by Tami Lund
“Pragmatic much?”
She shrugged. “It’s the truth. Better to focus on sex without emotions.”
“You pointed out earlier that you weren’t happy with your sex partners.”
“Not all of them. Some of them have been good.”
“But not great?”
“Are we seriously having this conversation? I admit, I figured if you ever started talking this much, it would be about food.”
He grinned. The way it transformed his face took her breath away. The man was beautiful while he worked, and downright gorgeous when he was laidback and relaxed.
“Food and sex are definitely compatible,” he said.
Whoa. Her inner muscles clenched. Did the man like a little kink? That shouldn’t turn her on like this.
Why not? her dragon asked.
Yeah, why not? “Um…are you seeing anyone, Noah?”
“Are you asking if I’m single?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Why do you want to know?”
They’d reached the edge of the forest. If they kept going along the path that circled the lake, they’d walk past the school and eventually head back to Gabe’s house.
“Because I’d like to have sex with you.”
He stopped walking. She paused and glanced up at him. He stared at her— was that was disgust or temptation on his face? The man was damned hard to read.
Finally, he wiped his hand over his face and closed his eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Quite.”
“Why?”
“Why am I serious?”
“Why do you want to have sex with me?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
“That’s not a good enough reason.”
“You seriously won’t have sex with a willing woman unless she has a good reason?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m—”
“Immediate gratification. That’s what I’m looking for. A little down and dirty mutual pleasure. Are you saying that doesn’t interest you?”
“Not at all. I’m just—”
“I’m leaving for New Orleans soon. Tomorrow, if not tonight. I’m not interested in anything beyond mutually satisfying sex. What are you looking for?”
“I wasn’t really looking for anything, actually.”
“No strings attached. No expectations, beyond an orgasm, for each of us. We walk away when we’re done. I go to New Orleans to do this job for Gabe, and you go back to cooking. How does that sound?”
He frowned. “It sounds like we’re negotiating a contract. Which shouldn’t be hot at all.”
She sidled closer, trailed a finger along that dragon’s tail tattooed onto his arm. “But it is, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Because it’s you.”
“What is it with you?” she asked, sliding her arms around his waist and moving forward, which forced him to walk backward toward the tree line. “It’s a good thing you don’t talk much. Otherwise you’d have women lined up for days, trying to get in your pants.” She dropped her hands and cupped his ass. “Just as firm as it looks.”
“Where are we going?” He glanced over his shoulder and then grasped her waist and guided her slightly right to avoid tripping over a fallen branch.
“Right there,” she said, nodding at the largest tree in the vicinity. He continued backing up until he was leaning against the tree and she was pressed into him, her legs spread, the apex of her thighs throbbing.
“Are you serious?” he asked when she slid her hand under his shirt and gently raked her fingers across the taut muscles of his abdomen. He groaned and said, “I guess so.”
“Come on, Noah. I need this. And I think you do too.”
“More than you can possibly know.”
He took charge then, twisting her around until her back was pressed against the tree. The bark was rough even through her shirt, but it only added to the eroticism of the moment. She was about to get it on with Noah Ladon, and she was wetter than she’d probably ever been in her life. And she’d never given him half a thought before now, beyond, Damn, the man can cook.
“Please,” she begged when he leaned away so he could unsnap her pants. Then he thrust his hand into the waistband and went straight for gold. His fingers stroked through the heat there, and she arched her back and gurgled out another plea.
He twined the other hand in her hair and forced her to look up at him. “I’ll give you what you want, Petra,” he said, his voice low, husky. “Mutual pleasure. Nothing more.” He slid two fingers into her, fucking her, and she clutched at his arms.
“Yes. Oh. Don’t stop.”
She threw her head back and closed her eyes, but he tugged at the strands until she opened them again. He stared at her face while stroking her.
“Oh gods, yes.”
He abruptly jerked his hand from her pants. Petra cried out, realized he was pulling her pants down to her ankles. She dropped her hands onto his shoulders so he could tug off her shoes and then her jeans. And then she watched as he unsnapped his own jeans and pushed them down just enough to free his bobbing erection.
Her mouth watered.
He leaned against her, lifting one of her legs while grasping his cock with his other hand. He stared into her eyes as he guided himself to her opening and then thrust.
Hard.
She grabbed a fistful of his hair and clutched at his shoulder as he pounded into her like he’d been waiting for this day for his entire life. It was so raw, so passionate, so freaking amazing, she wanted it to last forever.
And then her orgasm crashed into her with the force of a godsdamned hurricane. She threw her head back and screamed, and he kept pumping, a mad man, hell-bent on reaching nirvana. When he did, he slammed his lips against hers, kissing her with all the desperation of a man starved for…
A future. And that was the last thing she would ever commit to.
Good thing she was heading out of town for an indefinite period of time.
Chapter 2
“What the hell is this?” Gabe asked his mate, Talia. They were sitting at the kitchen counter, each with a laptop open in front of them, while Noah, his back to them, whipped up the latest sweet treat for the school’s annual Halloween party. So far, he’d made Halloween muddy buddies, Rice Krispies Treat mummies, meringue ghost tartlets, and chocolate pumpkin witch cupcakes.
