Corin’s vision blurred around the edges, tinged with a red haze.
Cursed or not, it hardly mattered. He’d care about it later, much later, or maybe not at all.
He glanced down at his cock. The slick tip glistened with fluid, and more slipped out as he watched. Perfect. His body knew he needed to claim that incredibly tight human hole, force it to fit his length and girth.
He wrapped his hands around Aster’s inner thighs and pushed them as wide as he could, until Aster’s knees went up past his hips and his ass tilted up off the bed. Carefully, carefully, because if his claws slipped out even a fraction of an inch they’d tear into that silky skin.
Aster’s exposed pink hole glistened a little, still wet from Corin’s thorough tongue-fucking. It’d be even wetter soon. Gushing, when Corin pulled his knot out at last after filling Aster with as much as he could hold.
Corin looked up. Aster lay still, hands fisted in the sheets beneath him, chest rising and falling rapidly and his cock bobbing with his frantic breaths. He hadn’t moved at all from where Corin had put him. Good. Corin didn’t need or expect obedience in general from a mate; he wouldn’t want someone who needed to be told what to do all the time in the first place.
But right now he didn’t want a fight.
He pushed his hips between Aster’s legs and let the head of his cock kiss Aster’s hole, shifting his weight so that he brushed against him, painting him with slick and nudging him open. So soft…his muscles shook with the effort of not shoving his cock deep all at once.
“It’s so strange,” Aster gasped. “I mean, wonderful, and convenient, the way you get me all—but strange. It feels like I’m the one getting wet for you.”
Corin nearly doubled over, groaning, keeping himself in check with more force of will than he’d thought he possessed. “Would you like that?” he rasped, sounding not human at all. “To get wet for me? To be that much of a slut for me?” Yes, his, no one else’s…
Aster’s face flamed crimson, and his breath hitched, but he said softly, “Yes, please, I wish I could,” and something in Corin’s chest snapped painfully, so hard that he almost heard it.
Even at his most enslaved, somewhere in some deeply hidden corner of his mind Corin had resented Belinda’s one-sided hold on him. But now…he tumbled into Aster’s eyes, leaning down, down, falling, as if he’d folded his wings and surrendered to gravity, and not giving one single fuck if it killed him when he hit the ground. Some curses couldn’t be broken. It didn’t matter much when he could thrust gently, pushing the head of his cock into Aster’s yielding body, catch a soft, not-quite-pained whimper with his mouth. He swallowed it down and teased Aster’s tongue with his. Strong hands slid around his ribs and pulled him closer. Aster’s mouth tasted of sugared roses, and Corin’s cock pushed in deeper, every inch swallowed up by soft warmth and incredible tightness. He could feel Aster’s body stretching to take him, the tension in his body as he obeyed the command of Corin’s.
A mate ought to showthiskind of obedience. He’d have his own mind and will, always, and Corin would respect that. And if he wanted to resist when Corin wanted him, to challenge him, he’d relish it. But when he’d already given in, it ought to be total and complete: a submission as final as Corin’s to Aster’s magic.
“Take me,” Corin whispered into Aster’s mouth. “All of me.” He rocked deeper, less gently this time, giving Aster another couple of inches, already more than enough to satisfy a human.
Corin didn’t want to satisfy him. He wanted to ravage him.
Aster shuddered beneath him, fingers flexing against Corin’s back, and let out something like a sob. Corin kissed him more deeply, thrusting into his mouth and into his hole. Almost all the way in now. Aster wouldn’t be able to feel anything else. His balls brushed Aster’s cheeks. There. One more push, and no one had ever been so deep in Aster’s sweet body.
He still had his hands wrapped around the backs of Aster’s thighs, and he lifted them higher, folding Aster in half underneath him, feeling him tremble.
Corin fell into a rhythm: a hard, sharp thrust in, a long, slow withdrawal, dragging every inch of his scale-textured cock over Aster’s insides. His own pleasure rose slowly, like the tide, a little higher with each wave, every one of his muscles tensing by degrees. Aster whimpered into his mouth and clutched at his back, skin sweat-slick and almost as hot as a dragon’s.
When that irresistible ecstasy crested to its highest point at last, he had to break the kiss, resting his forehead against Aster’s and thrusting even deeper, Corin’s whole body rigid as he flooded Aster with his claim. His knot swelled, and he had to rock his hips one more time to stuff it in past Aster’s taut rim.
“Corin,” Aster said, his voice a ragged little rasp.
He’d never particularly cared about his name one way or the other. Just a word people used to address him—a convenience. It’d never been beautiful before.
Corin let go of Aster’s legs at last, and Aster let out a soft grunt of relief. He had to be cramping. Corin petted his thighs, lifted himself up enough that he could help Aster get his feet down, and then propped himself on his elbows and kissed along the curve of a flushed cheek and down into the hollow of Aster’s throat, licking, tasting him, savoring his complete possession.
At last he rested his head next to Aster’s and closed his eyes.
He had no idea which one of them was the captive and which the captor. At that moment, for a few more minutes until the world had to become real again, it didn’t matter in the least.
ChapterNineteen
“What was wrong withthat one?” Aster asked. “You didn’t say anything when you came back inside.”
Corin started and looked up from his mug of tea, extracting himself from the dark muddle of his thoughts with difficulty. Aster had finished his own tea and set it aside, and he sat across from Corin by the hearth, hands folded primly in his lap.
That one. He had to mean… “What? Which—the fellow I fought this morning?”
Aster cleared his throat, a soft, hesitant sound, and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. “When we talked about it the other day, you told me you wouldn’t send me back with anyone who didn’t have the balls to fight you instead of running away like a rabbit. This one fought you. He even thanked you for the lesson.”
He had in fact offered a courteous challenge, politely accepted Corin’s explanation for why he would be fighting him and not Aster, crossed swords with a respectable amount of skill, and then lost gallantly. If Corin ever returned to the king’s service, he’d invite him to join his regiment. Not that he would return, of course. That would require groveling, apologies, and eating his pride until he choked on it. No dragon would humble himself like that to one of his own kind, much less a mere human monarch.
