“But I—”
“Let me finish. I am a shifter, and a mate is for always. I don’t know enough about humans to know whether it is the same for you. Marriage, as I understand it, is not the same thing. Divorce is, what, about 50 percent?”
I nodded. “Yes. But that’s not what I want.”
“Of course not. Who in their right mind would? But it seems to be acceptable to many humans. So, I tell you that while our mating is forever for me, if you ever decide you do not feel the same, you always have free will. Mating me does not take that away.”
“But I won’t ever want to leave.” I knew this now, before we even made love.
He tugged me closer and kissed the tip of my nose. “I am very glad to hear that. But it wouldn’t be fair not to say it.” His kisses moved to my lips, squashing any further arguments, and I gladly succumbed to his touch.
The moonlight came and went, little clouds passing its face, but once we started kissing, it didn’t really matter because my eyes closed. I soaked in his scent, his touch, the sounds of our breathing together.
Vision almost seemed unnecessary in this moment. My mate, my dragon was holding me and awakening every inch of my body. His lips left mine and traveled over my cheeks, my throat again, down my chest, stopping to lap at a nipple. Imoaned, lost in the pleasure then cried out when he replaced his tongue with a sharp nip. “Hey!”
“Mmm,” he replied then bit the other one. It hurt, but in such a good way. Who knew? “You taste so good.” Continuing down, he poked his tongue in my belly button, making me giggle. But then his mouth closed around my cock, and everything else went away.
Gripping his shoulders, I clung to my mate, all my senses focused on the hot, wet tunnel enclosing my cock, the cool air when he lifted almost all the way off, then sizzling hot again. He scraped his teeth over the skin, but gently, sucking and licking while I tried to hold back and make it last to no avail. He toyed with my needy hole, slick making it easy for his finger to glide in to the first knuckle and then the second. Then another finger and another, and he fanned them, stretching me wide. Preparing me for him.
All too soon, I was digging my blunt nails into his shoulders and crying out my pleasure while he sucked me dry. It was…almost too much. Behind my closed eyes, galaxies of stars shot in all directions until I had to open them to keep from passing out. But as soon as I saw Cyrus’s lazy sexy smile, I was instantly dizzy.
“Omega?” His smile faded, replaced by concern. “Are you all right?”
“I need you, alpha.”
“Then you have me.” He crawled up my body, replacing his fingers with the blunt head of his cock. “You’re so slick. So ready for my cock.”
“Please,” I begged. I seemed to be doing that a lot with him. But as before, he granted my wish, plunging inside. He was so much bigger than I expected, even his careful preparation not enough to prevent the burn when he went balls deep.
But, damn me, I loved it, and after a few strokes, the pain faded, replaced by ecstatic fullness. Again, I was hanging on fordear life, my cock already rock-hard again. And then he paused, took my hand, and closed it around myself.
“Stroke it, omega. Come for me.”
“I already did, I can’t…” But I wasn’t sure of that because his hand guiding mine was almost the sexiest thing he’d done so far. Not that I could pick. “How do you do this to me?”
He drove balls deep again then retreated, releasing my cock to caress my cheek with the back of his hand. “Thank Fate.”
“Are you saying it’s always like this for fated mates?” I gasped, continuing to jerk myself with the tiny bit of mental focus I could gather. Being fucked while touching myself was strangely reminiscent of rubbing my tummy and patting my head at the same time.
“I don’t know about others, although rumor has it yes. I only know that I wanted to lay you down and fuck you in the lobby the minute you walked in. And mark you mine.”
Holy hell. Cum poured over my hand as his words drove me to an unheard-of second orgasm. And then Cyrus shouted and he was coming too, at the same time. Filling me, kissing me, and completely ruining me for anyone else.
As if he hadn’t done it the first minute I saw him. If this was shifter mating, Fate or the Goddess or whoever chose to let me in on it deserved a huge round of applause.
Cyrus grunted, his knot swelling, holding his cum inside me. Then he grazed my throat with his teeth, fangs? Were his teeth this sharp? The copper scent of blood reached my nose just before he lapped at the wound and lifted himself on his forearms to study my face.
His smile was tinged with my blood, with the evidence of his marking me. How had I ever thought I could write what it meant to be mated?
My readers were in for an upgrade.
Chapter Thirteen
Cyrus
The joy that flooded me as I woke with my mate wrapped around me wasn’t like any I’d ever felt before. He’d been so trusting, so open. Not for even a second had he been afraid of my beast—sure, humans knew that dragons existed, but most of them didn’t quite believe it—and I had a feeling he fell into that category. But there I was, standing in all my glory and not for a single second did I get a glimmer of fear.
Instead, he looked at me with such recognition, like he’d been waiting for me his entire life. And I suppose, in a way, he had been. That’s what fated mates did, but still…as a human, to embrace it so completely was everything.