Chapter 15
The naked hunger on Deryk’s face as he stared at her robbed Izzi of breath and left her with no more doubt as to whether or not he still desired her.
The rapid beat of her heart sounded like thunder in her ears as she unfastened her jeans and pushed them down over her hips and thighs before removing them and her socks. She left on the miniscule pair of black lace panties. Out of shyness, not because she wasn’t totally committed to this mating. Deryk might have seen, touched, and had his mouth on parts of her body no one else ever had, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still shy standing almost naked in front of him.
And a little apprehensive still.
This man, her mate, was going to bite her during the act of lovemaking.
“Are you absolutely sure?”
The ache inside Izzi became stronger, deeper, as Deryk made no move to approach or touch her, his hands clenched tightly at his sides. He looked so fiercely handsome, the total predator that he was. His eyes glowed, his face all sharp and harshly etched angles Izzi wanted to reach out and touch. That she needed to reach out and touch.
There was no space inside her for further doubt. Only the two of them, Deryk and Izzi, intent and focused on each other.
She nodded. “Absolutely.”
His breath left his lungs in a relieved whoosh. “Would you loosen your hair for me?”
She reached up to release her hair from where she had plaited it before they left Wales earlier. She shook her head until the golden silkiness cascaded over her shoulders and down the length of her bared spine, the ends curling softly against the cheeks of her bottom.
He breathed audibly. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Izzi was sure, after fifteen hundred years, that couldn’t be true. But she so wanted Deryk to believe it… “Thank you.”
He looked pained as he shook his head. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”
Izzi stepped forward until she could feel the heat of Deryk’s body as a caress against her own as the two of them almost touched. “Exist,” she answered simply as she reached up to gently place her palm against one side of his face. “You’re the other half of me, as I’m the other half of you.”
A nerve pulsed in his throat. “Do you truly believe that?”
She nodded. “Yin to your yang.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
Deryk gazed at her searchingly. “How can you say that when I’m going to fuck you and bite you?”
She smiled. “Because you aren’t going to do either of those things. We’re going to make love to each other, and during that lovemaking, we are going to complete our mating, which happens to involve you biting me. Now kiss me,” she encouraged.
His control was so precarious, he was shaking with the effort of holding himself back. “I’ve waited for you for so long, centuries, I don’t think I can be gentle.”
Considering Izzi wanted to rub and writhe against him, touch and taste him everywhere, bite him, she didn’t think either of them wanted gentleness.
Deryk hissed as she leaned forward, pebble-hard nipples pressing against the heat of his bare chest as she raised her face and kissed him on the lips.
He made a harsh sound deep in his throat before his arms wrapped around her like steel bands and his lips parted beneath hers, instantly deepening the kiss.
A hot, devouring kiss. Tongue dueling. Eager and bold as that desire shot straight to her core. That sudden burst of lust caused Izzi to clench her legs tightly together, applying pressure to her swollen clit.
“Let me,” Deryk murmured, his lips leaving a trail of fire as they traveled the length of her throat. One of his hands gently pushed her legs apart before long, and sensitive fingers brushed against her lace-covered clit to move in slow and teasing circles.
Izzi gasped, fingers digging into the flesh of Deryk’s shoulders as her climax slammed into her with the force and speed of an express train, that pleasure centered and then radiating out to every part of her body.
“Oh God,” she murmured long minutes later, her damp forehead now resting against Deryk’s chest.
He held her limp body tightly against his muscular one as his fingers pushed aside the tiny lace barrier to allow his hand to cup her silky mound. The palm of his hand pressed against her still-pulsing clit, prolonging the climax as he thrust one long finger inside her channel.
He raised his head as she cried out at this breach of her virginity. “It’s less painful for you this way,” he murmured in apology as that first finger was joined by a second, the two thrusting slowly as he claimed her mouth with his to take away the last of the pain.
The pain had last for only a few seconds, and was now being replaced with a return of that pressure and pleasure. Her hips moved of their own volition, it seemed, in rhythm with those thrusting fingers, her body trembling with eagerness as she climaxed a second time.
Deryk carefully slid his fingers from inside her before lifting her up in his arms and carrying her over to the bed to lie her down on the silk coverlet before lying down beside her. There was a smear of blood on his fingers, from where he had breached her innocence.
Mine, his dragon crooned.
Lick, taste, claim.
Deryk was powerless to resist, holding Izabella’s dark gaze with his own as he raised his fingers to his mouth and the taste of her innocence, both sweet and salty, exploded on his tongue.
She swallowed. “That’s—”
“Barbaric.” He nodded. “My dragon demands it, aches for it.” He slid down the length of her body to remove her panties, gazing his fill of her golden curls, swollen and blood-smeared sex, before he claimed her with his mouth.
Izabella’s taste caused his body to shake, his muscles becoming rigid. His heart was beating so loudly, he could hear it both inside and out as he fought allowing his dragon to take over and claim Izabella fully.
He was more than the demand of his dragon to mate and claim her in a frenzy of lust and possession. He was also a man, and as a man, he wanted to give Izabella more than a mating. She deserved more. So much more.
He began by kissing the soles of her feet, realizing she was ticklish there as she squirmed and writhed on the bed until he turned his attention to her ankles, kissing her delicate bones.
Her calves and knees were next, then the tender skin of her inner thighs, the silky curls on her mound, the softness of her belly, and then the undersides of those delicious breasts, and finally her nipples.
Deryk suckled gently, first one and then the other, loving how those turgid peaks became more swollen, grew bigger and longer, in response to the heated suction of his mouth.
“Harder,” she pleaded, her fingers becoming entangled in his hair. “Deryk, please…”
His mate never had to beg for anything. Ever. Whatever Izabella wanted, Deryk would gladly give her. Everything and anything.
