by A. C. Arthur
She looked up at him then with a curious expression. “I guess you could say that.”
“Shola has an accent like yours, but Ziva doesn’t,” she said.
He nodded just as the buzzer sounded at the door. “Ah, yes, we’re from the same town in Yorubaland.”
Acknowledgement eased the crinkle in her forehead that he’d noticed just seconds before. “I’ve heard of that place.”
Steele went to open the door, sighing with a bit of relief as Bleu pushed a cart draped in white linen. On top of the cart were four metal covered dishes, two plates, silverware, glasses and a carafe.
“I thought you were going to bring this up while I was gone,” he whispered.
“Your message came suddenly. Besides, we were all under the impression that you would be handling this quickly,” Bleu replied as he moved past Steele.
“I hope you like roasted chicken, red potatoes and green beans,” Bleu continued once he was in the living area, moving the cart to position it in front of the couch. “We weren’t expecting company so a simple dinner was prepared for the evening.”
“That’s fine,” Ravyn replied. “I don’t require anything special.”
But she did, Steele thought abruptly. She should have been having a special dinner, with a special man in her life. There should be candlelight and soft music such as he’d seen in movies, that set a mood of romance. She deserved those things, even if he would never be able to provide them for her.
“Steele will take it from here, but I can be reached by hitting that blue button on any of the control panels.” Speaking in a smooth voice and dressed in a tailored black suit, white shirt and gray tie, Bleu gave her a slight nod. The older Drakon ran a tight race with Aiken, who they also called GQ, for best-dressed.
“Thanks,” Ravyn said and moved around the cart to take a seat on the couch.
Steele didn’t bother to look at the other Drakon as he left the room.
“Why’s he wearing sunglasses? Doesn’t he know we’re indoors?” she asked the moment Steele returned to the living area.
They normally wore the shades anytime they weren’t at the Office, to keep anyone from seeing the abnormal shade of their eyes. While they could pull back their dragon eyes and appear totally in human form, it had been the only thing they were allowed to wear publicly after Theo had banned them from revealing anything about their true nature in the human world. He’d successfully hidden his eyes from her. And as he’d walked to the room where she was being held tonight he’d known to pull them back again. But the fact that she’d only asked about Bleu’s glasses told him Shola and Ziva hadn’t worn any when they’d been with her. Damn.
“Bleu’s a strange old fella,” he replied, for lack of anything better to say.
Steele moved around the cart and after staring at it, then her, then it again, went to turn his chair around and pull it closer to her.
“Strange,” she repeated quietly. “Yeah, I’ve been dealing with a lot of strange things lately.”
Steele didn’t want to hear about them because he had enough of his own strangeness going on, so he didn’t ask as he took a seat and uncovered the food trays.
“What will you do when you return? I mean, now that you have so much money?”
“That money’s not for me. I’ll make improvements to Safeside.” She took a plate and picked up a fork before looking at him. “That’s what we call our, um, home. And I’ll stock up on food and supplies before the winter comes.”
“With all that money you could build an aboveground facility for you and the others.”
Her shoulders sagged a little at those words. “We won’t be safe. They’ll find us and come up with some other way to oppress us. Exorbitant taxes, made-up laws that only we seem to break, keeping us from getting jobs for no other reason but that we’re not like them.” She shook her head. “No, we’re better where we are.”
“Nobody is better hiding.”
She set her plate down and dropped the fork to its side with a loud clank. “Don’t judge me. You have no idea what I, or any of those people at Safeside, have been through. And if you hadn’t seen me steal that dagger, you wouldn’t even be concerned about us now. Nobody else is.”
Steele sighed because she wasn’t wrong. He didn’t care about any human beyond the moment when a preternatural entered the picture. If truth were told, he didn’t care about anyone except his brother and the remaining members of his clan back in Mobo. They were the only reasons he continued to breathe, the only reasons he hadn’t stayed in the Abyss for the rest of his life.
“I don’t pretend to understand your situation. And because of that I guess I’m able to suggest alternatives.” Was it wrong that he wanted a different life for her than the one living in that dimly lit underground space?
“Not everyone is meant for the same type of greatness, I guess.” She shrugged and scooped potatoes and green beans onto her plate.
Steele wasn’t hungry, but he put a piece of chicken on his plate and when she followed, they ate in silence for a few moments.
“I feel like what I’m doing there is important. Nobody else was thinking of us or trying to help, so when I was put in that position I did it and I was glad to be of use.” Her tone was quiet and contemplative.
“I find it hard to believe you weren’t of use before then.”
When she looked up at him this time it was with the saddest eyes Steele had ever seen and his chest tightened like a vise.
“It can be hard to find your focus sometimes, especially if you’ve been told something different all your life.”
