Dragon Void (Immortal Dragons Book 2) (6 page)

With a low curse, Marcus raked his gaze down her body and collapsed to his knees on the floor beside the bed. His eyes brimmed with fevered lust and he dug his fingertips into her thighs, sliding his hands higher to grip her hips and pull her toward him. Evie’s backside hit the edge of the bed and she wondered if he intended to pull her all the way into his lap, but he stopped and bent to press the most reverent of kisses against her navel.

The warm caress so close to her core caused her to quiver with anticipation. His mouth turned up at the corners and his eyes twinkled as though he sensed her eagerness. Sliding his hands back down, he slowly caressed, rubbing along the tops of her thighs, his fingertips grazing perilously close to her already wet folds with each pass. At the same time, his mouth drifted lower, tongue sweeping out and tickling wetly at the top of her dark triangle of hair.

Marcus slid his hands in another slow stroke up the insides of her legs, pushing them apart, then cupped the backs of her knees and separated them high and wide, spreading her open for him. Glancing up at her, he raised one eyebrow in silent query. Evie only responded with a languid smile, but that was all the acknowledgment he needed. Abruptly, he wrapped each arm around the tops of her thighs and bent his head, teasing her folds open at the same time as his tongue darted out, the warm, pink tip snaking through the slick furrow with deliberate care. Evie nearly came apart from that one lick.

With his mouth latched onto her, he allowed his hands to drift back up her torso to cup her breasts. His thumbs resumed their earlier rhythm, stroking in maddening circles and sweeps over her nipples in time with the steady strum of his tongue over her clit.

In Evie’s mind, a composition began to unfold, sweet notes playing for her alone with each note of pleasure he drew out of her. Soon he began to hum along with the beat of her pulse, the soft sounds vibrating over the slick, sensitive flesh of her core. Sounds erupted unbidden from her own throat, ringing sweet and clear through the small apartment. At first the sound was an incoherent collection of random syllables, but gradually converged into words of a song heard long ago in another era, another country. The first love song Evie had ever learned matched the rhythm of Marcus’s attention perfectly, but as he conducted her body’s reactions toward a growing crescendo, the true meaning of the song became bittersweet.

She kept singing even as her breath hitched and her body writhed, consumed by her climax. His mouth remained tight against her, tongue sliding more slowly over her quivering flesh and drawing out the orgasm for an endless moment, as if he were testing the strength of her lungs to see how long they could hold that final note together.

The last note came out as a breathy sigh, her body finally relaxing, but still tingling with remnants of pleasure. Marcus pressed a soft kiss on her inner thigh and looked up at her, licking his lips.

“Encore?” he said, grinning.

“Who
are
you?” Evie asked, incredulous. She sat up as he rose from the floor.

“Just a man who knows how to appreciate a creature as exquisite as you. You must have been lying to me when you said you weren’t an angel. Only angels have such beautiful voices.”

“Oh? And how many angels have you made sing like that?” She reached out and hooked her fingers into the waist of his jeans, tugging him close. His eyes darkened as he looked down at her.

“Now that I’ve met one in the flesh, I’m sure the rest weren’t the real thing. You’re too perfect to be human, I’m sure of it.”

Evie ignored the comment, though the words tugged at an old memory. She couldn’t put her finger on why the comment should worry her—she was still too absorbed by the sense of helpless surrender the lyrics of her song had incited in her. Instead, she tried to distract him by slowly unbuttoning his shirt and sliding her hands up the contours of his taut stomach and broad chest.

Marcus slid out of the garment, letting it fall to the floor. He simply watched with that same stormy gaze as she unfastened his belt and undid the closure of his jeans. A little surge of breath escaped his lips when she tugged his zipper down over the tight press of his erection. She didn’t overtly touch him, though—not yet. She wanted to draw out the anticipation as long as possible. Instead, she leaned close and rested her lips lightly over his navel, mimicking his treatment of her earlier and teasing at the small cleft with the tip of her tongue.

Careful not to touch him too much, she pushed his pants down his legs and watched with unabashed appreciation as he bent to pull his shoes off, then step out of his clothes. He was more magnificent than any man she’d ever been with. His skin was lightly tanned, with smatterings of darker freckles over his shoulders and chest. Out of his clothes, he seemed even bigger than before, the definition of thick shoulders and thicker thighs evidence that he was a very active man who cared about his physique.

The best part was the thick curve of his cock jutting out of a reddish thatch of curls where the vee of his abdominal muscles ended. She licked her lips, heat surging between her thighs at the sight.

