He twisted his mouth to kiss my palm. “Or, they’re so gloriously happy, no one ever hears from them again.”
I laughed beneath him. “All this time working with you, and I never realized you were a sentimental fool.”
Namir stared down at me, his green eyes glinting by his firelight, then rose up. The firelight cast half his body in light, and the other half in shadow, and I finally got to see what I’d be dealing with. His long, thick erection was folded up against his stomach: it curved up at the tip, and the length of it was covered in fleshy ridges, like the crenulations of a bottle cap—the kind of dick you never see in porn. I watched him stroke himself with his hand, from his head down, following their flow, and then halfway down he pulled up against himself to show me how they would flare out in a tight space.
“They’re meant to keep me to you, and you to me,” he warned. “And I am not a fool, little bird—I’m a tiger who killed innumerable men for the chance to be your mate.”
And something about the way he said it reached down, made my core squeeze, and made everything that was swan me in rise up, all my stubborn, spiteful, willfulness, the parts of me that’d kept me alive so far. “So do it,” I challenged him. “Mate me.”
“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it, Lily,” he warned, his voice a low rumble.
“Or what?” I asked him, rising up on both my elbows. “You won’t fuck me?”
“I am strong enough to walk away from you, if need be,” he growled.
I was breathing hard now and feeling reckless, full of something bigger than myself, an insane pressure that needed to be relieved. “Fromme, maybe,” I taunted him, getting on my hands and knees, and wiggling my ass at him same as if I still had my feathered tail. Then I looked over my shoulder at him and braced. “But we both know, tiger, there’s no way you’re walking away from this swan tonight.”
He snarled something incomprehensible, and then reached for me, grabbing both my knees and pulling my legs out from under me. I yelped in surprise, falling down on top my feathers, as he pounced on top of me, spreading my legs wide with his hips. I felt the ridges of his wide shaft stroke down the cleft of my ass, just before he tilted his hips forward so that he could catch the end of his cock where he’d just been licking, playing its blunt tip against my folds and making it rub my clit.
I groaned his name and tried to lift my hips up, to get him to go inside me, and he rumbled a laugh.
“You want to get mated so badly now, little bird?” he asked, sweeping up my hair to wind around his hand. “You want to know what it’s like when the tiger catches up?”
“Yes,” I hissed.
He leaned forward to harshly whisper in my ear, “Me too,” and then notched himself up like an arrow and buried himself inside me.
I cried out at once. I hadn’t been expecting the sudden fullness, or the tearing, or the rush of heat as he slid in. It wasn’t anything like I could’ve imagined before—because I’d never tried to imaginehim.
I gave a surprised whimper, and then Namir growled in my ear, before regaining himself. “Lily,” he gasped, releasing my hair at once, to bend over me, his hips still matched to mine.
“Don’t apologize. You’re a tiger. Tigers don’t apologize,” I panted, catching my breath.
“This one does,” he said, and kissed my shoulder where it met my neck, before bowing his head against my back. “I am sorry, little bird,” he said, even as I shook my head. “I won’t move in you again until you tell me to—if you tell me to,” he promised.
I forced myself to breathe and relax. Thiswaswhat I’d wanted—and who I’d wanted it with—and how I’d wanted it, besides. “You can move...a little.”
Namir made a comforting sound, but didn’t thrust, he just slid an arm under me to start to rub my clit in tiny circles.
I closed my eyes, remembering the first time I’d ever tried to fly. I’d stolen my own feathers, and gone out to a secluded pond to try. I was awful at it for hours, but I never gave up, because I knew I’d manage to—and I remembered the feeling of precisely when I did—catching the air with my wings and lifting off, finally conquering gravity.
It felt . . . like being free.
And what if being with someone else felt like that?
What if love didn’t have to be confining?
What if it made you limitless, instead?
“Lily?” Namir asked. He nuzzled my cheek with his, his hand slowing down.
I twisted to look at him more clearly, breathing hard. “If I come, Namir, will we be mated?”
He gave a thoughtful rumble. “No. It’s more than that, I’m told.”
“Told?”
He kissed my temple, before answering. “There can be many firsts tonight.”