Meanwhile, his fingers slid up beneath my shirt and paused at the clasp of my bra.
“No slicing,” I whispered against his lips.
“Is that a request?” Rhodes undid the tiny hooks with a suspicious level of expertise. “Very well, I will indulge you this once. Why would I slice?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“Zyair…” I breathed.
“Has clearly scarred you for life,” he finished. “I will talk withhim.” Then he cupped my breasts, trailing a light talon over the aching peaks, and I lost track of the conversation.
Somehow—I suspected tail involvement—he managed to send me to breast heaven while removing my shirt and bra. I was only aware of my hands roaming his body—so different from his brothers, with much leaner muscles hugging his frame, but so perfectly sculpted that I couldn’t get enough of thefeelof him. They moved across the span of his pecs, and down, across his washboard abs?—
Then they reached for what jutted between us, and his lips curled beneath mine as his fingers entrapped my wrist and pulled me away.
“Not yet, little Draka,” he said, and his tail whipped around my waist, lifting to lay me across his lap.
When I tried to sit up, to touch him, he flattened a warning hand across my stomach. “Lie still,” he rumbled, “Or I will have to make you.”
Words that would have ordinarily had me spitting fire melted me instead. He spread his legs wide so that my shoulders lay against one iron-hard thigh, while the other supported behind my own.
As he resumed kissing me, and one hand continued to pinch my nipples to rigid and aching status, his tail unwrapped itself, and began to dance. It was everywhere at once, sometimes probing, most often rubbing, before it sneaked its way between my thighs, andexplored.
I’d thought that their eyes were the most alien thing about the Drakes, but I was wrong. It was their tail—yet when Rhodes’s pressed to go deeper, I opened for it. It searched hungrily and found what it sought—then, it began tovibrate.
My entire body arced upward on a gasp, and Rhodes rumbled a deep, satisfied laugh. Oh, this was sounfair. But as the vibration combined with his squeezing fingers, I was helpless, writhing and moaning as my body tightened. He had a fascination for my breasts—every curve and contour of them was soon swollen and aching. Beneath my buttocks, I felt his shaft, rigid and quivering. But he was holding himself back while he tortured me.
Enough.Zyair had been ruled by Fate, and Xandros, passion—but Rhodes was all about control. He clearly believed that I belonged to him.
But the assumption fired something inside me, because he was wrong. And so, I set out to turn the tables.
He still had me held sideways across his lap. I reached one hand to his face, and pulled his head down to mine—with the other, I reached past it, to what rose behind him.
His wings.
Absorbed in his torturous teasing, he didn’t realize what I was up to until my fingers grabbed hold of a wing bone. His entire body stiffened, the wing flaring out—but I didn’t let go.
Instead, I ran them along it, my thumb stroking the thin, flexible membrane…
His lips pulled away from mine, and he shuddered. “You are one clever little Draka.”
I stroked again, and he groaned, his hand faltering at my breast.
“You are mine now,” I whispered, drifting my fingertips along where the membrane attached to the bone.
He gasped, his head falling back. Then he took a deep breath, and brought it forward to rest against mine.
“I belong to no one,” he growled. The words were barely audible.
“You are wrong. You belong tome.”
One canine flashed in the lamplight, and his dark eyes flared garnet. I stroked yet again, and as he quivered in reaction, pushed away from his trembling tail to spin in his arms. Before his tantalizing appendage could react, I managed to wrap his waist with my legs, pinning the hard length of him between us.
I pulled the wing until it curved around his body, lowered my mouth to it, and began to lick.
The cry that emerged from his lips was inarticulate and desperate. His tail thrashed. What lay between us went rigid as rock itself, as his hands dropped to my waist, and lifted me.
Still occupied with his wing, I braced my other hand against hisshoulder, holding myself poised above his quivering shaft. He was slick with extreme arousal, and so was I.
But this was about control.
