Chapter 11 Arya

Hot! I was so deliciously hot all over!

There were a dozen reasons that I should have pulled away, should have stopped kissing him, but right now, with his tongue tangling, playing my mouth like a fiddle, I didn't give a fuck about any of them.

All I knew was that I wanted more. More of his large, warm hands pulling me closer as I sat on his lap, feeling the hard ridge of his desire beneath my thigh. More of his fingers caressing my ears and jawline as they combed through my hair. More of his lips opening and closing over mine in a perfect rhythm that made my head spin and my insides ache.

I didn't care that he'd been in this very greenhouse with Cora who knew how many times. I'd messed around with Kendall, too, and I was sure Cora was just as big a mistake to Tobias as Kendall was to me.

I didn't care that Tobias would probably go silent on me again after this. We both wanted this. And if history was any indication, it would only be a matter of time before he came back after he had time to process the emotions I obviously made him feel.

He had a reputation around campus for being a playboy, not for yo-yoing every girl he slept with. Nope, that erratic behavior was reserved for me, as far as I'd heard. Infuriating as it was, it meant he had real feelings for me and didn't know how to deal with them.

We had a deeper connection. What I felt for Tobias was inescapable—I'd tried time and again and still ended up pining for him. And clearly, he felt the same way. I just had to be a little patient while he grew out of his Peter Pan phase.

Fueled by my frustration, I squeezed his shoulders a little too hard, and he jerked beneath me, pulling away to hiss between his teeth.

"Sorry," I said, rubbing his shoulder soothingly to make up for it.

"No, it's my damn leg." He winced.

I widened my eyes and grimaced, immediately—and gently—climbing off his lap. "Oh shit, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have—"

He chuckled. "It's okay. I kinda started it."

"You usually do," I teased.

"Ouch. I deserve that."

We both laughed.

"Let me heal you before I cause any further damage," I suggested, wiping my kiss-swollen lips.

"Yeah," he said, straightening his leg. "I'd really appreciate not having to bother Ms. Heather again."

I nodded and knelt in front of his injured leg. He rolled up his pants to expose his calf and twisted his leg so I could inspect it. A strange paint-splatter-shaped purple bruise stained the skin .

At the sight of it, I grimaced and sucked in a breath between my teeth. "Damn! That looks awful."

Seeing him battered once more put me right back into the headspace of the night he almost died, twisting my heart into a painful knot. I didn't like seeing him in any kind of pain—even if I had only seconds ago tried to inflict some by squeezing his shoulder too hard.

"Eh, it's not so bad." He shrugged, puffing out his chest.

I frowned sideways at him.

His shoulders slumped under my dubious gaze. "It could be worse."

"Let's be glad it isn't," I said, silently enjoying chastising him.

I pulled my tablet out of my laptop bag. "Ms. Heather updated my tablet with the x-ray app the harpies use. I haven't had the chance to test it out yet."

I tapped the icon that looked like a ribcage, and the app opened.

TAP TO SCAN AFFLICTED REGION , read the message on the screen.

I held the tablet so that the camera was aimed at Tobias's bruise and tapped the screen. A faint red glow slowly blanketed across the screen, and after it had crossed a few seconds later, a high-definition x-ray image of Tobias's calf appeared. His bones were outlined in yellow, his veins and arteries in branch-like red lines, and the outline of his skin was a faint white. Dark red globs congealed toward the base of the bone, where there was a small fracture, tiny splinters of yellow peppering the surrounding area.

"You've got a fracture," I said. "I've only practiced healing once, so don't expect a miracle."

"I have faith in you," he said .

Those words made my breath hitch. There was no sarcasm or teasing in his tone, just sincerity. I was struck by how good it felt to have someone believe in me, especially him.

I set the tablet aside and looked around. It was so dark in this corner of the greenhouse. If I was going to heal him, I needed light. Then, I remembered my first lesson with Ms. Heather. Fire.

"This is going to sound strange, but would you conjure a fireball for me?" I asked.

He squinted. "A fireball? In a greenhouse?"

"I need the light," I explained. "And fire is the purest form of light. Just hold it in your hand so I can access it."

He shrugged. "Oooo-kay." Then he held up his right hand, palm open, and a spark ignited, growing and swirling into a bright orange ball of fire.

As I looked at the bright orb, I cleared my mind and focused on my connection to it. Thanks to Tobias, I had plenty of emotional ammo to access the light. I allowed the thrill of kissing him to fill me up, and tendrils of light slithered out of the ball of flame and tapered into my waiting hands. I placed them over Tobias's calf and willed the light to heal him.

After a few seconds, the glow that had illuminated between my hands and his leg evaporated, and I withdrew my hands.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

Extinguishing the flames he held, Tobias stretched his leg forward and rotated his ankle twice. "Perfect." He looked up at me with admiring appreciation. "That was amazing, Arya! You're a natural."

I snorted a laugh as I got to my feet. "I'm a better harpy than I am a mermaid. "

"I think you're a pretty great mermaid, too," he said. "The best I've ever met, in fact."

"Well, that's not a very high bar, is it," I joked. "Besides, you're just saying that to get into my pants."

