And I realized that he didn’t want to hold on to my ring either. It should have been comforting, reassuring.
It wasn’t.
I stabbed at my plate. “This is why life sucks.”
Grant dropped his plate into the sink. “You’re right,” he said, before leaving me in the kitchen.
* * *
Eating had given me a strange sensation of contentment that was totally fake.
He had gone to his room, closed the door.
I had gone to my room. I should make use of my time, train some more, but instead, I lay on the futon, staring at the ceiling.
Maybe he was trying to get rid of me as much as I was him.
But why? Didn’t he need me for his plans?
I hated this wondering, this thinking, this weirdness that was now there.
I got up, walked out of my room, and went across the hallway to his door and knocked.
No response.
I knocked again. Still nothing.
I pushed at the door, expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t.
The bedroom was empty. Billowing white curtains blew inward from a set of open double patio doors.
The air smelled of jasmine and oranges.
I went toward the open door.
Something flashed in the sky, drawing my attention, and in the blink of an eye there was a silhouette of a dragon in flight.
It was gone before I even realized what it was.
The dragon landed in the shadows, too silent for something that large. I stood there, staring into the forest for what seemed like hours.
Grant strode out of the shadows, naked, save for a white towel around his waist. I wondered if it changed with him, or if it was something, he had taken with him and left in the woods.
He smelled like moonlight and smoke. His voice was more growl than words. “I’m not in the mood to be civilized.”
I walked over to him. I came eye to eye with Grant’s perfectly proportioned pecs and taut, dark nipples.
“There’s something I want to know. Why did you tell me that stuff about yourself?”
“Why did you get so upset when you thought you might have killed me?”
My hands covered my mouth. How did he know?
“Sometimes…you project what you’re feeling.”
I froze. Just like he did the other night.
There was a dilation in his pupils as he realized what I was thinking.
His nostrils flared as he took in my scent.
I remembered what he said, about me smelling like death. I took another step backward. “Do I smell like a corpse to you?”
He was so still. “True Death is merely a part of the natural order of things. Like sun, wind, water.”
I needed to move, but I couldn’t.
“You smell like you,” he whispered. He opened his eyes, and there were flames within them. “Like the spaces between the stars.”
It was as if I could feel the blood pulsing in my wrists, my neck—my core. Did space have a smell? “I don’t know what to make of that,” I said. “I don’t know what to make of you.”
“We have that in common,” Grant replied, his eyes never leaving mine. I could drown in those eyes, those dark blue pools tinged with gold.
I took a breath to steady myself, and I was hit by the unmistakable scent of him, all male and dragon smoke. Instantly, something inside me quivered in response.
In this moment, I couldn’t help myself. I placed my hand on his chest and traced the center line of his pecs, down his abs, touching him as he had touched me. His skin was hot to the touch, hotter than any human, but not uncomfortably so.
My heart was beating so fast.
It wasn’t a good idea.
“It’s a terrible idea,” he said. I realized he was replying to the thoughts I had said out loud. “I am not what you need,” he said. “And we have no protection.”
“Oh?” I said, my fingers playing with the towel at his waist. The words came tumbling out before I could stop myself. “I can’t get pregnant, I can’t carry diseases.”
His big arms moved, muscles flexing as if he wanted to pull me to him. He stopped himself. “I know what you’ve been through, how Andrew…used you.” There was an alarming flash of flame in his eyes. “You deserve better because I can’t be gentle.”
My fingers hooked along the edge of the towel at his waist. “I don’t want you to be gentle.”
If there was ever a chance for hot risk-free sex, it was now, said the unhinged part of me.
I yanked the towel off.
Oh. Wow.
He was thick, he was huge, and he was beautiful.
His big hand closed around my wrist and pulled me to him. His arms locked me against his naked skin as his mouth covered mine. His magic filled me, touching all the cold, empty spaces inside. My body sang and trembled with joy of him, a discovery I had never thought possible. Heat surrounded me, tempting, promising a completion that would be so, so good.
His cock rubbed against my abdomen, far too high, and the bitch in heat within me yowled in frustration.
I broke away from the kiss. “Grant—”
My voice choked at the invisible touch at the small of my back. Involuntarily, my nipples went hard. The invisible sensation went up and down, the most delicious magical back rub I’d ever have.
His mouth was on my ear. “That’s it. You’ve woken a hungry dragon.”
I couldn’t help but let out a giggle, surprising myself. “That is the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard, Grant.”
He chuckled and I could hear the smile in his voice. “You’re encouraging a beast with that laugh. You make me want to tell you all the bad lines.”
He had no right to make me feel so warm. I rubbed my face against his freshly shaved cheek. What was I doing? This lightness, this banter, this wasn’t what this was supposed to be. “Don’t tell me you have more of them.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll have to think of some awful pun about being a maiden and wanting to be taken.”
“Do you?” This was it; this was my chance to tell him. I had to halt this madness, because this wasn’t… couldn’t be what I wanted—not these feelings, not this closeness, not whatever this was.