“Whoever told you that you were worthless was a lying piece of shit,” he snapped, and her eyes widened.
“I didn’t say anybody said that. And anyway, I’m not worthless. I got into the senator’s house and stole his prized possession without anybody knowing.”
“That you did, and speaking of which...”
She nodded toward the small table that was in the spot next to where his chair had been.
“I put it over there. It seemed like that chair was your favorite spot in this room.”
He didn’t bother to turn and look at where she was referring, but instead kept his gaze focused on her. For the first time since he’d looked at her with his dragon eyes he noticed that she was wearing different clothes—tight-fitting pants and a T-shirt that hung just a little below her waist and stretched over the swell of her breasts. She’d pulled her hair back and twisted it into some type of loose knot at the top of her head.
“Thanks,” he said when he realized he was staring and not speaking, which was odd and sort of rude. “Stay with me tonight.”
Those next words came fast and out of nowhere.
“Stay here, with me and I’ll take you home in the morning. Then you can get Safeside ready for the winter and I’ll... I’ll take care of the dagger.”
One neat brow arched and the corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. “One more night?”
Steele gave her a small, hopeful smile in return. “One more night.”
* * *
Their night began with him slowly undressing her.
She lay on his bed, a willing and affable participant, and Steele took his time. If this was going to be the last time, he didn’t want it to be fast and hot like last night—even though, truthfully, he’d told himself last night was the first and only time.
“I like feeling you touch me,” she said and he looked up to see her head resting against the pillows.
He had a king-sized bed that was positioned on the side of the room across from a wall full of windows. Night poured through those windows now, the deepest blue sky with only tiny specks of what might be stars. There was a lamp on both stands beside the bed, but he’d only turned one on because he enjoyed the way the soft golden light rested on her rich dark yellow-brown skin tone.
The pants had seemed to be molded to her skin, but he’d pulled them down and past her ankles so that he now held one foot in his hand. He bent his head and kissed the tip of her tallest toe, then down to the arch of her feet. She sighed and he kissed farther up to her ankle. Moving to give the other foot the same treatment, he felt anticipation building slowly. Physical sexual response wasn’t foreign to Steele, and even though he’d imposed a period of celibacy, he’d still taken the time to relieve himself of sexual tension, believing that to be his preference. But the moment his kisses trailed farther up her calf, to the backs of her knees and then to the inside of her thigh, and she reached her hands down to cup the back of his head, Steele knew there was nothing like this. Nothing that compared to the scent and touch of a woman. His dick jumped with excitement, urging him, begging him to go faster, but he still held back.
“So soft,” he whispered against her skin. Reluctantly easing his lips away from one part of her thigh, he went to the other and rubbed the side of his face over her. She held his head firmly, her legs parting for him. If he could stay right here forever, he’d be pleased. His life and all he’d gone through would have been worth it.
“Nobody’s ever made me feel like you do,” she said, her voice a light whisper that eased over every bruised part of his soul. “Please don’t stop.”
He wouldn’t, at least not for the next few hours.
He reached up to pull away the panties she wore. Such simple slips of cotton, last night’s were a pale blue and tonight’s were pink. It was so sexy it drove him crazy and before he tossed them over his shoulder he rubbed them over his cheek too, closing his eyes so that he could memorize not only her, but every single thing that related to her. He’d resigned himself to walking away from her, but that didn’t mean he had to forget.
She took that opportunity to sit up on the bed, reaching out to grab the end of his shirt. “Let me undress you.”
Steele didn’t want to take his hands off her and realized he didn’t have to just because she wanted to take his clothes off. So after he lifted his arms and let her pull his shirt up and over his head, he dropped his hands to cup her face and leaned in to touch his lips to hers. He knelt in the center of the bed while she sat in front of him and he gorged on the sweet moistness of her mouth. Her lips always parted willingly and without any coaxing for him, her tongue dancing wildly against his.
The beast inside was hungry and pressed so hard against Steele’s skin he had to fight back the shift, while keeping their kiss going because the thought of stopping was actually painful. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her. Sexy little whimpers that quickly turned into deeper moans of pleasure escaped her and Steele wanted to swallow them up and keep them buried deep inside him for future use.
Keeping his lips plastered to hers, he moved his hands down to her shoulders, over to cup her breasts and then down to grab the ends of the T-shirt she wore. He didn’t bother to pull it over her head, but instead ripped it from her body.
She pulled her mouth away for a second to giggle and say, “Shola’s gonna be pissed about her shirt.”
“I’ll buy her another one,” he groaned and grabbed the back of the bra, moving his fingers frantically until the snap disengaged.
She hurried to ease back as he pulled it free of her arms and flung it across the room. Her nimble fingers went to the buckle of his pants, tearing the zipper down and then digging inside to cup his engorged dick.