Baking relaxed him.
“What?” Talia said.
Noah glanced over his shoulder at Gabe, who pointed at his computer screen and said, “This charge on the Amex I gave Petra.”
Petra? Noah twisted his head back around and paused in the act of pouring black nonpareils into the shape of a snake on top of a white sheet cake.
“Nola Kids?” Talia said. “What’s that?”
Noah listened as the sound of fingers tapping at a keyboard filled the room.
“A children’s clothing store,” Gabe said.
“Why in the world would Petra charge something at a place like that?” Talia asked.
Yeah, good question.
“I’m about to find out,” Gabe replied. Noah glanced over his shoulder again and watched Gabe pull his phone out of his pocket and, he presumed, send a text to Petra. His phone pinged a brief moment later, and Gabe read the message out loud.
“Oops, I forgot to tell you. I charged that to the wrong card. I’ll pay you back for that one.” He lifted his gaze and looked at Talia. “What the hell is she talking about?”
“Ask her,” Noah blurted and then snapped his mouth shut.
Gabe furrowed his brow before focusing on typing out a responding text. When his phone pinged again, he said, “She says it’s nothing. It was a mistake.” He looked at Noah. “How does someone accidentally charge over a hundred bucks at a kid’s clothing store?”
I’d like to know, too. I’d also like to know why the woman has been gone for a damn year and hasn’t reached out to me once.
Of course, Noah could have contacted her, too. He
had her number. He could have called. Or texted. Or even emailed. Hell, he could have asked Gabe where she was staying and sent a bouquet of flowers. Maybe with a note that said, “Thanks for the amazing lay. When can we do it again?”
You told yourself you wanted only a one-time thing, his sly dragon reminded him.
I did.
Keep telling yourself that.
I am, trust me. No commitment means no chance of falling in love—and getting hurt.
“Have you noticed she hasn’t been in touch nearly as regularly in the last few months?” Talia said, pulling Noah’s attention away from his inner dragon, who was extolling Petra’s virtues against a tree.
If it were just sex, he’d be all over a repeat performance. But whatever the hell happened between us, that was way more than I’m willing to deal with, Noah reminded his dragon.
“Yeah,” Gabe said. “All I’ve gotten are noncommittal texts recently. There’s been almost no movement on her assignment in at least three months. Maybe longer.”
“I hope nothing’s wrong,” Talia said.
But Noah barely heard. His mind was too busy connecting dots that only he might see.
Three months minus one year equaled nine months.
Unbelievably fabulous—and holy shit, unprotected—sex, nine months ago.
A mysterious charge at a children’s clothing store.
No. Fucking. Way.
“Shit,” Noah blurted, dropping the jar of nonpareils. Tiny black candies spewed across the counter and bounced off the tile floor. “I gotta go.”
He only vaguely noticed Talia and Gabe’s twin bewildered expressions as he bolted out the back door and raced around the house to his waiting truck. But then he abruptly shifted gears, turned toward the lake, and charged across the lawn, heading toward the woods.
Flying would be quicker.
He waited until he was at the edge of the forest and then he called on the magic, willed his body to shift from human form to dragon. The beast in his head roared with approval as his body began to change, his smooth, olive skin changing into silver dragon scales; his pale blue eyes shifting to narrow, serpentine slits.
Majestic, ten-foot wide wings sprouted from his back, lifting him off the ground, and he prayed no nearby humans happened to be looking at the sky at that precise moment, as he willed his powerful body to move faster, get up beyond the clouds before he was spotted.
Moisture slapped him in the face and bounced off his scaly skin as he pierced the cloud, and he let out a belch of fire before bursting free above it, far above the earth. Far enough that human eyes couldn’t see him. Now, all he had to do was watch out for and hide from aircraft and he’d be home free.
Or at least well on his way to New Orleans.
To Petra.
Who may or may not have a baby.
And it was probably his.
***
He stopped in Nashville to eat and try to get his head on straight. Although his dragon was thrilled with their cross-country trek, Noah was struggling with it. He wasn’t one who made hasty decisions. He didn’t fly by the seat of his pants. He always followed the recipe; he always made sure the pantry was full. He didn’t rush into things half-cocked; he prepared.
He sure as hell didn’t fly across the fucking country chasing after a woman he’d had sex with once, a year ago, and hadn’t talked to since.
What if she has your offspring? his dragon whispered in his head.
Noah ordered another beer.
What if she did? He had no freaking clue what he would do when he reached her. He ought to turn back around and go home, to the safety and security of his job as the reeve’s chef. The place he’d run to when his mother died and his father had forgotten how to take care of his children. The place where he’d been hiding since he was thirteen years old.
We can’t run away from your child. Or its mother.
Damn it, his dragon was right. Which added a whole other complication to this potential mess. Because the one thing Noah had sworn he would never have was…
A family.
His phone pinged. He pulled it out of his pocket and read the string of texts from Gabe, all demanding to know what the hell happened and why had he taken off so abruptly?
