by Riley Storm
It didn’t seem worthwhile letting her know that most of his clan had thought about it, trying to find a way around it, with no success. Letting a dragon out like that was simply too dangerous. They couldn’t risk it. This was one of those cases where dragon law came before everything else.
They had to preserve their secret. No matter the cost.
***
He let go of the leash as she opened the door and Barton trotted through without so much as a whine or fuss. The dog seemed to understand that things were serious and right now, his owner and her new friend needed to focus on other things.
The pup went right to his bed of blankets and plopped down; the only sign that he was still alert was the wagging of his tail which didn’t stop as he followed them around the room with his eyes.
“I hate this,” Carla said without preamble, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Pace was torn. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her and tell her that it would be okay, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t going to be okay, not for her, and he didn’t want to lie to her. That wasn’t his style, or who he was.
But secondly, and more importantly, he couldn’t go to her because Pace was the one hurting her. That was tearing him up inside, shredding his guts as he watched her react, knowing that Carla was too intelligent to deny what had to be done.
Even if it meant effectively losing her job. All the hard work of years, wasted away because of her asshole of a boss. Pace wasn’t sure he was done exploring that option, but no solution had presented itself yet, and he vowed to keep exploring ideas that would keep Carla where she needed to be—keeping the streets of Five Peaks safe for its inhabitants.
“I know you’re right,” she said at last. “But that doesn’t mean I like it. It feels like a betrayal, even if the logical part of me understands it’s not. But I’m going to suffer for something you have to do. If your people weren’t hidden, weren’t a secret, then I wouldn’t suffer for you.”
“We can’t expose ourselves,” he said quietly. “Trust me on this one. That would make things far, far worse than you can ever imagine.”
Carla buried her head in her hands. “I know,” she moaned. “Pace, I know. But I’m scared. I don’t want to go back to being a beat cop. I like doing investigative work. I’m good at it too!”
“I know you are,” he growled. “I know you are. I think that’s where you belong.”
To his surprise, she reached out to him. He moved swiftly, taking her hand in his and sitting on the bed next to her, wrapping his free hand around her shoulders. It wasn’t much comfort, but he felt better about being able to provide that at least.
She leaned her head on him.
“I had sex with a dragon,” she said abruptly, changing the subject. “That’s crazy.”
“Sex with a human wasn’t too bad,” he agreed. “Not too bad at all.”
He received an elbow in his side for that. Not hard, but perhaps a bit harder than normal.
“Not too bad,” she scoffed. “Really? That’s all you have to say to me? Not too bad? Was it that unimpressive?”
Pace chewed on his lower lip, pretending to think about it.
“I’ve got to admit, I don’t really remember. Perhaps we should try again, refresh our memory. I might have gotten it wrong.”
Carla looked up, her face alternating between exasperation, laughter, and shock that he would even suggest such a thing right then.
“I feel like, aside from the fact you are extremely beautiful, and look great naked, the two of us could use a little tension-relaxing right now. Dealing with that back there was not pleasant.” He paused. “Plus we had to fight the bad guy.”
Carla laughed. “Yeah, cleanup at a scene like that is never pleasant. I’m going to have paperwork for ages. Not fun.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“I won’t lie, I’ll admit that sleeping with a dragon was pretty hot.”
He coughed at the pun, earning himself another elbow.
“But this time, please try not to burn my place down after?” she asked, a smile betraying the seriousness of her words.
“You want to?” he asked, spine straightening. “With me, I mean. Again?”
“Just kiss me first,” she said. “Let’s go from there. I make no promises.”
That was good enough for Pace.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Carla
Nope, no change. Still feels just as good as before.
“Not too bad at all,” Pace said with a low rumble as he pulled back just enough to kiss the side of her mouth, leaving a blistering trail of kisses that made their way along her jaw, then down her neck.
Little bolts of lightning sparked over her collarbone and through her body with each kiss, amplified every time his stubble scratched at her. It wasn’t necessarily a pleasing feeling, but it was a reminder of his masculinity. Not that she needed another, but it simply heightened the sense of security she felt with him.
“I think we both know it’s better than that,” she said, reaching out to his lap. His pants were noticeably tight, and she dragged her fingers over the tip of the bulge.
“Maybe,” Pace agreed, stiffening under her touch, just how she’d wanted him to. “You might be onto something.”
“You know,” she said, pretending to think, still drawing little circles around him with her index finger. “I think I like the sound of that.”
Pace frowned. “Sound of what?”
“Being on something,” she purred, giving his junk a gentle squeeze. “I think I like that a lot.”
She almost doubled over laughing at the eager, excited look in Pace’s eyes. It was so completely un-sexy, breaking the serious image he had going on to the point she had to bury her face in his neck to keep from interrupting.
Gosh, she loved him so much.
“I think you would like it too,” she whispered in his ear before pulling his shirt up and over his head.