Unable to resist any longer, she took him in her hand, startled by the velvet heat and solid hardness of him. He hissed through his teeth when she gave his entire length one long, slow stroke. His legs nearly buckled when she reached between his thighs with her other hand and cupped his heavy sack.

With a growl, Marcus gripped her shoulders and pushed her back on the bed. She scrambled backward as he followed, prowling across the mattress toward her, his cock swaying like a dowsing rod seeking the vital wetness hidden in her depths. Hovering over her, he reached to the bedside table and opened a drawer, pulling out a small foil packet.

Evie snatched it from him and shook her head. “Angels can’t get pregnant,” she said, though the truth was that only with her true mate would she be able to conceive. Marcus may be something incredibly special, but he was far from her One. That, and she really didn’t want to dull the sensation of having him inside her for the first time.

Marcus’s eyebrows twitched. “Are you sure?”

Evie lay back and hooked her feet around the backs of his thighs, pulling him toward her. “If I am an angel, do you really want a barrier between your cock and heaven?”

He grunted and let her pull him lower. Bracing his hands on either side of her head, he bent to nuzzle at her neck and collarbone. “Fine, nothing can come between us, then. Not now, not ever. But you should know I mean to have my fill of you.”

“Good,” she said, clutching again at his head as he captured her nipple in his mouth and rolled it around and around against his tongue.

His hips rocked forward, pushing his cock along the smooth skin of her belly. She tilted higher, aching for deeper, closer contact. His hips shifted back again and on the next tilt, the tip of his cock slid up through the center of her sodden folds, the friction of the contact making her cry out for more.

One more forward sway of his hips and he hit home, his thick tip seating itself right at Evie’s entrance. She lifted up, her channel so tight and hungry it clenched in a painful spasm. She needed so badly to be filled by him she was only barely aware of the soft pleas spilling from her lips into his shoulder.

When he finally entered her, she sang her pleasure into the air and an answering breeze blew through the room, an affirmation from the Wind of its approval of her choice.

It still made no sense to her, but the Wind and Fate and the magic that permeated her life surely had a plan. The fact that he seemed to be able to see some of her true nature must mean something, too—though what it meant, she had no clue.

At the moment, she didn’t care about why or how, or anything else. All she cared about was urging him to fuck her harder, deeper, and,
oh, yes,
to tilt his hips just so and rub the tip of his cock against the sensitive bundle of nerves inside her.

Her climax built more quickly with the combined sensations of his lips on hers and his skin sliding against the insides of her thighs. His pace quickened and he pulled back, staring down at her in wonder, as though he couldn’t quite believe she existed. For a split second she nearly confessed the truth of her nature, but held back, clenching her eyes shut and gripping him tighter around his hips with her legs.

With a stuttering moan Marcus dropped his head, burying his face against her neck. His hips jerked hard, slamming deep into her with such force it ripped her orgasm from her in a crash of sensation. Suddenly, the hot flood of something more potent than his semen flooded through her and her eyes shot open.

Magic? How is he feeding me his magic?

She only had a second to wonder; when he thrust again the power surged through her, sending her to another peak that made her cry out with renewed ecstasy.

Chapter Eight

Marcus

Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean

Present Day

M
arcus had often dreamed of flying under his own power since that terrible day decades ago when he’d undergone his change. But today was the first time the sensation of being carried along on invisible currents outside the confines of a cockpit was actually real. His body may have been near death, but his mind was vitally awake and excited, his strong wings stretched taut with the wind.

No, that wasn’t right. They weren’t his wings. They belonged to the massive black dragon who carried him. He had a strange affinity with this creature who seemed so adamant not to let him die that he was now carrying him away to who-knew-where. Of all the dragons he’d encountered and captured over the last five decades, he’d never once been so attuned with one that he could believe they were one and the same. Ked’s wings were
his
wings, his strength carrying Marcus through the air, his eyes fixed on the horizon.

When he opened his eyes, Marcus didn’t see the cage of talons that held him. He saw an endless stretch of clouds and sky, tinged red-gold with the rising sun. He didn’t feel the dull ache and dizzying weakness of being bled dry, but the chill stream of wind over his body in contrast to a dark and dangerous swirl of power and rage entrenched deep within his being.

And beside him, he saw another expanse of massive wings, red instead of black, and Evie’s small body curled up asleep, safe in the other dragon’s claws. If she lived, could he find it in himself to live, too, in spite of the terrible things he’d done, the very worst of which was leading her into that trap so long ago? If he had only known, he would have accepted his human calling instead.

