~I would like to shout out to my dearest 19vanelkc for being my beta reader even though you aren't even at home! I appreciate the shit out of you.

OKAY I hope y'all like it!~

Step 21: A Lesson from the Bottom

Lucy was struggling with her inner dragon as she took careful steps beside her mate, the size of his hands dwarfing hers as they swung between their bodies in sync with their adjusted gates for each other. She tried to focus on matching strides with him but his legs were just too long and her body was just not having it. You know what it was having? A heat stroke from the way her blood was pumping and thrumming through her entire body. It was electric wildfire that sparked anywhere his tanned skin touched hers. Not a problem since they were home right? Wrong. They were walking their way to the guild hall surrounded by the rest Raijinshuu and the two youngest Pradesh brothers which meant she needed to get a grip on her raging libido. Ironically, she attempted to do so in the form of actually tightening the grip she had on his hand to pull a pained wince from her happy-go-fuck-me mate. Upon taking the expression in, she gave a jagged sort of apologetic smile before averting her eyes anywhere except Bickslow's face. Her internal monologue had lapsed back to the night in the hotel on the mountain which was effective in starting the neverending trail of commandments she needed to follow until they were somewhere that wasn't going to get them arrested for public indecency. No sex, no fucking him senseless and no riding him into oblivion. She was determined to make it to a bed before opening her particular can of dragons. Shaking the thought from her head to earn sideways looks from the company she had forced into the background of her awareness, Lucy tried to focus on the faces of her teammates she hadn't seen in far too long.

Knowing her better than to let the odd behavior go, Bickslow ran the pad of his thumb over the sensitized skin of her wrist to pull a keening moan from her lips that sounded like she was on the cusp of some emotion heavier than he would have liked to hear so close to their destination. Bending down to whisper in her ear as privately as they could get with Cristoff's exceptional hearing and Vander's attention focused solely on the couple to make sure he didn't miss a second of the show, he tried to keep it light for her benefit. He was warned on multiple fronts about how insane his woman was for not just holding up somewhere and riding him out until she felt better. He might have preferred it that way and told both Draco and Cristoff that but he wasn't in control of their particular rodeo and he happened to want the pretty lady who was in charge to still tolerate him which meant reunions came before the good stuff. "You okay, babe? Looking a little-"

"Horny? Feral? Desperate? Cause I feel like it." Her haughty words cut his off to earn a round of poorly covered laughter from the mages walking a few steps ahead of them. Lucy immediately regretted the way she was acting. It wasn't his fault she was crawling out of her own skin. It wasn't anyone's fault.

Unperturbed by the outburst, Bickslow just let a sly smile tease the corner of his lips as warm breezes of mid-Summer filtered through his hair and raised the mood. "I was going to say under the weather but I like your answer better. You have a certain je ne sais quoi…" pausing as if in thought about just the right words to say before tugging on her hand pulling her against his side whether she wanted to or not, "...a gift for the spoken language that just gets me going." By the time he finished, he was blinking at her with false cherubic energy right in front of her face.

While she was laughing on the inside, the playful antics of her mate were making things exponentially more difficult. "You," her voice tight through her jaw with how hard she had to clench her teeth from staying in check, "are not helping me right now. Is there any way for you to tone this down a little?" Her hand gesturing from the top of his head to the toes of his boots.

While her mate was busy holding his stomach from cackling at her expense, Vander decided to helpfully chime in from where he was trying to get Evergreen to take her glasses off of her own free will just to see if he could get her pissed enough. "There's no toning down or taming a Pradesh, my sweet, you'll just have to deal with his face the way it is."

Her groan was long and loud as a response because Bickslow's face was the problem. Any amount of lingering stare was too long with the way her arousal was building without any outside stimulation aside from her Seith's presence beside her. He would be delighted to know the effect he had on her without having to try and usually, she would be all about it in return but they were in sight of the guild doors. Fifty steps and closing in on a whole lot of crazy wrapped in good intentions with rough handling exclusivity. As if her own uncontrollable sex drive wasn't enough of a challenge for the fledgling dragon, the excitement of seeing her friends, her family, again was starting to make her fingers tremble. That much closer to strawberry milkshakes, drunken shenanigans and hugs. So many hugs.

