Emergence

Chapter Two

The soft click of the hotel door as it closed skittered nervous energy down my spine.

Kaden leaned against the thick, dark wood, a speculative smile cutting his mouth. Soft lamplight carved gold over his smooth features, and his amber eyes gleamed. His shadow pulsed hot and heavy in the short corridor leading to the sitting room, and I backed away from him. My heels caught in the thick, pale carpet, and I kicked the bloody shoes free. My toes thanked me. Again.

“Changing your mind?”

The walk from the club had been quick, silent. He’d gripped my hand and the strength, the promise of his touch had kept the fire sparking under my veins. In the wide, steel-lined lift, our reflections had bounced back at us, and I’d wanted to push him up against the cold metal and find his mouth…but the red light of security cameras glared balefully from the lift’s ceiling. And now I stood on the edge of the long sitting room and my nerve failed me.

“No, not changing my mind.” He pushed himself away from the door, and my feet, of their own volition, backed farther into the room. Kaden was beautiful, powerful. I wanted him, I did, but…it, he, the moment, made everything real. My gut clenched, the sudden pain making me bite at my lip. I would sleep with Kaden and then the First Dragon’s envoy would escort me to his superior. At which point my life would be over. The man in front of me was my last dose of freedom. “I only have a short time,” I said, watching Kaden move towards me with liquid grace. “This time I have…”

“It’s running too fast.” His head tilted, and the smile lurking on his mouth forced my heart to beat hard. He stood close again. His fingers brushed my jaw, and I sucked in a quick breath. Something about Kaden, the man, his shadow stealing over mine, made my body ache. “This room was another promise to yourself?”

“Yes.”

He glanced behind me, no doubt seeing the mess of my clothes thrown over the corner couch and the papers spread out over one end of the long dining table. “How long have you been here?”

“Two nights.” I willed myself to step towards him, to press my body against his lean hardness. My palm skirted over his chest, teasing, playing with the smooth material of his shirt. “I wanted luxury before…”

“What?” Kaden threaded his fingers through my loose hair and turned my face up to his. His lips brushed mine, soft, tender, and it stopped my breath. “What’s taking you away?”

I couldn’t answer, didn’t want to. I only wanted more of his mouth, for him to deepen the kiss into something molten, wild, and for me to forget for the few hours I had left. I bit at his lip, and he growled, a low, primitive sound, and it pushed me hard against him.

Kaden murmured something. His shadow wrapped around me in a dark, enveloping wave and I arched into him. Whatever he was, whatever ancient mythoi rode in his blood, it sank into my core. I couldn’t wait. My mouth took his, my tongue, teeth, lips battling, wanting more of him.

Kaden groaned, his hands shifting until he could snake his arms across my back. He tugged at my skirt, yanking it up my thigh. A hot palm and fingers caressed my backside. He squeezed, urging me up, and I obeyed, lifting my legs. With an all too easy strength he held me, and I wrapped my thighs around his waist, my arms linking behind his head. Our shadows merged, shifted, unsure at the closeness, at the need burning up through us, but wanting it, wanting it as much as we did. And that wasn’t right. Mythoi didn’t cross species-

“Who are you?” The question escaped after I dragged needed air into my lungs. My hand framed the hardness of his smooth jaw. His eyes had darkened and something sparked in their depths, a fire than made me want to strip him and fuck him. “What are you?”

“What you need.”

A chair clattered to the floor behind me, and my backside hit the cool mahogany table. “That’s not an answer.”

He smiled, brief, hard, and need for him tightened low in my belly. “Do you want to say why you want me here? Why you want to fuck a stranger?” His smile grew, and something must’ve reflected in my eyes as he said, “I thought not.” He brushed tangled hair back from my forehead, and the unexpected tenderness hurt my chest. I breathed past it. “So, till the morning, we’ll both have our secrets. Agreed?”

My throat ached and I couldn’t speak. I nodded instead.

“Good.”

He tugged at my clinging top, pulling it over my head. Cool air brushed my bare skin. The top slid from his fingers, dropped in a golden puddle on the carpet, and Kaden let out a slow breath. My nipples hardened under his intense gaze, and everything in me ached for his warm lips, his tongue to find my skin and lick-

“Here on the table?” he asked.

“You want to eat instead?”

The smile he turned on me, wicked, possessive, squeezed my heart. “Later. I promise.” He leaned over me, his lips close to mine. “Right now, I want you.”

I resisted the urge to cover his mouth with mine. If I was getting naked, then I wanted to run my fingers and tongue over the smooth muscles hinted at under his shirt. “Then you have too many clothes.”

His fingers moved and the shirt joined mine on the floor. My own hands, nervous, eager, reached for him, and Kaden shivered under the first touch of my fingertips over the rippled hardness of his stomach. His breath warmed my cheek. “Better?”

“Almost.”

“You want more?”

“I want all of you.”

Kaden grinned. “I can do that.” His smile turned evil, and he traced a languid, shuddering path over my ribs to the thin-banded edge of my skirt. He made quick work of the zip. I wriggled and the skirt and my underwear joined the growing pile on the floor. “Though you first.”

“So it seems.” His hands were already moving to his trousers, and my fingers covered his, joining him in pushing the heavy fabric away from his hot, smooth skin. I traced my fingers along his cock, my thumb teasing over the sensitive head. Kaden hissed. “Ready?”

He laughed and gripped my hips. “Isn’t that obvious?”