“You can’t fight Fate, Marcus. This was the path you were meant to travel. You are a part of me now. And as a part of me, I can’t let you die.”
The deep voice he recognized as Ked’s resonated inside his head.

“It was your blood they filled me with when they bled me of my own, wasn’t it? Was that how you found me?”
he asked.

“We were searching for Evie, not for you. Yet somehow, a female dragon who had no business knowing of Evie’s disappearance had information on her whereabouts. We planned her rescue as soon as we knew.”

Marcus’s grasp tightened around the large claws on either side of him. His Hail Mary of an attempt to get Evie out had worked. He never expected he would be taken with her; by now, he was resigned to his life with the Ultiori. In spite of Evie’s fervent offers of forgiveness when they’d made love the day before, he had given up hope for redemption. He deserved what
Sayid
had done to him. He sure as hell didn’t deserve a female as precious and perfect as Evie North.

His strength faded, the darkness seeping through him again. Marcus hoped this time it meant he might finally be granted his wish to die. He deserved nothing less than Hell.

Yet it wasn’t fire and brimstone that met him when his consciousness faded, but the beautiful, lilting song of an angel, and a sensation washing through him—one he’d once been convinced was Heavenly power.

Chapter Nine

Marcus

Brooklyn, New York

Spring, 1965

“W
ow, did you feel that?” Marcus asked, still giddy from the rush of the best orgasm of his entire life.

The beauty beneath him stared back, wide-eyed and speechless.

“Evie?” he asked, her silence after her vocal reactions to his lovemaking a point of concern.

Rather than answer, she clutched him to her and he groaned, sinking back down and pressing his hips tighter against hers. His cock had gone soft inside her, but he wasn’t ready to separate, and she didn’t seem inclined for him to leave her, either.

With a swift twist he turned them both so that his back was against the bed and she was cradled in his arms. She held onto him, her eyes clenched so tightly shut he wondered whether he’d hurt her.

“Baby, talk to me. At least tell me I wasn’t the only one who felt like we just blasted through the stratosphere together. Because that was… amazing.”

Her words were barely audible, but her lips brushed against his chest as she spoke. “You weren’t the only one,” she said. She turned her head and rested her chin on his chest. Big, brown eyes peered up at him, glassy with some deep emotion he couldn’t quite fathom. “I was only kind of joking before, but I suppose you should be careful what you wish for. I am falling in love with you.”

Marcus tensed at her confession. That kind of stark revelation was so alien to him he didn’t quite know how to react, but after a second he relaxed again. To be loved by a woman as amazing as her was better than the most detailed erotic dream he’d ever had.

“I…” he began, then stopped, a hard lump lodging in his throat. Something profound had just happened between them while they fucked, and he wanted more of an acknowledgment of exactly how intense it had been. He didn’t understand it himself. He’d had sex with women before, but Evie was the first woman who he’d ever felt
that
with. And he’d only just met her.

“What?” she prompted.

“I’ve never felt this way making love with anyone before. That blast of—whatever—what was that?” he whispered. “Please tell me you felt it, too.”

She sat up, her sweet little ass pressing against his flaccid cock, and looked down at him.

“I felt everything.” Her mouth spread into a sly grin. “I still feel everything,” she added, pushing her ass back against his growing erection.

Before Marcus could continue the conversation, she’d lifted her hips and taken him inside her again. He lost the capacity for speech and simply moved his hips to match her tempo, holding onto her with both hands and relishing her lithe body’s writhing churn on his cock.

“Holy fuck, what are you doing to me?”

Her slender hips rocked atop him and he just tried to hold on, tried to stay focused on the sight of her in spite of how gloriously wonderful her tight, slick channel felt rhythmically clenching and releasing his cock. God, he felt so filthy at the idea of shooting his spunk inside her, but she’d objected to the condom so he’d given in. The lack of a barrier made it even harder for him to hold back. He could have come three times in her since she started fucking him, but wanted so badly to hear her sing again before he did.

The lilting melody came a moment later, and this time he was sure there were actual words to the song. They were unfamiliar to him, but unmistakably sweet, spilling from her lips. He sensed from the intensity of her shudders and her gaze that the song meant something personal to her. Before he could process the thought and voice his wonder, she clenched so tightly around him he was unable to hold back. His balls tightened and his climax exploded inside her, the hot stream of his semen pulling from somewhere even deeper inside him, as though the energy of the entire universe had chosen him as a conduit to flow through his body and into hers.

