CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mira giggled the whole way down the hall to their bedroom, tired and happy and tipsy. They’d been out for a long time, and had spent the last several hours in a nice sort of bar with a piano player and a bartender who was happy to serve her as much wine as she wanted. She clasped Tarquin’s hand the whole way, and thought how pleased she was with herself for using the cold as an excuse to hold it that morning. She liked his hand in hers, and she wanted to get used to the feeling.
When the bedroom door was shut behind her, she launched herself at him, her arms around his neck and her body pressed against his, and when he lifted her to him she gave a little sigh of pleasure. She kissed him sweetly, not his mouth, but his forehead and cheeks and nose and jaw and eyelids. He laughed as she did, and turned his head slightly to catch her lips with his, and then the playful pecks turned into heated kisses. She moaned into his mouth, and their lips touched and tongues tangled and bodies pressed together. Their usual urgency wasn’t there, replaced by something more intimate, more sure that they had time. There was no danger of one of them coming to their senses and leaving before they could each reach their own heated climax.
Mira undressed him first, dancing out of the way each time he reached for the hem of her shirt, and then dropped to her knees in front of him and took his rapidly hardening cock into her mouth. She treasured the sound he made as she kissed along the length of him and swirled her tongue around the head. When she closed her lips around him and sucked, she couldn’t help but to look up at him, and the look on his face as he watched her was so heated, so warm, that she had to look away to keep her balance.
With a sudden growl, he hauled her up against him and held her there for a minute. He bent to kiss her again, leisurely and sweetly, and she melted into him so thoroughly that when he lifted her from the floor and brought her to the bed, she felt incapable of moving on her own. He covered her and kissed her hard, and then found the button on her pants and they were cast aside quickly. She lay on her back, and he nudged her knees apart until she was spread before him. As he lowered his head between them, she hissed at the first touch of his tongue on her tender flesh.
He licked her thoroughly, through her folds and around her clit and probing, just slightly, into her entrance. When she held his hair and beckoned him, he slid a finger into her, and then another, and fucked her with his fingers while he suckled on her clit. She came apart furiously and thoroughly, and he licked her and thrust his fingers into her all the while. When she stilled again he slowed his caresses, and then his mouth and fingers traded places. She moaned at his light touch on her tender clit, and couldn’t stifle the groan that went through her when his tongue entered her, sweeping along her walls and making her writhe on his face. It took very little time for her to come again, and then he was holding her hips tightly while she shuddered, clenched around his tongue.
He kissed up her abdomen slowly, peeling her shirt off as he went, and then removed it entirely. He licked at her nipples before moving back up to her mouth, and then he kissed her so tenderly that her eyes burned and she didn’t know why. He positioned himself over her, his mouth on hers all the while, and when he pushed inside of her she felt as deliciously full as she ever did, but his movements held none of his usual frantic urgency.
Afterward, he pulled her to him, his chest sweaty and warm and solid under her cheek. She didn’t bother to protest, didn’t want to roll away. She was tired of running from him, and he seemed to be here, offering himself to her. So she turned her face slightly to press a kiss against his chest, then ran her fingers up and down his abdomen in a gentle caress. His hand was threaded through her hair, cupping the back of her head, and the other reached around to hold her hip. Her leg was thrown over his, and his warmth beneath her compelled her to press further against him.
“Mira,” he murmured, and she was almost afraid to look up at him and acknowledge the sweetness of the moment. It was much easier to just accept it as it happened, and then move on as if it hadn’t. She decided to be brave for once, though, and turned her chin up to him.
“Hmm?” she acknowledged, her heart racing and the heat in her belly churning.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t seem to be capable of saying anything, and just leaned forward to press a kiss on her brow. Her chest squeezed painfully at that. He’d tried for so long to just show her affection, and she’d pushed him away, over and over and over again, without acknowledging that most of the reason she’d been mad was just that he’d said the wrong name. It had hurt, and it had been her first time, but she hadn’t ever even told him the reason she’d pulled away so hard. After, she’d convinced herself that he was incapable of ever loving again, of ever opening his heart again, and instead of recognizing what should have been so obvious to herself, that he was grieving and not capable of making decisions like that, she’d pushed him away further. All he’d needed was patience, maybe some affection, and she’d shoved him away from her in the most painful way she could muster.
Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears, heartbreak for him and anger at herself, and when he noticed and asked her what was wrong she just shook her head. “I just want to hold you,” she said, and she did, moving so that her arms were around his neck, and his head rested on her shoulder. She ran her hands over his shoulders, his back, and pressed her lips to his forehead and cheeks and nose, over and over again. When she felt something hot and wet on her chest, she didn’t have to wonder what it was; she took a deep, shuddering breath.
She held him to her all night.
Mira was happy when she woke up, with a sweet ache between her thighs and a warm shoulder under her cheek. Morning sunlight streamed in through the large window, and when she chanced a look up at Tarquin he was already awake and watching her. It was strange for affection to feel so unfamiliar with someone she’d been intimate with so many times, but she had to remind herself that this was okay, that she didn’t need to roll away and pretend it hadn’t happened. She’d been so afraid to give in, to accept his repeated attempts at affection, but the way she woke up and the way she remembered the previous day made her very happy that she had.
She smiled up at him, and when he pressed his lips to her brow and traced lazy circles on her back, the remaining tension that she held vanished. She settled back against him, enjoying the simple tender touch of him in a way that she’d never allowed herself to before.
She’d been frightened, she acknowledged to herself, because she’d been half in love with him before he’d ever touched her, before they’d left Dragongrove. His kisses at first had thrilled her, but then left her disappointed that he seemed so ashamed to be seen with her. That he wanted no more touching than heated caresses. When they had finally had sex, Mira had been hopeful as his heated touches turned softer and his gaze less cold, but then he’d called her Aurelia and ruined everything. She didn’t want to just be an empty vessel for him to project his mate onto.
He’d pursued her, oddly and persistently, despite the fact that they were fucking all that time. She hadn’t had the energy to deal with it, though; to constantly analyze if he wanted her, just Mira, or if he just wanted anyone so he could pretend he wasn’t alone for a little while. She’d shrugged off his arm, and turned her face from his kiss, and tried not to laugh at the ridiculous things he said. It was hard, so hard, because underneath was still that girl who’d been as dazzled as she was when she saw her first dragon, and if she was honest with herself, was still half in love with him.
So she treasured his touch on her back, and the way he pulled her even closer as they laid together in the morning light and the way he seemed regretful when he told her that he needed to go into the city that day, alone, but that he would miss her and see her soon.