He suckled harder, hearing Izabella’s groans of pleasure as his teeth gently nibbled those engorged peaks, and she shuddered as her third climax caused her body to tremble and quake.
“Take off the rest of your clothes.” She half sat up as her fingers fumbled with the fastening of his jeans.
Deryk didn’t need to be asked twice, rolling onto his back to unzip and then push both his jeans and boxers down his thighs and off completely.
He glanced at Izabella to see that her gaze was transfixed by the bobbing length of his aroused cock, her tongue licking across her lips and causing the pre-come to bubble to the surface and wet his glans.
He gave a groan as she moved, and the slender fingers of one of her hands wrapped about the thickness of his arousal, the coolness of her palm a brief balm to the heat of his cock. Until she began to slowly stroke and pump that rigid length from base to tip, milking him, and causing the pre-come to flow faster.
Deryk’s back arched off the bed completely as Izabella lowered her head and took his glans into the moist heat of her mouth, the rasp of her tongue greedily licking up all his pre-come before she suckled him deeper, asking for more.
He pulled her up and then over him, so that her thighs straddled his. “I need to be inside you when I come,” he explained as his hands moved about her waist, and he lifted her so that her pussy was positioned above the straining length of his cock.
Color blazed in Izzi’s cheeks as she resisted being lowered. “I don’t think you can bite my nape from this angle.”
“So I’ll bite you next time—”
“Now.” Izzi rested her hands on his chest for balance as she continued to resist. “I want to be completely yours now, Deryk.”
He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. “You will be, you already are mine—”
“But not your dragon’s,” she insisted. “Not your mate.” She pulled free of his hold on her waist before lifting off him and moving to her knees and elbows on the bed beside him.
“If I do this, there will be no turning back.”
“I don’t want to turn back,” she told him determinedly, raising one of her hands to sweep the hair away from her nape. “I want your cock inside me. Your barb swelling and claiming me. Your teeth biting me. I want those things now.”
How could Deryk deny Izabella anything when she was glaring at him with the fierceness of a female dragon? His female. His mate.
Mine.
No, Izabella is mine, Deryk rebuked his dragon, as he rose onto his knees and positioned himself behind Izabella’s parted legs.
He claimed her then with one single thrust of his engorged shaft between the swollen lips of her vulva, burying his cock to the hilt and instantly knowing he had been claimed back when Izabella’s heat wrapped itself about him like a silky glove.
Deryk felt his teeth sharpen inside his mouth, totally unable to fight his need to mate and claim Izabella as he lowered his body over the back of hers, instinctively drawn to bite her vulnerable nape. He heard Izabella cry out as his teeth pierced her flesh and she instantly climaxed, the walls of her pussy contracting about his fiercely thrusting cock.
The salty sweetness of her blood entered his mouth and made his cock harder, his thrusts becoming fiercer as he felt her increasing pleasure as the aphrodisiac entered the blood coursing through her own body. And then he felt the barb that only his mate could release as it swelled and then latched on inside Izabella. The pleasure intensified to an unimagined degree as Izabella climaxed again, Deryk quickly joining her when his balls drew up and his cum pulsed hotly down the length of his cock.
Sometime later, he carefully removed his teeth from her nape as he rolled them onto their sides, continuing to hold Izabella in his arms as the heat of his release continuing to pump inside her long after her climax had subsided.
Before she climaxed again.
And again.
And then again.
Deryk had no idea how much time passed, but they were both hot and slick with sweat by the time his barb finally released and he could slide his cock from inside Izabella.
“Did I hurt you?” Deryk moved so that he could look at her searchingly, having felt how her body was still trembling as he carefully turned her to face him.
“Not at all,” Izabella assured him dreamily, looking as exhausted as Deryk felt. “Are we mated now?”
He nodded. “Goddess, yes.”
She nodded, smiling slightly as her lids closed. “I love you.”
“What?” Deryk sat up beside her. “Izabella, what did you say?”
The only answer he received was the gentlest of snores.
Izzi felt Deryk’s body curled spoon fashion behind and against her own when she woke up, a cover pulled over both of them as they slept. The deep evenness of Deryk’s breathing told her he was still asleep.
Her cheeks became hot at the memory she had told Deryk she loved him before she fell into an exhausted sleep.
She was Deryk’s mate, so why shouldn’t she tell him she loved him?
Even if he never told her—
“I love you, Izabella Mikhailova.”
She turned quickly in his arms. “Don’t feel you have to say that just because I—”
Deryk’s arms tightened about her as he drew her against him so that not a centimeter separated them. “Because you’re my brave and beautiful Izabella?” He gave a shake of his head. “I love you. Me. Deryk Pendragon. Your mate,” he added with deep satisfaction.
Hearing the words was—it was—
“Don’t cry.” Deryk looked alarmed as tears began to fall down her cheeks.
“I’m crying with happiness,” she assured him as she pressed herself even closer against him. “I love you so very much, feel utterly privileged to be chosen as your mate.”
He eyed her teasingly. “Will you still remember I love you when I have to spank you?”
She eyed him curiously. “Why do you have to spank me?”
“No reason. Yet. But I know you, Izabella,” he brushed the hair back from her temple, “and there are sure to be plenty of occasions when only a spanking will do.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
His brows rose. “You will?”
“Chloe said—”
“Never mind what Chloe said,” he groaned. “I will be having words with my sister-in-law when we get back. Only I am allowed to corrupt my mate.”
Izzi laughed. Which made Deryk smile. And then he began to laugh too.
Until the laughter stopped and they slowly made love to and with each other.
Mating love.