“Yes.”
He shifted me upward, and I wrapped my legs around him, pressing my core against his length, rubbing him against the thin cloth of my pants.
His voice was serious as he carried me over to the futon. “Then I will fuck you into oblivion and back again.”
He was a blur of movement, and then his mouth was on my mine. His heated hands were under my shirt cupping my breasts, but then more hands hooked the waistband, peeled off my yoga pants, exposing my still-damp panties. He made a hungry, masculine dragon sound at seeing my pussy.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” Grant slid a hot, thick finger along my clit, ratcheting up my need for him. I pulled him to me kissing him frantically, desperately, my hips arching against his hand. “I like you like this,” he said, as his fingers played me skillfully.
I gasped at the sheer pleasure of his heat, his touch. How did it feel so good?
“At your mercy?” I gasped.
He leaned forward, and his hot tongue licked my nipple. “Is that what you are?”
At the same time his fingers thrust inside me, he sucked hard on my nipple. Pain and pleasure collided at my core, wresting wordless cries from me.
He spread my legs, and his gaze was all blue dragonfire. “Valentina,” he said, and my name had never sounded so beautiful. “I’m going to fuck you so hard. I’m going to fill you so deep with my fire you will never ever be cold again.” His cock was at my entrance. He snarled and released a savage hiss, his muscles in hard relief.
He was holding himself back.
He said between gritted teeth, “Fuck, Val, you undo me. I have all these plans to taste you, but when I’m touching you like this, all I want to do is dive into you.”
I slid myself ont
o his crown. The hot, slick sensation of him naked inside me was sheer bliss.
He groaned even as he held still.
I grabbed his thick forearms. I sensed the magic churning within his tattoos. I wanted to feel him, wanted him to unleash his power, his cock in me. “Grant, don’t hold back.” I eased another bit of him into me. “You can’t hurt me.”
A dragon sound vibrated through him. It only rattled my desire for him more. I needed him, needed his cock inside me like I never needed anything before. How was it possible to want someone so much? “Grant, you drive me fucking crazy.”
“That’s the plan. You’re so slick, so hot, almost there…”
His fingers rubbed against my clit. “Fuck, oh Grant—”
“Yes,” he said, his voice more monster than man. How could a dragon snarl make me feel so fucking hot? “You’re so wet. You feel so fucking good, so fucking delicious.”
He thrust himself inside me.
I thought I had known what it would be like to have him touch me, to have him inside me, fucking me. But whatever had happened between us when he was in the shower was no match for reality.
He was riding me, fucking me, spreading me, pushing me higher and higher. He heated every atom of my being with his fiery essence.
“Fuck yeah,” he growled.
Magic exploded around me, hot and pulsing with forever and eternity.
* * *
Later, we lay there, his arms tight around me, his fingers drifting across my forearms.
I couldn’t look at him, was afraid to look at him.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t had sex before. I had. But not like this. Nothing had ever prepared me for…this.
I liked how Grant’s massive arm kept me pressed close. His tattoos were still, his heartbeat steady and strong against my ear, reminding me of how alive he was, of how alive we both were.
I wanted to be deluded by the fantasies of post-sex bliss.
“Hold me, Grant. Just hold me.”
“I’ll hold you as long as you want me to.”
I closed my eyes, wishing that it were true.
10
My skin was covered with light.
Strangely enough, it didn’t hurt. It felt…kind of nice. Warm, almost protective.
Sunlight streamed through the window. I lay on his bed with a blanket covering me. Grant must have put it on me before he left.
I kicked the blanket off.
Men said all sorts of things during sex. I had been deceived by silly stupid post-sex sentiments before. Those were mistakes of my first life, ones I was determined not to make again.
Better to take the evidence for what it was.
An exercise for physical relief.
He needed me for his vengeance plans and was doing his best to make sure I’d be on his side, making sure that I’d want to help him, rather than convince him otherwise. And though I knew his game, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t effective.
I did want to help him.
Not with his dark idea of vengeance. But at least with saving his sister.
The scent of coffee permeated the hall as I ducked into the bathroom.
I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror.
I brought my hands to my neck. If I were killed now, would I still return? Did I genuinely want to go right back to my death?
I didn’t, I realized, at least, not yet.
The coffee smell grew stronger, barging into the bathroom like an invisible elephant. I mean, I had smelled coffee before at least a gazillion times, and I had never been a coffee drinker. But there was something about this coffee that made me want to roll around in the aroma.
When I came into the kitchen, his bare back was to me. There were strange scalelike designs that hadn’t been there before, but that seemed to be part and parcel of Grant’s ever-moving tattoos. Underneath the currently still tattoos, the muscles of his shoulders and back were so thick, so defined, I almost saw the dragon wings that would sprout from those shoulders.
Though that probably wasn’t how it worked.
My eyes slid down the delicious curve of his spine, a deep indentation in the flare of his back, tapering downward into that delicious V shape, which bubbled up with what I knew to be a very fine ass.