Cristoff did his best to try and soothe as much of the tension from her body as he could without directly touching her with his magic to keep her centered and Vander immediately took to giving his blunette brother sound advice on the pleasures of being a sub to give her thirty solid seconds of as much peace she was going to get before hell was going to break loose in the guild and surrounding areas. She was eternally grateful to both men and what they did for her considering the alternate wasn't pretty in the slightest. Amazed with how quickly they had all become staples in her life, the blond bombshell of nerves felt some of the tangled emotion ease with the comfort the thought brought her. Cristoff and Vander both had become these sturdy pillars of stability and security in her life. They also made a pretty good run at co-piloting the angel/devil dynamic that kept her cheeks nice and sore from all the good times they brought with.

It's a good thing she really used her time wisely because it was all the prep time she was given before Natsu, having heard the foreign commotion outside and smelled the achingly familiar scent of his best friend, burst through the front doors without a care in the world for the hinges he ripped out, barrelled right through Evergreen and Freed, brushed passed Vander just as he managed to take a half-step back out of the line of fire before knocking Bickslow completely out of the way and didn't even register Cristoff's existence due to his smart position out of the way of the Fire Slayer's one-way mission to Lucy. The grip he had on her shoulders kept the two of them still in spite of all the forward motion he produced as he yelled his private greetings for anyone who happened to be outside to hear it. "LUCE! I knew you'd be back today! I already told everyone about your," his eyes darting to either side suspiciously to have Lucy herself take check for someone even though she had no idea what they were keeping a secret and from who, "'condition' so if anyone says anything, I'll just fight 'em 'til they shut up about it. Vampire or no, you're still my partner." The pride in his voice had Lucy brought back to the reality of now and if he hadn't pulled her into a tight hug, he would have seen the way her face pulled and beamed into a look of pure contentment before jerking her back with a skeptical look in his eye and an uncanny ability to make the blonde feel like nothing was that bad if he was here. "You're still my partner right? They didn't brainwash you, did they?" Completely uncaring of anyone around him, he cursed the nomadic bands of Joyan vampires from across the continent. "Those blood-sucking bastards…" Lucy's face was wide with confused amusement at his manhandling and unloading of three months of emotions without her there as a keeper. His quickly morphed into unwavering support as his thumb pointed into his own puffed chest. "Don't worry, Luce. I'll get you back to being you again. I've been doing research and there's a rumor about a cure in Sin that sounds super weird but we only need a couple of angel feathers and a-"

Having heard enough cackling from her unhelpfully still and silent team, Lucy cut off her best friends little ranting moment with a swift but sure, "Natsu, I'm not a vampire," only to be met with an even more doubtful look from the pinkette to leave them in a western style stand off of narrowed eyes and twitchy trigger fingers.

Without warning, his hands abandoned their post on her shoulders in favor of wrapping them around her jaw and jamming his thumbs between her lips to pull them up and out in order to get a better look at her fanged teeth. Not appreciating the abrupt intrusion inside her mouth, Lucy bit down into the bone of his finger on impulse. With a snap of his wrist to remove his hands from the death traps she called teeth, he stepped away from her body altogether in a panic. Concerned only with the fact that she had succeeded in getting her handsy partner out of the orifices of her body, she wiped the spit covering her face from her cheek with a shutter wracking her shoulders. She half hissed at the Fire Slayer. "Your fingers never belong in my mouth. Never. Do you hear me, Natsu?"

Interested only in the 'bite' mark on his finger, his eyes went wide with panic as he clutched the barely bleeding finger and shoved it back in her face. "YOU BIT ME!? I'M BITTEN! I'M GONNA DIE AND COME BACK NOW! HOW COULD YOU, LUCE?"

She raised her hands to try and ease his worry since she wasn't a vampire and neither was he, but he just dropped everything and sprinted away with his sights set on his little cabin away from the guild and the group of stunned mages. Even Vander was silent after a scene like that. It was because he was laughing so hard his lungs had run out of air but it was quiet nonetheless.

Out of silence, Freed's steady voice sounded even as he fixed the already perfect collar of his coat from Natsu's tunnel vision. "I give the imbecile an hour before he comes back convinced he's a child of the night."

"Not even," Bickslow's face was drawn in consideration, finger tapping his chin as he tried to imagine how the storyline would play out, "he'll be back when he realizes he just left two dragon slayers behind without trying to throw a single punch."

