Chapter Nine

R UNE HAD NEVER been so eager for anything as she was J?rn when the standing stones they had come upon in a memory showed her they could love. Had loved. There was a path forward that didn't harm him, so it made perfect sense she would pick up on their incarnates making love nearby.

What she hadn't expected but should have was how impactful seeing them beneath their furs in the soft grass would be. How she and J?rn would feel what they felt, smell each other's scent in the heat of passion, and hear their groans of pleasure. Sensations she was so desperate to feel firsthand, she steered J?rn's lips to hers and finally kissed him for the first time. Not sweet and slow but full of all the pent-up need that had built up between them over the years.

In fact, her need was so strong there would be no getting him back to the tent before she took him. It had to be here. Now. Against the tree near their incarnates making love, feeling what they felt while discovering more sensations on top of that.

Just as desperate, J?rn hoisted her against the tree and yanked up her skirts, exposing her sensitive flesh to his still-clothed rigid length. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders and ground against him, trying to assuage the terrible ache building inside her.

Pleased with her wanton need and driven on by her aggressiveness, he freed himself from his leather trousers and rubbed his rigid, steaming length against her swollen center. The sensation, in combination with how he dug his hand into her hair and forced her gaze to his dragon eyes, nearly made her come undone, but he held her at bay by slowing and kissing her again.

That's when she realized this moment was as monumental for him as it was for her because he, too, had saved himself for her—something dragons were not known for with their never-ending drive to reproduce. Fortunately for them both, they need not suffer the awkwardness of a virginal encounter because of what they were. Dragons knew on a primal level how to please their mates from the beginning to increase the chances of their seed taking root, and seers, especially ones as powerful as her, were born with the knowledge of carnal pleasure.

So they kissed and loved, rubbing against each other slowly until it became too much. J?rn released a deep, throaty growl of need, kept his hand wrapped in her hair, and met her eyes again before he let her slowly sink onto his heavy length.

Her eyes drifted along with his at the untouchable feeling of coming together. Finally feeling the incredible sensation of their flesh experiencing what their hearts already did. It felt that intense as his thick arousal stretched and filled her, and everything inside expanded and swelled.

The same sensation she felt inside her incarnate as J?rn filled her and fully seated himself. A slow, sensual burning flame turned into a building fire. Their mating would not last long this first time because they were so pent up with need, but she knew it would be remarkable. J?rn made that clear when he groaned at the feel of her, braced his hand against the tree, released a low primal growl of warning that he needed all she could give him, and thrust.

After that, the swelling sensation became a roaring inferno, and she met his movements, digging her nails into his shoulders and her heels into his backside. In turn, he clenched her backside tightly and thrust harder until all the sensations from their last life and this one culminated in not a slow, cresting peak but a crashing explosion, and they let go together. He pressed deep and locked up inside her with a roar, and she cried out when euphoria filled her, and her body let go.

It didn't stop there, either, but went on and on, her pulsing and milking him until he'd emptied himself inside her. The moment was better than the greatest magic and more intense than the mightiest dragon. She had thought she couldn't love him any more than she already did, but as his lips found hers again while they drifted down from how high they had taken each other, she did.

More than she thought possible.

She had no idea how long they stayed that way, lost in each other, their kissing as passionate as their lovemaking. Deep and heartfelt. So consuming that when they became aware of their surroundings again, cold wind blew, morning sunlight dusted the forest in purple, and they stood among snowy drifts.

"It seems we have returned to our time," he said huskily, adjusting himself as he manifested a fur around her shoulders and swung her up into his arms. His adoring gaze never left her face. "Which means we best return to our tent."

"That might be wise," she murmured, her voice not quite right either. She sensed another storm looming in the distance. "We will need shelter sooner rather than later."

"Without a doubt, we will," he agreed, ready to head that way, only for her to chant them there moments later. He lowered her to the ground and gave her a look. "Couldn't you have let me carry you just this once ?"

She smiled because he'd tried to carry her valiantly a time or two in their youth when they came upon trouble, but she'd always chanted them out of harm's way first.

"I might have let you carry me all the way—" she made a point of thinking about it before she gave him a slow, sensual look, crawled into the tent, and tossed a sultry smile over her shoulder— "but that would have meant waiting longer to feel you inside me again."

It seemed that ceased any further exasperation because he was right behind her. Not bothering to seal the tent, he knelt in front of her, yanked her against him, and crushed her mouth beneath his in another hard, hungry, tongue-tangling kiss. Eventually, he slowed and kissed her more gently, determined to savor the moment and cherish it before he pulled back and looked at her lovingly.

"I cannot tell you how many times I have imagined what we just shared today over the years, min lille elskling ." He caressed her cheek. "And it was always perfect, yet what we just experienced and will continue to enjoy was far beyond my expectations. You are far beyond them in ways I cannot express."

He slowly untied the strings at the front of her dress until the upper swells of her breasts were visible, then lowered one shoulder before lowering the other. All the while, his gaze remained on hers until the top half of the dress pooled around her waist, and his eyes fell to her fully exposed breasts. His pupils flared, and his breathing switched along with hers as he touched one and then the other, sending shivers of awareness through her.

"Every part of you is so beautiful," he murmured, marveling at the sight of her before he brushed his lips over hers, peppered kisses down her neck and along her collarbone until he found his way to her breast and pulled a taut, pebbled nipple into his mouth while pinching the other.

"J?rn," she whimpered, digging her hands into his hair. He sampled first one breast, then the next, sending red-hot fire blazing down to her center. It seemed he sensed it, too, because his hand rode her thigh until he found her soaked center and pressed first one, then two fingers deep inside her.

If that didn't have her groaning in pleasure, the sight of him when he bypassed undressing them and chanted away their clothes certainly did. Outside of her nightmare, it had been many moons since she'd seen him without a tunic, and he had filled out considerably. He was perfect. A masterpiece with chiseled, tattooed muscles, she wasted no time flicking her tongue over, relishing the salty taste of his taxed skin.

When he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the tiny nub at the center of her pleasure and curled his fingers inside her, she shuddered and ran the flat of her tongue up the spiraling tattoo on the side of his neck. Grunting with approval, he sat back on bent knees, lifted her until she straddled him and replaced his fingers with his cock.

They groaned with pleasure again as he filled her, only this time, however impossible she would have thought it, it felt even better. There was no material separating them, and flesh finally came against flesh.

Soft curves against hard muscle.

Woman against man.

Seer against dragon.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, buried her nose in the spicy scent of his neck, ground her hips, and took him deeper still. Instead of taking her hard this time, he wrapped her up in his strong arms, held her as tightly as she held him, and moved with her, entrenched in every sensation they pulled from one another. They loved slowly, merging in ways that transcended flesh yet were still grounded in desire.

Raw lust.

Pounding hearts.

Soul-drenched love.

Then, to be expected, as pleasure swelled inside them again, it morphed into more friction as they struggled to get closer. Their skin slicked with sweat, and they moved faster and faster until her breath caught in a moment that felt like it spanned across time, and she let go in a blinding light of release.

One that showed her almost more than she was ready for.