The Protector (Fire's Edge)

by Abigail Owen

  He’s leaving.

  The uncertainty surrounding that fact was something she kept trying to forget, having to remind herself.

  He wants a mate.

  That part she’d never ignore. He’d been straight up about that. Impossible to misinterpret or ignore. A mate was something she could never be, could never give to him. Female dragons mated, but not in the same way humans did, because they didn’t need to be turned. Their mating couldn’t be a bonded one. Just in name only. Female dragons took mates for political reasons. That was it.

  She wouldn’t do that to him. Because, knowing Levi, he’d stop searching for the woman who he was truly meant to find. His mate was out there waiting for him, and Lyndi sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to ruin that for him.

  Mating was out, and love was out, and going back to the way things had been was out. Which meant holding herself in check until he was gone. Then picking up the scattered pieces he left behind.

  Seven hells.

  “Levi better get back with the groceries by lunch.”

  Delaney’s voice snapped Lyndi right out of her thoughts, or more particularly, woke her up from them to find herself with an answer staring her in the face.

  “He’s getting groceries?” she asked, proud that the question came out sounding perfectly normal, at least to her ears, even while her heart tripped over a crack and her dragon unfurled in eager anticipation. “When did he get back from tracking the missing dragon?”

  “Late last night.” Delaney didn’t even look up from the computer she’d been buried in lately. She’d decided to put her human education to work and had been investing the team’s finances. “I offered to go for him, since he didn’t get much sleep, but he insisted today was his turn.”

  That sounded exactly like something Levi would do. He took his responsibilities seriously. Even the little ones.

  “I told him now that he was leaving, he should just use the time here with us. He didn’t need to stay on the chore rotation.” Delaney winced. “I think that just made him sad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cami thinks we should do something. Like a going away party. But Finn says that’ll just make it worse.”

  Lyndi tried not to think about that growing ache. “I think Finn’s right.”

  If it was her leaving, she’d want to just go. Staying and pretending like it wasn’t happening, like her entire life wasn’t being upended, would be so much harder.

  “When did he go?” she asked, trying to hold on to that casualness.

  At Delaney’s raised eyebrows, Lyndi rushed to tack on, “I need printer paper, so if he hasn’t been gone long, I’ll text him and see if he can add it to the list.”

  “Oh.” Delaney stopped watching her with curiosity and shrugged, turning back to her computer. “About half an hour ago.”

  Which meant he’d only just be getting to the store in Placerville. It took some time to drive from their mountain to the highway and then down into town, the closest urban area to them that sported a large grocery store. Even dragons had to eat, and humans, over the last century, had made that much easier. Less hunting, more prepared foods. Though they did have their own garden out to the north side of the training building up top. Kanta’s project.

  Without even deciding to do it, Lyndi was up and out of her seat. “I’ll text him,” she tossed over her shoulder to no one in particular.

  And she did go up to her room to grab her phone. Drake had drilled it into her that she didn’t go off alone without a way to contact him, something that also become easier with the advent of human technology that dragons were more than happy to use as well.

  But she didn’t text Levi. Instead, she headed topside and grabbed a car to drive down the mountain into town. Hopefully, she’d get to the grocery store before Levi checked out and was on the road home.

  Ignoring him hadn’t worked. Holding him back with anger hadn’t worked. Maybe talking would. She’d explain her position to him and hope like hell that he’d understand and help make this easier by agreeing they should both drop it.

  After all, he only had two more days until he had to leave. He had to understand.

  Chapter Nine

  There was such a thing as too quiet.

  Levi stared hard at the head of lettuce in the shopping cart. It was his turn to get the groceries for the mountain, even though he’d been gone for several days. Really, he’d come because hanging around in the mountain felt…loaded. Heavy. Because he couldn’t look at it like home anymore.

  Even so, the kind of quiet where nothing happened wasn’t an easy quiet. It was more like seeing a massive tidal wave come at you long before you could hear it or see it.

  Days lost. He could have been making a dent in that wall of dragonsteel Lyndi had built up around her heart. His mission had been a colossal waste of time. He’d never even picked up the trail of Shula’s mate. Tineen was a black dragon, which made that extra difficult. Best guess, they’d killed her.

  Levi picked up a pineapple. Early in the season, but his nose told him the thing was ripe.

  “You know what they say about men who buy a whole pineapple?”

  He turned his head to find a human woman, a lovely blonde with legs worth a second glance, eyeing him with an amused smile and a bucket of innuendo.

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “That they’re…available.”

  “Is that what that means?” Levi held the pineapple out, cocking his head to stare at it. What new odd human ritual was this?

  “Mm-hmm,” the blonde murmured. “Interested?”

  In the last twenty years, human women had become much more aggressive. Not that he had a problem with it. Just interesting to see the changes over time.

  With a reluctant grin, he put the pineapple back. She was lovely but did nothing for him. “Sorry,” he said.

  She shrugged, not even a tiny bit embarrassed and good for her. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  He forgot her as soon as she scooted away, eyeing the other fruit on offer. What signal did a bunch of bananas send?

