Kiss of Embers (The Dragon Lairds #5)

Chapter 8

Chapter

Eight

FINN

S truan shoved a hand through his hair, mussing the black strands. He held his palm on the back of his neck as he continued speaking of Queen Isolde. “Don’t get me wrong, I want us to win the elixir. I just didn’t anticipate finding our female in the process.”

“Mmm,” I murmured, which was the best I could do when he looked as good as he did. His gray T-shirt fit him like a glove, the sleeves tight around his biceps. The hiking pants he’d insisted on buying for the trip were just as tight. The lightweight fabric molded to his groin, doing nothing to hide the impressive bulge between his legs.

“It’s complicated, you ken?”

Not really. My desire for Struan was the most uncomplicated thing in my life. I’d met him at thirty-five years old—a babe by dragon standards. And in each moment of the eighty years since, I’d desired him. Sometimes, it was damn inconvenient.

A faint breeze drifted through the gap in the tent’s opening. Probably, I should have closed it when Struan and I returned from speaking to Zara. But we’d made camp a decent distance away from the rest of the competitors. No one would bother us.

“…because I’d like to focus on making her realize—” Struan made an irritated noise. “Are you even listening right now?”

I lifted my gaze from his chest. “Hmm?”

His expression darkened. “I feel like you’re not taking this seriously.”

“You’re wrong.” I slid off the table, then leaned both hips against the edge. “I’m very serious about winning the elixir and claiming Zara. But we can’t do either of those things right this second. So I’ll use my energy for other pursuits.” I crooked a finger at him. “Now, come here.”

Struan’s demeanor changed in an instant. His disgruntled expression fled, replaced with a raw longing I knew all too well.

His lips parted, and he dragged in a ragged breath.

I let my fangs descend, and I made sure to smile wide enough to show them. “Don’t make me ask again.”

“Fuck,” he whispered, closing the distance between us. He grunted when I stopped him with a flat palm on his chest, and he licked his lips as he stared at my mouth. “Finn…” he breathed, his blue eyes so vulnerable—so earnest —it was hard to believe he was real.

But he was. And he was perfect.

His heart raced under my hand. I knew if I slid it lower, I’d find him painfully hard. But he’d like it, so I did the opposite, smoothing it up to his jaw and gripping his chin.

“Is that what you want?” I asked. “To fuck?”

“Aye,” he rasped, shivering. The longing in his eyes turned his irises a deeper blue. “Please, Finn, don’t make me beg.”

I smiled. The breeze picked up, fluttering the flaps of the tent’s opening. Zara’s scent hit me, and I just stopped myself from tensing. A split second after I scented her, Struan’s eyes widened. Before he could say anything, I smashed my mouth to his.

He opened under me, groaning loudly as I thrust my tongue deep. I kept a grip on his jaw, holding him steady while I plundered his mouth. After a minute, I slid my lips to his ear.

“We have an observer,” I said in Gaelic.

Struan nodded his understanding.

“I say we let her stay where she is.”

He pulled back, his lips shiny and swollen from my kiss. He replied in the same language. “You want to…let her watch?”

“Aye.” I ran my palm down his chest to his cock. As predicted, he was hard as stone, and he closed his eyes as I gripped him through his pants. “Apparently, she wants a show. Why don’t you be a good boy and give her one?”

His eyes flew open. Lust swam in the deep blue depths. But so did doubt. “We might scare her off.”

I squeezed his dick hard enough to make him wince. “Fate chose her for us. Let her watch us…and wonder how it’ll feel to be in our bed.”

He made a low, helpless sound, and I knew he wondered too. Still, he hesitated. Something vulnerable moved through his eyes. “I always thought our female would run into our arms when we finally found her.”

My heart clenched. Struan could cleave a man’s head from his shoulders with an unsharpened sword. But he was built for love.

I reached up and cupped his jaw. “She’s an alpha werewolf,” I said, feathering my thumb over his cheekbone. He leaned into the caress like a cat, and I couldn’t hide my smile. I stroked his skin again as I continued in Gaelic. “They’re a stubborn sort. The mate bond is unique for everyone.” I leaned in and kissed him, stroking my tongue over his as gently as I’d stroked his cheek. “We have to give her time, love,” I said against his lips. “And if the little spy wants to watch us fuck, I think we should give her that too.”

Struan’s breath fluttered against my face. His cock swelled between us, the hard length brushing mine. “All right,” he said.

I smiled as I stepped back, and I switched to English as I flicked my fingers at his chest. “Take your shirt off.”

