by Abigail Owen
Hershel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re still after Uther, huh?”
Dammit. He’d never been able to keep anything from the old man. “Yeah.”
“And you’re sure about her being protected there?”
Hershel gave him a hard stare, and Brand sighed. “What do you want me to say?”
“You’re going to give her over to the kind of people who killed your family, hunted you from childhood, and used you when it turned out you had a specific set of skills that could benefit them. Those people?”
“You mean my people? I may be rogue, but I’m still a dragon shifter.” Brand shook his head. “And Ladon may be brutal, but I’ve known him a long time, long before he took the throne. His plan for his clan is solid. Besides, no one can protect her like dragons can, given what she is.”
Despite the errant schoolboy effect Hershel’s questions were having on him, Brand was absolutely sure of that. Wolf shifters might come close, as he’d admitted to Kasia, but they wouldn’t be able to deal with her fire, and they still weren’t stronger than dragons. Not even the entire nation combined. Not against a full clan of dragon shifters.
He had no doubt Uther, or especially Pytheios, would bring an arsenal of them to capture Kasia.
His confidence in his strategy must’ve communicated itself to the old man, because Hershel backed off, holding up both hands in surrender. “You’d know better.”
Damn straight, he would. Hershel may be a lot of things, but a dragon shifter wasn’t one.
“So, what’s your plan? I hope it’s better than just dumping her there.”
Maybe Hershel hadn’t given up. “It depends on what Ladon needs me to do. I promised I’d stay until she decided for herself if it was the best place for her to be.”
“And if she decides it’s not?”
Brand shrugged. “I’m not worried. Kasia is a smart woman with strong survival instincts.”
Like me.
He flicked aside that thought, not wanting to think of how he and she were alike.
“And she’s agreed to all this?”
“Yes.”
“With no concerns that might cause you problems?” Doubt filled every syllable of Hershel’s question.
Just an inherent dislike and distrust of dragons, a small voice reminded him. When had he developed a conscience?
Worse, that same inner voice was pushing him to go find Kasia now. He didn’t like her out of his sight. He gave the imaginary cricket on his shoulder an imaginary flick with his fingers. A conscience was not advisable to develop, given his line of work and life situation, and definitely not right now.
Hershel finished his beer and took the glass around the counter to clean it up. “One last word of advice?”
Brand waved him on when he didn’t immediately proceed.
“I couldn’t miss the way you look at her.”
Denial slammed through him, and he pushed to his feet. “I don’t look at her any way other than as a paycheck.”
Hershel ignored him as he wiped down the counter. “I’ve seen need, son, and the way you look at her…” He whistled.
“What’s your point?” Brand snapped.
Hershel paused in his cleaning and stared Brand dead in the eyes. “When you need a woman at that level, you have only two options.”
“Which are?”
He held up a finger. “Fuck her and get her out of your system.”
Brand’s already hard dick twitched at the thought, eager to take what was behind door number one. Bad idea. “What’s option two?”
Hershel held up a second finger. “Keep your hands off and get away from her as soon as you can.”
Option two didn’t sound any better than option one. A growl escaped Brand, one he clamped down on after the first noise. Where the hell had his legendary iron control disappeared to? That noise shouldn’t have escaped at all. Subtly challenging a bunch of paranormal bikers who were already edgy sons of bitches was a bad idea. He should know. He’d done it before, on occasion.
“I was hoping you’d have some sage, old-man advice that was better than what I’d already come up with on my own.”
Hershel snorted again. “Whoever called me sage?”
“True.” Brand tipped back his glass and drained the last of his beer. He couldn’t leave her unguarded another second, not with this lot around. Not even in that fortress that posed as a house. “Is she in my room?” he asked.
“Yeah. I figured you’d want to keep an eye on her.”
“You figured right.” Brand headed for the kitchen door.
“So what are you going to do?”
Hershel’s question stopped him. Brand glanced over his shoulder. The other man was talking about those options that weren’t really options.
Brand rubbed a tired hand around the back of his neck. “Hell if I know.”
With that clearheaded thought, Brand stalked across to Hershel’s house and punched in his own personal code to let himself inside. He paused, taking in some of the more recent changes, like the new leather couch in the family room, then made his way back to the bedrooms and knocked softly at his door.
“You decent?” he called, not wanting to wake her up if she was already sleeping.
No answer.
Frowning, Brand cracked the door and peeked inside. Kasia’s clothes littered the floor, but she was nowhere to be seen, and the bed remained undisturbed.
“Kasia?” He stepped inside and caught the faint hiss of running water.
Brand closed his eyes against a bombardment of images—her water-slicked skin, that red-gold hair hanging down her back, that impossibly lovely face tipped up to the spray. Brand clenched his fists against the driving urge to go in there and take her, sink into that glorious body, plunder those sassy lips. Over and over and…
“Fuck,” he muttered. Through sheer force of will, he turned away, planning to return to the bar and get drunk, maybe even sleep it off in the barracks with the club. She’d be safe enough with Hershel here.
A small, feminine sob reached his ears through the door. “Oh.”
