Authors: Zoe Chant
He still hadn’t asked her for an explanation. He wouldn’t, she somehow knew. He would wait forever for her to decide on her own to tell him; he only cared that she was upset.
“You’re my mate,” Jane said softly.
“I am,” he agreed, brushing her hair back from her face. “For as long as I can be, I am. Is that what you need?”
Jane closed her eyes and nodded. “Please, my lord dragon, please—just make me forget everything else. I only want you.”
“As you wish,” he murmured, a little smile in his voice, just before he kissed her.
Jane clung to him, but she didn’t press back into the kiss the same way, only parted her lips for him to take what he wanted. Laurence didn’t hesitate, deepening the kiss until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think of anything but her mate’s touch, her mate’s hunger for her. He gathered her into his arms and swung her up against his chest. Jane kept her eyes closed, her arms around him holding on tight.
He kissed her and kissed her, and she didn’t let her lips part from his, knowing that there was something awful waiting outside the refuge of his kiss. As long as they were kissing it would be all right. As long they were kissing he was her mate and they were safe...
She whimpered when his lips parted from hers, then realized that he’d carried her all the way up to the third floor. They were in the master bathroom, beside the steaming bathtub.
Laurence had heaped up all the new jewelry she wasn’t wearing in the little basket that usually held her selection of bubbles and bath oils. The tangled pile made a fine little hoard in miniature, and Jane’s whole body cried out to feel it against her skin, her heart beating fast and her pussy going wet knowing that her mate had prepared this for her.
Being kind to his mate is not—
Jane forced the thought away and went up on her tiptoes, rubbing her body up against Laurence’s as she sought out another kiss. He gave it to her, hot and consuming, pushing away all other thoughts again. He began to tug up the dress she wore, and soon enough he broke the kiss to pull it off over her head, leaving her in only her bra and panties—plus two sets of earrings, eight bangles and two new bracelets, and three of the magnificent necklaces Laurence had bestowed upon her today.
“I can’t do this properly yet,” he murmured, kissing her throat as his hands skimmed down the curves of her body. “But I will see you adorned as you deserve, treasure. Every inch.”
“Please,” Jane gasped, as his fingers caught the top of her panties and his mouth brushed over the curve of her breast. “Laurence, please—I am yours, only yours, please—”
He pushed her panties down and unfastened her bra, and his mouth found her nipple as his fingers teased at the curls between her legs. “Only mine, and I am only yours. I will give you everything I can, treasure. Everything I have. Now I want you to get in the tub,” and Jane was startled by the prosaic words into looking him in the eye.
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Go on, I know you love a good soak, treasure.”
“The tub is big enough for two,” Jane pointed out, taking the chance to rub up against his deliciously soft new sweater. It felt like heaven on her flushed skin and the tight nubs of her nipples.
“I know,” Laurence said, smiling wider. “And I’ll never get my clothes off without ruining them if you don’t get in first.”
“Oh,” Jane said, allowing Laurence to take hold of her wrists and push her back a step. “Well then.”
Laurence guided her into the tub, holding her hands until she was settled. She tilted her head back against the folded towel he’d placed at one end, watching him watch her, wearing only her gold and hot water. The peaks of her nipples still rose above the water’s surface, and so did her knees. She spread her legs wide, watching his gaze drag down from the rubies at her throat to the pinkness of her pussy.
When she reached down a hand to touch herself, his gaze darted back up to hers, and he picked up the basketful of shining gold. Holding her gaze, he tipped it slowly into the water, and Jane couldn’t help looking away to watch it splash down into her bath.
Laurence didn’t allow the gold to sink; she could feel him controlling it as the various chains and pendants slithered along the surface of the water. They flowed here and there to rest against her body, draping over her belly and thighs, the curves of her breasts, wrapping around her arms and legs. She felt it like the touch of his hands, as the gold cradled and held her in place in the bath.
Only then did she look up and realize that Laurence had finished stripping—or nearly finished.
His fingers hovered over the clasp of his new watch—or over the cruel line of black dragonglass lying beside it.
“Please,” Jane said softly, and he met her eyes, looking uncertain for the first time. “No dragonglass in the bath. Baths are supposed to be relaxing, restoring.”
She could see he wanted to argue that he needed it, that he would lose control without it.
“Please,” Jane repeated, and didn’t bother to say anything about how she would hold his attention. She slid her fingers down between her legs again, feeling the weight of water and gold over her as she lightly stroked herself.
Laurence closed his eyes, but he pressed his fingers to the dragonglass, and the bracelet parted at one of the gold beads. He laid it down on the edge of the sink, then repeated the process on his right wrist, taking that bracelet away as well.
For a moment he simply stood there, with gold against his skin and no cold black glass to counter it. Jane knew nothing could heal him all at once, but she could swear he glowed with an energy that was normally dammed up, his body radiating a fresh strength.
Jane lost herself for a while in studying him. Her eyes gravitated to his cock, rising up proudly from its nest of dark curls.
My mate, all mine, and so beautiful.
Not as beautiful as mine,
Laurence returned silently, opening his eyes to reveal the flames in them.
My treasure, bathed in gold.
“It feels even better than it looks,” she said softly. “Come and join me, my lord dragon.”
“As my lady pleases,” he murmured, and the gold around her arms coaxed her to scoot up, making space for him to slip into the tub behind her.
The water felt even hotter when he was in it with her, and the warm weight of gold seemed only more so. She heard him release a shaky sigh as he sank into it, and when she leaned back against his chest, his arms came around her as if he feared he would drown without her.
