At that, his eyes were wide open, staring up at the shadowy ceiling. His knot hadn’t gone down at all and wouldn’t for at least a quarter of an hour. It still throbbed, and he felt as if every muscle, bone, and joint in his body had been melted.
But he wasn’t adrift in a haze of pleasure anymore.
And his knot wasn’t just in a wonderfully tight hole, it was in Aster. Belinda’s brother, someone he would never mate and who shouldn’t have tempted him into knotting in the first place.
Not to mention, a real person with his own thoughts and feelings—which Corin had totally disregarded in favor of satisfying his own basest urges.
He lifted his head a fraction and peered down at the man sprawled across his chest. Aster’s golden hair glinted redder than usual in the dim light of the dying fire in the hearth, and it had tumbled into a glorious mess, completely obscuring his face. Beyond that, the long, smooth curve of Aster’s back, with Corin’s arms around it, softened into the much more pronounced and delicious curve of his peachy ass.
Corin shivered. God. If he wasn’t already buried to the hilt inside that ass he’d want to fuck it. His cock gave a hopeful little twitch.
Damn it, he was a dragon, not an animal. He had to get it together.
Aster’s warm weight felt delicious too, not nearly enough to impede his breathing or inconvenience him, but a substantial, satisfying armful.
A very quiet and still armful.
“Aster?” Corin gave him a gentle shake, careful not to jostle him too much with Corin’s knot inside him. Aster’s head rocked limply from side to side. No answer. “Aster?” he asked a little more loudly. Nothing.
All right. He could hear Aster’s breathing, deep and even, could feel his heart beating against his own chest. He hadn’t killed him.
Had Aster fainted?
From the overwhelming sensation of Corin’s knot?
Fuck, fuck, no, he would not feel a deep, satisfied sense of possessive triumph that he’d managed to fuck and knot Aster unconscious. That would bewrong. His hips lifted slightly, pushing his knot a tiny bit deeper. Aster let out a soft whimper.
It was by far the most painfully arousing thing that had ever happened to Corin in a life, the past two lonely years excepted, spent with few inhibitions and plenty of very attractive partners. He wouldn’t do it again. That would be more than wrong.
His hips moved again, his knot rubbing against Aster’s insides.
This time, Aster made a sort ofmmmsound and snuggled into Corin’s chest, the fingers of one hand trailing gently along his ribs. A tendril of his silky hair drifted across Corin’s neck, almost ticklish.
Corin thumped his head down onto the flagstones hard enough that he saw stars.
No, he couldn’t do this. He had to think about Aster’s comfort. Care for him. Aster had wanted Corin to fuck him, but he hadn’t expected a knot and he hadn’t signed up to be fucked twice on a cold stone floor, his hole stretched so wide and open and pink—
All right, no.
Yes, all right. He could acknowledge the part of him that wanted to rut into this pretty boy until he owned him, but that part had to shut the fuck up for all the reasons he’d already enumerated.
The other part of him, the decent part, knew that Aster needed a soft, warm bed, and when he woke a bath and clean clothes and the attentions of a gentleman, not a beast.
With infinite care, as if he could make up for what he’d done, he made sure he had Aster cradled against his chest and sat up, bending his knees and planting his feet flat on the floor. Rising took careful balance, but he made it upright with only a small jostle, one arm wrapped under Aster’s ass and the other around his shoulders to keep him from falling backward. Once he got going it was easier, across the hall and up the stairs, much more slowly than usual since every time he lifted one knee his knot pushed to the other side.
It was awkward as hell, in fact. But he made it to the top and through the bedroom door without anyone falling down or over. Luckily Aster had left the blankets thrown back with a nobleman’s disregard for anything servants would usually do, and Corin was able to lower him down directly into the bed.
Which revealed the weak point in his excellent plan.
Now Aster was in a comfortable bed instead of on a floor, yes. His head lolled on the pillow, his arms had flopped down by his sides, and his legs sprawled out to either side of Corin’s thighs. He could be completely at his ease.
But Corin was stuck on top of him, with his knot still stretching Aster open and the rest of his cock buried deep.
Corin gazed down at Aster’s slack face, his flushed cheeks and parted lips, the crescents of his eyelids and the fanned-out lashes. So young, and in sleep, so incredibly sweet. Too young and sweet to be subjected to the darker, more draconic side of Corin’s lust.
And yet here they were, with Aster unconscious on Corin’s knot.
He rocked forward an inch. In the silence of the bedroom, it made a slick, wet sound. Corin’s come. That was Corin’s come, filling Aster’s body and kept inside by his knot.