Pace just growled, trying to remove her shirt. But she was still wearing her vest. He sighed, and the two of them took to divesting her of it, and her belt, all of which went onto the only chair in the hotel room. Her shirt followed as his eager fingers opened the buttons one by one.
She gasped in surprise when he pulled the shirt down to her elbows and then twisted his own hand up into the material. It pulled her arms tight behind her, elbows nearly touching, keeping her pinned, immobile. Completely at Pace’s mercy.
His other hand yanked her sports bra up and over her breasts. It wasn’t gentle, but that combined with being unable to move had Carla’s heart racing with excitement. She bit her tongue, unable to stop the moans from filling the room as his expert tongue teased her nipples until they were hard.
She began to breathe faster.
Barton whined, got up, circled around his bed twice and then lay down, his face turned the complete opposite direction.
Pace looked up at her. She looked down at him.
As if on cue, they broke into great gusts of laughter at the same time. Much of the tension of the day simply flowed away with the moment. Carla shrugged out of her shirt and doffed her bra, while Pace undid his belt and dropped his jeans to the floor, both of them simply stripping.
“Poor guy,” Pace said.
But that didn’t stop him from helping her get undressed, pulling her jeans off and then removing her underwear as well, leaving her nude.
“Hey, what’s this all about?” she mock-complained, waving a finger at his boxers. “Come on now. Off we go.”
“Yes ma’am,” Pace said with a sarcastic salute before his drawers hit the floor.
“Much better,” she said, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him down onto his back.
“You just wanted me naked and at your mercy,” he complained as she started to slowly jerk him off, watching how the corners of his eyes tightened every time she neared the tip.
“And if I do?” she asked, always stopping just short of the head of his
shaft as she moved her hand up and down.
“Then I feel like I need to lodge a formal complaint.”
Carla leaned over and let spit drip from her mouth to the tip. It was a bit vulgar, but Pace immediately tensed as she gently rubbed it in, using it as lubrication.
Truthfully, watching him like this was turning her on far more than she’d expected. Pace wasn’t quiet, and he was constantly talking to her, telling her how good it felt, and of course begging her to cross that line, to run her fingers up over the tip.
She never did.
He began to slowly leak from it, writhing on the bed as she stoked his fires, but never giving in any further than that. To Carla, it became a game of how long she could tease him for, until he could take it no longer.
By the time he started to get “angry” at her, she was burning with the need to feel him inside her as well. Pace reached out and between her legs. At some point, she’d gotten on her knees next to him, but Carla couldn’t remember that happening—he found her practically dripping with desire.
“I think we’ve both had a long enough day,” he said. “Do we really need to deny ourselves this pleasure any longer?”
“You make a good point,’ she said, her other hand gripping the flesh of his upper stomach as he teased her clit, sending pleasure lancing up into her center, pausing any movement. “A very good point.”
Carla didn’t think she could stand the same sort of return teasing that she’d been giving him. Not without going mad.
With his strong hands lifting and guiding her, she climbed on top of him, reaching back behind her to grasp him firmly. She used her own wetness to coat him, rubbing the tip against her. Both of them hissed and their combined noises of pleasure foretold that the best was yet to come.
When he finally did slip inside, Carla jerked upright, while Pace’s entire body went taut underneath her.
“Fuck.”
She wasn’t sure which one of them said it. Maybe both. But it encompassed everything they were both feeling as she slowly adjusted to his size and settled back onto his cock, taking it deep within her. Carla’s nails left red marks down his chest as she worked to fit him.
At one point, she leaned over, burying her face in his neck, admitting defeat for the moment. He was just too big. She couldn’t handle it, couldn’t take it all—
“Oh fuck!” she cried out as he pushed all the way in. Carla wasn’t given a choice and she trembled, her mind turning to mush.
Pace’s hands were gripping her hips tight, holding her still, preventing her from moving. She was his prisoner despite being on top, at his mercy once again.
But despite his actions, Pace wasn’t in control. She could feel that in his arms, in the way he lay completely still, trying to keep control of himself. Carla smiled to herself. She’d teased him so much, he was already near the breaking point.
“What’s the matter?” she asked playfully, sucking on the end of his ear.
Pace growled, but he still didn’t move his hips.
So she did, sitting up straight, placing her hands on his chest and grinding her hips against him. Slowly. Painfully slowly. Pace hissed, and she could feel him fighting his control.
Then he did something expected. One of the hands from her hip came around, turning over, and he slid a thumb between them. It swiftly found her clit, and began to rub it.
Carla threw her head back, eyes closed as she focused on that, while gently bouncing against him. It was so different than their first time.
More gentle, more intimate. She felt like she was the focus of his efforts. She was his priority. In return, she focused all her efforts on him. Watching his face for every tick of pleasure and gasp or moan, doing her best to please him as best she could.
Her entire body was shuddering, despite the actual limited movement. She was barely rocking against him, and his thumb was gently moving back and forth against her. That was it, and yet she was swiftly rushing toward a powerful climax.