Throat bobbing, he obeyed, ripping the cotton over his head and flinging it to the ground. His round pecs twitched and his nipples tightened, the pink tips poking from the thatch of black curls on his chest. He was hairier than most of our kind, who tended to be smooth. An attribute of his wolf blood, probably. It suited him.

“Nice,” I said, pushing away from the table. He turned his head as I circled him, but he didn’t break position. And he wouldn’t. Struan was, as I’d said, a very good boy. The moonlight spilling through the tent’s opening painted his broad shoulders in silver.

“Do you feel it?” I asked, running my fingertips over his ribs as I rounded him.

“Aye,” he said, clearly understanding what I meant. “Like the sun on my skin.”

“Except it’s the moon.” I stopped in front of him, and I trailed my fingers down the pelt of hair on his chest. “You’ll need to hunt soon,” I said a little louder than necessary. But it couldn’t hurt to remind Zara that she and Struan had something in common. His beast form was wholly dragon, but he was called by the full moon the same as any werewolf.

He swallowed. “I will. Tomorrow, probably, or the day after.”

“But not tonight,” I said, sliding my hand lower and palming his dick. He moaned, and I leaned in and dragged one of my fangs along the sharp edge of his jaw. “Tonight, you’re mine.”

He tipped his head back and to the side, exposing his neck. His tone turned pleading. “Please. Please, Finn.”

I made another pass along his jaw, letting his stubble abrade my lips. “You want me to drink you?” Unlike my mother’s people, I didn’t need blood to survive—one of several reasons they despised me. I also didn’t produce sila , the addictive venom that induced euphoria in a vampire’s victim. As a result, my bite hurt.

But that had never bothered Struan. Quite the opposite.

“Anything,” he croaked, thrusting his cock against my hand. “Anything you want.”

“You always say that.” I stepped backward, and I leaned against the table again. “But I wonder if you really mean it.”

“I do!” His eyes went wide, as if he worried I wouldn’t believe him. “You know I’ll do whatever you?—”

“Strip,” I snapped. “Everything off.”

A masculine whimper broke from him as he bent and unlaced his boots with shaking fingers. He straightened, two spots of color staining his cheeks as he toed off his boots and then ripped open his fly. He shoved his pants and briefs down, freeing his swollen erection.

“Stop,” I said.

He froze at once, and my dick tightened at the speed of his obedience.

Outside, Zara didn’t quite manage to stifle her gasp. More blood pumped to my dick. Tormenting Struan was one thing. Tormenting him with our woman watching was like opening the door to a new realm of pleasure.

Struan stayed still, his erection hanging lewdly over his waistband. The look on his face let me know he’d also heard Zara.

I lounged against the table, and I ran a slow gaze down his body as I said, “I changed my mind. Keep the socks on. Lose everything else.”

The pink in his cheeks deepened as he pushed his pants and underwear down and then kicked them away. He straightened, nude except for his white calf socks.

My fangs slid lower. Desire twisted a hot, frazzled path to my cock, urging me to put Struan on his knees and order him to suck me. But that would have been too easy. Pleasure was always better when it was earned.

I twirled a finger in the air. “Turn. Slowly.”

Lust and shame flickered in Struan’s eyes. After almost a century together, I knew the latter fed the former, which was why I wasn’t surprised when he moaned softly as he rotated in place, looking hot and ridiculous in nothing but a pair of athletic socks.

I kept my gaze on him, but I tuned my senses to the jungle outside the tent, where our nosy female was undoubtedly getting a good look at his flushed face and stiff, leaking cock.

Anticipation built in my chest. Aye, I was every bit the wicked bastard Struan claimed, because I couldn’t wait to find out what made Zara’s cheeks turn pink. What made her wet. Made her desperate.

Struan completed his circuit, his expression pleading as he faced me once more.

“On your knees,” I said.

He sank to the carpet in one smooth, elegant movement, his gaze never leaving mine. He kept his arms loose at his sides, his shoulders back.

“Knees wider.”

A frown flashed through his eyes, the expression there and quickly gone. But not quickly enough. His pulse fluttered in the thick column of his throat as he moved his knees apart.

“Wider,” I said, scarcely able to keep my hand off my cock. It strained against my pants as Struan obeyed even though he didn’t want to.

His fault. He knew better than to signal when he didn’t like something. It was a surefire way to make me order him to do it again.

“Wider.”

