Page 31 of Echoes of Fire

The first brush of fingertips against his scaled base drew a hiss from us both. The ridges weren’t cold—they thrummed with inner heat, textured enough to tease without tearing. Higher up, the skin turned velvet-soft, the dark veins beneath thickening until they felt like braided cords under my palm. That writhing foreskin lip curled around my thumb when I reached the crown, suckling gently.

Oh god. What would that feel like inside me? My body clenched with curiosity and need.

“Karynae,” Rath gritted out, hips jerking. His pierced flesh quivered, more fluid welling around the barbell. The musk intensified—clove and burnt honey now,claimingpheromones that made my mouth water even more.

All thoughts of science evaporated. There was only heat, and need, and the terrifying realization that Iwantedthis alien intimacy. That every scale and throbbing vein called to something primal I’d buried under data logs and survival protocols.

His claws sank into the silks around us as I stroked him properly, the tongue-like ridge undulating against my palm in counterpoint to my strokes. “Your science,” he rasped, fangs gleaming, “did it prepare you forthis?”

The barbell grazed my wrist as his hips pistoned, the answer written in my racing pulse.

His tail lashed once before slithering up my inner thigh, the tip leaving ghostly trails of sensation. “This scent,” he growled, dragging his nose along my honey-smeared ribs. The motion pulled his cock away from my curious hand. “Your fear. Your hunger. They sing the same note now.”

The first lick to my nipple drew a broken sound from us both. His tongue’s ridges pressed almost too hard, the tip curling around the peak in a way no human mouth could replicate. When his cock’s fleshy lip brushed my inner thigh—hotter than the rest of him, questing blindly—I arched off the bed with a cry.

“Look,” he commanded, pinning my hips as his tail wrenched my leg higher. The glide of his cock’s extra tongue circled my clit while the rest of him pressed against my entrance, the barbell’s cool metal a shocking contrast to the searing flesh around it. Twin sensations splintered my vision into starbursts. “Watch how you take me.”

The world narrowed to points of contact—the searing press of Rath’s scaled leg against my inner thighs, the sinful undulation of that alien ridge circling my clit, the cold-warm shock of metal where his barbell kissed my entrance. His claws flexed against my hips, pinning without bruising, as his tail coiled higher to keep my leg in place. It should have felt restraining; instead I felt safe. Every shift of muscle beneath his red scales rippled with lethal grace, a predator holding itself in check.

“Breathe,” he growled against my ribs, the command fraying at the edges.

I sucked in air that tasted of honey and him, my fingers scrambling for purchase on the bed’s silks. The first breach burned—not with pain, but with obscene fullness, the barbell dragging a slick path inside me as his writhing lip latched onto my clit. My back arched off the slab, a cry catching in my throat as dual sensations collided—deep, stretching pressure below and fluttering suction above.

“Karys’veth ir,” Rath snarled, words rumbling through his chest into mine. I had no idea if my translator was malfunctioning or if I was just too lost in sensation to understand what he was saying. I couldn’t care.

His hips snapped forward, seating him fully in one sure thrust. The scaled base of him ground against me as his veined shaft pulsed, his cock’s tongue working in counterpoint to each jarring movement. My vision whited out, nerves howling as the tip of his tail traced the outside of my thigh.

“You feel—” He choked off, fangs scraping against my shoulder. The mark walked the knife’s edge between pleasure and pain, his tongue lapping at the sting as his pace turned erratic.

The relentless feeling pushed me over. Pleasure crested like lava breaching a vent—a scalding, unstoppable rise that shattered into full-body tremors.

Rath’s roar vibrated through my bones as my climax clamped down on him, his tail seizing around my thigh as his own release surged hot and thick. The scent of us—charred amber and honeyed musk—swelled until it coated my tongue, his glands marking my skin where his seed spilled.

He collapsed forward, catching his weight on trembling arms, his forehead pressed to mine as I gasped uselessly at the heated air. His cock still pulsed inside me, milking the last aftershocks as his tail loosened its vise grip.

“Shyrarva.” That word, his special name only for me, was a prayer and a plea on his lips, his claws gently carding through my sweat-damp hair.

I traced the marks my nails had left on his back—constellations of possession barely marked in his scales. His answering rumble sounded almost like contentment.

Rath’s weight pressed me into the silks, his forehead still resting against mine, our shared heat forming a humid little world between our bodies. Honey had dried in sticky trails across my chest, mingling with sweat and other fluids. His tail remained coiled around my thigh, a possessive anchor even now.

His pierced nipples brushed my chest with each labored breath, the hoops now warm from our friction. “You’re trembling,” he murmured against my throat, his voice sandpaper rough.

A claw-tipped hand slid beneath my lower back, adjusting our alignment until his softening cock slipped free. I bit back a sound at the loss, suddenly aware of the mess we’d made—his release seeped between my thighs, thick and unnervingly warm, carrying that musky-sweet scent that already felt branded into my skin.

Rath’s tongue dragged a slow stripe up my honey-crusted collarbone. “Mine,” he growled, the word muffled against my skin. Not a question.

I should’ve bristled. Instead, my traitorous hands fisted in the silks as his teeth found the juncture of neck and shoulder. Not biting—testing.

“You’resmug,” I accused, hating how breathless I sounded.

His answering rumble shook through me, more purr than growl. The tail around my leg tightened fractionally as he nosed aside damp hair to lick the shell of my ear. “You smell like me now.”

A shudder went down my spine. “Is that … a good thing?”

He stilled. Drew back just enough for me to see the way his pupils dilated—black swallowing gold. “It means,” he said slowly, claws flexing against my hip, “that even the zealots will think twice before challenging what’s etched into your scent.”

The implication coiled hot in my gut.Pheromones as property claim. I opened my mouth to protest, but Rath’s thumb brushed the bite mark on my shoulder—the one that throbbed in time with my heartbeat.

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