Evergreen happened to want to actually see their guild and said as much as she crossed the short distance to the door to disappear behind it. Freed turned back towards the Seith without acknowledging their female teammate. The green-haired Rune Mage loved a good mystery and this was like his own little social experiment. "Who do you think he'll try his luck with first? The unknown Lunar Slayer or our own Celestial Slayer."

Both Vander and Bickslow answered in time with the other because to them, the answer had no other options. "Starshine." "Lucy, without a doubt."

Having just had her gums molested and crazed fanatic yelling in her face, the compact woman shut everyone up with a single sharp look before Cristoff came to her side and rubbed the back of her arm affectionately. She accepted the touch happily since it was doing wonders to keep the gnashing and gnawing of her dragon at bay now that her one and only explosive distraction had abandoned her. His voice was low enough that only she and he could hear his carefully chosen words. "Does...he have a mate?"

Narrowing her eyes up at the Lunar Slayer with a quizzical brow, she asked for clarification on just what he was asking because there was no way he was asking her what she thought he was asking her. "He being...Natsu?" His chin dipped as the affirmative action to show that he was in fact asking about the level of availability her destructive idiot best friend and she had to take a moment to herself to regather the functionality of her brain cells because this was definitely those tricky fate sisters keeping up hilarious appearances. "Uh, yeah, he's stupidly single. Seemingly forever stupidly single but I mean, yes. Why?"

The rest of the party was still preoccupied with debating who Natsu would want to fight first and the Rune Mage had brought up a valid point at just the right time to have Lucy's eyes bugging. "You don't think size will have a factor in the final moments?" The fiery male tended to pick the biggest and most powerful enemies for the sheer challenge of it and Cristoff was a large, unknown entity. It was sure to catch the pinkette's attention.

Once again sent into a thought spiral with the new points added to the subject for consideration, Bickslow started to maybe waver on his initial decision for a split second. "I see what you're saying, I really do, but I just can't get the picture of Miss Dragon America telling the timebomb she's a slayer and him just igniting like a lamppost right then and there. An on fire lamppost with serious issues. S'kind of a dream of mine now that I say it out loud."

The Shadowquip had popped into the guild and back out in time to hear his brother's words, his ruggedly handsome face twisted up in delight at all the beautiful prospects for spending his time while he was here in Magnolia if the hall of babes was any indication. "I don't even know the guy and I'm betting on firecracker taking a shot at our starlet. No competition, she'll kick his ass but it'll be a great warm-up before the big game." All signs pointing to Vander meaning their mating as the big game mentioned including his own immature and accurate gestures.

Choking on her laughter at the casually offered boasts and inappropriate hip thrusts, Lucy thanked them all in the form of warm smiles before bracing herself to actually put one foot in front of the other and go inside even though she was pretty sure the crotch of her panties was soaked and getting uncomfortable.

She regretted it as much as she reveled in the tangled mash of joyful greetings, whooping hollars at their return and the barrage of questions coming from every corner of the hall at breakneck speeds, all directed at the doe-eyed blonde at the helm of the ship. Blinking the initial overwhelming flight impulse from her brain, she tried her best to answer the questions that came at her one at time while Mira dragged her over to a seat, somehow managing to welcome the rest of the gang in with a single wave of her hand. It was like Lucy was the keynote speaker and it was time for Q and A except she hadn't prepared for it and the whole crowd consisted of rabid raccoons and she was wearing garbage chic.

Thankfully, her redheaded knight in shining armor, literally, put a stop to the madness with a single chop of her sword to still everyone except Vander, who was busy making come hither eyes at Cana. Stepping through the crowd to stand in front of Lucy, the shine of Erza's armor was blindingly polished to perfection enough to have her cringe and turn away but it wasn't a problem for much longer. Her cheek was smashed to the metal in a typical greeting from the Requip Mage to take care of her own temporary blindness. "Welcome home, Lucy."

And welcomed she certainly felt because this was home; wherever these people, her family, happened to be, that would be home.

