“Good.” Satisfaction unfolded in his tone, and he slid a hand inside the robe. “You’re wearing my shirt.”
Yeah, I didn’t ask how he knew whose shirt it was. “You didn’t need it,” I told him instead.
When he slid his fingers under the shirt, I laughed as he teased down to my thighs and then up. “I like you smelling like me.” Then he nipped at my ear before stroking my hair to one side. It was still damp, but he hesitated when he bared my neck and I stilled. “May I kiss you here?” He stroked a single finger along the side of my neck. “I won’t bite. I give you my word.”
Something unfamiliar unfurled at the solemnity of his promise. Truth resonated in each word, and I bit my lip to keep from groaning. The hammer of my heart though, I couldn’t control that.
“I promise, Kitten,” he whispered, close but not actually brushing my neck with his lips. The little puffs of his breath tightened the coils in my belly. “I won’t bite you. No one will ever bite you there again if you don’t wish it.” His voice darkened toward the end. “I’ll kill anyone who tries.”
The promise of death shouldn’t turn me on so much, but fuck if it didn’t. Tilting my head back to his shoulder I looked up to meet his gaze. The slitted eyes of his dragon stared back at me solemnly. He meant every single word.
A shudder rolled up my spine. I believed him.
Blowing out a breath, I eased forward. He loosened his hold but didn’t remove the cage of his arms fully, and for that, I was grateful.
I didn’t want him to move away. Shrugging out of the robe, I let it fall to pool at our feet. With one hand, I gathered my hair and pulled it all over one shoulder and then turned my head enough to bare that part of my neck.
“No teeth.” The words came out trembling and without an ounce of the confidence I usually injected into my voice.
“No teeth,” he assured me, and then pressed his lips to the base of my neck where it joined my shoulder. The pressure sent little shocks pulsing from my skin to my pussy and back up again. The gentle nudge of his leg sliding between mine had me adjusting my stance.
With care, he began to nuzzle kisses along my neck, inching higher with each one. The hum in my system began to ratchet higher. Maddox settled hit hands on my bare hips and pushed his shirt up. I had on nothing below it, and the fact that he ground against my ass sent liquid heat to dampen my thighs.
I reached behind me as he reached a pulse point and sucked gently, just his lips and mouth and the sensuous trace of his tongue. Terror and pleasure twinned as the erotic tease continued. He wore jeans, but they weren’t zipped or buttoned. I slid a hand in to wrap around his cock easily. It was thick, pulsing, and hotter than the rest of him.
“Kitten,” he whispered. “You feel good.”
The barest scrape of his teeth to my earlobe, and then he went back to kissing along my throat. My head was all the way back now, baring it for him as he ran his hands up beneath my shirt to cup my breasts. The first pinch of his fingers to my nipples, and I couldn’t hold back the groan anymore.
He thrust against my hand, but that wasn’t what either of us wanted. I twisted in his hold, then pushed down against his jeans. Without a word, he released me and shoved them down to his feet before stepping free. Meeting his gaze, I hooked my hands to the hem of his shirt and pulled it off.
Bites littered my chest, and he dipped his eyes to trace each one with his gaze. Fuck, I could feel it as if he were touching me. When he cupped my chin and tilted my head up, I parted my lips, anticipating the kiss before he even claimed my mouth. I fisted his hair and wrapped myself around him. The heat of his whole body scorched me, and I wanted that fire.
The rough, cold stone at my back was a perfect counterpoint to the hot, corded muscle pressing into me. He savaged my mouth, every stroke of his tongue had me arching. When he lifted me, I reached between us, and like we’d choreographed it, I stroked him from base to tip, then teased his fat, mushroomed head against my labia until I’d lined him up.
Maddox broke the kiss, his gaze fixed on mine as he hovered there, just barely nudging inside of me. Licking the taste of him on my lips, I gathered every ounce of my courage and tipped my head back to bare my throat. He promised no teeth. His moan reverberated through me as he thrust in one, long relentless push. The girth stretched me as he pressed his lips to the most vulnerable spot, the puffy bite left by Rogue, and when he traced his tongue around the edges of it, I clenched down on him.
He held inside of me as I fluttered and squeezed, all the while nuzzling my throat. System zinging from the contact, I ran my hands all over his shoulders and then into his hair. At the first touch of my nails to his scalp, he began to rock his hips. Then we writhed together, grinding and arching. He kissed my throat, my chin, my cheek, and then his mouth was on mine again as we moved.
This wasn’t a frenzy or heat. It wasn’t hunger or feeding. It was dancing. It was loving. It was terrifying. It was wonderful. He lifted my thigh higher and changed his angle, and then every thrust struck a spot inside of me that had me seeing sparks. I clung to him, the sweat adding to the friction as the stone scraped at my back and his chest rasped against my nipples. Then I spiraled, ambushed by an orgasm that detonated in my whole system.
His shout pleased me on a level so primitive, I didn’t even understand it. He was swelling inside of me, knotting deep as he came, and then he had my mouth pressed to his throat. “Bite me,” he pleaded, and it was a plea. I didn’t make him beg. No one should. I needed to bite him, so I sank my teeth in, and he jerked as he came in hot shooting jets that lit me up inside.
We hung there, clinging together for what seemed like an eternity. Locked inside of me, Maddox groaned in between panting explosive breaths as I licked the wound I’d made closed. The mark was deep, deeper than any I’d left on him before. They’d all cut themselves to let me drink. Always opening themselves up for me to feed.
Not this time.
As I laved my tongue against it, I shuddered and clamped down around him again. I’d broken his skin myself. I’d bitten him, sharp and deep, and something unlocked within me that should never have been opened.
Beyond Maddox’s shoulder, I met Fin’s beatific gaze and warm smile before darting mine away, only to collide with Rogue’s icy blue eyes and satisfied nod. How fucking long had they been standing there?
The fact that I had Maddox balls deep and knotted inside of me still only made their fixation on me hotter. Maddox murmured something against my ear, and I closed my eyes. The depth of feeling when he said Kitten had me closing my eyes. They saw too much.
I wanted too much.
The morning passed in a blissful haze much to my own disgust. Maddox didn’t lord it over me that I’d let him kiss my throat or how we’d been knotted together for nearly an hour before he finally softened enough to slip free. He’d carried me down to the bath, and we’d drowsed there for another hour in the languid heat. By the time we returned to the library, Fin had fetched fresh food, including fruit, and I ended up napping in Maddox’s lap like the kitten he’d labeled me.
By afternoon, Rogue had vanished and no one said where. Maddox had left me to sit in a chair by the fire without him as he went to deal with chores. The regret when he kissed me had been as tangible as the gentleness in his voice when he’d whispered against me earlier.