He waggled his eyebrows at me, his golden irises heating as they carved into me. "Is it working?"

The way he was looking at me made me yearn to continue where we'd left off. But I wasn't going to let him off that easily.

"That depends," I replied coyly, putting my hands on my hips. "Are you going to run away again right after?"

His expression tightened with confliction, but his eyes shimmered with raw emotion.

Without breaking eye contact, he reached out his hand and shook his head. "I'm not running away anymore. I promise."

I looked at his extended hand suspiciously for a moment. "I'm holding you to that, Prince Dracul. Don't disappoint me."

"Never again." The determination in his eyes tugged at my heart. I knew he meant it, at least at this moment.

I gave him my hand, but when he tried to pull me back onto his lap, I stopped him. He gave me a questioning look.

"Not here," I asserted. "This was the place you took all your skanks. I'm not one of them."

He smiled, then nodded slowly. "No, you're not. So…your room or mine?"

I was about to suggest mine, but the sudden memory of Kendall and me in my bed flashed in my mind. I didn't want to be distracted with thoughts of him while I was with Tobias.

"Yours. I believe it makes a statement. "

His smile grew, and he rose off his chair and led me by the hand out of the greenhouse. Anticipation was coiled so tightly inside me that the walk back to the dorms was a blur. All I saw were the flirtatious glances we shared as we skittered across the lawn and up the stairs of the main building.

The avian common room was empty, everyone still in their last class, and I was grateful for the privacy of our pre-walk-of-shame. Though there was no shame for either of us in sight.

The instant we crossed the threshold into his room, he pressed me against the door to close it and descended on my mouth with ravenous hunger.

I steered him toward his bed as we kissed with wild abandon, blindly feeling for the end of his shirt until my fingers found the smooth heat of his skin beneath the fabric. I curled my fingers around the material and pulled it upward, breaking away from his mouth as he lifted his arms to let me take it off him.

I pulled up my own shirt as he worked at the zipper of my pants, pulling them and my panties down just as I tossed my shirt aside. I stepped out of them, kicking off my shoes with frustrated haste as I struggled with his zipper. Unable to coordinate so many movements, he took over, removing his pants and boxers before unfastening my bra.

As soon as we were both naked, and even before he finished kicking his clothes from his ankles, I pushed him backward onto the bed.

He looked up at me when he landed, both surprise and challenge burning in his amber eyes.

Like a mao on a fallen gazelle, I pounced, climbing onto the bed and spreading my legs over his waist to straddle him. Then I lowered myself to kiss him, but he stopped me, a strange, vulnerable twinkle in his eyes .

"You are so beautiful," he murmured, his gaze roaming my face in a way that made me feel more exposed than being naked on top of him did.

What's going on in that mysterious, well-guarded mind of yours, Tobias Dracul?

Then his hand curled around the base of my neck and pulled me down to kiss him, the stutter in our passion fading as our desire for one another burned hotter.

I reached a hand between our bodies as his tongue invaded my mouth, finding the rigid shaft of his hard cock and stroking it up and down. He groaned into my mouth, making me smile against his kisses. He gripped my hips with both hands, applying pressure to lower me onto him, but I resisted, continuing to stroke him and getting off on taunting him just a little.

"Please," he whispered, nibbling on my lower lip as another groan escaped him.

And I couldn't hold off any longer. I wanted him inside me so badly, even more than I wanted to torture him by withholding.

I guided his cock to my wet entrance and slowly lowered myself to the base of his pelvis, shuddering in bliss as his length and girth filled me completely—finally! He felt so fucking good inside me, stretching me and pushing on every sensitive nerve-ending I had.

I sat still for a moment, savoring the sensation as I adjusted to his impressive size. Then I began to move, slowly, sliding myself up and down over his cock. I moaned at the pleasure of his tip pressing against my inner walls, losing myself little by little as I rocked my hips faster and faster.

I clutched his shoulders for support as I rode him harder. Our eyes locked, and instead of making me uncomfortable and want to look away, it only intensified the passion between us. We stared at each other through every sway of my hips, through every moan and grunt of pleasure, and suddenly I was coming.

I bucked against him, burying him deep inside me as the ecstasy pulsated through me. But he didn't let me stop. With his hands still clutching my hips, he lifted me up, thrusting upward into me in furious rebellion. The friction of his rapid movement drew out my climax, impossibly pushing me toward another, and I cried out as the second one obliterated me.

I collapsed on top of him, barely able to hold myself up as he continued to fuck me through my intense orgasm. Only after the tremors of my inner walls subsided did he slow. I looked down at him with half-lidded, lust-drugged eyes, finding a pained expression on his face as he pulled and lifted my hips slower and slower, until—

He pushed my hips upward and off of his cock, gripping his shaft and stroking it rapidly as his cum shot out and spilled over his rippling abs. I rolled onto the bed beside him, watching greedily as he finished himself off.

We lay there like that for several minutes, chests heaving and bodies coated in sweat, both of us too spent to clean up the mess.

It finally happened. After months of games and sexual tension so tight it threatened to snap, I'd finally had sex with Tobias Dracul. And I had no intention of stopping any time soon.