Lucy had managed to get through fifteen minutes of focusing on only the questions of her guildmates before someone finally asked about where Laxus had gotten to. Before Vander could get anything out of his smug lips as a reply, Lucy answered with a simple 'you know how he gets after a mission' because they all actually did know how he got and it usually meant he kept to himself for a day or two before coming into the guild. Of course that was before he was technically Master and undeniably gay. While the oldest Strauss had only asked out of worry for her childhood friend, it started raising questions in the rest of the members of their guild that the Celestial Mage had no answers for.

With intent to help his quickly sinking mate, Bickslow had gotten pulled away by Cana, Lisanna and Levy in the process as a divide and conquer plan set in motion by the mastermind, Mira herself in the hopes that they would get the scoop on their red hot romance. The brunette Card Mage had shoved him somewhere close to a stool at the bar while Lisanna and Levy flanked either side of his towering frame to pelt him with questions he had to answer in rapid fire succession or Cana poked him in the center of his back with a one of the metal skewers meant to hold fruit at the top of those fruity drinks he occasionally dabbled in.

First question came from Levy. "So you and Lu are official?"

"Yes." Without a doubt or hope of ever changing.

Next came from Lisanna. "And you don't hate each other?"

"No?" Bickslow had no idea where that would have even came from since they were about as cordial as the rest of the guild.

One obvious one from Cana. "What's it like for the two of you in the sack?"

It might have hurt his pride a little to have to actually say it out loud but it was the truth and he needed to own it. "I wouldn't really know but I'm sure it'll be soul-changing." He also happened to like wordplay and since none of them had been informed about Lucy's dragonhood, it was his own private joke.

Cana called bullshit before stabbing him in back with her weapon of choice to pull a hiss from Bickslow before he reached back and took it from her. She blew him a kiss and grabbed another skewer because Cana did not believe him for a second.

Another question from Levy grabbed his attention and then it turned threatening to force him to swallow the building humor in his chest at the whole scenario as she stood with defiance in her eyes and her hands on her hips. "And you haven't been screwing around, right? I'll kill you, you know-"

"Holy shit, Lev, no. I love her." It was one of those moments where his brain knew it and he knew it but he hadn't really tested it out and now that it was out there, it just made him want to nestle into the sentiment.

While Levy and Lisanna melted into bubbles of gooey fangirl from the confession, Cana kept her cool and her grip on her sharp weapon. She watched with delight as his eyes followed the innocent swing of it back and forth. "Is that why she seems so...different." The words spoken carefully in the hopes that she could get him to spill something juicy. There was drama afoot and she liked to be elbow deep in it.

The smile that split his lips was all shiny pride as his eyes found his mates head of golden hair from across the hall, catching her mid-laugh at something Macao and Romeo were arguing over, was enough to have the Card Mage lower her threatening pose and just listen. "I'm sure I'll catch all sorts of hell for letting the cat out of the bag but I suppose you could blame me for her taking on a dragon soul."

"A what?" Not the type of drama she was expecting. Cana had more sibling rivalry, walking in on the other in the middle of sexy times with Lucy, stuff in her mind.

"Dragon soul," his words far too casual and flippant for the drunkard's liking but it was hard to argue with a man so obviously and hopelessly in love, "from Draco."

Blinking through some more vibrant thoughts of her own, Cana kicked at both her accomplices to see if they would be any help at all in these desperate times. The two remained lost to their own little marshmallow world of love and heart-shaped chocolates. "So you're telling me," honestly, Cana was trying to not freak out at the information she was sorting through and really could use a friend or a drink at this point, "my best little blonde wingman is not only off the market but a Dragon Slayer? Is that what you're telling me?"

He gave a shrug before dragging his gaze away from Lucy to meet the searching eyes of the brunette trying not to jump to conclusions and doing a bad job at it, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against the bar to really get comfortable and enjoy the view he had of the whole guild hall. "I'm gonna marry that woman."

Nodding her head along as if he were a mental patient in the psych ward and she just learned she herself was a patient, she reached behind the bar, grabbed the closest liquor bottle she could get a hold off where Mira kept the good stuff and took a few deep drinks. Cana was sure she was about to die and this was all some great big fever dream before Fiore's top ten eligible bachelors would descend from above and escort her to hell wearing nothing but an array of stripper costumes. Bickslow, international man of chasing tail and infamous for the prowess of his tongue, was ready to be someone's husband. On top of that, the wifey he was tying himself to was none other than miss romantic, out of everyone's league herself. Not exactly his type. She guessed it kind of made sense now that it was out in the open like that. Only Lucy could tame the untamable and come out on top. A sort of opposites attract thing maybe. "So since hell's freezing over and flying pigs are squealing in the clouds, you gonna tell me Laxus met a girl and settled down too? Everyone just up and got hitched?"

