The Dragon's Appraiser: Part One (5 page)

After their second ‘interlude’ by the lake, Sevrrn had insisted she do it again. Madja had told him she was tired, so Sevrrn, in his boundless consideration, had brought her over to her pallet so that she could please him while lying down. Two more climaxes later, and Sevrrn was still as hard as ever. Madja was no expert on male anatomy, but she was fairly certain that this would be impossible for any human man.

Sevrrn cracked his neck. “Not in the slightest. This is the most interesting thing I have done in centuries, perhaps longer. We will do it often.”

“I’m not going to be your sex slave,” she said with a scowl. “Besides, my arm is tired. Why don’t you just, you know, do it yourself?”

He glanced down at his erection and then back at her, a sour expression forming on his face.

“It is only interesting because you do it.”

“I’m flattered.”

“I dislike your tone. Why are you being so irritable?”

Madja considered her response and decided that they were way beyond propriety.

“I guess I’m a little…frustrated.”

He cocked his head. “Why?”

Madja might have been a virgin, but she wasn’t the least bit inexperienced when it came to her body’s desires. She knew exactly why she was frustrated and what she needed from him, but the words refused to come to her.

Once you taste poison, you might as well finish the meal.

She reached over to lift Sevrrn’s hand. He gave her a curious look, but didn’t resist. Marshaling her courage, she tugged his hand toward her body. She looked away, unable to meet his gaze as she guided him beneath her slip. She parted her thighs, taking two of his long fingers and dipping them past her curls.

He said nothing as she ran his fingers along the seam of her sex. After their earlier intimacy, her folds were drenched with moisture, causing his fingers to glide over them easily. Holding her breath, she stopped his fingers on her favorite spot, the sensitive nub above her opening.

“There,” she whispered. “Rub me there.”

She released his fingers, placing her hand on his wrist. He remained quiet as his fingers began to move.

Sevrrn was mindful of his claws and used only the rough pads of his fingertips as he stroked her. His touch was without flair, his fingers only moving back and forth, but she was too aroused to be bothered. The feel of a man’s fingers, coupled with the knowledge that they belonged to Sevrrn, was enough to keep her arousal mounting ever higher.

Just when she was on the brink of climax, Sevrrn stopped. She let out a huff of air as he sat up and grabbed her legs.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to watch.”

“Watch what?” she groused.

He dragged her bottom half into his lap, pulling her legs apart so that they rested on either side of his hips and completely exposing her womanhood to him.

He clarified, “I want to watch myself touching you.”

“Oh—
hhhhh
.”

She bit down hard on her bottom lip as Sevrrn began stroking her again. It was different this time. He alternated between slow and fast, moving back and forth, and then in circles. While it felt amazing, his movements were too erratic for her to fully immerse herself, making her climax elusive.

When she dared to glance up at him, his sultry gaze was centered not on her nether regions, but on her face. She felt herself blush as she looked away. Why was he staring at her?

She didn’t have much time to contemplate this, because his fingers did something that she
really
liked. Her reaction was swift and visceral. Back arching, a loud moan broke free from her chest.

Sevrrn immediately stopped.

Sounding almost concerned, he began to ask, “Why did you make—”

She reached up and clutched his wrist. “Don’t stop.”

She thanked each pagan god she knew—present company excluded—when he continued his ministrations. With deliberate movements, he repeatedly stroked her in just the right way, until beads of sweat broke out over her skin. Heat coiled in the pit of her stomach, tightening and tightening, until all at once, it snapped.

A climax, the likes of which she had not yet experienced in her short life, crashed over her. Her mind whited out as everything she had ever been and everything she aspired to be became insignificant against the weight of this singular experience.

When she finally came back to herself, she found that Sevrrn had covered her with a fur from the pallet. Madja gave him a questioning look.

“You were shaking,” was his absent reply.

Madja smiled, amused by how he always equated shaking with being cold. It made sense, though. What other reason did a dragon have to tremble?

I made him tremble
, a small voice inside of her whispered.

Madja wondered if, during the moment that she had first made Sevrrn climax, he had felt the same way as she had? Did he feel as though a part of him would never be the same again?

Perhaps that was arrogant of her to presume.

She realized that she’d been lost in thought for some time. When she glanced at Sevrrn again, he was examining his fingers. They were wet with her fluids, and, to her mortification, she had looked up just in time to see him lick one finger. She watched, dumbstruck, as he licked the finger a second time, and then plunged both fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean.

His sharp, predator’s eyes shifted to her face. One corner of his lips twitched. “Again?”

“This is dull,” Sevrrn said, swatting a jeweled chalice from Madja’s hands. “Let us indulge in one another again.”

They had been ‘indulging’ in one another all day, and while Madja couldn’t exactly say that she was tired of it, she did feel that it was getting a bit excessive.

It was just after nightfall and she’d appraised all of four objects since Sevrrn had woken her at first light. It was the second day they had been intimate with one another, and his appetite had only become more voracious.

“Be careful with that,” she chided, grabbing the chalice from the floor. “And if you keep interrupting me for…stuff, I’m never going to be able to appraise—”

He swatted the chalice from her hand again, this time with considerable force. It went flying and landed in the lake with a splash.

“I do not care.”

She folded her arms under her breasts. “Look, you need to learn some moderation. If we do that…stuff all the time, then you’re only going to get bored with it sooner.”

He frowned. “I will never get bored with your touch, Madja O’aer.”

Madja’s cheeks heated. It was the first time that he’d said her name, and—if she were being honest with herself—she hadn’t even believed that he remembered it.

To distract him—and herself—Madja grabbed the nearest treasure she could find, an ornate key.