Struan’s nostrils flared as he obeyed. Even with a dragon shifter’s balance, he struggled to hold the position, his chest heaving and his fingers twitching at his sides.

I clucked my tongue. “This is too hard for you. Go to your hands, but keep your knees exactly as they are.”

He hesitated for a single heartbeat. Then, face flaming, he followed the command. Now, he was on his hands and knees, his legs wide and his ass pointed toward the tent’s entrance. His cock hung heavy between his legs, the tip shiny with precome. If I circled him, I knew I’d see his cheeks spread, his tight hole exposed to anyone passing the tent.

Or hiding in the shadows just outside of it.

As if Nature approved of my tactics, the breeze picked up again, sending a stream of damp air into the tent. The gust carried the scent of apple blossoms and feminine arousal into my nostrils, and I suppressed a groan.

Struan wasn’t as successful. His moan filled the tent. Trembling, he hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut. A thick bead of moisture swelled at his slit.

“You’re very hard,” I said. “Is there something you want?”

He lifted burning eyes to mine. “Let me suck you.”

My cock pressed hard against my zipper. Struan was a dream, all his muscle and power bent and displayed for my pleasure—and Zara’s. He wouldn’t move until I said. He wouldn’t dare.

“All that’s missing is a collar,” I said, and he gasped, his dick swaying slightly. “A collar and a leash. Maybe a harness. Would you like that?”

“If you would.” He dipped his gaze to my groin, the longing in his eyes intensifying. “Please, Finn. Whatever you want, just let me make you come.”

I pointed to the carpet at my feet. “Crawl.”

He crawled, his cock and balls swinging between his legs. Moonlight sheened his shoulders and glinted in his dark hair. His breathing was ragged as he hesitated, waiting for my next command.

“Please let me touch you,” he whispered.

“No hands.”

He pressed his face to my groin, nuzzling my dick through my pants.

A guttural moan escaped my lips, and I had to squeeze the edge of the table so I wouldn’t touch him. Fire streaked through me, like someone putting a blowtorch to my nerve endings. I clenched my jaw against the need to feel Struan’s tongue and the hot cave of his mouth. The torture was exquisite.

So was he. Big and blushing and so very obedient. He rubbed his face all over my erection, every rasp of his stubble against my pants highlighting the lurid contrast between his nudity and my fully clothed state.

After a minute, the torture was too much to bear. I gripped his hair and yanked his head back.

“Take my cock out and suck.”

He bit his lower lip as he fumbled my fly and zipper. My cock sprang free, and he sucked it into his mouth in one greedy gulp.

I hissed, rocking my hips as heat and pressure engulfed my shaft. It was too much too soon, but I couldn’t stop. Not with Struan’s perfect mouth around my dick. His eyelids fluttered as he sucked eagerly, taking me from root to tip on every pass. Within seconds, his eyes watered from the effort of breathing around my dick. The tent filled with the heavy, wet sound of my cockhead drilling the back of his throat.

Pleasure boiled up, tightening my balls. “Fuck,” I muttered, grabbing his hair. I held his head with two hands as I thrust into his mouth. “You’re too good at this.”

He moaned around my dick, his palms flat on his thighs. His shaft was almost purple with arousal. Precome smeared his slit. More moisture glistened on his sack. Drool slipped down his chin, but he held position, his mouth stretched wide and his head canted back to accept me. He had to be hurting, but he didn’t attempt to touch himself or adjust his position. He continued sucking me, adoration gleaming in his eyes.

“Good boy,” I said, pride swelling my chest. Cupping his head with one hand, I used the thumb of my other hand to wipe moisture from his chin. “Do you know what I do with good boys?”

The answer flared in his eyes. His low, needy groan vibrated up my shaft to my sack.

I tightened my grip on his hair, and I punctuated my next words with three brutal thrusts down his throat. “I. Reward. Them.”

Struan choked around my cock. I eased back, letting him recover. But he wasn’t having it. He strained against my grip, deep-throating me like he needed to prove he could.

“Yes, sweetheart,” I breathed, pushing his hair back from his forehead. I played with the silky strands, petting and stroking the way I knew he liked. The way I loved —and needed just as much as he did. Moonlight haloed him, scattering blue highlights in his black hair. “So pretty. So good for me.”

He moaned at the praise. For a fleeting second, his hand strayed to his flailing dick, which looked hard enough to split open. But he caught himself, pressing his hand flat to his thigh as he wrestled with his own need. His labored breaths turned to whimpers, each plaintive, broken sound driving my lust higher.