"No." He left just enough of a pause to have her let out a breath of relief before tacking on for shits and giggles. "He met my brother and they're probably two rounds into destroying his house by now." No one knew Laxus like Bickslow did and since Kaleb was always a wildcard, the Seith Mage would bet money on at least a little structural damage between the two of them and their appetites.

Knowing when to make an entrance, Vander popped in on the other side of the brunette, his arm already slinking behind her back as her eyes met his with a flash of hunger to add to what was quickly growing to be his favorite topic of conversation; White Lightning. "I bet thunder boy is going crazy just trying to get Kaleb underneath him. Did you see the way he was heaving when we left? The wrestling match with his dragon ended and the dragon won. An angry dragon who prefers only the finest Boscan ass available to attest to the lizards superb taste in men. I myself happen to also be available, Boscan and incredibly fine as well." He gave her a wink and Bickslow barely kept his eyes in his head from how hard he rolled them at the cheesy moves he was dusting off. "I'm Vander Pradesh."

Because Bickslow knew better than to stick around for that particular coming together of minds, he made for his mate, feeling no remorse about dancing around conversations with his guildmates to get there sooner rather than later. It was starting to get late and if the passed three nights were any indication, he needed to get her away from other people before she could soak in any extra star-power and set the mood for some kind of way that wasn't appropriate anywhere in the vicinity of people. He held a new appreciation for Lucy and her unshakeable resolve after having a chit-chat with the Joyan God of War that eerily reminded him of the same fatherly chat he had with Draco. And Laxus, now that he thought about it. Also Loke had a similar chat with him about virtues and vices. The list of powerful dudes in his mates back pocket were getting longer by the day and now included a god as well as a handful of dragons and a few kings. Good thing he was such a confident guy or he might have been intimidated by it.

Taking in a deep inhale from where Lucy had sat between Erza and Mira to pick out the unique scent of cedarwood and lust, she reached a hand out behind her without taking her eyes from Gray's to interrupt the flow of her stories. His fingers traced over her palm to put a smile on her lips as she leaned back against his legs as a backrest while she finished. "...and I'm telling you, the manager of the spring kicked us out so fast, you'd have thought we poisoned the pool."

"Which wasn't even the worst of it. The hotel manager kicked us out of our rooms right after to pretty much ban us from the little hut town forever." Bickslow's voice was rumbling and music to her ears but the instant he braced his hands on her shoulders was like her carefully built wall to keep the dragon out was made of glass with how easily it crumbled to pieces thanks to the unfightable gut reaction from the connection after suppressing her baser nature for this long; pain. Lucy had hit the limit of her own rope and the dragon wasn't pulling any stops until she gave in.

The sounds of the guild started pulsing too loud through her skull as her ears picked out every individual sound and amplified them each too much for her to take. It made the heavy saturation of her swimming vision blur and sharpen, focusing back and forth between the cheerful faces of her friends and the empty chairs in the far back of the guild to make her dizzy and lightheaded. Her body was rioting from not getting what it wanted for too long. The visual and audio psych trip wasn't even the worst part; the worst part was the conglomerate of smells all swirling and mixing in the hall. In a last ditch effort to try and not throw up all over everything, she focused on the wholly masculine scent of her mate until filled her to the point he was all she could focus on.

Gray had noticed the way she had started to slink away from the table and further into the crook of Bickslow's legs, her nostrils flaring and her jaw tensing in pulses. Concern shined his words as they left his mouth while Lucy sank further into her senses and into her mate and away from reality. "Lu? You okay?"

