“Breathe, little dove,” he said in a low purr.
My eyes jerked up to meet his and narrowed, then I managed to wipe that grin away by moving my lips until they hovered just over his.
I felt his hiss on my face when my hand went to his waist to steady myself, and I knew how he felt. The sensation of a hot, strange, muscular male under my palm was very distracting, then came the purr. A vibration rocked through his whole body, reverberating down my arm and into my body, and I felt something settle inside me.
“I need to pretend that we’re making out to practise this,” I whispered.
“Why pretend?” He stroked my hair, smiling again when my eyes rolled back at the feel of it. This fucking heat. Coming didn’t ease me, it drew my attention to how good my body could feel, reaching for more pleasure, and right now, it was considering exactly what this big body could do for me.
“Because this is the most words we’ve ever said to each other,” I hissed instead. “Because I love Jai. Because I don’t even know you.”
“I am no threat to your existing relationships unless you decide it, so why don’t we get to know each other a little better?”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
“No?” His eyebrow jerked up. “You want to enter my mind, yes?” I yelped when his arm went around me, tugging me close. I instantly felt like a child, lying in the shadow of his bulk. My hand went up instinctively, trying to keep some distance, my heart rattling in my ears as I fought to take a breath in and just caught lungfuls of sandalwood and smoke instead. My muscles tensed, ready to pull away, but his hand pressed hard into the small of my back.
“Be careful, little one. Predators love scared little girls.” His head dipped closer and he took a long breath in. “Take long even breaths. Slow your heart rate down. Listen to my purr.”
I startled when I heard the deep, rattling sound come from his chest. It only came on the out breath, but the low vibration spread from him outward. Down the hand pressed against my back, out through the chest I was lying against. I felt it resonate through me, like one great big sensuous stroke of my body. My eyes fell closed, an endlessly tranquil state bubbling up within me. My eyes ached when I felt it, something I had sorely missed while I was in this fucking hellhole—my power.
“Keep going,” I whispered.
“Gladly.”
One shouldn’t snuggle up to a man they’ve only just met, lay their head against his hard chest, breathe in his woody scent, and just let go, but I did. He shifted slightly, leaning back so I had a flatter surface to rest my head on, and his hand slid up to my hair. Without the purr, it would have been awkward and weird. New people are always exciting in the best and worst ways. They’re all potential. Kazimir might have been a generous and kinky lover or boring. He might have been husband material or abusive. He might leave his socks on during sex, get hard for guys as well as girls, get off on calling me names, or want to be spanked with a limp carrot. The swirling possibilities usually overwhelmed me, but that purr… It forced all that was jagged and sharp inside me to lie down and relax, giving up, giving in, and diving into the feather soft greyness in my head. Into him.
I reached for his mind automatically, like I did when seeing patients, and that kind of hurt a little. It’d been like having a limb pinned to my side or bound up in cuffs. It’d had no chance to unfurl, and I realised as I did so, that hurt me. I rushed towards him with an eagerness I hadn’t felt since I was first able to connect, but of course, it wasn’t that easy.
I could slip into animal brains with the ease of putting on new clothes. Their lack of consciousness meant they didn’t detect intruders or put up barriers to keep me out. Animals were experience, instinct, now, now, now. Kazimir, for all of his dual nature, was human. I could feel the complex workings of his brain dimly, a swirling dense mass where animals were diaphanous. I tried to dive in, like I would an animal, but that wasn’t going to work. Something firm and hard pushed me out, sending me spinning sickeningly in the grey.
Take long even breaths. Slow your heart rate. His words echoed in my mind as I fought to regain my equilibrium. My tailspin slowed, then stopped as I hung there, surrounded by my power, wondering how to do this. Dimly, I felt his hand slide down my spine, slowly, a question in the pace. Did I want him to continue or stop? It went down, down, down, until he reached the curve of my lower back, then paused, waiting, until it took my silence as tacit approval to cup my arse.
I grinned when I heard his groan, not due to the sexual torture, but because it gave me an idea. I reached out like Kazimir’s hand had, softly, sensuously. I didn’t try to spear my consciousness into his. Instead, I offered a connection. Stuff came tumbling down the line, the smell of me, something way richer and more complex than I’d realised. The feel of my body, the way my skin gave under his fingers, spurring desperately hard, thrusting thoughts. His mind took the small bits of sensory information and spun them out exponentially. His lips on my skin, watching me sleep, the room full of a drowsy languidness that came from being well satisfied, smiling at him as I held his hand, someone stroking his long pale hair, a dark hand encircling his cock as I got to my knees to…
Nero… I suggested. Show me Nero.
There had been a sweet indolence about Kazimir’s thoughts before I pushed, which was abruptly ripped away. I whined in the back of my throat as memories slammed into me, a gush of slick telling me exactly how I felt about it.
They were naked, so many naked men, cocks rigid and twitching in the air, but it was Nero and Kazimir we focussed on. The tiger shifter jumped as Nero slapped his hand down on his shoulder, slicking his dick with lube, then he squirted some more into his palm to work it into Kazimir. The man groaned as he felt the smooth fluid brush his hole, something that became drawn out and hopeless sounding as he speared his fingers in.
Nero’s ability to find his prostate was unmatched. Every damn time, he hit that bunch of muscle hard, forcing Kazimir’s cock to leak out onto the floor, growing impossibly harder. He spread his legs further, something that drew an appreciative grunt from the lion shifter. He loved it when his lovers opened for him, inviting him in. That hot, sweet ache flared hard, his hand dropping down to encircle his dick, but Nero growled.
“Hands on the wall, Kaz.” He heard Nero’s chuckle when a low moan escaped his lips. “I’ll look after you. You know that.”
Kazimir gritted his teeth as he felt the fingers pulled from him, hating the loss, then his back tightened when he felt something big and blunt nudging at him to replace it.
“Shh…” Nero said, rubbing his back. “Deep breath in, then out again.”
This was always the hard part, the best part. That prickling feeling as Nero opened him up, pain and pleasure spiking in his balls and flaring out. He felt a wash of heat all over his body, sweat beading as his breath came in pants. He longed to stroke his dick, distract himself, anything to alleviate the intense feelings racking his body, but Nero prided himself on giving him hands free orgasms. “You’re doing so well,” Nero murmured, stroking his spine, then as Kazimir’s breath kept coming in short, sharp pants, he purred.
“God’s teeth….” Kazimir moaned, his head hanging forward, his body gone limp as the heavy vibrations racked Nero’s body and his. They were centred right where he needed it, his prostate a throbbing, pulsing nodule that just seemed to grow. When the other man pushed his dick in further, Kazimir pushed back against it, needing, wanting him as deep as he could go. Because when he was buried deep, that long, thick dick rubbed so fucking good.