Chapter 23

As soon as my feet touched down on the cold, hard stone of my tower, I spun Dahlia to face me and crushed my lips to hers. I'd never flown with someone in my arms before, and knowing the two of us shared this special first between us only added to the experience. Walking her backward as I held her face in my hands and devoured her mouth with mine, I fought my dragon's insistent urging to let him take hold and drive into her here and now.

"Kai, what's gotten into you?" Dahlia breathed against my lips.

"I cannae believe I have you all to myself. I want to take full advantage of the moment."

She smiled against my mouth. "Sounds like you have plans."

"Aye, my wee little mate. Remember what we were discussing before we got so rudely interrupted the last time?"

The way she rocked her hips into me, her breath hitching a little as she did, told me everything I needed to know. She remembered, and she wanted it. I wasn't just going to fuck my mate. She was going to let me breed her. For real.

"Are ye ready for that, gem? For me to fuck you full of my cum and plant my baby in you?"

She gulped, eyes wide as she nodded. "I'm ready for you to try. I won't be heartbroken if it takes a few tries for the baby part."

A deep primal chuckle escaped me as I nuzzled her neck. "It's the trying that's the fun part."

"Are you sure we're... compatible that way?"

"One hundred percent. You're my fated mate. There's no question my seed will take root. Eventually."

Her hot little hand trailed over my bare chest until she stopped at my waistband. Goddess, I wanted her to tear open my fly and reach inside. "And what if you break the spell and you're not the one to fill me with your baby? What if it's Tor?"

"I'm not sure I understand the question."

"Well, will it bother you? That you aren't the biological father?"

I shook my head. "Lass, the child will be part you. I cannae help but love it and raise it as my own."

She let out a happy sigh. "Couldn't be more perfect if I wrote you."

I grinned, feeling the weight of that compliment sweep through me. "Are ye saying I swept you off your feet, gem?"

"Maaaybe."

I took the opportunity to quite literally do just that, picking her up in my arms and racing down to my room below. Her squeals of delight were music to my ears, her happiness a gift I would never take for granted. If I could hear that sound once a day for the rest of my life, it would be a life well spent.

"Well, mister dragon man, now that you have me all to yourself, what are you intending to do with me?" Dahlia teased as I gently laid her on the bed.

"I thought I made my intentions quite clear. But just so there's no misunderstanding, first, I intend to strip ye bare."

Dahlia's hitched breath and flushed cheeks told me she very much enjoyed where I was going with my explanation, so as I started to strip out of my clothes, I kept going. Outlining in detail how the next couple of hours were going to go.

"Then?" I fucking loved the huskiness of her voice.

"Then I'll break the contraception spell."

"How?"

I smirked, my fingers working their way to the button of her jeans. I needed to bury my face between her thighs and prepare her for my cock.

"With my claw across your perfectly smooth skin. Just a scratch deep enough to disrupt the magic. I'll lick the wound clean and keep going until I'm lapping at your dripping pussy."

"Mmm, that's one of my favorite parts."

"I'm pretty sure when you're with me, mate, they're all your favorite parts."

"It's true. So keep going. What are you going to do to me after I'm a dripping mess?"

It didn't take me long to slide her jeans over her hips and down her legs, the damp patch on her knickers a dead giveaway that she was already wet for me.

"Once you've come on my tongue and fingers, I'm going to stretch you wide, soften you so you're ready to welcome me and take my knot."

Her eyes shifted to the already swelling knot at the base of my erection. She'd seen and played with it before, but she'd yet to feel it inside her. I could sense the smallest hint of apprehension at the thought of the stretch.

"Dinnae worry, love. By the time I knot you, you'll be begging for it. I'll make it so good for you, you will be lost in nothing but pleasure. And when we finally reach our peak together, I'm going to do everything in my power to fill your belly with my child."

She squirmed under me, parting her thighs and raising her hips as though begging me to take her now. I ran my claw over her knickers, shredding the defenseless cotton with ease. Fuck, she smelled good. She smelled like mine.

I was helpless to resist the temptation to taste her. Swooping down, I licked her from arsehole to clit. I would never tire of her taste. Sweet and slick, exactly what I craved.

