XXVIII
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

Again, Lillian surprised him by pushing herself off his chest and lifting her bottom. With one hand, she slid her fingers down his chest between their bodies until she glided them over the length of his achingly hard cock.

This time, he let her, even though her touch was so exquisite Aëghan feared he'd expel himself before he'd even begun- and how terribly shameful that would be. Around Lillian, he felt untried and constantly on the brink of losing himself, not the very experienced male that he was.

When her fingers curled around him, air seethed between his teeth and held in his lungs, and he made the mistake of glancing down. The sight almost undid him, of her slender hand gripping his cock and guiding him to the entrance of her body. Her thighs were soft and silken as they straddled him, quivering slightly with the effort to keep herself poised over him, a downy triangle of light-coloured hair concealing the appealing flesh beneath.

He was a lost male. Perhaps he had underestimated his ability to relinquish Lillian eventually, for right then Aëghan wasn't sure he could ever let her go.

Definitely not as she continued to endear herself to him as she uncertainly guided the swollen tip of his cock into her.

He dug his fingers into her flesh to stall her movement further, determined to ease into her slowly to cause her as little discomfort as possible. But, Gods, the feel of her engulfing even just a small part of him was almost excruciating...

A confused little frown puckered a line between her brows as she considered him, then she relinquished a hand from where it braced on one of his shoulders to tenderly stroke along his clenching jaw. Her fingers trailed against his cheek and she leaned closer to him, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her lips. He was beginning to adore that look- her secretive smiles, as if she were harbouring a private joke that only she knew. Sly and sultry all at once, Aëghan doubted Lillian was aware just how tempting she could be with one of those looks.

"I know you think I could make you an honourable male," she whispered, her eyes dancing with a wicked promise that almost made him groan aloud, "but know that I wouldn't change a thing about you." She made to move, feeding more of him inside her, but he prevented her by holding her hips firmly in place.

"I don't want to hurt you," he managed to grit out. She felt impossibly tight where she sheathed him. It was almost unbearable to have her atop him so and he felt his restraint as a fickle and tempestuous thread on the verge of snapping, but he knew that she needed to guide their actions- especially her first time. And he would grant her it- he would grant her anything should she ask for it, even if it caused him to expire on the spot.

A small huff of a laugh escaped her then and she brought their faces together until the tips of their noses touched. Her fingers toyed idly, soothingly, in the strands of his hair behind his ear. "This may be my first time," she murmured, "but I am not wholly unknowledgeable, or terribly young and naïve. I trust you, Aëghan, and presently you feel... disconcertingly large within me but-" she thought for a moment, her lips pulling to the side, "-nice."

"Nice?"

Lillian nodded, her thighs oscillating a bit. "Pleasant."

He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting off the waves of offense at the notion that she was presently finding his lovemaking 'pleasant'. How banal...

"Lillian, it is not supposed to be pleasant," he said thickly. There was nothing pleasant about how she felt wrapped around the tip of his cock, and he longed to drive into her, coax her to brilliant heights of sensation with his mouth and tongue- but for now he would acquiesce. He could work with pleasant, he reasoned, and once she was used to the feel of him-

She used his momentary lack of concentration to push her hips into his, sliding further onto his cock, and his eyes flew open at her surprised gasp, at the clenching of her muscles around him. And then she was seated fully atop him, every inch of him buried deep within her, and her eyes went wide.

"Lillian-"

"It is fine," she breathed, covering his lips with her fingers. "I am alright."

"I can help, with the pain, if you let me-"

She shook her head quickly, dropping her hand to his chest and then her lips to his in a trembling, poignant kiss. "No," she told him, "I want to feel you, and everything. Nothing between us- no magic."

"Nothing but us," he concurred, wrapping his arm about her lower back to support her. "Let me make you feel good, Lillian. Will you allow it?"

"Yes." She wriggled against him a little and he stifled a groan. "Show me."

When he eased her hips up with aching slowness, there was no resistance though she still felt exquisitely tight around him. Her nails bit into the flesh of his shoulders and he silently enjoyed the small prick of pain her unconscious reaction incited. Later, he would test her control and her restraint- there would be time yet- but tonight, their first night, he would exercise patience and caution, take his time and ensure that she was lavished with the attention she deserved.