Was she hurt? Was someone else in there with her?
On blind instinct—a need to protect her that he could no longer deny lived in his very bones—Brand spun on his heel and burst through the bathroom door, only to skid to a halt. Kasia stood in the shower, alone, the only thing separating her from him the glass door, every inch of her naked, wet…and perfect. Her hand between her legs was busy doing things to her body that he’d been craving since the first moment he’d held her at the clinic in Cheyenne.
And she didn’t stop. He dragged his gaze from her hand, up her body, pausing at pink-tipped breasts thrust out, begging to be kissed and sucked and licked, to her face. Those chilly blue eyes were open, her gaze locked on his as she continued to try to pull an orgasm from her straining flesh. The bold heat of that gaze licked at his skin.
Instinct to claim warred with everything else inside him, ripping him apart as he struggled with the greater objective to take her to Ladon. Blood pumped through his body, pulsing through his now throbbing cock.
Still, he gathered enough of his shredded will to walk away, making it out of the bathroom and halfway to the bedroom door before her voice stopped him.
“Brand.” The way her husky tones wrapped around his name had him biting back a groan. He tipped his head back, picturing that mouth, those lips, wrapped around his aching cock.
“Sorry about that,” he forced between stiff lips. “I’ll give you some privacy to…finish up.”
But in his mind, he could still see her doing that to her body, reaching for pleasure, a pleasure he wanted to give her. Deliberately, he kept his back to her.
“I’d rather you finish up for me.”
His lungs seized, deciding oxygen was of secondary importance. Did she
just say…?
Slowly he turned to find her standing only a few feet away, her campfire scent now blended with the clean tang of soap, and a muskier fragrance that told him she was still slick and wet with desire. With need.
Pale blue eyes steady, she watched him closely from beneath her lashes.
“We can’t,” he husked, the words dragged out of his throat.
“Who says?” With a flick of her wrist she dropped the towel she’d wrapped around her dripping wet body.
“You’re about to be another man’s.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. If I choose him. But I’m not another man’s yet, and right now I want…”
He tried a last-ditch effort to put a halt to his insanity. “I don’t do virgins.”
“I’m not a virgin.”
Brand growled, unable to suppress the sound clawing out of his throat. What the fuck was wrong with him? But he’d used the last reserve of common sense and willpower he had left getting himself out of that bathroom. Now, no way could he walk away.
With purpose, he set his feet. “Then tell me what you want,” he demanded.
“I want you.”
Simple as three little words. Those combined with the strengthening scent of her desire swirling through his senses, and everything inside him contracted, as though a fist landed in his chest, while at the same time punching out with triumph. Heat slashed through him, and she gasped. Were his eyes ablaze? Dragon shifters in the grip of passion showed it with fire.
But he crossed his arms, trying to hold his shit together. Where had his fucking control gone, anyway? “What do you want me to do?”
She blinked. For a second he thought she was going to balk, but then she smiled and crossed the room, her breasts and hips swaying in a hypnotic rhythm.
“I want you to fuck me.” Then she dropped to her knees, giving him little doubt as to where he should put his cock first.
Yeeeesssssss.
He shouldn’t have pushed her, because now the burn to take, and take, and take ignited in his blood. “You shouldn’t have said that.”
She smiled up at him, head tipped back and damp hair tumbling down her back in loose waves. Gods, she was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen. “You asked.”
“You’re right. I guess I’d better give you what you want.” Brand whipped his shirt over his head as he toed off his boots, undid his buckle and pants, and shucked them off.
Only she didn’t wait for a command or for him to take the lead. Kasia reached out and wrapped her hand around the base of his dick, pumping a few times. Brand shuddered at the soft feel of her skin and her firm grip. Then moist heat enveloped him as she wrapped her lips around him and took him deep.
Brand jerked his head down to see, to watch. Fuck, what a sight.
She released him with a pop only to lick him from the base of his balls to the tip of his cock before sucking him back into the torturous recess of her mouth.
Base need took over as blood roared through his body. Brand speared his fingers through her hair and held her head still as he started pumping into her, maybe a little too roughly, but beast and man were of one accord now, and that meant taking what was his.
Kasia hummed her own pleasure, the sound vibrating up his shaft and tingling in his balls. Shit. If she kept that up, he’d come inside that pretty mouth of hers and not where he wanted. Using the strength and speed of his dragon, he pulled her away from his dick and had her pinned beneath him on the bed in less than a heartbeat.
“Damn. Big men aren’t supposed to move that fast.” She laughed, and the delighted sound had his body tensing at the pleasure of it.
Brand grinned and leaned over to suck the lobe of her ear into his mouth, giving it a nip. “Wait until you see what that speed means when I’m inside you,” he half warned, half promised. “And it doesn’t mean we get there faster, just…harder.”
The laughter faded from her eyes, and she groaned. “Show me.”
Again, in a move too fast for her to track, Brand dropped down her body and put his mouth at the hot, wet core of her. She cried out as he speared his tongue into her tight channel, the spicy taste of her driving his own need higher. At the same time, he flicked his thumb over that bundle of nerves peeking out of her folds, begging for his touch.