She wriggled back more firmly, pressing against the hard length of his cock underwater, and Laurence growled a little and nipped at the lobe of her ear. The next second he seemed to get distracted, running his lips softly over her earrings. Jane smiled and tilted her head, offering him her throat and the necklaces there.
“Jane,” he breathed out, holding her tighter, but he kissed his way down, breathing hot over the gold he had placed around her throat. “My mate, my treasure.”
“All yours,” she murmured, leaning her weight fully against him. “Just lie back and enjoy it, my darling.”
“Oh, is that all?” Laurence sucked a stinging kiss on the side of her throat, marking her skin as surely as the gold he’d given her marked her as his mate. “Just relax?”
She could feel the current of anger just under the surface, waiting to burst forth, and said nothing out loud. She reached for his hands instead, letting her arms and the gold they carried rest over his scars as her fingers intertwined with his. When she felt the first hint of tension easing, she guided his hands away from her sides, bringing his left hand to her breast, his right hand to her thigh.
“Hmm,” Laurence murmured, but she could feel the fire in him changing from anger to desire, safely channeled. “My lady dragon makes an excellent point.”
His fingers explored her under the water, moving in unhurried strokes between her parted thighs, over the curves of her breasts.
“And I did mean to make sure you enjoyed your bath,” he added, nuzzling behind her ear. “Should I scrub your back, treasure? Wash your hair?”
“Mm, only if you want to deal with getting it back under control after,” Jane muttered, checking that the gold-tipped hair sticks she’d used to secure it were still safely in place. “A bath’s not a shower, my own. It’s just for soaking it all up.”
Though she’d somehow never thought to lace her bathwater with gold this way; she should have, clearly. It was a perfect way to unwind, with the touch of gold seeming to caress her everywhere through the water, lapping against her pussy, cradling her feet, teasing her breasts.
“Mm, maybe more of that, then,” Laurence murmured, and lifted his hand from her thigh to make a beckoning gesture with one finger out of the water. Something rose up off a folded towel on the counter—a bath bomb, glittering pale gold, and as soon as she saw it Jane knew that it wasn’t mere glitter.
She moaned softly in anticipation even before it plunked into the bath, fizzing between her knees and releasing gold dust into the water. The fine particles swirled over the surface of the water and were carried on the currents made by the fizzing of the bath bomb. It hardly took a thought to guide them through the water to slide over Laurence’s skin, skating sweet and warm over his scars.
She felt him melt a little more behind her, his hands moving again in an answering soft caress.
No amount of baths will heal my scars
, he told her silently, even as she was sliding the gold dust in swirling patterns through the water that covered him.
Oh?
Jane returned.
How many have you tried?
“Jane,” he said softly, sounding tired. “My treasure, my love. You can’t—in one day—”
Jane remembered her mother’s voice saying despairingly,
The kind of time it would take...
“I don’t care,” Jane murmured, drawing his right hand up so that she could kiss his fingers and palm, and the scars under the glitter of gold that clung to his skin. “I don’t care what it heals or doesn’t. You need this. You
deserve
this. You are my mate, and you should have all the gold and good things you can take, and I can’t see any better way to spend the time we have together.”
And if it gave him something else to want, some alternative to anger and destruction, something to be even greedier for than fire and blood, well... He was her mate, and she could not stop hoping.
“But you’re
my
mate,” Laurence said, tugging his hand free of hers to slide it back under the water, touching her more deliberately now, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples. “And I want to give
you
gold and good things, my treasure.”
“Well, we can probably manage to share,” Jane murmured, and then she felt the gold dust tugged out of her control, sliding away from Laurence’s skin to gather again in the water between her knees. Jane watched the little glittering orb in fascination. It wasn’t solid, but so densely gathered in the water that it almost seemed to be.
For all Laurence’s insistence otherwise, he really had the most exquisite control she had ever seen.
The little round cloud of gold sank lower in the water, down between her thighs, and Jane’s breath caught in anticipation of that liquid warmth and brightness touching her there.
“All for you, my treasure,” Laurence murmured, his hands still caressing her breasts while her pussy throbbed underwater, aching with want and drowning in wetness.
The first touch of the little gold cloud just teased at her folds, but it sent a wave of hot pleasure through her like nothing she’d ever felt. The touch of her mate, transmuted to gold, soft and firm all at once, moving over her so smoothly. When it flowed over her clit, swirling in liquid curls, Jane arched back against Laurence, her hips pushing up instinctively into that sweet touch and seeking more of her mate at the same time.
She felt his cock throbbing against her ass, his breath hot on her throat, but the gold in the water moved over her slowly, deliberate and steady as the tide.
“Laurence,” she gasped, an impossible glittering pleasure rising up in her, higher and higher with every touch, until she felt as if she were flying right into the sun. “
Laurence,
oh, please, please—”
“More?” he murmured.
“Always,” Jane gasped, greedy for this feeling, for everything he could give her. “More, please, do it—”
And then he did. She felt the suspended gold dust flow lower, only the tail of the cloud remaining to tease her clit while the rest slid down to her pussy, slipping between her lips and inside, lighting her up with that honey-sweet touch. The gold flowed just where she needed it, the liquid pressure finding her most sensitive places and crashing tiny waves inside her.
She was aware, still, of the strength of her mate’s body around her, his hands on her, his lips dragging kisses against her skin. And all the time he was giving her so much more, using this secret touch inside to shape gold for her pleasure, taking her higher and higher until she was crying out continuously. She came once, or again and again, surrounded by the touch of gold and water, held up by her mate’s hands, until she was floating in a satisfied haze of perfect contentment.
Only then did she feel Laurence’s control of the gold dust relax, letting it disperse through the water again and flow free of her body.