Then he brought her back down upon him, gently, and his head thumped back against the tree, eyes squeezed shut as he held her poised and still. "Aëghan?" she queried, a hitch to her voice. "Does it feel... alright?"

You were made for me. "Exquisite." He swallowed audibly and forced his eyes open even if the sight of her straddling him would only serve to conclude things faster than he would initially like. From this angle, her small breasts were almost level with him and caught his eye. "You're exquisite," he reiterated before angling forward to run his tongue along the edge of her taut nipple.

Her reaction was poignantly instantaneous, a delightful whimpering emanating from her throat before she clutched him to her bosom almost desperately. When he took the bud of her nipple into his mouth, pulling on it gently, her muscles contracted around his cock and she writhed against his thighs. She moved herself then, albeit experimentally, and he diverted his attention to her other breast, tracing the tip of his tongue along the edge of a thin, jagged scar that curved along one side, as he allowed a gruff sound of encouragement to escape.

When she had formed a slow rhythm, he pried himself away from her sensitive nipple and spanned his fingers up her waist. Her lips were parted, her pupils dilated with her arousal, and then she ground her hips down with more force than he anticipated.

"Pain?" he managed, holding her gaze.

Lillian shook her head abruptly, tendrils of her hair enveloping them both. "N-no. None."

"Good," he growled, snapping his arms around her and drawing her tight against his chest. She made a startled sound but he manoeuvred them in one fluid motion without breaking their connection, leaning away from the tree to kneel on the grass between the protruding roots. Lillian clung to his shoulders, moaning quietly as she tucked her legs around his waist, and when he thrust up into her, her thighs locked spasmodically.

"Oh, God," she breathed, her head tilting back to expose the delicate column of her neck.

Like this, he coordinated their movements and she relinquished everything to him. He held her pressed against his body, rolling his hips upwards and deep into the silken heat of her channel with steady thrusts. He found her neck, nipping gently at the base of her throat and beginning to replicate the same torment she had inflicted upon him earlier, compelling a shudder to ripple through her that he felt as his own.

Her soft moans, the way her skin was fevered and slick against his own, the powerful burgeoning of her own need for release that barrelled through him, all served to hurtle him closer to the precipice of his climax, and with that thought in mind he slid a hand between their bodies. It was easy to find that susceptible point of pleasure between her folds- she was so uninhibited and responsive, truly remarkable to behold- and when he began pressing soft circles around it her entire body stiffened.

"Aëghan!" she whimpered. "I can't-"

"You can." His hand curved up her spine, curling behind her neck, and pulled her against his mouth for a bruising kiss, not once breaking stride with his hips or fingers, and Lillian fell apart in his arms with an exquisiteness that rendered him awed and breathless. He caught her moans with his lips, tightened his hold on her and crushed her body against his, revelled in the bite of her nails as she clung, trembling, to his shoulders.

He allowed her a moment's reprieve as she slumped against him before he extracted himself from the warm sleeve of her body, expelling his release between them to coat her stomach, her thighs... the pleasure that ripped through him was almost too potent, too close to rendering him incoherent, and it had been a monumental struggle not to submit to his need to spill inside her- even as the dragon willed him to it.

At Lillian's curious frown as she gazed down at the mess coating her skin, Aëghan slumped back against the tree, panting. "To prevent conception," he explained raggedly, closing his eyes. Then, added with some level of self-reproach, "Poorly."

"Oh." She was still atop him, a small space separating them, and the silence was broken only by the sound of his staggered breathing. When he pried open an eye to observe her, she was staring down at her stomach, a thoughtful expression on her brow. "Is... it even possible? To conceive between our kinds?"

She had a good point. To his knowledge, other than her sister and Leowyn, there had never been a union between Other and human before, therefore no prior records of a successful child borne of such a relationship. "You will have to ascertain that with your sister," he muttered wryly, "but until then, would you want to take the risk?"

She glanced at him, her expression unreadable. "No," Lillian said slowly, softly, "I don't suppose that would be wise."