Though one couldn’t tell underneath those immaculately white sweatpants.
I almost laughed. “Only you would be wearing white sweatpants.”
“It’s part of what I am,” he said idly.
From the casual tone of his voice, it was better to act as if nothing had changed.
I leaned against the doorway and folded my arms. “Dragon? Hunter seems to use colors in his clothes.”
“Magic bleaches anything I wear,” he said, not turning around. His voice was still distant as if last night hadn’t happened.
“Wow. Remind me to make you do my laundry sometime.”
His voice was still strangely formal. “People know what I am, so they tend to give me white clothes, anyway.”
“Did you sprinkle some magic on the coffee too, Puff?”
“This was in the house. Shen don’t believe in skimping on their guests.” He turned and looked at me. There was warmth in his eyes. “You should try it. It’s quite good.”
Everything I had told myself had been a lie.
Because I couldn’t just pretend nothing had happened, not like before.
“So is this how it’s going to be? Like nothing has changed?”
He set down his mug and came to me.
Slowly, deliberately, he trapped me between his big body and the counter, bracing his arms around me.
I was distracted by his gaze, his scent, his body, all of it turning my mind into a useless mush.
And when he kissed me, he was sweet, hot, and more delicious than anything I had ever tasted in my life.
I wound my fingers around his neck and kissed him back, savoring him. I jumped and wrapped my legs around him. He grabbed my ass and perched me on the counter. I rubbed my core against him, relishing his reaction.
He stopped, put his forehead on mine.
“This is strange,” I said, my hands up inside his shirt, feeling his skin, the broad muscles of his chest.
“Yes,” he agreed, with one hand on my back. “But I’m curious to see how this plays out.”
“This can’t end well. I fuck things up.”
His hand slipped around mine. “I’m not thinking about the end. I just want to focus on right now. Can we do that?”
Could we?
And I realized, I wanted to.
“I—”
Something exploded outside.
* * *
Grant had bolted outside, faster than I could run. I got to the door and saw a huge white dragon soaring into the clouded sky, toward a forked tongue of blue-green lightning,.
I watched him fly toward the weird magical lightning storm. I felt utterly and completely helpless.
There was no sound, but the breeze carried the faint hint of arcane smoke.
A glowing light appeared beside me. “Get to my house,” said Sophie’s voice.
I began to run, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off the dot that was Dragon Grant. Something bright shot from him.
The arc of light burst into a bloom of fire. Streaks of green, wiggling light, almost like worms, streamed downward.
And slid off against an invisible shield.
Dragon Grant hovered in the sky.
Thick black clouds blocked my view.
I ran to the main house, and the back door opened automatically and closed behind me.
“What the hell is it?”
Sophie stood there, staring at a screen on the wall, her arms folded.
“Is it the Devourer?”
“No,” said Sophie. “It’s my uncle.”
I paused. “Your uncle?”
“Many-times great-uncle. He tried to strangle me when I was young. Humans once called him the God of Kung Fu, but before that he was one of the Eight.”
<
br /> “Eight what? Kung Fu gods?”
Sophie shook her head. “The Eight were a group of the most powerful shen that used to rule everything.” She frowned. “My grandmother was one of the Eight, but I think he’s the last one left.”
And I thought my family had problems. “Sounds like an all-around great guy,” I said.
The building shook as if hit by an earthquake. I ducked, but Sophie remained steady. “Hunter,” she said to the screen. “What’s going on out there?”
I startled at the harsh sound of a dragon snarl behind me.
“Hidden speakers,” said Sophie as she saw me look around. “This is a shen thing. Hunter, you don’t—”
The snarl turned into a roar. Sophie waved her arm, and the volume went down. “Stop frightening our guest! And yes, I will do the talking. I’m pregnant, not mute.”
There was more angry growling. Even at a low volume, the sound made me jittery.
“Look,” said Sophie. “I’m going to come out, and you can stand there and look scary.”
The roar grew even louder.
Sophie snapped her fingers, and the sound cut off. She walked away from the window. I took her place, saw the rows and rows of figures standing still. I started counting the figures. Ten, twenty…fifty…way too many to keep counting… Holy shit. It was a lot of fucking people.
How the hell had an army snuck up on their place?
It was her, Hunter, and Grant against an entire army. No matter how magic they were, surviving this wouldn’t be easy.
I looked at Sophie, who was rubbing her stomach and looking at the floor-to-ceiling scroll of Chinese characters. I wondered what she was doing.
“Is everything okay?” Immediately, I hated myself for asking such a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t okay. A magical army was surrounding her house, intent on killing her or worse.
Something in me hardened in determination. Maybe it was the fact that she was pregnant, or maybe it was some strange magic, but at that moment, I didn’t care. It didn’t matter if Sophie and Hunter had been making plans about me. Sophie had been kind to me and had tried to help me. They were doing their best to protect the family they had. I’d never had what they had. So I knew what a rare, precious thing it was.
Bonded to the Dragon: The Lick of Fire Collection: Dragon Lovers Page 10