Evie’s head flew back as she worked herself atop him, her smooth neck a perfect, beautiful line undulating from the sounds still coming from deep inside her. Finally, the song faded to nothing but an echo, and then only the sounds of their heavy breathing were left in the room.

She let out a soft sigh and sank down to his chest again, humming with contentment when he wrapped his arms around her.

“Wow,” he said, then chuckled at himself for his lack of any larger vocabulary at the moment.

“Stratosphere?” she asked, smiling up at him again.

“I think we must be in another galaxy entirely, after that. And that song… it was so beautiful. What did it mean?”

She shrugged, the movement causing her breasts to shift pleasantly against his chest. “Just an old song I knew from when I was a kid in Budapest.”

“It sounded like a sad song. What was it about?”

She remained quiet for a moment, then her back rose and fell as she let out a long, heavy breath.

“It’s a love song, of sorts, but a sad one. About all the things a girl would do for her old lover, if she hadn’t let him go to war and lost him.”

He only managed a short “hmm” around the sudden tightness in his chest. The war was something he’d managed thus far to avoid thinking about, in spite of the mounting protests throughout the country. The ominous clack-clack of the Draft Board’s typewriter updating his classification reverberated in his memory.

“1-A,” the new copy proclaimed, which meant, “available for military service.”

Marcus was no longer a student, having finished his degree just a few months earlier. He had few living relatives and no dependents. His mother was healthy and well-off enough on her own that it wouldn’t be a hardship for her if he were drafted. So with the situation in Vietnam escalating, it was only a matter of time. Marcus didn’t believe in the war, but he believed in honor and duty. He had intended to enlist the following week, anyway, to preempt the inevitable. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

He wrapped his arms tighter around Evie’s body, trying to ignore the dread that had settled in his gut and instead focus on how amazing it felt to have her in his arms. He’d told a little bit of a fib to her earlier—he’d been listening to her sing for weeks, but had only today worked up the courage to approach her. Still, he’d been too big a coward to speak to her directly in front of the two musicians she sang with, and was supremely relieved when she divulged that they were, in fact, her brothers. He still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that. They were both large, well-built men with long, black hair. They certainly resembled each other enough for him to believe they were brothers, but compared to Evie’s delicate frame with her small features and shining brown hair, the men could have been from another planet and he’d have believed it.

“Something’s bothering you,” she whispered, sliding off him and propping her head on one hand by his side. She left her other hand resting on his sternum, toying with the thicket of coppery hair that adorned his chest. “Is it because we only just met?”

“Not at all. I was just worried that your brothers might be missing you. I don’t want to piss them off.”

Evie let out an indelicate snort. “They’re harmless. Besides, you’re bigger than them.” Her gaze drifted down his naked torso and back up.

“There are two of them, so under the circumstances, I’d prefer to stay on their good side. I should take you home before they decide to come beat down my door.”

“What you should do is tell me the truth,” she said, hooking her leg over his and nudging her knee perilously close to his genitals. “Something you should know about me is that I can spot a lie a mile away. My brothers might intimidate you, but that’s not what’s really bothering you.” She nudged his balls gently and he twitched his hips to pull away. The contact felt supremely nice, but the look in her eyes was too dangerous. Her leg tightened and she raised her eyebrows.

Marcus rolled his eyes and reached down to grip her knee. “If you want to make use of me again, be careful.”

“I’d prefer to fall in love with a man who is honest. If you can’t be, then I have no use for you.” With her knee locked tightly in his grip, she instead slid her hand down and cupped him between the legs, squeezing gently. The threat wasn’t lost on him, but her soft touch made it difficult as hell to think straight. Her eyes brightened when his cock started to stiffen again.

“Christ, fine! The song you sang, at least the meaning of it, hit home.” He rolled over and rummaged in the pocket of his backpack, hunting for his wallet. A second later he unfolded a small, cream-colored card and held it out to her. “My draft card. Your brothers are probably in the same boat, if I’m guessing their ages right. I’m not the kind of man to shy away from danger—that’s not what bothers me—but now that I’ve met you…”

Now that he’d met her, it still shouldn’t have bothered him. He barely knew her, after all. But he’d never met another woman quite like her and the thought of never having the time to explore what could be would break his heart if he let it. She was even more special than he imagined after those weeks of watching her singing in the park.