Instead of Lucy or even her mate answering, Cristoff had just enough time to explain that she needed to get the fuck out of there or who knew what she'd level in order to get to Bickslow. She gave Anhur a run for his money and that was when she wasn't fueled by hot burning desire. It was Vander's job to get them out of the guild hall before she did something anyone else would consider 'bad' but anyone else wasn't judging the actions of his favorite spitfire blonde. He and all his male model glory decided to wait until she flipped around and ripped the button completely from his jeans to smack Gray right in the center of his forehead and no doubt ruined the zipper beyond repair before finally taking the two young lovers to Bickslow's house where they didn't have to worry about anything except each other. It wasn't any first-class delivery by Vander to the middle of the Seith's foyer and honestly felt like half a shove through the shadows but Lucy could have cared less how she got to the beautiful hand-crafted home as long as Bickslow was with her. Hell, she was about to walk herself right through her own gate to get to a bed if Vander hadn't express-delivered them here. The dragon in control wanted to mate and be mated. It wanted to feel Bickslow writhe underneath her, sink her teeth into him and ride him until she and her dragon were satisfied. That was evident by the way she was stripping him without care of actually taking his clothes off in a way that would make them salvageable in the least. Lucy was relentless and she knew exactly what she was doing but Bickslow wasn't going to just let her have her way. Not at first anyway. He'd let her build up a bit.

Taking her wrists in both of his hands to still them before those talons of hers tore something a little more precious to him than his shirt and pants, Lucy barred her teeth up at him in warning but her eyes were glassed over and hazy, blind from the urge to get on top of him and claim him. He wouldn't get very many opportunities to catch her off-guard so taking this momentary gift for his own, he threw her right over his bare shoulder to earn honest to god growls from his feisty dragon, pinned her legs against his chest in a swift move to keep her there and started carrying her up the steps because dammit, they were going to make it to a bed. For every attempt to free herself from his unrelenting hold, Bickslow gave her ass a smack. The sound was sweet music to his ears. With every crack against the tensed muscle, her arousal grew hotter and higher until her wildfire swallowed itself and churned into an inferno tearing her up right under the surface of her skin. Bickslow had taken to telling her all the different ways he could bind her up and tie her down just to see how much he could get her riled up before he got her right where he wanted. The images alone had her dissolved into a mess of gruff purring and snapping jaws all at once to pull husky chuckles from her captor. "Don't worry, starlight, I'll make you feel like you're freefallin' off cloud nine."

Like the double-edged sword her new magic was, the reaction from the woman inside her was instant and molten but the dragon was a jumble of rage at being handled so casually, pride at having such a strong, capable mate but the most vital bit she was currently enduring was the voracious appetite eating her away from the inside. He was a buffet of delicious sights and sounds Lucy was desperate to taste.

It was a struggle but Lucy managed to keep herself contained until they stepped foot into his bedroom, then all hell broke loose for the unsuspecting Seith. In a flurry of twisting motions that had Bickslow drooling with how flexible his mate really was, the blonde had managed to swing all her weight backward, launching the pair stumbling forward toward the only real goal the two sex-starved mages had; the victory of finding a bed. The Seith was only worried about dropping Lucy at this point and wasn't even paying attention to the way her arms and legs shifted enough to give her the leverage she needed to push him into the mattress while landing unscathed just out of reach, all the feline grace of a true predator that caught its prey. Her clothes were falling away from her body where she split the fabric of her clothes to leave her standing in the middle of his bedroom in a simple red thong and matching bra, the warmth of the sunset's light bathing her in fire to steal away his breath right from his lungs. Having spent the majority of her time with all her heightened senses on him any chance she could get without even the hopes of being able to strip and explore as she wanted, the minxy blonde could just soak in the way he looked all sprawled and vulnerable for her. Her mouth started watering just at the sheer magnetic attraction they had. But even sprawled across the pristine white of his downy comforter at the mercy of a dragon, the tanned man and all his splayed limbs held the same air of mischief that followed behind him everywhere. Mischief that took physical presence in the form of his usual crooked, sinfully handsome smile that engulfed the brightness in his mesmerizing eyes to give him a devious glint that only served to get her more excited. His hands easily took care of the final piece of clothing keeping him from being totally naked before kicking the briefs away and laying back. "Any chance of me getting out of this in one piece?"

