into me. With a delicate finger, she pushed them back in place. Then the blasted female dared to place her palm back on my chest like it belonged there, and my heart leaped in my chest.

“Spit it out, Ava,” I said to her. Her name rolled off my tongue in the most satisfying way. Ziv nudged my leg with his head, then raised himself on his hind legs. With his claws, he started climbing my leg, and I savored each pinch of pain against my skin as a wake-up call. I had to step back, I had to let her go.

The blasted feline didn’t use his claws onherwhen he reached our pressed-together fronts. I would have thrown him out of the house for that kind of offense, he knew better. The traitorous pet did meow plaintively as he clambered onto her shoulder and started butting his head against the side of her face.

She was laughing, red stinging her cheeks. “Ah, you’re so cute… What’s his name?” This was not where the conversation was supposed to go. This was when I should tell her to leave again. To keep her distance. Instead, a smile pulled at my mouth for what felt like the first time in months, maybe even years.

“His name is Ziv, and he seems to think he can get away with anything,” I told her, my voice raspy when the cat in questionmoved higher and started nudging her even closer. What was he up to? Meddling fur ball. Any closer and we’d be kissing. All I had to do was dip my head, and I’d feel those soft, luscious lips pressed to mine. My cock surged in my pants and with how close we were pressed together, there was no way she hadn’t felt that.

The red in her cheeks became even more pronounced, but it was her scent that interested me. A floral note, her shampoo or soap, a mild hint of the detergent she’d used on her clothes, but most of all… A hint of musk, a sweet indication of her arousal. Arousal that rose in response to mine; to my presence.

“Ziv, huh?” she said, and my mind struggled to comprehend what she was talking about. Why did she mention my always-meddling cat? I had eyes only for her soft, pink lips, and the tip of her tongue as it darted out to wet them. My cock surged again, throbbing against her abdomen. I should do the right thing and step back, I should let her go like I’d intended to all night.

Her soft sigh, the languid heat that rose to meet mine in her eyes; all of it combined to break the last tenuous threads of my control. My head lowered, my mouth claimed, and my wings snapped shut around us. The female went limp and soft in my arms, but her blunt little nails dug into my skin. Had she pushed against my chest at that moment, I would have yielded, I would have managed to step away. She did not.

The blasted woman clung to me like I was her only hold on reality, her shelter in the storm that raged between us. I was, I’d make sure of it. Her taste was as delightful as her scent, inflaming my senses. My chest rumbled with a growl, and when Ziv slipped into thin air, giving us privacy, I knew I was lost. This was where I crossed the line, but what did it matter? For onenight, one night only, I could find pleasure in the arms of this small human woman.

She moaned when I slipped my hand down her spine and cupped her curvy rear. I lifted her against me, and she accommodated by curling her legs around my hips. Just like that, she opened herself up to me, and her warm heat was pressed against my hard cock. Pleasure rocked me, and that only increased when I turned us and pressed her against the nearest wall. Now I had leverage, and I used it to rock my hips against her. Her moans music to my ears.

“Ah, Lucius! That feels so good…” Her husky words trailed off when I pressed harder, her little body shuddering against mine in what was surely a precursor to an orgasm. She was sensitive, and she was willing; how was that possible?

“Ava,” I groaned against her silky lips, my teeth nibbling the bottom one before I trailed more kisses along the soft curve of her jaw. “Last warning,” I forced myself to say. “Tell me to stop, leave! Or suffer the consequences.”

She shuddered again, and goosebumps broke out all along the delicate arch of her neck. “Consequences? Do those involve mind-blowing sex? If so, not exactly the right method to discourage me.”

Her words shocked a laugh out of me, real mirth. They evoked happiness in me to go along with the dazzling lust I felt for her body. It bubbled out of me, rocking us in our tiny cocoon of feathers and heat. “Too late now,” I said when my laughter subsided and I caught the heated look in her eyes.

Chapter 8

Ava

I was crazy. There was no other way to explain my behavior right now. I was acting like a lunatic. Maybe it was the whole being on the run thing for days on end that made me act out now. Maybe it was all the fear of that kidnapping that was catching up to me. It hardly mattered what the reason was, what mattered was the result.

Clinging to Lucius’ wide shoulders like he was my anchor in the storm, my mouth was on his as he plundered me with his tongue and his hands. He was a total stranger, and a supernatural creature to boot. A phoenix. Not even a minute ago, he had tried to tell me to leave again. The man was grumpier than my old boss and that was saying something.

But he made me feel safe. Safety was something I hadn’t experienced from the moment I realized I’d witnessed things Calder didn’t want me to know. Lucius was just as big as my ex (werewolf) boyfriend, but he appeared ten times more lethal, certainly more lethal to my senses and my libido. It felt like nothing could get to me inside his domain, and that I could finally rest.

Only, rest was not what my body wanted right now. When Lucius picked me up, I clung to him and greedily kept on kissing him. Yes! When he started walking, my excitement rose, and my hands roamed. Stroking his silky skin over taut, heated flesh, and petting the soft gold, orange, and red feathers that grew from his shoulders and his head.

He bumped open a door and candlelight and flames lit the room beyond in their soft, golden glow. This was his inner sanctum, I knew that at once. It washisbed he threw me down on, my body sinking into the softest, most luxurious mattress I’d ever lain on. His scent wrapped around me, drifting up from the silky sheets and the downy pillows.

“No escape now,” he warned me darkly, flames dancing in his otherworldly eyes. Standing at the edge of the bed, between my legs, which dangled over the side around his hips, I finally had the time to take in his wings. They were magnificent, huge, and filled with a dazzling array of colors, all reminiscent of flames. No, it wasn’t just that they looked like fire, actual flames were dancing at the feathered tips.

Something clenched hard in my belly and I wasn’t sure if that was apprehension or arousal. I’d spoken bravely, dared to taunt him until this was the result, but I couldn’t forget that I was dancing with a beast, a monster. A creature beyond my wildest dreams, a myth come to life.

“I don’t want to be anywhere but here,” I heard myself say, my voice bedroom husky in invitation. It was true, and that hard ache in my stomach had transformed into a keen desire unlike any I’d ever known. Lucius might be a stranger, and a monster of lore, but I felt like I’d be crazy to let the chance to be with him slip through my grasp.

The firelight of the big stone hearth provided all the light I needed to see him. It danced lovingly over his muscled chest, his slender hips, and all the glorious feathers that adorned him in strategic places. The pair of gray sweatpants he wore were struggling to contain an impressive bulge, and my mouthwatered thinking of pulling down that waistband so I could see all of him. I was acting wantonly, not quite like my normally more reserved self, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

Lucius beat me to it, his hands dropping to his hips to slide his pants down. His cock sprang free, thick, blatantly erect, and already welling with pre-cum at the tip of the wide, mushroom-shaped head. My eyes locked onto that impressive erection and it felt all the more illicit to stare when he was completely naked and I still wore everything.

He hissed, the sound feral as it morphed into a satisfied rumble when he fisted that cock and gave himself a tug. The sight made my toes curl into the side of the mattress. “Undress for me, little human. Turnabout is fair play, after all.” I shivered as I moved to obey, my fingers trembling as I yanked my t-shirt over my head.

Compared to him, I didn’t feel pretty. I had always been the average girl in school, with average height, average weight, and an average face; I was nothing to write home about. Certainly not the girl that men went to war for, but that wasn’t what I saw on Lucius’ face when I slid my bra from my shoulders. The heat in that stare, the admiration, it was so obvious, and so genuine, that it scorched me.

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