Family emergency, Noah typed while taking a sip of Mexican beer. Gabe knew his history, so Noah figured he likely wouldn’t pry.
Shit, came the reply. I hope everything’s okay. Let me know if I can do anything.
It will be fine. I just need to go out of town for a few days.
He hated lying to his reeve. Gabe had always been good to him, even when Gabe himself had been going through some seriously messed up mental shit.
You aren’t lying. If Petra has your baby, they’re family now, Noah’s dragon so helpfully pointed out.
Great. Just great. He polished off his tacos and beer and paid the bill, then headed out onto the street, which was swarming with humans taking advantage of the warm fall weather. An hour later, he cursed his decision to take a break in a metropolitan area; finding a place where he could shift without being seen was proving to be a hell of a challenge.
As dusk fell, he found an industrial area that appeared abandoned, so he shifted in the shadow of one of the dilapidated buildings, and then, when the sun finally dipped below the horizon, he took to the sky, beating his wings, flying as fast as he could toward his destination.
When he finally called it quits for the night, it was in a field in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas. He snuck into the nearby farmhouse while the occupants were all in bed and quietly raided their fridge—leaving a pile of cash on the table to hopefully cover the food he took—before turning in himself, curling up on a not-remotely-comfortable bale of hay in the barn.
His dreams were decidedly uncomfortable, too. Thoughts of Petra, smiling at him, her eyes wide and shining, while she undressed. She exposed first one heavy, dark-tipped breast and then the other, flinging off her shirt before cupping those melons while her thumbs strummed the nipples. She let her head loll on her shoulders while her breathing turned into short pants, her mouth slightly parted, her eyes mostly closed.
And then she moved lower, grasping the zipper at her hip and pushing it down, the hissing sound filling his head as he watched the show. The action exposed a strip of black lace across her hipbone, and when she shoved her dark pink skirt to the floor, she revealed a thong, the spot between her thighs already darker than the rest, a result of her own arousal.
She loved the strip tease as much as he did.
He could tell by the way she slid one hand between her legs, her fingers inching under the elastic of her panties, and then she pulled it away and thrust it into her mouth, sucking eagerly.
He wanted her to suck him like that.
Her gaze locked onto him, she sauntered toward him, naked except for the black thong, and then she abruptly dropped to her knees and placed her hands on his hips.
Conveniently, he was already naked.
The power of erotic dreams, apparently.
He stood where he was, afraid to make a move, lest his dream lover disappear. She leaned forward, her gaze still caught in his, and then she widened her lips and wrapped them around his cock, sucking him in until he hit the back of her throat.
Gods above.
He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, and cupped the back of her head, guiding her as she took him to heights he’d never before experienced. His dick hardened even more and his balls tightened against his body, and he groaned, willing himself to back it up so he could enjoy this a little longer. But it was too late. Her lips were too good. He cried out as he came, lost himself in the pleasure of Petra’s blowjob.
Or, rather, his erotic dream.
Blinking open his eyes, he discovered his own hand wrapped around his softening cock, and a pile of creamy white stuff pooling on his abdomen.
“Fuck.” Glancing around, he searched for something he could use to clean up the mess, but he was surrounded only by hay
and the flannel shirt he’d spread out underneath him. Well, it was plenty warm enough down here in the South that he could get away with only a T-shirt, so he grabbed the flannel and wiped away the evidence of his desire for Petra Sharmell.
And then he promptly passed out, sleeping solidly until only a few hours before dawn. Stretching the creaks out of his bones, he made his way to the window and then hefted himself onto the roof of the barn. After taking a moment to piss over the side, he took flight, beating his powerful wings as they took him farther and farther south, until he found an uninhabited—by humans, anyway—swamp, where he landed and shifted into human form.
He’d made it.
Now what the hell should he do?
Chapter 3
Petra woke to the sound of a crying baby. Again.
Story of her life, for the last three months, anyway.
Snapping her eyes open, she glanced around from her prone position on the couch. Late afternoon sunlight streamed in the sliding glass doors of the guesthouse she called home. The crying was coming from the bedroom. That’s right; she’d put Sadie down for a nap and then sat down for a sec…and fell asleep. Again.
Groaning, she rolled off the sofa and climbed to her feet, stumbling through the room, heading to the bassinet, where her daughter lay on her back, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth open on a wail, her tiny fists flailing.
So stinkin’ cute.
“Okay, okay, the gravy train is here,” Petra muttered as she scooped the child into her arms. The babe impatiently nuzzled her chest, searching for the source of her food.
Petra tugged down the camisole that had become practically an extension of her body, and little Sadie Renee latched on like a champ. Hungry little bugger.
As frustrating as the lack of sleep was, Petra smiled while she smoothed her hand over the fine, dark hair on her daughter’s head and returned to the living room to make herself comfortable on the couch, the only piece of furniture available to sit on in the small space.
Her phone was lying face down on the rug. She must have dropped it when she fell asleep. Picking it up, she noted yet another text from Gabe. The man was relentless with the questions regarding her wellbeing.
