Me and My Shadow (27 page)

“Mayling,” he said again, his voice deep and rich and filled with all sorts of promises. “I appreciate your desire to play with me, but you were taken from me. Our separation was not of our doing, and thus I must reclaim you.”

I shadowed and quietly hauled myself out of the water, onto the bank behind him, stealthily picking my way down the path until I was about twenty yards behind him.

“You have to catch me before you can claim me,” I said, deshadowing as I spun around to run for a line of trees.

He whirled even as he shifted into dragon form, hot on my heels. I ran as I'd never run, relishing the mad beating of my heart, my lungs sucking in the cool night air, a burning warmth behind me that I knew was Gabriel. He was gaining on me, and I couldn't help myself—I laughed with the sheer joy of it all. Moonlight and dim bluish white lights from nearby streetlamps dappled the ground as I wove through the trees, calling over my shoulder, “You're losing your touch, Gabriel. The last few times we did this, you had me in under three minutes.”

“You will pay for such insolence,” he answered, laughing, as well. The line of trees was ending, but I caught sight of a small rock garden to the right. I made a dash for it, but never stood a chance. Silver flashed in my peripheral vision, and then he was on me, flinging me to the ground, his body twisting in midair, curling around me protectively so it was him, not me, that hit the hard earth. He grunted as I landed on him, his body shifting back to that of a human, his hands hard on me, a low growl coming from his lips just before they claimed my mouth. “You hid from me in the water. That was not fair.”

“All's fair in love and dragon chases,” I said, sliding my hands up the hard, warm planes of his chest, nipping his tongue.

“You wish to do this as humans?” he asked, his hands busily removing my wet clothing. I shivered a little, both at the cool night air on my flesh and at the look in his eyes.

“Yes. Love me, Gabriel. It's been so long.”

“Two days,” he agreed, losing any finesse he had and simply shredding the rest of my clothes off my body. “An eternity.”

“Should we even try for foreplay?” I asked, moaning when his fingers found sensitive flesh. I tugged at his belt buckle until it came undone, quickly releasing him from his jeans.

“The chase was foreplay,” he answered and, before I could respond, lifted me up over him before plunging me down. I was ready for him, more than ready, and moaned again when he slid into my body, the feel of him so hard and intrusive, and yet at the same time so very much a part of me. He bucked beneath me, his hands sliding up to my breasts, gently palming my highly sensitive nipples until I thought I would come undone. My back arched against the sensation even as my muscles tightened around his intrusion.

“May, I'm sorry. . . . I must . . . I know you want to do this as humans. . . .” Pain laced his voice as his hips pis-toned upward into me.

I leaned down to kiss him. “Fire. Give me your fire, Gabriel.”

He shifted then, his body elongating and stretching, the lovely warm skin shimmering into flowing silver scales. He lifted me off him, twisting as he did so until I was on my knees, with him behind me. I clutched his arm as he parted my legs and came into me again, the hard invasion of him enough to push me over the edge. I cried out his name as he bent me down, his belly on my back, his body making hard, deep thrusts into mine until he tipped his head back and bellowed out my name.

It took me a long time before I was able to rally my wits. I lifted my head and looked over my shoulder at the man whose body was draped protectively over mine. “I'm not complaining—there's absolutely nothing in your technique that I could find fault with even if I wanted to, and I don't—but just once I think I'd like to try traditional foreplay.”

One silver eye opened to consider me. Gabriel's chest was still heaving against my back, testament to the fact that he was as exhausted by our lovemaking as I was. “That sounds very much like dissatisfaction.”

I rolled onto my side so I could face him, my hands unable to keep from touching his chest.“On the contrary. It's just that . . . well, let's take your chest, for instance.”

“I'd rather take yours,” he said with a leer, his hands warm on my breasts.

I tried to summon up a stern look. “Stop distracting me.”

He sighed and rolled over onto his back, his arms open wide. “You've become a demanding little bird these last few months. You wish to work your feminine wiles upon my human form?”