My release rushed me. Sweat prickled over my skin. I couldn’t hold back anymore.

So I didn’t. With a final thrust of my hips, I emptied down Struan’s throat. Pleasure came in a jittery, white-hot flash. My head went back, and I might have fallen if not for my grip on Struan’s hair.

But he wasn’t going anywhere. He was voracious as he drank me down, delicious little growls spilling from him. He took every drop, as greedy for my come as he’d been to please me.

He was still sucking when I came back to myself, my cock soft and oversensitive against his questing tongue.

“Enough,” I rasped, pulling from his mouth. He chased my dick before settling back on his knees, his chest heaving and his erection sticking up like a baseball bat. His cockhead was soaked. His jaw and chest were shiny with drool.

“This is how I want you,” I said, the confession spilling from me. “Wrecked and helpless. And so hungry, Struan. You’d do anything, wouldn’t you?” Taking my dick in hand, I slapped it lightly against his cheek.

He gasped and then turned his head into my cock, seeking me. Fresh lust bolted through my veins as I dragged my tip over his parted lips, painting them with remnants of seed.

“Fuck,” he croaked, licking at my slit. He opened his mouth, and I obliged him, slapping my dick on his tongue with heavy, wet smacks. Arousal pumped to my shaft. Gathered in my balls. Gods, he was going to make me come again. But he’d earned his pleasure. Time to give him what he wanted.

“Up,” I ordered. “Get me ready.”

Struan surged to his feet, then spun me around and shoved me into the table. Breathing heavily, he yanked my pants and underwear down with rough hands. When they caught on my thighs, he cursed viciously and yanked harder. As the sound of ripping fabric filled the tent, I shifted to smoke, shedding my clothes in an instant. When I took solid form again, Struan was ready for me.

“Why didn’t you do that in the first place?” he growled, bending me over the table with a hand on my shoulder.

I pressed my cheek to the wood, my dick growing harder by the second, and I let my amusement fill my voice. “I told you. I like you desperate.”

He huffed. A second later, he squeezed one of my ass cheeks and pulled it wide. His blunt cockhead prodded my cleft and then dragged up and down, teasing and pressing. My hole clenched reflexively, sensitive nerve endings firing.

“Little hole wants something,” Struan said in a thick, smoky voice. He pulled my ass wider and continued working his cockhead up and down, slicking my crease with his precome. “There you go. Winking at me. Such a tease.”

A breeze coasted over my skin, reminding me we weren’t alone. Zara watched—and listened to Struan crooning to my asshole like it was a shy pet he coaxed from a hiding place. Apple blossoms and something infinitely sweeter swirled in the air. I’d wagered and, apparently, won. Zara wasn’t frightened by the passion Struan and I shared. She hadn’t fled.

No, she watched —and she liked what she saw. The knowledge set a fire under my skin. When Struan palmed the back of one of my thighs and hiked my knee onto the table, the fire became an inferno.

“Fuck me,” I ordered, an ache building in my balls. It was as if my dick had developed amnesia and the past twenty minutes hadn’t happened.

Struan fetched lube in record time. When he pressed a slick finger to my hole, I dug my forehead into the table and groaned through clenched teeth. My balls tingled. My cock twitched and leaked beneath me. Struan massaged my rim and then added another finger, probing and kneading my passage with expert strokes. His fingers disappeared, and I looked over my shoulder in time to see him spit into his hand and then carry it back to my cleft.

“Need to get you extra wet for me,” he rasped, his dragon in his eyes. Our gazes held as he worked me open with two thick fingers, grazing my sweet spot with every careful thrust. Other times, I would have dragged it out. Made him wait just so I could hear him beg. But Zara’s presence put a timer on my control. My dick throbbed, and my balls grew painfully tight. If I was dangling by a thread, Struan had to be in agony.

When he added a third finger, I arched my spine. “Now. Give it to me.”

He didn’t ask questions. Just lined up and pushed inside. I bore down, riding out the burn until it slid into a fullness that rolled my eyes back in my head.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “More.”

He leaned over me, his chest flush against my back, and rained soft kisses over my nape. “You’ve got everything,” he murmured, tracing serpentine patterns on my skin with his tongue. “Don’t you feel it?” He pulled out and then rammed into me, drilling my gland like an arrow punching into a bullseye.

Stars burst behind my eyes, which was how I realized I’d squeezed them shut. I opened them now, and I twisted around so I could glare at Struan.