The far too casual way he asked it pulled at her heart the same way it pulled a fanged grin on her lips like everything aside from her wasn't as important including his words. She liked the way he couldn't take his eyes off her prowling form and it made her feel more powerful, more alluring, to know someone like this insane piece of Boscan mana-perfection was so thoroughly entranced by her. It took her back for just a split moment in time. Back to the guild after the Raijinshuu came back from their first mission without Laxus. She was sitting at her usual table with her team arguing over the next job they should take when just the barest flash of a look caught the two mages, Bickslow's eyes flashing faintly green from behind his visor barely enough for her to register his magic and her heart stopped for that moment in time. At the time, she was young and uncomfortable with her own attraction to a man older than her that tried to take over Magnolia and successfully took over her body. It wasn't so much his magic or the mage himself that made her feel that way but her own doubtful belief that someone with that kind of confidence and power would be interested. He was half a decade older, practically S-Class and a known lady-killer with a reputation for leaving broken but incredibly satisfied hearts in the hours of the morning. Just as fast as they connected across the hall, his tongue fell out of his mouth after letting out a vulgar remark about the tears in Evergreen's dress and that was it; the moment was gone and over with. Did that mean she was over it? Not in the least. Somewhere in her subconscious, she held onto that fleeting connection, nurturing it by getting closer to Laxus when he came back to the guild and training with his team, getting to know them. Bickslow became her older brother's best friend instead of the perv from the guild and he made her feel like she was 16 at her coming out party, all butterflies in her stomach and hopeful doe-eyes, but that wasn't all he made her feel; he made her feel lighter with laughter and easy conversation, helped her learn the limits of her body and push past them without any pressure. He made her feel like she wasn't 'the baby Dreyar' of Fairy Tail. And now here they were in his bedroom, his gloriously nude body on display, every delectable inch of his tanned skin all laid out over the drool-worthy definition of his abs, the cut of his hips and the broad width of his shoulders, and she had only one thing on her mind; sinking her teeth into the bronze god before her. Her fingers flexed and tensed at her sides as she stalked closer, each motion fluid and predatory to pull a moan from her sex on legs Boscan with the way her steps shook her thighs.

Bickslow wasn't too hard to please in his youth. Set of tits? Awesome. Nice ass? Bonus for him. Willing participant? What a coincidence, so was he. But Lucy? Lucy was the pinnacle and always had been from the moment he saw her. It started as an unhealthy attraction to a young girl in a cheerleader costume with the words 'jail' and 'bait' written in red across her pretty innocent face and grew into an honest to god crush through the years the longer he got to be around the embodiment of Fairy Tail and the life she brought to people and places she touched. He convinced himself nothing would ever happen between them as long as she had protecto-dadbro Laxus looming over her shoulder and the sheer fact that Lucy was without a doubt way out of his league. And now here he was watching the sexiest woman on the planet slink her fine ass straight to his waiting arms. Her wandering hands snapping the silky red material keeping her chest contained to have the peaks of her rosy buds harden from the sudden exposure and slicing the thin waistband of her thong and he had the passing realization that if heaven was real, he was smack in the center of it right now. His hands reached out to take in her curves and the hard muscles that sheathe them to memory, greedy hands already mapping the newest scars from her fight with Anhur when she gave scolding clicks of her tongue, smile turned darker to have his own arousal light a fire deep in his abdomen at what that meant for him.

"Not so fast, Bixy-babe." The back of her hand was trailing down the taut muscle covering his torso to earn a shudder from her mate as she soaked in the fevered heat radiating from his skin. "I'm in control now," her voice sin incarnate as she crawled over his lap to force him to back away from the edge of the bed towards the headboard, her dragon impatient and starving for the taste of his body, "and I plan on using you up until I see exactly what makes you come undone." She was thankful she had let the girls at the temple braid her hair back out of her face or who knows what would have happened to it for getting in the way.

Back pressed painfully into the shelves of his bed frame, all he felt was the keen sting of his own need for release with how badly he needed to feel her. If he wasn't so dazed from the effects of his unbelievably sexy woman, he might have tried to sound so desperate. "Oh kitten, one touch is all it'll take." Because he was not kidding. The pain throbbing through his member had become unbearable and with the way she kept the moist heat of her core hovering just out of reach of where he wanted her most, he was barely holding himself back from completely ruining their sad game of cat and mouse on his side only. His mate was near sweltering when she got minxy and apparently, mistress minx was the only setting she had when it came to being exposed to his naked body.