She arched her back, her cries of pleasure music to my ears as I slid one finger inside her and sucked on every exposed part of her cunt, avoiding her clit on purpose. I was teasing her, of course, but dragging this out was only going to amp up her arousal. I needed my mate as desperate for me as possible in order to give her my knot.

"God, Kai, why are you torturing me?" she whined.

"I'm not. Doesn't this feel good, my treasure? Don't you like the way I eat your pussy?"

She hummed in a mixture of frustration and desire. "Yes, but I want more. I need you inside me. I feel so empty."

Inside, my dragon growled with approval. He was more than ready to fill her. As it was, after her needy words, I was struggling to maintain the course.

"Soon, gem."

I shifted back so I could look at her warm, welcoming pussy, her arousal glistening on the swollen lips I'd been sucking. Tracing them one at a time, I finally rested two fingers on her opening, waiting to feel her try to suck me inside. I needed her so aroused she couldn't stand it before my dick got anywhere near her. She'd taken me before, but this would be far more intense than that.

"Kai, what are you doing?" Her question was a whimpered plea as she rolled her hips and tried to get me to penetrate her.

"Have ye not been paying attention, gem? I already told you. In detail."

"Kai," she groaned, her complaint making me grin. It was working.

Giving her a fraction of what she was after, I slid my fingers through her slick channel, making her cry out when I curled them in a beckoning motion.

"There it is," I murmured, pressing my fingertips up in rapid taps. "Gushing for me, aren't you? You're already doing so well. You'll take my knot like you were made for it."

"Because... I... oh God... I am."

She came around my fingers, a flood of slick release coating the digits and tempting me to taste, but I held off because I knew if I teased her for too long, she'd end up frustrated with me instead of desiring me.

While she was still riding the high of her climax, I added a third finger, pumping it in and out of her, her inner walls squeezing me tight.

"Again, gem. Give me another one."

She bit her lip and closed her eyes, pleasure streaking across her face as she did as I told her. The room smelled of her, and I never wanted that to change. I still hadn't washed the pillow she'd ridden for me as a gift because I couldn't bear to lose the hint of her scent that still lingered.

As her back arched as a second climax crested, I added a fourth digit. Her garbled groan was still all pleasure as she took what I was giving her. The hardest part was still to come, when she was taking my full fist. And even that circumference wasn't as thick as my knot would be. But we'd be close. Close enough that I wouldn't hurt her.

"Can you take more of me?" I rasped, my mouth watering at the way her cum was leaving a wet spot on the bed.

"There's more?" I didn't miss the edge of panic in her tone.

"Aye."

Locking eyes with me, she nodded. "Get me ready for you, Kai. I want to take your knot."

"Tell me if this hurts. I'll go slow, and I'll stop the second you say something."

"It feels good. God, it feels so good."

She rocked her hips, taking me deeper, and I shifted the position of my fingers so I could slide my entire hand inside her up to the wrist. With the way my fingers were positioned, it was a bit like reaching into a bag of crisps.

"Still with me, Dahlia?"

"Uh-huh," she panted, face dewy with sweat, eyelid fluttered, breaths labored.

"You're doing so well, my love," I praised, shifting my body again so I could suck on her clit while I worked my hand inside of her, alternating between slow thrusts and rotating motions. "Come for me, mate. One more, and then I'll give ye what you're really after."

I rolled my knuckles over her G-spot once, twice, a third time, until she fucking squirted, her shocked moan as she came without warning making my cock weep with desperation to be inside her.

While she was coming down, I slid my hand free, not wasting the opportunity to lick her off my fingers. When she saw what I was doing, she whimpered.

"Fuck, why is that such a turn-on? I can still feel the flutters from my last orgasm, and I already want you again."

I winked at her. "That's because I'm good at what I do."

"You're wearing way too many clothes."

I glanced down my body at the black boxer briefs I'd left on simply to keep myself at bay. If I had been nude and that close to her pussy, I wasn't confident I'd have been able to keep from fucking her by this point. "Easily remedied."

