Damian chuckled, taking the implement from her and setting it back down. “The only thing I want on a table right now is food of some sort if you’re still hungry.”
“Please,” she agreed. Between this morning and the cemetery, she was running on adrenaline and fumes. And she was still carrying the photo album. Uncle Lee had to’ve given it to Danny. Danny wasn’t nearly responsible enough to keep something so old around. He’d have forgotten it three moves ago—or at an ex-girlfriend’s.
How could someone so irresponsible, and with such a long rap sheet, think that they were the hero now? Was her brother truly so unaware?
“I’ll be right back,” Damian said, walking for a door that matched the wall behind it.
“You mean it this time?” she called after him.
“Absolutely,” he promised, disappearing.
Andi watched him go and looked around. “Just what’ve you gotten yourself into?” she asked herself before gingerly sitting on a bench as though it was spring-loaded and might trap her.
* * *
Damian ducked into the hall outside, heading for the stairway, pleased in a way he couldn’t express to be in Andi’s presence again. It just felt right—reverberatingly, meaningfully, right.
Mates, his dragon said with a pleased sigh. Assuming your appetites don’t scare her off.
They’re yours, too. Don’t lie, Damian thought back at the beast. And she’s braver than you give her credit for. He went into the library and found Austin still at Ryana’s bedside, Grimalkin still wound about the bird. The cat’s eyes opened briefly at his arrival, then fell back closed again with a loud purr.
“Any change?” he asked the werewolf keeping watch.
“No.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Hard to say,” Austin said, shaking his head deeply. “I’ll be happier when she wakes up.”
“Me too,” Damian agreed. His sister was the only one who could tell them what’d happened running up to the final moments of his old palace’s destruction, what forces had been at play, and if his stepmother, The Snake, was still alive.
“You smell like the nurse,” Austin said, without recrimination.
He wondered, for the first time, if the wolf scented her like he did—her apples, caramel, and the sea. “Her brother reached out to her this morning. I brought her here for her own safety,” Damian told him.
Austin smirked. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Damian groaned as Austin went on. “I’m just blowing off steam. After what we saw in the mirrors, you deserve to be happy. No matter how fleeting.”
Damian put a hand on Austin’s shoulder and squeezed. “I appreciate that.”
The werewolf reached up to clap his hand and then waved him away. “Go. Have fun. I’ll tell Grim to get you if I need you.”
“Thanks. And…anything happens here—good or bad—you let me know.”
“Will do,” Austin said, and Damian went into the kitchen.
While he couldn’t cook personally, that didn’t mean that others couldn’t. Jamison enjoyed cooking the most out of all of them, and he usually made sure the kitchen was stocked, via Grim, and his own electronic connection to all sorts of delivery services. Damian ran through the cupboard and fridge and created a tray full of food-like items that he thought Andi might like or at least would tide her over until he could get her something that she really did. He brought it back upstairs, pushing the door behind him open with his back.
“Hold this, please,” he asked her, and she took it from him, so he could go down the hall and liberate a non-leather-covered coffee table from another room, bringing it back for them to use. He placed it in front of her and sat down on the ground. She set the tray down on it before joining him with a laugh.
“Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? In here?” she asked, glancing around again.
“Unorthodox, I know. But there’s fruit, too. I wasn’t kidding earlier about not being able to cook. The magic cat is indisposed,” Damian said, pushing the tray at her. “Eat something, please.”
She tore into an orange, her nimble fingers piercing the skin and tearing pieces off expertly, and he had never wanted to be a piece of fruit so badly before. And then he noted the leather-bound book that she’d been carrying. She’d placed it between them when she’d sat down. “What is that?”
Andi sighed. “My brother gave it to me this morning. It’s an old photo album of my mother’s.” He reached for it, and she put her hand on it to stop him. “Can we not?” she asked him earnestly, the same as he had not long ago in his car, regarding Michael. Emotions he couldn’t read streaked across her face, culminating in a pervasive sense of sorrow, and the edge of the salt water he’d scented on her last night. “It’s just going to make me sad.”
