“Hello to you too,” she returned huskily, her expression gentle as her hand moved up to smooth a dark lock of damp hair from his brow.
“You’re really here!” Maddox sat up, his arms moving about Carys like a vise as he gathered her close against his chest before glaring at the other two men. “Mine.” The harshness of his tone dared either man to dispute his claim.
“Your vocabulary currently seems to have been honed down to only one word,” Grigor taunted.
Maddox’s eyes narrowed on the other man. “If you try to keep me away from Carys again, I’m going to kill you.”
The statement was made with such cold vehemence, Carys didn’t doubt he meant it. “I believe the two of us spending the night apart was my decision,” she reminded cautiously. There was something feral about Maddox right now that said he would snap and snarl at the slightest provocation.
“I know.” Maddox drew in a deep breath and forced some of the tension from his body. “I don’t forgive them for putting you in the position of having to make that decision.” He glared at the two men. “But I forgive you for making it,” he added warmly to Carys.
The last thing Maddox wanted was to frighten Carys so that she decided they should spend the day apart too. He had only survived the night away from her by using his energy to totally destroy two heavy leather punch bags before Grigor and Nathaniel had offered to tag him in fight after fight during the long night until he fell down from exhaustion.
Considering those long hours of excessive aggression, he should be aching in every bone in his body and covered in bruises. He was neither of those things. He had never sustained any bruises in the fights he’d had in the past either.
It was yet another unexplained puzzle he had never had any answers to.
And yet…
Maddox’s eyes narrowed as he took in Grigor’s and Nathaniel’s appearance. The other men’s chests gleamed with a thin layer of sweat, but otherwise, their skin was as unblemished as Maddox’s. And it shouldn’t be, because Maddox was pretty sure he’d put in several hard punches to both men’s abdomens that should have left them with bruises, at least.
Maybe he was related to the Pendragon family after all?
These unexplained occurrences had certainly increased since Maddox arrived at Pendragon Castle.
As far as he was concerned, they could just keep coming as long as could continue to hold Carys in his arms and never let her go again.
She lifted her head to look at the two men standing beside the bed. “Could you leave us, please?”
“Go,” Maddox instructed coldly when the two men exchanged another of those enigmatic glances that were really starting to piss him off. Everything about all the Pendragon brothers pissed him off.
Because you’re exactly like them, the voice taunted.
Like fuck he was anything like these arrogant bastards!
He didn’t behave as if he owned the damned world.
No?
As if everyone should do his bidding.
No?
He didn’t have their inborn arrogance.
No? The voice definitely seemed to be laughing at him now.
Great, just great. Not only did he have the five, shortly to be eight, Pendragon arrogance-personified brothers breathing down his neck, but now his voice was taunting him at being like them.
Because you are them, and they are you, the voice sang softly.
Maddox was through being taunted and teased. “I told you to get out.” He glared at the two men.
“Maddox,” Carys reproved his aggression.
“Why bother being polite when they don’t like me any more than I like them?” Maddox scoffed.
Carys’s expression was chiding. “Because I asked you to?”
How could Maddox refuse her anything when she looked at him with those beseeching blue eyes? “Would you gentlemen please leave?” he requested evenly.
“Yep, definitely too late.” The humor could be heard in Grigor’s voice. “There’s nothing more we can do here.” He spoke to Nathaniel. “It’s noticeable that we can’t compel—convince either of them to do what we want, and anyone can see he’s already completely pussy whipped.”
Carys frowned. “I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve being accused of doing that.”
“You didn’t.” Nathaniel chuckled. “The poor bastard did it to himself.” He glanced at Maddox. “We told you to leave, but you wouldn’t listen. It’s too late now to reverse any of this. Which means you’re now stuck, not just with Carys, but with all of us too,” he mocked.
Maddox eyed him scathingly. “I don’t think so.”
Nathaniel gave him a hard slap on the back. “Welcome to the family.”
“Yeah, welcome,” Grigor taunted over his shoulder as the two men walked toward the door. “We’ll send up supplies intermittently so that the two of you don’t pleasure each other to death. Try not to kill whoever delivers the food, because I’ll take exception to it if it’s Gayle,” he warned Maddox dryly before he stepped into the hallway beside Nathaniel.
Carys stood to cross the room to look out one of the narrow windows. “What was all that about?” she prompted nervously.
“I haven’t a clue,” Maddox dismissed. He rose to lock the bedroom door before moving to stand only inches away from Carys. They didn’t touch, but the heat between them was palpable. “I did everything I could to stay away from you during the night, but it’s done nothing to ease the burning ache I feel to make love with you.” It was more than an ache. It had become a driving force inside him. But again, Maddox didn’t want to frighten Carys with the intensity of his emotions.
Her eyes were a shy but clear blue when she looked at him. “I ache for you to make love to me too,” she admitted huskily.
He glanced toward the bed. “Now?”
This was all new territory for Carys, and yet she wanted it. Hungered for it. Ached for Maddox.
“Carys?” He held out his hand to her.
“Yes.” She straightened before placing her hand in his and allowing herself to be drawn back to the lure of the bed.