“This looks to be Allonan in origin,” she said, examining it with one eye shut. “See this top part, the part that you hold, it’s called the bow of the key. You can tell from the vine design inside the—”

Sevrrn plucked the key from her fingers and hurled it, too, toward the lake. Madja opened her mouth, intent on yelling at him, but stopped short when she caught sight of his glare.

In the span of a breath, Sevrrn had pushed her to the ground. He loomed over her, his large body caging her in. He bent his head, so that his mouth hovered over hers. In a much huskier voice, he repeated himself.

“I do not care.”

Madja didn’t offer the slightest protest as he methodically undressed her, one by one undoing each tie and button of the elaborate costume dress she’d donned earlier in the day.

When she was fully naked, he stopped to survey her. With one finger, he traced each dip and swell, as if trying to commit her curves to memory. As was the case lately, his face was no longer a stoic mask, but a rich tableau of emotions, ranging from fascination to pleasure. She wondered if these emotions were new to him or if he had just grown comfortable displaying them to her.

As his eyes roamed over her body, a desire burgeoned up from within her.

“Appraise me,” she said to him.

One golden brow arched. “I am not an appraiser.”

Madja ran a finger between her breasts. His eyes followed the movement.

“Surely, I must be worth something to you.”

He rubbed his chin, which had grown light stubbles of hair over the course of the day. “You are more interesting than my swords and, most of the time, you please me more than gold. Your eyes remind me of smoked quartz, though I find them much more intriguing. Your skin is coarser than Vrynesh silk, though I find it more enjoyable to touch.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, in that case, when I die you can skin me and make a new outfit for yourself.”

His glare returned in full-force. “We have already discussed this. You will be immortal, as I am.”

“Immortal, maybe,” she allowed, though his plan was decidedly vague. “But not indestructible. I’ll still be human. There are plenty of ways I could die.”

Madja held up her hand, lifting a finger for each example on the list. “I could freeze to death. I could drown. I could slip and fall and break my neck, or even get impaled on one of your dumb swords—by the way, you should really do something about them. I was wading in the lake yesterday and one of them was sticking right up out of the ground. I almost lost a toe.”

Madja could have gone on, but she stopped when she noticed that Sevrrn’s golden-bronze skin seemed unusually pallid.

“Are you…worried about me?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

She placed a hand on top of his. “Well, don’t be. Dying is just part of life. Besides, there will be no shortage of women who can take my place.”

“I do not want another human,” he said stubbornly. “I want you. Only you.”

Madja tried to formulate a witty response, but found that her throat had grown thick with emotion. So instead, she reached up and looped her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a kiss.

Sevrrn seemed confused at first, but fortunately he was a quick study. He moved with her, learning what she enjoyed and then trying a few things out for himself. As with everything else, he enjoyed using his teeth and she nearly melted when he began to nibble at her bottom lip.

While they kissed, Madja began a tentative exploration of his body. There was so much to touch, but she found herself partial to his strong, muscled shoulders. As one of her hands glided over his chest, she stopped to brush her thumb over a flat nipple. The small gesture elicited a groan from Sevrrn.

He pulled back, his face tight. “Touch me.”

She suppressed a grin. “I
am
touching you.”

Not interested in her games, he took her hand and wrapped it firmly around his cock. Still wanting to mess with him, Madja secured her legs around his hips and drew his hard length downwards, pressing the head against her damp entrance.

Perhaps she had just been trying to play with him, or maybe that dark, unhinged part of her had wanted to push him over the edge, but either way, she had only herself to blame for what happened next.

As soon as his turgid organ came in contact with her warm, soft cleft, he made a sound she’d never heard from him—or any living creature—before. It was a strangled noise, something between intense pain and intense longing.

It was all the warning she had before he pushed inside of her.

All the way inside of her.

She had known that the first time would be painful, but not quite so much. She cried out, hands gripping his shoulders as tears clouded her vision.

The only thing that prevented the moment from being an absolute nightmare was that Sevrrn remained perfectly still within her. When her vision cleared, she saw that he was staring down at her, breathing heavily.

His eyes squeezed shut as a shudder ran the length of his large body. When he opened them, he seemed to be baffled by something.

In a rough and nearly unrecognizable voice, he said, “Blood. I smell blood.”

She placed a hand on the side of his face. “I’ve never had a man inside of me before.”

His eyes narrowed. “And you never will. Only me.”

Only a dragon
.

It was her last thought before he began to move within her. Most of the pain had faded, though she was still uncomfortable, much too uncomfortable to climax. Still, she took a far deeper and much more intimate pleasure in watching his face as his thrusts grew harder and more urgent.

In the seconds before he took his release, Sevrrn’s face contorted, first with pain and then with pure, unadulterated wonder. He threw his head back, letting out a roar of triumph as he poured his seed deep within her.

He collapsed on top of her, his body slick with sweat. Madja had never seen him look quite so worn out and so she allowed him a few moments to collect himself before she smacked him on the shoulder.

Sevrrn drew his head back to frown at her. “You struck me.”

He sounded more perplexed than annoyed.

“You were supposed to pull out of me.”

It seemed to take him a moment to ascertain what she was referring to, and when he did, he merely shrugged one shoulder.

“Ah, yes. I was comfortable inside, so I decided to stay.”

Her mouth fell open. “That’s your excuse? What if you get me pregnant?”

Sevrrn shrugged again. “That would be interesting.”

Madja knew then that even if Sevrrn somehow made her immortal and they spent the rest of eternity with one another, he would still manage to say things that completely floored her.

While incredulity and wrath battled for dominance within her, Sevrrn gathered her up into his arms. Carrying her over to her bed, he put her down gently and laid down beside her, covering them both with a blanket.

By the time she had her angry rant prepared, Sevrrn was sound asleep beside her.