  “If you’d taken her up on the offer, I would’ve walked out and never let you touch me again.”

  Levi stilled at the sound of Lyndi’s voice directly behind him. Was he hearing things now? Wishful thinking. Or…

  Slowly he turned to find her watching with her dark eyes and serious little face. She wore her usual jeans and tank top. Flip-flops on her feet. And she’d never looked so damn beautiful.

  “Gods know I could have used the release,” he said slowly. Then grinned. “But only one woman does it for me and she keeps insisting that there’s no future for us.”

  She canted her head, lips still flatly serious but twitching. “I wonder why?”

  He stepped closer, inhaling her. How had she got so near him without his knowing, anyway? “I think she’s scared.”

  She paused, her gaze sliding away from his, then shrugged, neither a yes nor a no. “What would you do if she said she needed to scratch an itch?”

  So he wasn’t the only one whose body was clamoring for another go. Good. Except he wanted more from Lyndi than to be her temporary fuck buddy. He grappled with an urge to take her by the arms and give her a shake.

  “I’d say I want more,” he murmured, low enough that even with her enhanced hearing she had to step closer to catch the words.

  She blinked. A flicker of vulnerability that normally she wouldn’t allow him to see, which told him a lot. “More than one night?”

  “More than just the nights.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “As in afternoon delight?”

  “As in not just sex.”

  She swallowed. “Sex is all I have to offer. Until you’re gone. We already talked about this.”

  That urge to shake her had him clenching his hands. Didn�
�t she know she was everything he wanted, exactly as she was?

  “My leaving is just an excuse. With technology these days, long distance isn’t impossible.” Dammit, why couldn’t she see it? “This could be…” Special. Amazing. Earth-shattering. “Good between us. How about we see where it goes. No pressure. No plans. But also no excuses to say no.”

  Mate, his dragon rumbled in his head.

  The animal side of him had been getting louder and grumpier with each passing day. Patience, Levi thought back.

  He got a growl in return, but the dragon backed off.

  “Temporary sex is all that’s on the table.” Lyndi’s chin tipped up, so independent, so damn familiar. What would she do if he kissed her every time she did that?

  Worth a try. He leaned forward, watching her eyes widen until he placed a sweet kiss just at the edge of her jaw, inhaling her springtime scent—fresh grass and sun—and enjoying the small hitch in her breathing, puffing against his neck.

  He pulled back, smiling at the wary glance she cast about her. “What do you want, Lyndi?”

  “I don’t know.” The words were almost wrung from her, such a cloud of confusion in her eyes, he ached for her.

  “Then we take it slow.”

  She huffed, hunching over crossed arms. “I was trying to do that with just the fucking.”

  An outraged gasp had them both looking over at a human woman with a toddler in her cart. She covered the child’s ears, and, with a glare for both of them, strolled quickly away.

  “Oops,” Lyndi snickered as she shifted her gaze dancing with humor back to him, daring him to join in on her irreverent fun. “Humans. So easily offended, you’d think they were dragon shifters.”

  All he’d heard was just the fucking. He didn’t want to start there, but it seemed to be the only place she could, and he was running out of time. He left in two days.

  Two damn days.

  “Come on.” Leaving his half-full cart in the middle of the produce section, he grabbed her by the wrist and came damn close to dragging her out of the store, her shorter legs moving at almost a run to keep up.

  But she didn’t pull away or try to stop. “Where are we going?”

  He opened the passenger side door of the truck and settled her inside in grim silence. Still not saying a word, he got in the driver’s side, started the truck with a low rumble of the engine, and put it into gear.

  “Where are we—”

  “My cabin,” he said without turning his head to look at her.

  Lyndi said nothing to that. But she didn’t protest, either.

  “Just fucking…” He reached across the console between them and took her hand in his, needing the contact more than he was willing to admit. Almost like trying to ensure she didn’t disappear. “Tell me no now if you’re not sure.”

  She tipped up her chin again, lips buttoned tight, and he gave her a slow smile, satisfaction washing through him, laying him bare to sheer, building need.

  He hit the gas.

  Some cabins, like Finn’s, could only be reached from the air. Levi’s had a private road because he’d bought it from a human family who didn’t want to deal with the regular upkeep. Each roll of the tires down the bumpy gravel only jarred his heavy erection, growing harder and thicker with each passing second. He and Lyndi didn’t tend to be the silent types, and, not for the first time, he wondered what the hell she was thinking.

  Most likely, she was overthinking her way out of this.

  He pulled up behind the cabin, the front door facing away from the drive, out into the woods and a gorgeous view of a small pond and the rolling Sierra Nevada mountains. Still in silence, he helped Lyndi out and took her by the hand again, not only because he needed to touch her, but also because this moment felt bigger than what it appeared to be. Like the day he’d been given his commission as an enforcer.

  He hadn’t expected that then, either.

  Lyndi had been here before, of course. All the team had. For fun, grilling out, smores around a campfire on chilly autumn nights, that kind of thing. So he didn’t think much of it as he pulled her inside the unlocked cabin.

  Only she paused at the threshold.