It was peculiar to have the sensation of disappointment run acutely through him but Aëghan ignored it. It was wise to exercise caution. He would never leave her to face the vitriol from society of a child firstly born out of wedlock and secondly born of his kind.

But still, something about it was irking him...

Refusing to dwell on it, he grunted in assent and reached for the hem of her dress crumpled a few feet from them. He used a small edge to tend to her, gently wiping her skin clean of his spend, and she watched him in silence until it was done. Then he scooped his arms around her and lay back, scooting down slightly until only his shoulders and head were propped on one of the roots.

It was decidedly uncomfortable, but Lillian fitted perfectly against his body and when she rested her head on his chest with a sigh of contentment, Aëghan rather thought he could lie there like that for an eternity and not care.

He ran his fingers lightly up the curve of her waist as the silence stretched between them, almost unconsciously tracing the delicate lines of scars she harboured, and it was only when she caught his hand and held it aloft from her flesh that he tilted his chin down and spoke. "What is amiss?"

She shifted, lifting from his chest to peer up at him and her eyes were almost luminous in the shadows of their temporary bower. "My scars..." she began, and his normally poised duchess held an undertone of uncertainty in her voice, "they make me uncomfortable when you touch them."

Deliberately, but tenderly, he placed his hand back upon her waist, over the most vivid marring of her skin which seemed to amass just above her hip. "Why?"

A tiny scowl appeared on her brow at that question, as if she wasn't quite expecting him to draw out the topic of her discomfort or her scars.

"They are a part of me that is flawed. And when I feel your fingers on them, it reminds me of why."

"They are terrifying," he agreed, earning him a rather endearing growl of angst from the woman nestled against him, but when she began to turn away from him, Aëghan twisted their bodies until she was pinned beneath him. Her hair splayed in the grass and petals like a silken halo. When she pushed adamantly at his shoulders, he caught her wrists and pinned them above her head, holding her firm.

"Aëghan," she warned, eyes flashing indignantly.

"They are terrifying and beautiful," he said, ignoring her temper. "Terrifying, because it only reveals to me the evidence of what you have been through, what you could have succumbed to, what I could have lost without ever knowing I had it in the first place. And beautiful... beautiful because of your strength, your perseverance... They are your trophies, Lillian, that even though the world tried, you could not be broken, and that is beautiful."

Her scowl had disappeared, and now her eyes glistened with moisture, a look of defeat shadowing her features and twisting his heart. "But maybe I am."

"Is that what you truly believe?"

"It... it is undeniable! My tremors." She bit her lip for a moment, then averted her gaze. "I panicked when faced with the responsibilities of all that came with Ravensfield, rather leaving Millie to tend to all the problems that followed in the wake of our sire's demise. I've never... that is to say, I was raised to fulfil a role. Yet... I can't."

He made a gruff sound and dropped his lips to deliberately trace a scar that webbed across her shoulder and up her neck. "You are not broken," he murmured, nibbling along her jaw and feeling her arms writhe against his hold, "you are perfectly imperfect, just like the rest of us. Humans- all of us- were not created for perfection, and your flaws are exquisite." He paused his exploration, poising his lips just above hers. Her gaze flickered to his, simmering with a desire he was eager to stoke once more. "I adore everything that you are, Lillian Adams, flaws, scars- you're terrifyingly beautiful to me, and catastrophic to everything I am."

Against him, her chest hitched with a sharply indrawn breath and she strained to reach him, her arms writhing and the tendons of her neck prominent against her skin. When he refrained from acquiescing to the evident demands of her body and a smile of wickedness curled his lips, that obstinate little glower returned to reveal her vexation.

"Aëghan," she warned, almost breathlessly, before snapping one of her legs around his own, "if you don't follow those words by kissing me, I'll possibly find some way to end you-"

His chuckle was dark, causing her eyes to narrow in suspicion even as they dropped to his lips. "Oh, I intend to," he said in a tone laced with such wicked insinuation it made her still entirely under him. "But you'll have to beg me first."

Though she remained true to her stubbornly tenacious nature, eventually and after lengthy provocation... Lillian Adams begged. 

A/N

Hope you enjoyed! More to follow in the upcoming chapters ;)