“Fuck!” he yelled, letting his head drop back on his shoulders.
She pushed his pants and boxers past his waist so she could have unfettered access, and before Steele could think to push her away, she was moving her legs so that she could come up on her knees. Seconds later she leaned forward to take him completely into her mouth.
His body jerked the moment his tip touched the back of her throat and the fingers of her other hand scooped his balls and rolled them in her palm.
“You don’t want to keep doing that,” he warned. “It’s not gonna be good for you that way, sweetness. Please just let me—”
She pulled back slowly, holding his dick in her hand, and then looked up at him. “This is so damn good. I couldn’t stop thinking about it last night and then this morning when you were gone. I swore if I had another chance, I’d take it.”
Steele could do nothing but stare down into her eyes that twinkled with desire and her hot little pink tongue that slipped through her lips to lick them as if she were about to have the most delectable meal of her life. He didn’t speak another word of protest but instead watched as her lips stretched over his length again, sucking him in deeper. Try as he might, he couldn’t hold back the urge to pump inside her mouth any longer. But he did move with slow strokes, easing in and then back out, loving the sight of the moisture from her mouth leaving a sheen on his dick.
“Such a pretty mouth,” he whispered. “A pretty, hot mouth.” That he never wanted to think of being on another man. But he couldn’t keep her, he reminded himself. He couldn’t, but there was a growing part of him that didn’t want to let her go.
In response she took him in and did some sort of humming thing around him. He cursed until he thought he was going to explode in her mouth. That’s when he knew he’d had enough. No way was he coming in her mouth, not this time. He wanted everything he had to be emptied inside of her.
That thought made pushing her away from him even harder. He let her pull back and then watched as she circled her tongue around his length. Lifting him so that she could give the underside her valued attention, then adjusting him again so that her tongue could dip into his slit. Jolts of pleasure speared from the base of his spine straight to his dick and spurts of pre-cum escaped. She licked every drop, looking up at him with lust-filled eyes as she did. He moved his hands so that his thumbs brushed the sides of her mouth.
“Do it again,” he told her.
She did, licking the next drops and swallowing them while keeping the sexiest look he’d ever seen. Then she wrapped both hands around him, giving him a warm hand job that Steele knew would make him come in just a matter of minutes.
He pulled away from her then and pushed her onto her back. Before she could speak he was lifting one of her legs, dropping it onto his shoulder seconds before sinking deep inside of her. What was meant to start his thrusts into her had instead rendered him completely still. She was so tight, even though he’d just been inside her last night. And so warm, her muscles tightening around him like a glorious glove holding him securely within her depths. Turning his face, he kissed the arch of her foot once more, closing his eyes and again dedicating this moment to his memory, because it would indeed have to last him forever.
After a few seconds he opened his eyes and looked down at her. Her lids were partially closed, eyes glazed as she stared up at him. She’d moved her hands up to her breasts, her thumbs circling over her nipples. Desire soared through him and the beast rose up on its hind legs, its head drifting back.
Steele pulled back until the tip of his dick rested at the rim of her opening, then slid deep again in a long, slow stroke that left her moaning. Again and again he moved so slowly and so intentionally that they were each moaning, hissing and trembling. Her hands gripped her breasts as one of her legs stayed flat on the bed, the other held high up on his shoulders, her toes wiggling, head thrashing against the pillows.
He couldn’t stop moving inside her and wouldn’t allow himself to stroke any faster. This moment needed to last as long as it possibly could because Steele knew this would be their last. It dawned on him seconds before she arched her back and screamed with the intensity of her release, that she was the one to bring him out of his celibacy and she would be the one to start the resistance once more.
“No one else,” he whispered as he continued t
o pump into her, loving the feel and sound of her warm essence dripping around his dick. “No one else but you.”
He thought she said yes, or it may have been another hiss. His ears were clogged with the rushing sound of his own release on the horizon. “Just you,” he continued to say, dedicating himself to her in the only way that he could. “Just you, Ravyn.”
“Steele.” She whispered his name and his body took that as consent to let his release flow full force.
With his head held back, eyes closed, it was Steele’s turn to yell with pleasure and distress.
It was just her. No matter how hard he’d tried, it had been her. At first it was saving her, and now, it was so much more. It was needing to possess her, to claim her, to make her his in the only way he could. For the only time he could.
Chapter Eleven
Darkness engulfed him, cool air blew around him and danger lurked.
The feeling was familiar and Steele walked with booted feet over a ground made of thick black smoke. Houses surrounded him, and they all looked the same, structures with doors and windows and rooftops. He wasn’t alone here in the world of dreams. Anything that could be imagined existed on this place. Things long since departed from the other realms, beasts, demonics, angels, memories, all lurked around any corner, behind a door, or with the next breath.