“Pace,” she gasped, locking eyes with him just as he shuddered and lifted his hips.
“Carla!” he called out, her name ending in a wordless pleasured cry.
She felt him swell beyond his limits, and then suddenly, warmth. Carla couldn’t hold it in anymore. Her insides clamped down around Pace and she bucked wildly, falling forward, unable to sit up straight as pleasure raced up her spine and blasted into her brain, shutting it down for several seconds while her body was buffeted.
Below her, Pace was still finishing his own orgasm. She could feel it now inside her, and the sense of satisfaction at that melded with the warm floating glow that poured out from her own body, leaving Carla senseless and yet satisfied.
“How’s that for a memory refresher?” she said once her brain and breath returned to her.
Pace laughed and pulled her down to him, kissing her hard.
Carla fell into it.
She felt wanted by him. Not just wanted, but cared for. Appreciated. Respected. She felt like he believed in her in every sense of the meaning. So as long as he could give her everything she wanted, then did it matter?
But could he? After all, he wasn’t entirely human. Were they compatible? Could they create a future, together, she didn’t know.
Yet.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Carla
DAY SIX
Her time was running out.
That was the first thought to enter her mind as awareness returned in the morning, her body rising from a night of extremely restful sleep.
The second was that she wasn’t alone.
Pace stirred next to her and one of his arms rose up like a sea monster from the depths of the covers, wrapping around her like a kraken’s tentacle. Then it pulled her in tight. Carla squealed, mostly in surprise, and the noise seemed to awaken the beast as well.
“You okay?” he asked, snuggling in close to her now that he had her contained.
Carla’s lower lip curled under her teeth as she nodded, both her own hands coming up to grab onto his arm where it crossed her chest, holding it tight to her as she molded her body to his.
Now this was a wakeup call she could handle.
“How are you doing this morning?” he asked, his voice a low rumbling avalanche in her ear.
He wasn’t asking how she was feeling, or how she slept, Carla knew, but rather how she was handling the change to her life. To her world. He wanted to know how she was doing in accepting him for what he truly was.
A dragon.
“Better,” she said, meaning it. “Far less panicked. Much more curious. I’m going to be like a two-year-old for the next bit, just so you know.”
Pace frowned at her. “Huh?”
“You’re going to get a lot of why questions,” she said. “Like why here, why Five Peaks? This doesn’t seem like a hotbed for a place a dragon would want to be.”
Pace smiled. “That part would probably be best suited for after our current situation is resolved.”
“Okay. I guess. But if that’s the case, then we need to find this guy, Pace. I have less than a day to go before Dunbar comes down on me like a ton of bricks, and we have precisely zero clues. None. We’re dead in the water until he tries to strike again.”
“He won’t have any success,” Pace pointed out. “His hacker is dead, and the clans have been warned to change all their access keys, passwords, etc. All of it.”
“That’s great,” she said. “But that means he has no reason to resurface and show his face.”
One of Pace’s shoulders rose and fell. “Fate will ensure that things work out. Somehow.”
“You can’t really believe that,” she said slowly.
He grinned. “I can, and I do. Fate is a thing.”
“I like to believe that I control my own destiny, thank you very much,” she told him.
“You do,” Pace agreed. “Fate doesn’t eliminate human choice. Fate brings us the things that require us to make a choice. Like you and I. It brought us toget
her, ensured we would meet. But it was our choices that dictated the way things went with us. That we ended up in bed, and not at odds. Those were our choices.”
“I see. That’s an interesting way of looking at it,” she was forced to admit, spending some time pondering his analogy.
“By the same way, I know that you deserve better. That you aren’t destined to fail because of this. How you handle it, well, that may dictate the outcome, but a choice will be presented to you.”
“I suppose. It’s nice to hear that you think that.” She had a question she wanted to ask based on what he’d said, but Carla couldn’t think of a polite way to put it without seeming like she was prying even deeper.
“Go on,” Pace urged. “I can see it on your face. Just ask, Carla. It’s easier than trying to go about it in an obtuse way.”
She sighed. “That obvious, is it?”
He nodded. “Just a bit.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know I should never play poker with you,” she joked, working herself up to the question.
“Poker is a game of patience. Never play poker with a dragon,” he informed her.
“I don’t recall you being very patient yesterday,” she teased with a waggle of her eyebrows.
Pace snorted at the lewd comment, but could only give her a helpless look.
“Okay. That ties into my question, I guess,” she said. “Us. You and me. Whatever this is…why?”
“Which ‘why’ are you referring to?” Pace asked.
She frowned. “Can you read minds?”
“No, but I’ve thought about this moment for a long time,” he said quietly. “The whole reveal of who I am. I’ve also talked with some women who have been through it before. They give insight I never would have thought about from my side.”
“I see.” She rubbed his arm slowly. “I guess, why me, Pace? There are female dragons, aren’t there? Why not go after one of them?”
Pace laughed. “Oh yes. Female dragons are a thing.”