Moans of pure, unadulterated pleasure tumbled from her lips, and her thighs clamped tight around his head even as she reached down to push back his hair. But he wasn’t done. Gradually, he sped up the movement of his thumb until he acted like a vibrator against the sensitive nub.
Beneath him, Kasia thrashed, and every sweet moan made him harder and harder. Finally, Brand added fire to the mix. Not mating fire. That fire was different—deliberate, and pushed into her waiting body. The fire he used now was just for fun. Blowing a small flame into the recess of his mouth, he returned to her body, only now he slid two fingers inside her and started at her clit with his fire-heated tongue.
Kasia arched off the bed, tossed her head back, and screamed as the orgasm tore through her, her inner muscles gripping his fingers in a pulsating vise as wave after wave of sensation slammed through her body.
Brand kept it up, lapping gently, easing only as her body slowed. At her deep sigh, he raised his head. Satisfaction poured through him at the sight of Kasia limp and flush with satiated pleasure, spread across his bed, her chest heaving in the aftermath of what he had done to her.
Ignoring the clamoring of his own dick, he crawled back up her body.
Kasia lifted her head and smiled in a way that pierced his chest with both pleasure and pain. “Again,” she shocked the hell out of him by demanding.
“Don’t you need a minute—”
She hooked a hand around his neck and tugged him down sharply so that they were eye to eye. “I want to feel that again. Now. Only with your cock inside me.”
Then she snared his lips in a kiss, sinking her teeth into his bottom lip, the small shard of pain traveling his nerve endings and every ounce of blood flooding south. He opened for her and played with her tongue, sucking it into his mouth, swallowing her soft moans.
As he enjoyed the give and take of their mouths, he repositioned their bodies, using his strength to come up to his knees and pick her up to straddle his lap. He held her with the tip of his cock at her entrance, but this time, instead of going fast, he waited and continued to claim her mouth over and over.
Her hands went to his shoulders as she tried to lower herself. When he grinned, she growled but kept kissing him. Only now one hand crept around to the back of his neck, under his hair.
Brand captured her wrist, pulling her touch away from the brand of his family there. She opened wide blue eyes, questions swirling in those pale depths. To distract her, he lowered her down his straining shaft with excruciating slowness, loving how her need replaced those questions, her eyes going hot and slumberous.
When he was sheathed, balls deep, inside her, he stopped, letting her adjust, reveling in the sensations of her body squeezing him like a vise.
Kasia tried to pull back from his kisses, but he didn’t let her, tugging her lower lip with his teeth. Then she tried to wiggle her butt, so he gave her a light smack on the ass and then soothed the spot by rubbing his palm over it in slow circles.
“Brand,” she begged against his mouth.
He smiled. “Damn you feel so good, sweetheart.”
“Whatever. Fuck me, dammit.”
A laugh burst from deep inside him at her eager insistence. “Don’t light on fire,” he warned. Because even though they weren’t mating, just fucking, she was a phoenix. He didn’t feel like risking her killing him if she flamed up during the act. Even if he didn’t fill her with his own flame to seal the deal.
She nodded. Then he obeyed the command in her lust-dazed eyes. Taking her by the hips, he moved her slowly up and down, watching her face glaze
over with ecstasy, and he forced them both to experience that slow slide together. A few times she tried to pump her hips, make him go faster, but he held off, waiting. For her. Allowing her body time to recover from that first orgasm and build into another, bigger one.
He took one pink-tipped breast into his mouth, alternately licking and sucking the puckered nipple, plucking at it with his teeth. Each action drew forth little sounds at the back of her throat. Still forcing himself to endure the agony of her slowly taking his cock, he switched to her other breast, ministering the same attention.
Her breathing started to hitch, then she let out a keening moan, tipping her head back, her long hair brushing against his hands at her hips. The sweet perfume of her need washed over his senses. She was ready.
The animalistic side of him wanted to flip her over and take her from behind, claim her in the way that beasts did, but Brand wasn’t claiming her. Fucking her, yes. Claiming, mating, and branding her…no. Besides, he wanted to see her face when he tipped her over that glorious edge in the way that had nothing to do with her damn visions.
In a swift move, he flipped them over so that she was lying on her back with him between her legs. He released her hips for a second, trailing his hands over the sexy indent of her waist, up her ribs, pausing to knead those gorgeous pale globes, before continuing up to take her by the wrists. He moved her hands above her head to wrap them around the metal posts of the brass headboard.
Trailing his hands back down her body, he had to force himself not to pause at her neck, not to touch that sacred spot below her hairline where a mate’s brand would one day be seared into her skin. A spot he’d already been fool enough to kiss in the motel when he held her through her vision.
“Hold on tight, sweetheart.”
Her eyes widened, but she did as he asked. If anything, her cheeks pinkened. But she didn’t look away, and she didn’t ask why. Total trust.
A blackness plunged through his heart at that realization. She shouldn’t trust me like that.
But he was too far gone to pursue that thought. He needed to bring them both the culmination of the pleasure they’d been building together.
