She grips my thigh and pulls my leg around her own hip, her teeth grazing my bottom lip as her thumb slowly circles my clit. “This is what you want, Tiny Treasure?” she murmurs against my mouth, teasing her fingertips in and out of my core, just enough for me to feel the pressure, to chase it with my hips.
“Yes,” I whimper, arching my back away from the wall as I try to bring her inside me.
“Mmm,” she growls, leaning back to look in my eyes as she slips two fingers into my core. My fingers score her arm as she pushes in and out of me, her thumb never relenting on my clit.
“I—”
“Yes?” Niressa snarls and I swear for a moment her teeth look sharper than normal.
I shake my head, trying to think through the pressure building in my core. The steam around us has created a dense fog and it’s as if we’re somewhere else. A different place. A different time, maybe.
“It feels so good,” I choke out, sliding my hand to her breast. As my thumb rolls over the sensitive nub waiting for me, Niressa works another finger into my pussy, stretching me, pushing me higher. “Oh!”
“That’s it,” she moans, slamming in and out of me in a slow, deliberate pace. Her fingers curl against that precious spot just inside, that place that’s missed so easily.
I whimper, turning my face up into the water. So many sensations.
Her fingers in my pussy, her thumb on my clit, the water cascading down my body. The heat.
Pressure rises in my core, my hips grinding against her hand of their own volition. Niressa slips her free hand into my hair and tugs—just hard enough to force my neck to bend—until her lips crash down on mine.
The kiss is hunger given physical form. It’s passion and heat personified. It’s . . . everything. My breath stutters as her tongue slips over mine, massaging me just as thoroughly as her fingers massage my g-spot.
My pussy spasms around her, clamping down. “Oh!” I whimper.
“That’s it,” she purrs, never releasing her hold in my hair, forcing me to look her in the eyes as waves of pleasure surge inside me. I dig my fingers into her shoulder, begging silently for the completion I crave.
Goosebumps break out over my skin when she brushes her thumb over my clit in the opposite direction. So strange how such a small change in sensation can—
“Oh Gods!” I cry out, my nails scoring her shoulder, trying to hold on as I fall over the edge of oblivion. My heart pounds against my chest, my eyes squeezing shut as my pussy spasms around her fingers. When my head falls back again, I sigh as the small waves pleasure lap at my body.
Niressa slows her thrusts inside me, slowly working her fingers out of my core. I open my eyes to stare up at her, my fingers immediately finding her thick, curly hair. My lips pluck at hers slowly as shivers wind their way around my spine. An aftershock bursts through my core, heat searing into my abdomen and my knees start to give way.
Niressa’s arms circle me, holding me close to her chest as she chuckles. “Careful, Tiny Treasure. Don’t fall.”
I shake my head, biting back the retort that wants to slip past my lips. It might be too late for that. I regain my footing and start to bend down, brushing my lips over Niressa’s chest as I sink to my knees.
But before I can stoop down, a finger under my chin has me standing back up. Slowly. “What are you doing?” she asks.
“I want to taste you,” I murmur, licking my lips.
Niressa’s nostrils flare even as her eyes roll shut but she shakes her head. “You can’t.”
“What? Why?”
“Because, Tiny Treasure,” she chuckles, pressing soft kisses across the bridge of my nose. “I’m a dragon. I can only be expected to give up so much. If you . . . I might not be able to part with you.”
Those words should terrify me. That’s precisely why I told myself not to get involved with her at all. But, instead, a warmth that has nothing to do with the steam around us—or the orgasm still tingling between my legs—spreads through my chest, rooting itself somewhere deep inside me.
Maybe, that wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Chapter Nineteen
I watch as Niressa makes her way up through the tunnel. She’s lighting small fires in each room, to keep the caverns warmer for me. While her heat combined with the fire kept her bedchamber very warm, the snowstorm turned into something more closely resembling a blizzard sometime this morning.
I wrap the ends of the thick sweater around my hands as I walk toward the ledge. Even though the air is frigid, the snow is beautiful. My eyes wander over the tops of the trees, heavy with large clumps of white, to the snowflakes still falling much faster than I could have ever anticipated.
A set of warm arms come around me and I sigh, leaning my head back against Niressa’s chest as she holds me.
“You look so enchanted by it,” she murmurs against my hair.
“I don’t get to see snow often, and I’ve never seen it like this,” I whisper, waving my hand toward the large fluffy flakes as they swirl through the air then add to the inches accumulating on the ground below. Small patches of snow cling to the edge of the ledge where we stand, and I bend down, grabbing a handful and pack it into a tight ball.
“What are you doing?” Niressa growls. I turn around to face her, my lips curving into a wicked smile as I watch her eyes widen. “Taryn—”
Smack!
The snowball hits her square in the face, little puffs of steam rising where it meets the heat of her skin. She narrows her eyes on me, one slender hand gripping her hip. “Treasure,” she growls.
“Yes?” I squeak, taking a step back, away from her, deeper into the cavern.
“Did you hit me?” she asks, taking a slow step forward.
“Um—” I scramble across the stone floor as fast as I can, but I’m not nearly fast enough. I should have known better, really. Niressa is a predator, I couldn’t possibly outrun her. When her arms wrap around me from behind, I turn around to face her and quickly press my lips to hers.
“Mmm, don’t think you can kiss your way out of this,” she chuckles, brushing a stray strand of hair from my face. “Troublesome human.”
“Beastly dragon,” I shoot back with a grin.
Niressa rolls her eyes, swiping some of the water that hasn’t evaporated from her skin away. “Why would you throw snow at me?” she asks, exasperated.
“It’s fun,” I giggle. “Like a game.”
“Throwing snow at another person is a game? Humans are so strange,” she murmurs, shaking her head. I reach forward, brushing some snow from her curls with a smile on my face.
“I haven’t played in the snow since I was a child, when my mother was still alive,” I whisper.
Niressa’s eyes rivet to mine, her expression pained. She looks guilty. I believe her when she says she didn’t kill my mother, but the look on her face tells me she knows more than she’s let on.
Dragon politics, I lament silently.
“Well, we could always—” Before Niressa can finish her sentence, a cloud of smoke erupts from the floor. I stagger back from it, even as Niressa crosses her arms over her chest.
Within moments, the mage steps from the smoke, her cloak swirling about her feet. Ona looks first from Niressa to me, then narrows her eyes. “Princess!” she exclaims, laying a hand across her chest. “I’m glad to see you are well. Where is the dragon?”