After the morning he’d had grappling with his past, he understood. “Of course,” he told her.
“Thank you,” she said, pulling herself back together again, hiding the album beneath the table. “So, how was your morning?” she asked him brightly instead, clearly forcing the conversation forward.
If only he hadn’t promised to always tell her the truth. “Also sad,” he admitted.
Her eyes widened, and she reached for his hand in sympathy. She did it so quickly that he was tempted to feel special until he remembered that as a nurse holding people’s hands was probably part of her job. “What happened?”
“I watched my old home being torn apart.” He knew places couldn’t die, but that’s what it felt like, watching the towers of his youth turned to rubble, and he felt his throat start to choke. “I opened a mirror and basically saw my childhood being destroyed.”
She looked at him with the same confusion he felt. “Why?”
“I’m still unsure, although war’s the best guess. In the Realms, if you live in war, you die in war. One of the many reasons why I left.” He concentrated on the way her hand felt in his—small, smooth, and cool, in comparison—and marveled that she was here. He moved to hold her hand in both of his so that she couldn’t leave him—not now, nor ever. “I knew I was never going back, but still.”
She nodded in response. “Yeah. I know. Not one hundred percent the same, but you expect the past to be how you remembered it, and when it moves on you, it’s disconcerting.” Her lips twisted to one side in thought. “It’s like you’re climbing up a staircase your whole life, and one day you turn around, and it’s not there behind you.”
He knew she wasn’t just talking about his problems. “An apt analogy.”
“Was anyone hurt?” she asked tentatively.
“My sister.”
“Damian,” Andi gasped, pulling herself up to her knees. “Is she okay?”
He thought of Ryana, ensconced in his library. At least she wasn’t in the Realms anymore. “For right now, yes.”
She sank back a little, still eyeing him, wary on his behalf, and he wondered if this was what her patients felt like at the hospital—cared for, protected—and it moved him in an unfamiliar way. “Are you all right?” she gently asked.
That was such a good question. “I don’t know yet, really.” He squeezed her hand in his own and stroked a thumb across her wrist. “But I’m better now that you’re here…if that’s not too mean to say.”
She smiled softly at him. “I think that’s just the right amount of mean.” Then she dramatically looked around the room before pointedly returning her attention to him. “And probably the least mean thing in this place,” she said with a snort. “Do people really want all this?”
He knew what she was really after. “By which you mean, do I?” Damian let go of her hand and rocked back to consider her fully. She was biting her lower lip in the way that tormented him. Her dark eyes were wide, and her pulse picked up as she waited for his response, just as fearful that he’d scare her as if he wouldn’t. He purposefully leaned forward with slow intent to brush an eyelash off her cheek and felt her shiver at his touch. “I don’t need all of it all the time, no
. But I do like to be in control. It’s how I’m wired. Which is why I need you to give me a safeword now. Even if we never use any of this. I need you to know you have an out with me…always.”
Andi went from hovering attentively to laughter. “Oh my God, you’re just like Sammy.”
He grinned. “Well, I haven’t serial killed you yet, have I? So maybe your roommate has some good ideas.”
She swept another glance around the room. “Okay. Fine. Same one then, so I won’t forget it. Rambunctious.”
“Three syllables? You’re sure?” His eyebrows rose. “I mean, I do intend on rendering you speechless as often as I can, so that’s a lot.”
She flushed and laughed again. “I’m sure, and trust me, once you get to know me better, you’ll have a hard time shutting me up.” She knelt beside him, her hands in her lap, her head tilted up, breasts subtly forward. He was busy making the mistake of thinking she was tamer than she knew when she asked, “So, what’s yours?”
He paused. “My what?”
“Safeword.”
Damian chuckled. “Why on earth would I need one?”
She pouted impudently. “Because I want you to know that you have an out with me, too.”
He watched her and found her utterly serious. “That’s not how this works, Andi.”