As soon as I saw his face, I lost the battle to be firm. He was in his happy place—literally—and it showed in his sparkling eyes and soft smile.

“I should keep you on the edge,” I told him. I’d done it before, letting him thrust inside me until his orgasm boiled up, only to make him pull out at the last second. I’d brought him to tears.

But he didn’t cry now. Instead, he snuggled me against him and closed sharp teeth over my ear. “I’ll tell you what you should do, Finn. You should let me fuck you. Which is what you asked for. Which is what I’m going to do right now.” And he did, plastering his body to mine and drilling me so fast and hard I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to form a response.

But it didn’t matter because anything I might have said disappeared, washed away by overwhelming pleasure. Struan pinned me, his harsh breaths fanning over my nape and shoulders. Sweat formed under my chest, until I was slick enough to slide on the table.

I reached a hand back and dug my fingers into his hip, wordlessly ordering him to go faster. He obeyed, and the slap of skin against skin warred with our mingled grunts and moans. His heavy balls smacked my taint. He scooped his arm under the leg he’d pushed onto the table and shoved my knee higher. The new position changed the angle of his dick inside me, his fat cockhead nailing my prostate over and over.

“Fuck,” I ground out as the table rocked beneath me. “Fuck, I’m close.”

Struan hauled me up, banding an arm around my chest and clamping me against him. He dragged my thigh off the table and then fucked me onto my toes, his thrusts rattling my teeth. My cock bounced wildly, slapping my stomach as Struan continued his punishing rhythm. Sweat poured off me. My muscles tightened, my body trembling on the edge of an explosive release.

Even in his frenzy, Struan pressed his lips to my neck. “Need to come, Finn. Let me come.”

“Go ahead.” I gripped my flailing cock and stroked.

Struan cried out. A second later, he came on a roar, shaking as he flooded me with seed. His release tripped mine, and I spurted into my hand and all over the table. My ass clamped hard around Struan’s dick.

“Gods,” he grunted, shuddering as he squeezed me against him. We came down together, both gasping for oxygen. I held my flaccid cock and tried to remember how to spell my name.

Struan kept his arms around me. Swaying in place with his dick still lodged deep in my ass, he buried his nose in my hair and trailed a line of soft kisses down to my ear. “She left,” he said in Gaelic.

I stilled, straining for any noise that might indicate Zara was still nearby. But Struan was right. She was gone, returned to her tent and the gargoyle—who had the potential to be a problem. As if Struan and I didn’t have enough of them.

A growl rumbled in my chest.

“Don’t worry,” Struan said, brushing his lips over my neck. He kissed my thundering pulse. “We’ll start winning her over tomorrow.”

I turned in his arms, letting his cock slip from me. The jungle outside the tent was still, with no sign of eavesdroppers, but I spoke in Gaelic anyway. “We have to win the elixir too. And hope she doesn’t hate us for taking it from her.”

Intensity shimmered in Struan’s blue eyes. “We’ll win.” He smoothed a callused thumb over my cheekbone, mimicking the caress I’d given him moments before. “We’ll claim the elixir and our woman.”

A sigh lifted my chest. It seemed Struan and I had switched positions, and now he was unbothered by our challenges while I’d taken on his worries. But that was often the way of things between us. We shared each other’s burdens.

“Do you think we should try to talk to Bolveg?” I asked. Most likely, the demon had returned to his own plane for the night. But I’d visited the Vozga Kingdom before. I could channel there and speak to Bolveg face to face.

Struan took a moment to answer. “No,” he said finally. “If Ashcroft or the gargoyle get wind of it, they might cry foul. The demons have worked with us in the past. And you can bet Bolveg is thinking about the role they played in keeping Queen Isolde from us for three centuries. Bolveg won’t be looking for another reason to make enemies of King Cormac and Niall. I say we let the Rules Committee make the right decision.”

It was sound logic. Still, there were no guarantees. “I hope Bolveg is as smart as you think he is.”

Struan smiled. “This isn’t about intelligence. It’s about fate.” He gave me a quick, hard kiss on the mouth. “We’re dragons. Fate saved our people once. Now, it put Zara in our path. Everything will work out tomorrow, Finn. I know it. Fate doesn’t make mistakes, right?”

Struan looked so confident, it was hard not to feel the same way. So I shoved my worries aside as I went in for another kiss. Fate hadn’t led me astray when it led me to him. I had no choice but to trust it knew what it was doing this time around too.

When Struan and I were both breathless, I rested my forehead against his. “Right.”