Up in Smoke - Katie MacAlister [69]
I screamed when he shifted my hips and plunged me down onto his penis, a high, reedy sound, startling me when I realized that it came from me, but that concern was short-lived when he moved within me, and I was once again sent spinning into a state of being that went far, far beyond mere sexual climax.
Time held no meaning for me as we made love out there in the bush, enveloped in darkness, filled with fire, surrounded by nothing but sky and earth. I suspect that little time passed, simply because Gabriel’s fuse was notoriously short—as was my own—but it seemed to me, as I lay gasping back on my own seat, that eons had passed. I lifted a hand, relieved to see in the dim light of the car that the hand held familiar fingers, somewhat stubby, but my own.
“If you say a single word about not having foreplay, I swear I’m going to deck you,” I said, turning my head to look at the man who still lay prone on his seat. I mused again how beautiful he was, his body taut and lean, but not gaunt, not sparse in any way.
Gabriel chuckled, a rich, sensual sound that made me shiver as the cooling air pricked at the tiny drops of perspiration that still clung to me.
“I wasn’t going to, but now that you mention it . . .”
I curled up one fist and waved it in the direction of his face. He laughed again, pulling his seat upright, grimacing briefly as he looked down at his side.
The stripes left by my claws were still visible.
“Agathos daimon. Tell me I didn’t do that to you,” I said, leaning over to examine the wounds. They were red and raised, but not bleeding.
“It’s all right, little bird. You don’t have to look so stricken. They don’t hurt. Much.”
“Oh, Gabriel, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It was just . . . it was just . . . suddenly you looked so good to me. Not that you don’t always look good, but this was different. This was very different. And those claws . . . I had no idea that I would hurt you, though. What can I do to heal them?”
Gabriel took my hands, which were fluttering around the stripes on his ribs, pulling them to his mouth. “They are mating marks, little bird. They are common with mating pairs of dragons, and I assure you, I would much prefer to bear the slight discomfort they bring than have you forgo making them.”
“But why aren’t they healing?” I frowned at the marks. “They should be healed by now. Enough time has passed.”
“Mating marks heal slower than other injuries. Don’t worry about them, May,” he said with a smile. “You gave me much pleasure when you embraced the shard.”
I looked back at my hands, my emotions conflicted. I couldn’t deny that the experience we’d just shared had been beyond anything I’d ever imagined, but I didn’t like the strange feelings that possessed me. “It was the shard that changed my hands? It wasn’t just something that happens to wyvern mates?”
He watched me for a moment, kissing the tips of my fingers before releasing them. “I’m sorry you were frightened, May. I would like to assure you that being the vessel to the shard will change nothing about you, but I can’t. It is part of you now, and until such time as it is removed, you will experience some of the sensations of what it is to be a dragon.”
I shivered, cold despite the relative balminess of the night air. I suddenly realized that I was naked, my clothing in shreds around us. A little noise of distress slipped out of me as I sorted through the torn fabric, trying to find something wearable.
“Take this,” Gabriel said as I clutched the wad of useless clothing.
I took the shirt he had pulled off, fortunately still whole since Gabriel had had the presence of mind earlier to unbutton it while I was struggling to get out of my clothing.
“It’s lucky you are so small,” he said after a quick search in the backseat of the car. “There’s nothing else here. I’m