“You’ve known me for what, a few hours? Why do you think I’m so special?”

“Mm, well, what you’re doing with your hand right now is pretty special.”

Evie lifted her head up and waved the hand she’d been resting on at him. “This? It’s just a prop.” Her other hand tightened around his rigid cock and gave it a long, deliberate stroke. She grinned at the harsh groan that escaped his lips.

“I don’t know what it is about you. Something tells me you’re so much more than you seem, even beyond a knack for spectacular hand jobs.” His hips rose up to meet her steady stroking. Fuck, he was going to come again if she kept that up, which would probably be breaking some kind of record, at least for him. He’d never been so turned on so soon after an orgasm before. And this afternoon, he’d already had two back-to-back. What the fuck was she doing to him?

“Am I special enough for you to believe me when I say you don’t have to worry about my brothers? If anything, it’s my grandmother you should be afraid of.”

The comment might normally have ruined the mood, but Evie punctuated it by leaning down and taking him in her mouth. Marcus lost it completely then, hips bucking up hard into her. He reached out and grabbed at her thigh, sliding his hand up between her legs to find her slick and wet. She hummed around his girth when he slipped two fingers deep into her. He wanted more of her. Sweet Jesus, he didn’t think he would ever get enough of her. With a squeeze and tug of her thigh, he urged her to move so that her knees were braced against his shoulders and her sweet snatch was poised and dripping over his mouth. He gripped her ass and spread her wide open, lifting his head to delve in.

His worry about her family disappeared, and the looming threat of the war became a hazy shadow at the back of his mind. All he knew in that moment was pure, delicious sensation—of her mouth steadily working up and down his shaft, of her wet, velvet folds sliding against his lips and tongue. He may only have these few hours with her. For all he knew, tomorrow would be the day the letter came, and by this time next year, he might be in a jungle on the far side of the world. He resolved to make this time worthwhile—to find out all her secrets, not just what made her sing with pleasure, but what made her laugh or cry, what foods she liked, whether she were ticklish or loved the autumn as much as he did.

But at the moment, Marcus just wanted to exhaust himself with the pleasure part of the equation. To have her in as many ways as possible. Suddenly the idea of filling her with his hot seed was more alluring. Maybe angels really couldn’t get pregnant, but if he had to leave her, he could leave her with a piece of him and hope that when the war was over and he returned, she would remember him by what he’d given her. It would give him a reason to fight, to live, to come home.

He knew now that he would need that, too, because what else did he have? His family was so sparse as to be nonexistent. His mother was an only child and her parents were dead. She still regularly drank herself into oblivion over some old lover who had appeared after his dad had died in that long-ago war. Whoever that stranger was had taken advantage of a lonely, recently widowed, and very pregnant young woman, and had disappeared just as quickly.

A child… an entire family… had been a distant, elusive fantasy to Marcus, and for the first time in his life, he let himself want it.

Except this particular position, as much as he loved the feel of Evie’s mouth wrapped around his cock, was not ideal for that purpose.

He dropped his head back to the pillow with a groan and rolled her off him.

“What is it?” she asked, wiping her mouth delicately and staring at him with those beautiful, big brown eyes. Goddamn, she destroyed him. She was so much more than a pretty face and voice.

“I need to fuck you again. From behind this time. Turn around.”

“Oh? In a hurry to try every position? We still have the rest of the night, you know. I’m not planning to fly away anytime soon.”

His face grew warm at her teasing, and even more at the secret wish that had come upon him a moment ago. Yet she complied with a pleased smile, crawling to him on hands and knees and leaning in to give him a lingering kiss. When she pulled away she leaned down, wrapping her arms around a pillow with her ass poised in the air, legs spread.

“I’m all yours, all night, Marcus. Any way you want me.”

He shifted around behind her and couldn’t resist pressing his mouth to her glistening, pink folds again. He squeezed her ass with both hands and slid his tongue all the way to her clit, flicking at it until he heard her gasp and her body quivered. Then he licked the other direction, teasing higher and higher, aiming for the rosy pucker between those two perfect mounds of soft flesh.

Evie’s quick pants halted, her entire body growing abruptly still. Marcus was afraid he’d crossed a line, until she pressed back harder against him.

“Hmm, you like that? I’d love to have this pretty ass, too, but right now I just want to fill your hot cunt with my come. I hope you were lying when you said angels couldn’t get pregnant. We’d make beautiful babies. Little cherubs with wings and chubby thighs.”