‘I’m not following.’

‘You said… you told me once that when the guys came over I’d have a lot of cocks to keep happy. It’s my guess that the men who are coming over tonight won’t be as understanding about my reluctance as you have been.’

‘Reluctance,’ he said, he’d fucked her every way that had been invented and she’d been the one to kiss him first. She had never been reluctant about anything, except one thing.

She got up off the bed and went to the dresser where he’d put down his beer, she picked up the bottle and downed the liquid, one long gulp at a time until it was all gone.

‘Do you have anything stronger?’ she asked him, putting the bottle down. ‘Or maybe some Valium? If you have a mickey—‘

‘You want me to drug you before I have sex with you?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it a bit late for that?’

The fear was gone and replaced instead with a pleading determination. ‘I want you to drug me before they have sex with me. I’ll drink anything you give me, Dax, take anything. I trust that you’ll—‘

‘You’re getting ahead of yourself, babygirl,’ he said, taking her hand and leading her back to seat her on his side of the bed. ‘No one will be having sex with you.’

‘No one?’ The fact that she was actually genuinely shocked angered him for some reason that he couldn’t decipher.

‘Well I’ll still expect you to put out when I bring you up to bed. But I’m the only guy who’ll get to touch you. If anyone else tries it, you come to me, and I’ll deal with him.’

‘Oh, Dax!’ Her exuberance almost knocked him sideways when she leapt forward and wound her naked form all around him, burying her face in his shoulder. ‘I was so worried! I really thought they’d all be trying to take a piece of me, and if there were a few of them who wanted me at once… I’ve never done the anal thing and… I thought I was… I was going to ask you to take me that way now, to ease me into it, you know, maybe to make it easier for me tonight when I had them all inside me at once.’

‘I opened my mouth too soon,’ he said. ‘I just did myself out of a chance to fuck your asshole.’

Much to his surprise, she laughed and increased the grip of her arms around his neck. The manoeuvre felt too intimate, to be holding her like this, without expectation of sex, and for no purpose other than to make her feel better, or rather for her to show him her gratitude.

Gripping her elbows, he tugged her away from him, but she remained in his lap, seemingly unaware of his discomfort. Touching his forearms, she rubbed her hands up until her fingers disappeared up the sleeves of his tee-shirt, it was too intimate, this touching each other and holding each other. But he had no time to get away, she frowned and his anxiety vanished to make way for his curiosity.

One of her hands dropped away, and the other slid down until she was tracing the shape of his tattoo, examining the dragon he’d had inked a decade ago. But it wasn’t the dragon that fascinated her, what had her attention was the plant coiling itself around the dragon’s feet. The nest of vines from which the dragon emerged when it had to hunt for sustenance, and the place it would always return to as it’s sanctuary.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Is this where the dragon lives?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘When I first saw it I thought it was pulling the dragon down, that it was trying to hold him back.’

‘No,’ he said, bringing his arm around to show her the full picture he pulled up the short sleeve of his tee-shirt. ‘That’s the dragon’s lair, where it hides so that predators can’t find it. The plant offers him the chance to peek out, to see what’s going on without being seen. It’s his refuge.’

A smile became a whisper of a laugh, and she continued to trace the shape of the leaves. ‘That’s funny.’

‘Why is that funny?’ he asked. He’d been accused of his tattoos being a lot of things, and funny was not one of them.

‘It’s ivy,’ she murmured, her amused expression brought those long lashes back to him.

‘So?’

The smile became wider and she shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘It’s something.’

‘Nothing you have to worry about,’ she said, and when she lifted her arms this time the embrace had promise of more.

He didn’t shy from her kiss, and though it was slower and much less urgent that the kisses he was used to sharing with her, it was just as stimulating. Already his jeans were open, so when she climbed up onto him and coiled her legs around him she had complete access to slide herself onto his dick. Yet, when she did, it was a surprise because he was still basking in the new sensation of such a tender, mellow kiss. His clothed body held her naked one and splaying his hands on her back he felt for the first time how small and fragile she truly was.

This woman acted as though the world was no formidable force. She acted like she was the equal of, or superior to, any adversary. The glaring truth was that he could identify with her bull-headed stubbornness and refusal to show vulnerability. Because he was a man who knew how to fight and how to handle himself, he could get away with being arrogant and few people would have the balls to call him on it. As such, he didn’t have many vulnerabilities. This kiss was teaching him that his female was fast becoming one of them.

What he had said to Bruno was true, every word. But he hadn’t said it with Trystan’s best interests at heart, he wasn’t even sure he’d said it with his female’s interest at heart either. The idea of watching other men paw her, or make love to her…

Breaking their kiss stopped the rhythmic motion of her hips. Her tempo had been the same lazy pace, drawing more intimacy into the moment as her pussy swallowed and released him with each undulation.

‘What?’ she asked, her mouth was red and puffy, the rasp of stubble burn on her chin and lips heightened their rosy colour and her eyes were glossy, swimming in a dream. ‘I don’t feel good?’

Elevating her ass, she relaxed and her core enveloped him again. He hissed when she squeezed and caressed him from within her tight passage.

‘No,’ he said, though she felt better than incredible.

‘Ok,’ she said, undeterred.

The hitch of breath that left her lungs when she expelled him out of her slick channel rustled every hair on his body. But when she slithered off the bed and onto her knees on the floor, he tensed.

Her complete focus was on the engorged head of his cock, she licked him like a lollipop then sucked him deep and slurped her way back. Stroking the length of him with one hand and tickling his balls with the other, she smiled and kissed the tip of him.

‘I taste so much better on you,’ she said and opened her mouth, but he pushed her away.

‘Fucking stop it.’

Bounding off the bed, he had no chance of getting his jeans done up again, so he tugged his tee-shirt down over his groin.

‘It’s ok,’ she said.

A woman who had just been fucking a guy and had been told she didn’t feel good, shouldn’t be understanding. Nor should one who had been shoved away when sucking a guy off.

Spinning around, he saw her on her knees where she’d been before. ‘What the fuck?’ he asked.

‘Performance anxiety is probably normal in a guy who has spent his life taking drugs and partying. You’re already hard,’ she said, walking on her knees across the floor. ‘If you relax and let me—‘

‘I don’t fucking think so,’ he said, marching to her he got hold of her hair and hauled her back to the bed.

Sitting down he turned her over his knee and began to spank. She yelped and whimpered, clutching his calf and trying to lift her head but he held her down reining blow after blow on that tight ass watching it grow pinker and redden, but he kept going.

He’d never thought of making love with a woman and he’d never consoled one, thus doing himself out of a sex act he craved to complete with her; like fucking her up the ass. This woman took him into her body as though she had some sort of claim on him, but he was supposed to have claimed her.