“Oh yes.” I got to my knees, sitting back on my heels as I looked over the vast panoply of man lying before me. “Every time I look at your chest, I want foreplay.”

“My chest?” He lifted his head and looked down at himself, touching the middle of it with a hand. “Why?”

“It's just so . . .” I bit my lower lip, then slid my hand down the lovely curves of his torso. Instantly, interest lit his eyes. “No,” I told his eyes.

“ ‘No' is not the word I want to hear,” he answered.

“No, as in no, you're not going to distract me by making love to me. You told me months ago we could do foreplay.”

“And you told me you didn't need it.”

“I've changed my mind.” My hand moved lower, down to his belly button. He sucked in his breath. “Besides, even your mother thinks we should make time for foreplay.”

He grinned at me. Any other man would be shocked or appalled that his mother and lover were discussing his sexual technique, but Gabriel was not any other man. “My mother has excellent advice, although I seem to recall you being horrified when you found out I had talked to her about my lack of control with you.”

“That was just because we were newly mated. We're old hands at this now,” I said, swirling my fingers around his belly button. “Kaawa says that she raised you to be considerate of a lover, and that the fact that you can't seem to control yourself around me speaks volumes about you.”

He made a little face. “Perhaps, but she knows the way of dragonkin. She, as a mate, is aware that there are times when a dragon must have his mate in the most elemental of ways.”

“Yes, but we seem to have an awful lot of elemental experiences. What I'd like is the chance to experience what other people do.”

“You mean mortals.”

“And immortals. Nondragon immortals. Your chest is lovely, Gabriel. I like looking at it. I like touching it. I want to taste it.”

Fire lit deep in his eyes and body.

“I want to taste you. All of you. I've heard that oral sex can be most gratifying. I'd like to try that.”

He stopped breathing.

I smiled a secret little smile and bent down to flick my tongue over his nipple. “It all starts with your chest, you see, because it's so very wonderful. It doesn't have a huge amount of hair, but it's not bare as a plucked chicken, either.”

“I'm glad you think so,” he said, his voice sounding like he was gargling cement. “I haven't spent much time thinking about it.”

“That's all right, because I have.” I paused, struck by a thought. “Did you choose this form, the way a demon chooses its? Or did you one day shift to human form, and this is what happened?”

“Human form is always a matter of chance, just as it is for mortals,” he answered, suddenly stilling, his eyes going wary. “You are troubled by the fact that I appear ethnically different from you?”

“Mortals make much out of differences in outward appearance,” I said, kissing the sudden doubt right out of him. “We are not them. We both look beyond a mere form to the person within.”

He relaxed, his hands reaching for me again.

“Hands flat on the ground, please,” I instructed, waiting until he complied before I rewarded him with another kiss, one to each dimple. “Where was I? Oh, yes, this trail of hair, now,” I said, stroking the silky line of hair that gathered in the center of his torso, and headed to regions south. “This trail makes me go all weak in my knees.”

He groaned, his eyes shut as I let my fingers wander around his hips and belly, avoiding his rapidly growing erection.

I kissed my way down his chest, savoring the salty tang of it, taking a tentative little nibble on his ribs.

“This is going to kill me, May.”

“No, it isn't. You're a strong man. You can do this.”

“I'm not a man. I'm a dragon, and dragons take their mates when they insist on touching and tormenting and tasting. Dear god. Do that again.”

I chuckled as I dipped my head down to his flank, licking the lovely indentation around his hip joint with long, sweeping strokes of my tongue, a line of fire following my mouth. “You see? I knew you would enjoy this.”

His body twitched as I kissed a path over to his belly, pausing to bite it gently, blowing fire on it, too.

“I'm sorry, May. I know you want to do this, but—”

His hands closed on my shoulders, obviously ready to pull me over him again, but I held him back with a hand on his far-too-delectable chest. “I can see I'm going to have to take your mother's advice after all.”

His eyebrows rose. “Which advice?”