“Says the man who’s never been in a relationship before?” she asked archly, but he knew she was teasing from the expression on her face. Then she stood, eyeing him through downcast eyes, and there was something regal in her expression—the angle where her neck met her jaw and the straight sweep of her hair. The way she came into her own as if living in her space more fully, just by standing over him, and deep inside, he felt his dragon begin to stir.
“Give me one, or I’ll make you give me one,” she demanded, like a queen.
Damian rocked back, bemused and unsure where this was going, but entirely willing to play along. “I would like to see you try, princess.”
“All right, then,” she said. “Stand up.”
He contemplated fighting her, then wondered if that was what it was like to be her, all the time.
It’s hardly a fight when she’s so tiny, his dragon said, watching their exchange through him.
True, Damian agreed, but said, “Your wish is my command,” as he stood for her.
“You’re a dragon, not a genie,” she said, then grabbed his arm, pulling him over to a bench with latches on either side of its back. “Sit down,” she directed him, then went to rummage around behind him, returning later with chained leather handcuffs.
It was hard not to ask her why she was doing what she was doing, and he wondered if this was something that she liked, or that she’d read in books or seen on TV, as he let her buckle his wrists to the bench behind him.
“Do you feel safer with me tied up?” he asked her honestly.
“No. Because it’s not about safety with us, remember?” She stood up, surveyed her handiwork, and then began taking off her shirt. Damian’s breath hitched as he watched the fabric trail up her stomach, exposing warm brown skin and more than a few marks from the night before. She was so fucking edible, dammit. His cock thumped inside his suit slacks, and he leaned forward without thinking only to feel the buckles around his wrists stop him.
“I’m not even done yet,” she taunted, dropping her shirt to the floor and then unclasped her bra. “I’m sorry there’s no sexy dance. I do like dancing; it’s just that I’m nervous right now.”
“Don’t be,” he murmured, watching her slide the bra’s straps down her arms, revealing the small raindrop shaped breasts it’d hidden, each dotted with nipples the size of his thumbprint, tipping up at being exposed to air, and he bit back a groan.
She grinned at him impishly, then went down to her knees in front of him, and started working at his belt buckle. His cock reacted each time she brushed it, bobbing for her as it filled with ache, and he watched her work, feeling tortured until her fingers unbuttoned his slacks, and she unzipped him and reached inside the elastic of his boxer briefs.
“Andi,” he whispered, feeling her take him in her hand, bowing his head down over hers.
She pushed the fabric down enough to see him, so they could both watch her holding him there. He saw his cock turn dusky red with need, and as she started to stroke, he moaned, feeling himself flex against her hand as if he could draw her closer, faster.
She kept one hand working him as the rest of her rose up, pulling roughly at his shirt so that she could send her other hand searching underneath it, running her fingers along his skin, before kissing down his stomach until he knew where she’d end up and she looked wickedly up at him.
“Say it,” she taunted him.
Damian chuckled deeply. “Never.”
She pouted, then swiped her thumb over the precum pearling on his tip, swirling it in a gentle circle over his head, and he hissed in desire. “Not even if I do this?” she asked.
“No,” he told her flatly while smiling.
“Hmmm, then what about this?” she asked, keeping eye contact with him as she pulled his cock out toward her, parting her perfect lips to take just the head of him in her mouth so she could follow the path her thumb had just taken with her tongue.
I like this game very much, his dragon told him. He didn’t respond to it, but he gave Andi the reward of a ragged breath and watched her smile mischievously around him, as she started to suck his cock in earnest, her head framed neatly by the crisp lines ironed into his black slacks. Her mouth was so warm and soft, and as she took him deeper, he filled it and could feel himself rubbing at the back of her throat like she was fit to swallow him, as her hand kept working at his shaft, and another sank lower to cup his balls.
“Andi…goddamn,” he got out, and she stopped everything, slurping off of him and looking up expectantly, kneeling between his legs with her pert breasts between his knees that he was torturously not allowed to touch.
“Your safeword is a curse word?” she asked. “I don’t know a lot about these sorts of things, but that seems like an odd choice.”