  “I always did love this place,” she murmured. “Something about it reminds me of an oasis.” She turned to him, a blush rising in her cheeks.

  Levi brushed his thumb over the fluttering pulse point at her wrist. “I bought it with that in mind.”

  The natural pine siding, trimmed in green that almost looked like peat moss, blended the house in with the surrounding trees. The same natural shiplap covered the walls and ceilings, along with stonework around the fireplace and a wall in the kitchen. Smaller than most of the other houses the guys owned, it only had one bedroom taking up the entire upstairs loft area, but also a porch with a creaky swing that faced the pond, and comfy second-hand furniture you could put your feet up on, and no technology. Silence and peace in a perfect escape.

  Levi took one step up the steep and narrow stairs to the bedroom, tugging her up with him, but he paused and turned. “Tell me you want this.”

  She stared at his face for a long, long second, then twisted her hand to lace their fingers together, skin soft against his, hand delicate in his larger one, and raised dark eyes flickering with red sparks. “I want this.”

  A start. He’d take every inch she was willing to give him.

  …

  Given the way last time had gone down, Lyndi expected to be hustled up the stairs, stripped, and fucked, in short glorious order.

  Instead, he pulled her past him on the stairs to situate her two steps above him, putting her lips right at his level, and proceeded to drug her mind with slow, deep kisses that lasted ages and only stoked the embers lit inside her by that silent drive. Taking his time, Levi explored her body with his hands, over her clothes, but the way he did it struck a tender chord, an answering strum from her heartstrings.

  Soft brushes of touch followed by a harsher grip as though he struggled to keep his own needs under control.

  He took his time, testing the weight of her breasts in the palms of his large hands, spanning the dip of her waist, the roll over her hips, helping her grind against him as he lifted one of her legs up and around his. Then dropping that leg back down so he could slowly strip off her tank top, kissing each exposed inch of skin as he went, dropping sweet kisses on her collarbone, her hips, her shoulders, stoking not only the ache at her core but the one in her heart.

  Then up one step.

  His shirt came off next, and he let her explore, hands fisted in her hair as she learned each groove, each flat, each spot that made him shudder. Especially when she used the tip of her tongue. With a naughty thought in her head, she circled his flat nipple with her tongue, then bit lightly and tugged, and his grip in her hair tightened painfully as he groaned.

  “The things you do to me—” He bit off the rest of his words as she tugged again.

  She grinned to herself. So she wasn’t the only one who liked an edge of pain with the pleasure.

  One more step up and he slowly lifted her arms above her head to pin them against the wall with one hand, while the other dispensed with her bra. He paid her back for that nip with denial. Touching every part of her breasts except the sensitized tips until she was panting in little bursts. Only then did he put his mouth to her. She held her breath pushing into his tongue and waiting for the sting of—

  Fuck. He bit harder than she had, but still playful. Need soaked her panties.

  “Amazing,” he said between soft kisses. “Stubborn.” Another kiss. “Glorious.”

  “What are you doing?” she panted.

  “Cataloging my favorite qualities.”

  Her heart tumbled over itself at that. He loved that she was stubborn?

  Up another step, and he eased her out of her jeans so slowly, she kept p
lucking at his hands, urgency building in her, only to have hers lightly slapped away. Then he’d pause and nuzzle a small patch of exposed skin. Enough to have her humming with frustration.

  “A fighter,” he said, continuing his list.

  And damned if his words and taking their time wasn’t switching on a different light inside her. One where she felt…cherished. Not just a convenient vagina. As though getting to know each other’s bodies on a more intimate level, each nuance and detail, what made her sigh and what made him groan, was more important than the prize at the end.

  By the time they reached the last two steps, he had them both naked and heaving.

  But he didn’t take her up into his bedroom. Instead he sat her on the top step, hands at her hips, scooting her until she rested at the edge, then pushed her knees wide. Heat flared across her cheekbones as he took a long, lingering look.

  “Your heart for your boys,” he said. “But maybe we shouldn’t bring them into this just now.”

  He grinned, golden sparks shooting at her, and she’d swear absorbing into her blood, adding to the rush of heat. Gods, when he smiled at her that way, she might do anything he ever asked.

  “You’d better hold on for this,” he said, voice a silken tumble of sound.

  The banisters were too far apart for her. “Hold on to what?” she asked as he dipped his head between her legs.

  “Me.” She heard the smile in his voice a split second before the crackling sound of fire alerted her to what was about to happen.

  Then heat.

  He blew a stream across her already throbbing clit, golden flames licking at her slick entrance. Her head dropped back and with one hand behind her, bracing her upright, she grabbed onto his head with her other hand, his hair soft against her fingers, the sensation only adding to the pleasure.

  She expected him to stop the flames before he followed up with his mouth.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, fire still unfurling over her, he lashed her with his flame-heated tongue. Pressing, tugging, stroking.

  Pressure at her entrance, just as hot, and two fingers slid inside her. But he didn’t just pump. He stretched her, and twisted, and while his fingers were working that magic, and his tongue devastating her, and the fire adding to the burn, she thought that was the most she could bear, mewling at the torrent of sensations.