“She told me that if you couldn't control yourself, I would have to do it for you.”

I could feel his confusion as I moved away from him a few yards, digging through the wet pockets of the jeans that looked as if they'd been through a shredder. Luckily, the objects I brought out survived Gabriel's method of removing clothing.

“You intend to restrain me?” he asked as he saw the thin strips of rope I held.

“Mother knows best,” I said with a smile as I tied one of the ropes around his wrist. I looked around for something to anchor the rope. “Ah, that'll do nicely.”

We were close enough to a tree that I could loop the rope around its narrow trunk, then back to Gabriel, where I tied it around his free hand, shortening the rope so that his hands were pulled up to his ears.

He frowned. “May, I am a wyvern.”

“I know you are.”

I checked the knots on his first wrist. They looked solid.

“Wyverns are naturally dominant. We do not like being restrained.”

“Mmhmm. Is the rope too tight?”

He considered his hands, wiggling his fingers. “No. I think we should discuss the fact that, about this, my mother may be wrong.”

“You think so?” I sat back and admired my handiwork. “I have to admit, Gabriel, there is something strangely exciting about seeing you spread out before me, every glorious inch of you just lying there waiting for me to touch you, and there's not a thing you can do about it. You can't distract me, you can't touch me, you can't stop me. Oh, yes. Kaawa is a genius.”

His frown faded as he gave me a jaded look. “It would take more than a bit of rope to keep me from touching you, little bird.”

“Oh, we both know you could snap that rope like it was a piece of thread,” I agreed. “But that's not its real purpose. You're well aware that the only reason I tied your hands is because it's important to me to be able to touch you the way I want to.”

His eyes glittered with the cold light of the moon. “You did not tell me that you were troubled by the method of our lovemaking, mate. I have allowed myself to indulge in dragon ways because you bear the shard, and thought you understood and shared those pleasures, but I realize they are foreign to you. I will adapt to your desires in the future.”

I kissed him quickly, his breath hot on my lips as I said, “Don't you dare—I told you I had no complaints, and I meant it. The way you do things is just fine with me, Gabriel, as if you weren't aware that you make me mindless with pleasure. I just want to try this, too.”

He glanced over at one of his bound hands, then sighed. “Very well,” he said, letting his head fall back to the ground. “Proceed. Although I should warn you that I am uncomfortable with the idea of being bound, and thus am likely to not respond the way I would should you release me and allow events to proceed in a manner befitting drag—glargern!”

The gibberish word spilled out of him just as I bent down and took him into my mouth. Despite being bound to the sexiest dragon in the history of the planet, I had never managed to fulfill my wish to pleasure him with my mouth. Unfortunately, once I had him in that position, I wasn't too sure of how to continue.

“Gabriel?” I asked after a moment of more or less rolling him around my tongue.

“Hrn?”

“I'm not quite sure what I should be doing. Maybe you could give me a little direction?”

“Neff.”

I looked down at him. His penis was now slick with saliva, waving gently in the breeze as his groin muscles twitched, his legs taut, his belly rigid. He was gripping the rope in either hand, the veins in his arms standing out starkly, giving hint to the strain of holding himself still for me.

Love filled me at such self-sacrifice. I made a mental vow to reward such devotion, and bent to my task, deciding that I'd just try out a few things and see if I got any response.

I swirled my tongue around him, gently cupping his testicles, causing him to moan nonstop, his hips bucking upward.

“Now, isn't this fun?” I asked, an audible pop sounding as I pulled my mouth off him. “I'm enjoying this. You taste so wonderful, Gabriel. All woodsy and earthy and dragonny. Not at all like a urinal cake, like Cyrene said men taste, although how on earth she knows what a urinal cake tastes like is beyond me. You are enjoying this, aren't you?”

He gurgled at me.

“Good. Cy swears by something called Pink Mango Massage Oil. I thought we could try that next. I have a little sample of it in my pocket. I think if I dribbled it around your penis and slicked you up—”