He made a sound between a growl and a groan. “No, my safeword is not a curse word.”
She gave him the same look she’d given Rax before she’d rooked him for a two-million-dollar car. “I’d better suck harder then,” she said breathlessly, and Damian knew he was in trouble.
Good trouble. The best possible kind.
She took him back into her mouth and bobbed her head down as she stroked him, and her fingertips teased against the seam of his sack, and his hips pulsed up to meet her of their own accord. He was panting, ready to come like a date in the back of a car on prom night, but that didn’t matter because she made him endlessly hard. He would always want to fuck her, to want her, like this, or any other way she’d let him.
“Andi…I’m going to cum,” he warned her in guttural tones, and then she moaned. He felt it reverberate around him, and that’s what set him off—the thought of her pleased to please him, wanting to take what he had to give. He made an anguished sound and pulsed, hard, feeling himself jet inside her, wave after wave of pleasure reeling through him and out into her waiting throat, all the while her purring around him. She didn’t stop until he was finished. Her one hand released his balls gently while the other held his shaft still as she pulled off of it, not losing a single drop. She sank back onto her heels, her lips slightly swollen from the effort of taking him, and gave him a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile before speaking again.
“So, what you’re saying is that cum is your safeword? I guess I respect your non-traditional ways,” she said, and he leaned forward, breaking the chains behind him easily.
“That’s it,” he said, as she squealed at his freedom. He swept forward and picked her up. “I have a cage in here somewhere, I’m going to put you in it.”
She laughed and fought against him. “Damian!”
“You have a safeword now. Use it if you want to,” he said, putting her over his shoulder and bitin
g at her hip through her jeans on the way to the bed in the back. When he got there, he tossed her into it and watched her bounce. “Jeans. Off. Now. Underwear too. I can’t be destroying all your clothes.”
“Less laundry, though?” she laughed, working at the button of her denim. She got it vaguely loose as he pulled her shoes off for her, casting them aside, then grabbed the cuffs of her jeans to yank. She squirmed free as he did so, breathing heavily, and then she was fully naked on the bed ahead of him. He took a moment to coolly appreciate her perfection—the pout of her lips, the way her dark eyes watched everything, taking all of him in, the way her breasts slightly pulled to the side because she was on her back—waiting. His cock was already throbbing again, and he reached into his slacks to give it a stroke as his eyes slid down the slight rise of her belly to between her legs where her heat began. The air around him was thick with her delectably heady scent, and he wanted to breathe in more.
He mounted the bed, kicking off his own shoes as he did so. “Grab hold of the bars over your head.”
“Are you going to cuff me to them?” she asked, her voice rising in alarm.
“No, princess, but you’re going to want to hold on,” he said, and came for her, freeing his erection.
Chapter 4
She couldn’t blame him for anything after the way she’d tortured him. She did let go of the bars to grab his head and bring his mouth to hers as she spread her legs to take him. He kissed her hot and heavy as she felt the rasp of fine wool rasp against her inner thighs and the hot head of his cock pushing up as she arched her hips to match him.
He was right. He slid into her, and the whole bed shook with it. She grabbed ahold of the bars behind her to withstand the onslaught—his mouth on hers, at her ear, neck, and shoulder—as he thrust relentlessly in, making her gasp with each pumping stroke.
Then he growled at her throat before reaching down to grab and pull her hips to him. He leaned back, kneeling, pulling her ass up over his thighs, and she groaned at this new angle in her, giving herself over to the sensation. He was a sight to see, still in his worsted wool suit—his tie askew, his shirt hanging free, his slacks only down enough to keep his cock in her. The whole scene was so decadently different from her normal life—them together, which she still wasn’t used to and couldn’t quite believe—in this room of all the rooms of his house. It felt like she was watching someone else experience all this, like a very elaborate dream, until he thrust again and took her breath away. He reached down to grab her breast and bent over to kiss her, and she was sliding her hand between them to rub her clit when—
Dragon Fated: A Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds) Page 6