She knew instinctively that whatever happened next, it was going to be the defining moment of her life.
Past, present, and future.
Chapter Nine
It took all of Maddox’s self-control to keep the need clamoring inside him at a manageable level. He held Carys’s gaze as she stood in front of him and he slowly undressed her. First he removed the blue sweater. Then the lacy bra, freeing the gentle slope of her perfect and aroused pink-nippled breasts. His hands shook slightly as he unfastened the button on her jeans, his fingers brushing against the warmth of her skin as he slowly lowered the zip.
That single touched was enough for all the blood to rush from his head into his cock, that hot throb obliterating all other thought but the need to be inside Carys. To claim her.
To mate her.
What the fuck?
“Maddox?” Carys prompted guardedly as she saw the angry confusion that had appeared on his face, his hands having stilled against her abdomen.
The frown instantly smoothed from his brow, and he gave a self-derisive half smile. “I think the brothers’ comments are getting to me. “ He shrugged his apology.
Carys swallowed the disappointment created by his words. “I’m sure they were just winding you up and you really don’t have to stay here. Even if the two of us do make love.” She wasn’t as sure of that as she sounded, if she was being honest.
The Pendragon brothers only left the castle when they needed to for the work they did for Pendragon Security. Their wives were just as much stay-at-home, despite all of them coming from the rush and bustle of the city. Chloe, Cristina, Tegan, Billie, Holly, and Gayle all came from London. Izzy, Deryk’s wife, was from St. Petersburg in Russia. Apart from Nathaniel and Chloe’s few months of living in the house on the other side of the mountain, there had never been any question, as far as Carys knew, that they would all continue t
o live here together.
And Grigor’s comment to Maddox, “welcome to the family,” must be worrying for him. Even if they were somehow related, Maddox lived in the States, and he had made it clear he intended returning there as soon as he was able, that he had no intention of living in Wales.
“You don’t want me to stay?” Maddox probed.
“I want you to do whatever you need to do,” she answered evasively.
“I want you.”
She nodded. “Then take me.”
Maddox didn’t answer with words. Instead, he lightly grasped the tops of her arms before bending his head, his gaze holding hers as he thoroughly licked and then sucked one of her nipples into the heat of his mouth.
Carys’s back arched, her head thrown back, as the overwhelming pleasure coursed through her veins. Maddox suckled first one plump nipple and then the other. She held on to Maddox’s wide shoulders, her mind a blank apart from the heat blossoming between her thighs and the juices gushing from her channel.
She was hot and trembling by the time Maddox raised his head to look at her with dark eyes.
“I need to take a shower before we go any further,” Maddox muttered. “Come with me?” he encouraged.
Carys leaned forward until she was able to lick a moist path from Maddox’s abdomen to his nipple, rasping her tongue over that hardened nub. “You taste delicious just as you are,” she assured before suckling Maddox’s nipple into the inferno of her mouth. “And I’m guessing we’re both going to be very hot and very sweaty shortly, anyway.”
Maddox knew he had to be those things already, and also more than a little smelly after all those hours of fighting with Grigor and Nathaniel. But if Carys didn’t mind, if she liked him like this, then Maddox had no argument with it either.
He bent down to lift her into his arms and place her on the bed. He knelt at her feet to ease off her unfastened jeans and her panties. His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at the naked perfection that was Carys Evans.
Not just Carys, but mate, the voice reproved sternly.
Maddox had no argument with calling Carys mate, lover, whatever, as long as he could claim her. But no matter how much his throbbing cock ached to do that, Maddox intended to worship and taste all of Carys first, from her head to her toes. She deserved to be made love to, not just taken.
His hands looked very dark against Carys’s much paler skin as he stroked and squeezed her legs from ankle to thigh. Carys gasped softly when he nudged her legs apart to caress the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs, and then higher still, to the juncture where the top of her legs merged into her groin.
He lifted his gaze to watch the pleasure on Carys’s face as his hands grasped her hips, allowing his thumbs to stroke and then part the plumpness of her very wet pussy lips.
A wetness Maddox couldn’t resist tasting as he lowered his head to lay claim to those plump lips to lick and swallow the thick nectar of Carys’s juices. Sweet, with a touch of spice.
Maddox felt the slide of that delicious and addictive nectar down his throat. It lit a fire inside him as he sucked more of those juices into his mouth before swallowing. His tongue speared inside her channel, eager for more. He couldn’t get enough, needed more. More, more, more. He would always want more of Carys.
For a man who had eschewed all emotional entanglements, physical ones too for many years, he knew with startling clarity that he would never want another woman but Carys ever again.
Mine.
Yes, Carys is mine, Maddox acknowledged. Completely and irrevocably mine.
As I am completely and forever hers.
The ecstasy inside him grew deeper and stronger until Maddox knew he would go insane if he didn’t soon possess and claim Carys as his.
He raised his head. “I need—I want—” His breathing was erratic. “I can’t wait any longer, Carys.” He stood to push off his sweats and black boxers before climbing back onto the bed to lie beside Carys. Her face was flushed, eyes bright with the same desire surging through Maddox as she held her arms out to him. “Don’t let me hurt you,” he pleaded. “I never want to do that.” He shuddered at the thought of ever causing Carys pain, either physically or emotionally.