Dragging my claw over the fabric, I let it fall to the bed before grabbing her by the hips and pulling her closer to me. My cock throbbed with the promise of what was to come as I positioned myself at her entrance.

"You're a liar, you know," she murmured, reaching between us and stroking me.

I stiffened, my eyes lifting from her glistening cunt to her flushed face. "Me? A liar?"

"Uh-huh. You told me you were going to break the spell and then get me ready. But you're doing it backward. And you still haven't broken the spell. This oven isn't even turned on."

A low, rumbled laugh was my initial response because she was turned on, all right. She was so turned on her cunt was actively trying to pull me inside her right now.

"I didn't know you'd be such a stickler for following an outline. I thought you were a pantser."

"I like to think of myself as a plot gardener. I like to plant seeds and see where they go."

I couldn't resist myself. "I'll help you plant a seed right now."

She giggled, her joy infectious.

"Are ye ready, then, gem? We're at the point of no return. If you're not ready, it's okay. We can wait until you are."

"Malakai Nash, if you do not put that glorious cock inside me right now?—"

She cut herself off when I laughed.

"I meant the spell, love. If ye've changed your mind about breaking the spell."

Blinking wide gray eyes at me, she took my hand and placed it over the spot where her tattoo was hidden. "Breed me, Kai."

My claws elongated as the dragon within me flared to life. He loved this, as did I. With a careful drag of my sharp claw over her skin, I broke the spell and sank inside her at the same time.

The only cries out of Dahlia were ones of pleasure as I filled her to the hilt, my knot pressing against her but not slipping inside.

"God, those ridges are magic."

I leaned down until the front of my body was stretched along hers, and then I rolled both of us onto our sides, facing one another. There was something about the gravity of this moment, the thought that we'd agreed to take a step toward building a family together, that made me want this to be intimate and beautiful.

"I love ye, gem. You know that, don't ye?" I asked, reaching up to tuck some hair behind her ear.

"I do. I love you too, Kai. So much."

Grabbing her by the back of one thigh, I hitched her leg over my hip so I could rock deeper inside her, my knot nearly pressing in this time.

"I cannae wait to see your belly round with a child. Your tits heavy with milk. You'll be even more beautiful than ye already are. If that's possible."

She was wordless as I pressed my knot inside her sweet heat. Her mouth opened on a gasp as I stretched her to the brink.

"Breathe for me, love."

She did as I said and I worked my way inside her, biting back my urge to climax as her cunt squeezed me.

"Look at you, Dahlia. Such a good girl taking my knot like you were made for it."

"Wasn't I?"

"Fuck yes, you were."

I stared into her eyes as I rocked slowly back and forth, unable to pull out and desperate to come.

"I cannae hold back any longer," I whispered through gritted teeth.

"Please come. Oh God, Kai, I need you to. Fuck, your knot is just constant pressure on my G-spot."

"Do you think you can give me one more, gem?"

She was trembling in my hold, her body so stimulated and the pleasure so intense she was struggling to focus. "One more? Kai, the last one's still happening."

Her nearly slurred confession seemed to be all the permission I'd been waiting for, because I came so hard I nearly blacked out.

The walls shook from the roar I released, dust floating from the rafters and the mortar between the stones.

Dahlia was still moaning as my pleasure ebbed, and even though it would shrink down a little, I knew my knot was going to be hitting just the right spot inside her until it was small enough I could slip out of her.

"I know how this knotting thing works, if my fictional research is telling the truth. You're stuck, right? Like a key in a lock?" she asked, raking her fingers through my sweat-dampened hair.

I nodded, pressing a brief kiss against her lips. "Having never knotted anyone before, I cannae say for certain. But from what I gleaned during a very uncomfortable birds and bees chat with my dad, that's the way of things."

"You mean the dragons and the pixies?"

A laugh escaped me, the action making us both moan as we moved. "Whatever you want to call it. I hope you don't mind being stuck with me for a while."

"Kai, I want to be stuck with you for the rest of my life."

I hummed in approval and nuzzled into her neck. "As do I, gem. Eternity won't be long enough."