He pulled his hand out from beneath me to balance on, and I could see my virgin blood on his fingers—and where its red now stained my feathers’ pure white.
“You’re truly that sure of me?” I asked him. “Swans aren’t nice, Namir. We’re obstinate and cranky and headstrong—”
“And tigers aren’t?” he said, holding himself above me while frowning. “I don’t know how to make it clearer, Lily. I need you in my soul,” he said, and then I watched him brace for my rejection.
A predator, afraid that his prey would reject his love.
I had never been so humbled in my life. I squirmed for my freedom beneath him, and felt each of the ridges along his shaft rub and pull my walls as he granted it, leaning back, the expression on his face looking more stricken by the moment, until I turned onto my back beneath him.
“I want to see you.” I could tell he didn’t dare to hope, so I went on. “Swans are bossy. And it takes us awhile to make up our minds—but oncewedo, we mate for life.” I reached up to take his face between my palms. “This feels right.”
A slow smile spread across his face as he lowered himself over me again, matching his body with mine. “Then open wide, little bird,” he said, going down on one elbow to cradle the back of my head with a hand. “Open wide, and let me in.”
I nodded, winding my legs around his hips as his lips met mine, and he started pushing forward. “Lily,” he whispered, as the first ridge on his cock passed through and then he paused there, tugging it against my entrance.
“More,” I told him, continuing to nod. “Namir—I want everything.”
He gave me a look of delight, and then took me at my word.
My head rolled back as he plunged himself deep and then his mouth was on my neck and I could feel him inside of me, the curve of his cock and the ridges on it rubbing hard against mywalls as he shifted himself minutely, not thrusting, just moving enough to make me ache for more. “You’re so wet, Lily,” he murmured appreciatively.
“Well, I am a water bird,” I said. Namir sagged his head and groaned while I snickered, and I tapped him so he’d look at me. “Look, you’re the one who wanted this. It’s not my fault you didn’t know I have a corny sense of humor.”
He laughed, and I could feel it rumbling inside and out, and I’d never known anything as good. “I guess I’ll get used to it,” he said, sounding like a complaint, even as his entire face was beaming.
I ran a hand through his hair as he looked up, and smiled at him. “I think you’ll have to.”
He took me in then, like he was seeing me for the first time, before leaning in to kiss me, softly at first, before deepening, and I made a surrendering sound, wrapping my arms around him as he started to thrust. His ridges spread me open, one by one, as he pulled out, and then stretched me again as he filled me back up again. I moaned beneath him, into his mouth, rocking my hips in his time. “Namir,” I whispered, when he pulled up.
“Do you like that, little bird?”
“Very much,” I confessed.
“Good,” he agreed. He came in and bit my lower lip, pulling it up between his teeth and all of me squeezed until he let it go. “I want to fuck you faster, Lily. Harder, too,” he warned.
“Yes,” I breathed. “Please.”
And he held himself above me, holding my face in his hands, watching me as he took me, and I had never felt so known—or owned.
Because for all that I was a bird and he was a cat, what we were together was meant to be. I could feel it where we met, each time he filled me, in the way my body reacted to his, and thefriction building between us, as he kept stretching me wide and thudding in deep.
“It’s so good, Lily,” he groaned, before kissing me ferociously and chasing the last of any fears I might have had away.
“I know,” I said, clawing my hands up his scalp through his hair. I couldn’t even have explained how I knew, since he was my first time, but I did,fuck, Idid.“Namir,” I whispered, feeling tight, and full, so fucking full of him, like he was always meant to be inside me. Usually I needed to touch my clit, but the way he was taking me, how turned on I was, and how much Ineededthis to happen—“Namir,” I whined, squeezing my thighs around him.
“Fuck—this is what it’s supposed to be like—fuck—” he harshly whispered, bowing his forehead to mine. “Little bird—please—fuck—come—” he grunted in time with his thrusts.
And for maybe the first time in my life, I did as I was told. I threw my arms around his neck and screamed. My orgasm rippled out of me from my core, slamming through me hard and then rebounding, making me clamp down tight in pulsing waves. Namir growled above me, a completely wild sound, and covered me as I thrashed, shoving me as full of him as I could take, again and again, until he was coming too, I knew it by his snarling, and the way his hips erratically rammed into mine, before he collapsed above me, both of us covered in sweat and with only barely with room to breathe.
Namir nuzzled his face against mine—just like a cat, I thought, with a stuporous grin—before he pulled back, still breathing hard. “I knew you were my mate, Lily.”
“I’m glad one of us was sure,” I said, stroking a hand gently against him, before I realized from his expression he had more to say.
“And...you’re going to be trapped on me for a bit here,” he said, rocking both of us with his hips. I could still feel how hard and full he was inside me. “Don’t panic.”
“Don’t panic?” I repeated, blinking back to attention. “You do realize telling people not to panic literally does the opposite of that?”
He gave me an apologetic wince. “It’s a cat shifter thing. When we mate—with the right person—there’s fleshy barbs. It shouldn’t hurt—”