One of her hands to cup his cheek. “I trust you.”
She spoke with such certainty, Maddox didn’t dare doubt his ability to never harm so much as a single hair on Carys’s beautiful head.
“I’ll go slowly so as not to hurt you,” he promised as he moved to lie between her parted thighs, lifting up enough so that the blunt head of his cock rested against the opening of her channel. “How do you feel about children?”
Carys blinked to clear the sensuous haze she had become lost in. “Children?”
His mouth twisted. “I’ve noticed the Pendragons call their young offspring, if that’s what you prefer?”
She moistened her lips. “How do I feel about the Pendragons’ children…?”
“Our children,” Maddox corrected. “I don’t have any contraception with me,” he explained at her wide-eyed expression.
He used to carry a condom in his wallet, but it had been so long since he’d needed one that he hadn’t replaced the last one once it went over its use-by date. But if Carys asked him to stop, then he would do it, no matter how painful he found it.
She blinked. “You want children with me?”
“I want everything with you,” he assured fiercely. “Marriage, children, forever.”
“Oh.”
Maddox stilled. “You don’t want that?”
Carys was shocked at how much she wanted that. “We’ve only known each other for a day.”
He nodded. “Long enough for me to know that I want you forever.”
Unlikely as it might seem, it was long enough for Carys to know the same thing. She didn’t know why, but she had complete faith in their feelings for each other. The certainty was just there, deep inside her and unwavering. “I want those things too. With you,” she assured warmly.
Maddox drew in a long, relieved breath. “Be absolutely sure, Carys.”
She was a great believer in things happening in the order they were meant to. Despite being highly qualified, she hadn’t been able to get a job after uni, not even as a waitress in a café, and then she’d been offered this job as temporary housekeeper at Pendragon Castle. Shortly thereafter, Maddox’s helicopter had been forced to make an emergency landing nearby. The moment the two of them met, she had felt a jolt inside her, as if something had shifted, filling a yawning need inside her that was the exact shape of Maddox Wilder.
She didn’t believe any of that was a coincidence.
They might have only known each other for a very short time, but Carys knew instinctively that she and Maddox were meant to be together. They might not have made any declarations yet of love, but Carys had every confidence they felt a deep, enduring, and forever love for each other.
She gave him a confident smile. “I’m sure.”
“Thank the Goddess— What the hell?” His expression darkened. “Those damned Pendragon brothers and their sayings are getting to me now too!” He scowled.
Carys chuckled. “They’re really all very nice when you get to know them. Their wives too.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he dismissed as he bent to kiss her long and deeply before lifting slightly. “Please stop me if I hurt you.” The intensity of his gaze held hers, their fingers interlaced above Carys’s head as Maddox slowly began to push the head of his cock inside the heat of her channel.
Carys caught her bottom lip between her teeth as her channel was stretched and then breached completely. The pain was brief and instantly forgotten the moment Maddox’s mouth claimed hers and he continued to slowly push the pulsing length of his cock inside her.
He lifted his head once he was fully seated. “Perfection,” he groaned. “Being inside you is like coming home after years spent in a wilderness. You are my home now, Carys.” His eyes gleamed with an unspoken emotio
n. “I never want to be or go anywhere in the future if you aren’t with me.”
“I feel exactly the same way about you,” Carys assured emotionally.
His eyes began to glow that iridescent gold-green-blue. “I could stay like this, buried inside you, forever.”
Carys felt even more as if she had been waiting for this moment, for Maddox, all her life. Maddox really was her past, present, and future.
He gave a groan as he lowered his head and claimed her lips with his own, both of them breathless, eyes glowing by the time his lips left hers. “I love you, Carys. I’m in love with you. I love everything about you.”
“You know as little about me as I do about you.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “What if you tire of me—”
“I won’t,” he said with certainty. “And we have a lifetime to learn all we need to about each other. I don’t need to know whether or not you take sugar in your coffee,” he stated firmly. “I already know the important things: you’re kind, and strong, and loyal. And I know with absolutely certainty that I will love you until the day I die.”
“I feel that way about you too,” she acknowledged almost shyly. Which was pretty ridiculous when she and Maddox were joined so intimately together. “I love you, Maddox.”
“Thank the Goddess!” He didn’t correct himself this time before crushing his lips against hers for long, claiming minutes.
Their love for each other seemed to swell and grow until it felt as if Carys’s chest would explode with the emotion.
They both tensed at the sound of shouting outside in the hallway.
Carys frowned in the direction of the locked door. “What on earth—?”
“I don’t give a fuck what they’re doing,” the man’s voice growled. “I want to see him now, and that’s exactly what I intend doing!”
Carys gave a mortified squeak as the door to the bedroom was kicked open, breaking the lock, and not one but all the Pendragon brothers filed into the room. Deryk, Rhys, and Aeran were now also present. The fact Maddox’s body was on top of hers, and so hiding most of her nakedness from the brothers’ view, did nothing to lessen Carys’s embarrassment.
Dragon Reunion (Dragon Hearts 8) Page 6