My thighs held him, my calves sliding over the hard, hot muscle of his legs, tugging him closer. This first time would be fast, fierce, and my blood pounded at the thought. I guided him, teasing his cock over my wet flesh, little sparks of need firing under my skin as I made both of us ache for more.

“Jaime…”

My name was a soft growl, and his shadow thickened around him, encasing us, vast wings cocooning my own shadow, melting over it. The feeling was…bliss, deepening at the first push of his hips, of the slow, slow tease of him into my body.

Kaden’s ragged breaths rushed warmth over my mouth, and his darkened eyes held me. “We need to fuck you. Right now. Hard.”

“We?”

“My…” He sucked in a breath, and I had to have imagined his pause, before he rolled his hips. The sensation of him hard and deep within my body rioted in my flesh and I groaned. “My shadow. It wants yours.”

I blinked. The idea seemed forbidden…and delicious. “We…” He distracted me with a palm sliding up my spine, pressing me hard to his chest. His mouth brushed my jaw, my chin. He nibbled at my bottom lip, and the urge to deepen the kiss, to find a fast and furious release, warred with my need to question him. The question won. “How? I’ve never…”

“I know.” The satisfaction thickening his voice pushed me against him. He groaned, and his teeth sank, hard, sharp. The sudden pleasure-pain forced me to grab at him, pull him tight against my body. “Let us share both of you.” The words brushed my skin, and my shadow stretched, her curiosity piqued. “Don’t deny yourself this pleasure.”

“How…?”

But already our shadows seemed to be…melting…into each other, a rush of sensuous heat falling over my skin. I groaned. Incredible. Intoxicating. My mouth took Kaden’s, and I ran with the wild joy of our mythoi, the spiralling need of flesh and wings and talons to coalesce, to fuck.

My spine arched, and I met Kaden’s hard thrust, knowing that his ancient mythoi, so powerful and delicious, mirrored his hips, finding, fucking the other half of me. My fingers raked down his spine, the mix of hot human flesh and the rough skin of his beast making my blood pound and my pussy desperate for his next thrust.

“Yes…” Kaden’s voice was raw, barely a rasp against my parted lips. “We want all of you.”

The press of his body against mine, the tight hold of his arms, his scent wrapping around me, fired the ache deep in my flesh. I couldn’t hold him close enough, envious of the ease with which our shadows merged into a glorious spiral of increasing pleasure.

I met his thrusts. No mythoi had ever offered me this…ecstasy. Never. I fisted my fingers in his hair, and my mouth fought with his, wanting more of him, all of him as he wanted me. The first hot flare of orgasm bloomed, surging up from my pelvis. I moaned into his mouth, and Kaden slammed into me.

The table creaked, the slap of his hips against mine delicious, decadent. I teetered on the edge of coming, the pressure wild, fierce in my flesh. I reached for my other self, wanting her to share-

The fearsome power of our shadows blasted over me. Stunning. Primitive. A part of our passion and a brilliant, ferocious force of their own. It whipped my rough surge of need, the stroke of Kaden finding every…sweet…spot…and there, just there.

I ripped my mouth from his, needing to scream, to breathe through the riot of blistering joy tearing up through my flesh. Grabbing at Kaden, I found his mouth again, swallowing his cries, and came again as our mythoi found their incredible, searing release.

The kisses eased, melted into something soft, teasingly gentle, and I couldn’t help the smirk breaking across my lips. “That was…” I eased my fingers over his damp shoulder to trace along the edge of his jaw. “No one ever told me my mythoi could do that.”

Kaden smiled and, with a final kiss, pulled back. “I’m glad.”

“Glad?”

He released a soft, satisfied sigh and watched as his fingers ran through the loose tangles of my hair. “The first fire is always special,” he murmured, and I couldn’t help the shiver that rippled over my bare skin. “Thank you.” He eased back and a new, wickedly attractive smile pulled at his mouth. “Do you think we’ll make it to a bed this time?”

I bit back my grin and took his hand. “The suite isn’t that big.”

Kaden let himself be pulled around the long table and past the corner couch. The great circular mirror reflected his sleek body, the wash of light only gilding his perfection. He caught me staring and smirked. “You looking too?”

Heat burned under my cheeks, but I held his molten gaze. “I’m enjoying the time I have.”

“Good plan.”

He urged me forward and through the open bedroom door. A lamp flickered on, washing a soft light around the room. A wall of glass looked out onto the terrace, and I found us reflected there, a ghostly image on the darkness and the bright lights across the river.

Kaden slid his strong arms around my waist and pulled me back against his hard body. His mouth eased along my bare shoulder, hot, wet, and I tilted my head and watched him explore my neck. I ran my fingers along the strength of his arm wrapped under my breasts. Little shivers ran under my skin as his other hand snaked down over my belly to tease my mons. “Our mythoi are sated.” He nipped at the curve of my shoulder, and I sucked in a breath. “No stamina.”

“You don’t seem to be tired.”

His index finger slid lower, teasing, and I pushed my pelvis back against his growing erection. His cock slid smooth and warm against my skin, and I couldn’t help the little wiggle I gave him. He tightened his fingers under my breast, his thumb grazing my peaked nipple. Breath brushed my ear. “You have me until you don’t want me anymore.”

Would that be possible? The thought burned through me. Would my fling backfire? Not that the register could allow an official mating. Crossing species produced a corruption, a thing of horror.

“You’re thinking again.”

Kaden turned me, found my mouth, and all further thought stopped.