Falling in Love with the King of Beasts

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ELIA

Her heart was racing. She could feel it against her arms that were still folded. She hadn't meant to push her boobs up, she'd just wanted him to know she was angry. But the fire in his eyes now… her nipples ached to be teased with his tongue.

He loomed over her, braced on the wall behind her, his nose just an inch from hers. She'd thought he was going to kiss her a minute ago, but he'd held back, despite the desire lighting his eyes.

"I don't like being ordered around," she said quietly.

Reth nodded. "None of us do. Especially when we disagree with the order."

"How am I supposed to look strong to the people if I jump every time you snap your fingers?"

"They all do, too. Do you see them as weak?"

"No, but—"

"Elia, the dominance hierarchy is everything to Anima. Without it, we have no compass. Understanding who is above you and who is below you is crucial to your security in our world. The people would be afraid if I stopped dominating them—do you understand that?"

"Well, when you put it that way."

He sighed. "Love, they don't judge each other—or you—for submitting to me. Which is good, because in truth, you don't," he grinned. "If they saw… but nevermind. Just trust me, the issues you've been facing haven't been about your relationship with me. They've been about your relationship with them."

"They all complained that I didn't mate you!"

"Because they didn't understand it. Can you blame them?" he opened a hand to indicate his own chest, and Elia snorted. He chuckled and dropped his chin and their cheeks brushed and Elia's skin tingled where they'd touched. She sucked in and his head snapped up. Their eyes locked.

His eyes, so warm and bright and deep. She put her hands to his face and stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. "I am… uncomfortable with what happened today, but I do know something important, Reth."

"What's that?"

"It's damn hot when you growl at me. But you're right… it feels that way because I know you won't hurt me. And maybe that's how they feel about the dominance thing? They… trust you with it?"

"I want to be very clear, Gahrye wasn't feeling sexy today," Reth said hurriedly.

She slapped his chest and he caught her hand, brought it up to his mouth and kissed her palm. They smiled at each other as he dropped her hand. Then his eyes slid down her jaw, her neck, to her shoulder and he lifted his hand again to trace the marks he'd left on her skin. "I would never choose to make you bleed, Elia," he whispered, his eyes going dark. "But where it is necessary, I will do it, only to save you from something worse—or to walk you toward something better."

Her chest ached with the love in those words and despite everything that had happened, she had to kiss him. She took his face and pulled him in and opened her mouth on his.

His breath shuddered and he tilted his head, cupping her jaw and kissing her slowly, deeply, with a purr in his throat.

*****

RETH

He nearly groaned with relief when she kissed him. It was a battle not to take her, to own her mouth and her body. He'd come to enjoy the freedom she'd given him. But his instincts were alight. This was a moment she needed. To understand. To find the boundaries of the balance between them, and understand the people better through it.

So he let himself stroke her face, but did nothing to move beyond the kiss.

He left that to her.

At first she seemed content, humming in her throat as they kissed, and pulling him closer. But as the kiss deepened, and his breath began to thunder, his hands shaking with the restraint he forced himself to, she tugged at him, pulling him closer, arching her back.

A moment later she pulled back, staring at him in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing," he panted back. "Why?"

"Why aren't you touching me?"

He stroked her hair off her face. "I am."

"Not like… not like you usually do. Why aren't you holding me and… and touching me… and I want you, Reth!"

"Then show me. Or tell me. Make what you want known, Elia."

She turned her head slightly as if she was uncertain whether he could be trusted, but then she looked at his chest and licked her lips. "What I want?"

"Anything," he said softly. "I am yours."

To his surprise, she pushed off the wall and stepped around him then, but took his hand and tugged him to come with her—not towards the bedroom as he'd expected—but towards the fireplace. But halfway across the great room she stopped and turned to face him. "Can you bar the door?"

He smiled. "It would be my pleasure." She rolled her eyes as he left her, trotting to the door, sliding off his vest as he went and throwing it over the hook near the door after he laid the beam across it.

When he turned back to her, she'd taken a large fur—a sheepskin, by the smell—out of the basket next to the fireplace and laid it on one of the lounges.

He tilted his head in a question—until she settled herself onto it and spread her arms wide, running them up and down the soft fur, arching her neck back and humming her pleasure at the sensations on her skin.

Reth almost choked on his own desire.

"It's on my list," she said with a wicked smile when she caught him staring. and he huffed.

He prowled across the remaining feet between them and she beamed to see him stalking her. When he stopped, right in front of the lounge where she was seated, she looked at his pants and raised an eyebrow. "Still dressed, Reth?"

"Tell me what you want, Elia," he rasped.

"I want you naked, and I wanted you touching me, and when the time comes, I want you to take me from behind the way you did when you claimed me."