Page 46 of A Matter of Destiny

He pulls away long enough to give me a wicked grin, the kind of smile that makes me think of dragons and claws and maidens chained up in caves. But kings above, any maiden chained in Doshir’s cave would be left wet and aching from desire.

Doshir leans back on his knees. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he unties the lacings holding his pants together. When he shoves the fabric down, my breath catches in the back of my throat. By all the blessed kings above, his cock is glorious. Moonlight turns the dark skin of his cock silver as it erupts from its nest of curls, pointing upward.

I reach forward, running my fingers along its smooth, hot curve, and Doshir moans. Our eyes meet, catching between the moonlight and the smoke and the long, dancing shadows of the fire. My lips fall open.

“Please,” I whisper.

Doshir leans over me, catching my lips for a kiss that’s so soft and gentle it might as well be made of spun silk. He enters me slowly, rocking against me, then retreating, until I’m gasping and trembling, every breath a wordless plea for more of him that his lips catch and swallow.

And when he’s finally sheathed inside of me, he stops. His arm wraps around my shoulders, pulling me close to his trembling body, and his cock pulses, a deep and hidden rhythm that I feel echoing throughout my entire being. His breath is ragged, hot against my bare skin. My mind and heart scream yes. Yes, this is what I want.

Yes, I would burn s for this man.

He starts to move slowly, rocking against me, following the steps to a dance our bodies have already perfected. I sink my fingers into his hair and cling to his shoulders, my conscious mind swept away in wave after wave of growing pleasure. I feel the crest coming, but for the first time in my life, I want to slow it down. I want this to take all night and damn the mission, damn the dragons of the Iron Mountains. I want to spend all night, all of my life, here with Doshir, wrapped in his body, drowning in him. I want— I want—

I cry out when the flood comes, surging all around me, pulling every muscle in my body tight. Pleasure wipes my mind clean, wrings out my body, forces the breath from my lungs. It carries me for a long time, past the ache of desire, past the burning intensity of our union, and when it finally ebbs, I feel like I’ve been taken somewhere far away from the person I used to be.

Doshir’s face furrows in concentration as his hips rise and fall against mine in a rhythm that’s beginning to falter. His breath catches as his body trembles, pressed against mine, riding the fading crest of my ecstasy, and then he moans, low and thick, like something’s been torn out of him. I feel him pulse inside of me, our bodies perfectly matched, only sweat and smoke and steam between us.

For a moment, Doshir is still and silent above me, his breath coming in gasps, my legs still wrapped tight around his thighs. Then he bends down, and his lips brush my forehead in a soft whisper of a kiss.

“Would my lady dragon mind terribly,” he asks, in a rough whisper, “if I brought my bedroll over to join her this fine evening?”

I smile at him. My body feels wrung out, every single muscle spent. I’m not sure if I can even imagine standing right now, let alone dragging that damned bedroll over the dirt. Part of me wants to tell him not to bother, to just spend the night right here, wrapped in my arms. But when have I ever been able to say no to him?

“Not at all,” I reply.

He kisses me again, this time on my lips, long and sweet and with just enough of a burn to remind me that we are both lying together, naked, with his cock still buried deep inside me. Then our kiss ends, and he pulls away, rolling onto his side before stumbling to his feet. The fading light of our fire paints his backside in streaks of orange and gold as he bends down to tug the bedroll across the dirt, and something flutters inside my chest.

My lips part, but I swallow the words before they can escape. By the time Doshir spreads his bedroll out next to mine, I’m already half asleep, the wordsI love youstill locked safely away behind the fortress of my chest.

Chapter23

Doshir

“So,” Rayne says, not quite looking at me as she adjusts the straps on her pack, “who exactly is this dragon we’re meeting again?”

I fight the smile that’s threatening to curl the edges of my mouth. It’s taken her longer than I’d expected to ask this question. Her entire body had gone rigid and the color had drained from her cheeks the moment my father called Wendolyn my ex-girlfriend, and I’d stumbled through half a dozen explanations in my own mind as we’d pushed the horses as far and as fast as they could go, wondering when she was finally going to ask me.

“Her name is Wendolyn,” I answer as I lean over to pull the left strap of Rayne’s pack tighter.

Her cheeks darken, even though I’m careful to only touch the leather of her pack. I want to touch the rest of her, of course. I want to plunge my fingers into her thick hair, tug her lips to mine, and spend this entire night fucking her.

I do not want to spend the night trying to sneak into the Iron Mountains through a cave my father scribbled on a tattered piece of parchment. But when has the universe ever cared particularly about what I want?

I clench my jaw and glance up at the sky, where the first of the stars are beginning to dance above the jagged eastern flank of the Iron Mountains, and then I let my eyes drop back to the little glade before us, where both horses are standing, their heads down and their sides heaving.

This is where we’d decided to leave the strong elven horses from Elyon, in the last patch of thick grass before the slopes of the Iron Mountains turn to rubble and scree. The poor things are spent, and Rayne said she didn’t dare push them further. Besides, from here on out it’s going to be scrambling and spelunking, a thought that sends a shiver up my spine.

To be honest, I didn’t even think we’d make it this far. From Cairncliff to the eastern Iron Mountains in two days; that has to be some sort of a record. And, although we’ve seen two dragons flying by, their ragged wings dark against the sky, they don’t seem to have noticed us. Then again, we look for all the world like a couple of horseback-riding humans. We don’t exactly scream threat.

Rayne makes a sort of sniffing sound, and I realize I’ve been avoiding her question. I glance at her, then back up to the stars.

“Wendolyn and I were—” I hesitate. Swallow. Decide to go with the truth. “We lived together,” I say. “For quite some time.”

Rayne’s fingers twist in her strap. “I see,” she says.

“She was,” I begin, then swallow again. The truth burns, even after all these years. “She was using me.”