One dainty hand wrapped around his wrist above their heads, her voice distracting and sultry as her other hand delicately brought the other arm above his head while their eyes stayed locked together, the concentric circles trapped in the dangerous slits of her eyes. "Just one? My, my, I thought you were a professional, darling." While he was answering with his own breathless and utterly half-hearted comeback, she had pulled a pair of Virgo's cuffs, the leather padded ones tested against the strength of a dragon slayer, and strung her mate up without him knowing since he was distracted by the way the gentle grind of her wet core over his stomach was driving him mad. Enough to have him reach out for her again and pull against the restraints with a mirthful look on his flushed face as he realized just how irrevocably caught he was. Her position straddled over his body, the bounce of her chest in time with her ragged motions, was a place he hadn't been in a very long time. She hadn't even so much as grazed his cock and felt like he was ready to have the fragile levy of his male pride break loose. Premature wasn't how he wanted to come into the sexual aspect of their relationship. Just as he thought he was about to not give two shits about his pride and give in himself, her teasing touches ceased and she stilled her grinding with no explanation.

Bickslow was trying to stay light but the height she had built him to just left him breathless and heaving. "So this is how it's gonna be? You goin' full Mistress Magdala and me playing helpless plaything," his eyes were glazed over from the overwhelming heat building between them, "cause I could get used to this." While that was true, Bickslow wasn't about to let her win that easily. He had a firm belief in the 'a tease for a tease' type of justice but he needed to play this smart or his sexy and smokey minx would turn feral. He spent enough time around dragon slayers to know he wasn't ready for that just yet. Or maybe he was, it didn't really matter either way as long as she stayed naked.

"Suddenly so docile," the questioning in her voice stemmed from the doubt that he would just roll over for her. He had this absolutely inexplicable ability to get her to surrender to him without any great shows of strength or dominance. A coquette brow raised as she leaned forward to draw his attention to how hard she was pressing the hardened peaks of her nipples into his chest, tracing her tongue over the shell of his ear. "Suddenly such a good boy."

Another pained groan left his throat because praise coming from her lips was better than every wet dream he's ever had as his hips thrust upwards into her body to knock her off balance. Thanks to the way she was straddling him, it gave him just enough time to twist his body around to put him on top with her caged in under his body. At the same moment, he coerced Papa into the worn leather cuffs to release his own wrists and wrap around the slim wrist of his mate instead, effectively pinning her beneath him and anchoring her to his bed and flip the tables completely. Looking down to take in the wide fanged grin of pleasure on her face, he knew he must have done something right. His fingers absently danced across the thin white lines of scarring from their fateful trip to Joya before he dipped to nibble on the soft skin of her bottom lip.

The woman inside, or the romantic more accurately, was swooning at the display. Ready to submit and give him access to her soul completely but the dragon wanted to bask in the playful nature of her mate. Her dragon hungered for more from him and would do anything to get it from him. Testing the sturdiness of her own handiwork with the cuffs with unnoticeable tugs, Lucy was sure she could at least pull her arms free from where they were attached to solid wood built into the wall at the expense of the shelves since there was no way to get the damn cuffs off her wrists without breaking them and with the way she could feel her core pulse with need, it was a small price to pay if it meant getting back on top.

The sound of splintering wood was enough to have Bickslow cringe on impulse and in the moment of mourning for his hard work before he could revel at her tiny body and the power in held, Lucy had hooked her leg around his thigh to give her the right position to flip them over in time to the split second she opened a gate below them to bring them somewhere less likely to get splinters. In a disorienting twisting of realities that felt like he was on some serious drugs, Bickslow landed in a heap on the plush cushions of his couch downstairs with Lucy's teeth digging into the juncture of his neck above his collarbone with his cock buried deep in the heavenly heat of her core. All he felt at first was the glorious heat and sharp pain from the physical connections they were sharing but the pain at his neck started tingling with a sensation that grew into wave after wave of her magic as it pulsed through his body. All the while Lucy was chasing the high of her life in the form of the after-effects of taking in Bickslow's soul to her body as she felt it fill her completely with a vivacity and passionate energy that could only come from the blunette half-convinced he was dead with just how good he felt underneath her, her dragon finally getting exactly what it always wanted.

~So it's going to be in a rotation of mystery for which chapter gets posted next since I'm in the middle of a new job, writing original shit that doesn't sound absolutely terrible and keeping the fam happy BUT I'll try to keep it at a chapter a week. No promises but I'm trying my best for y'all cause you deserve it.

Hugs and so much love!~