He'd missed the taste of her, craved it during the long months alone as he prowled the dragon archives. Contemplating knowledge and mathematics should have been enough for him, but it never could be, not when compared to the feeling of Saba under him. He was hardening just thinking about it.
"Obviously," she was saying. "I'm doing whatever you want—again."
She might think herself yielding, but Malcolm knew better. This small, beautiful, defiant woman did things to him he barely understood. Without answering, he took one of her red-tipped fingers and slid it into his mouth, closing his eyes to enjoy her. She tasted good and clean.
He opened his eyes to find her gaze riveted to him, brown eyes flooded with desire mixed with irritation. She swayed against him, her body reacting without her say-so, and he turned her in his arms, her hip bushing against his now-obvious erection.
He cupped the curve of her waist with one hand, the other sliding to her nape to draw her mouth to his. Saba made a small noise in her throat, protest or surrender, he couldn't tell, then her lips opened to his.
It had been far too long since he'd tasted her. He remembered the spice of her, the warmth of her breath, the way her eyes would close, as they did now, in sudden surrender. He eased his hand to her backside, drawing her closer to him, fingers moving on the satin smooth fabric of the dress.
The kiss went on and on, both of them hungry, lips and tongues tangling and parting to tangle again. Her touch feathered down his hard biceps to his hip, her thumb moving between his pelvis and her abdomen, coming to rest on the button of his jeans.
The wanting inside him flared, his groin rock hard. Her body moved in compliance in his arms. Then her fingers began to worm open the buttons of his pants. Malcolm drew a breath, for the first time feeling her fingers on the bare skin beneath his waistband.
When he'd first met and marked her, he'd held back complete consummation of their relationship. He'd given her pleasure but nothing of himself, and he'd never allowed her to pleasure him. As their time together had gone on, he'd found himself wanting to give of himself, and redoubled his efforts to pleasure her to keep that urge under control.
Things were different, now. He'd returned to the human world for a different purpose and no longer needed to hold back, and he hadn't made Saba his slave this time. He'd been glad that she'd learned how to resist a dragon mark, because now when she came to him, it would be her choice.
He did not resist as she worked open his zipper and moved her hand inside his pants. Beneath his underwear, he was hard and ready, and his entire body jolted in astonishment as she closed her hand around him through the cloth.
Sweet gods in heaven. His legs turned to water and he was going to fall down any moment. And drag her down with him so she'd keep rubbing him with that fiery friction the likes of which he'd never felt before.
In his human body during his eight-hundred-year exile, Malcolm had experienced sex, but those encounters had never, ever been like this. Saba's touches did things to him he didn't understand, and he was willing to stand there and let her until he figured it out.
When she moved aside the elastic band of his briefs and rested her hand on his bare flange, he thought he'd die. He scraped his hand through her hair, the noise in his throat one of pure wanting. She skimmed her fingers once down his staff, then as they kissed she explored him thoroughly, fingers learning and finding the ridges that made him want to climax in her hand. He crushed her mouth under his, sliding his own fingers beneath her short skirt and finding her thighs bare and warm above the tops of her stockings.
She jerked under him. "No," she whispered fiercely against his lips. "Let me pleasure you."
Malcolm couldn't have stopped himself if a freight train had rolled through the room. He nudged her legs apart, and she moved her feet as though she couldn't follow through with her resistance. His thumb dipped into her cleft, her honey flowing hot and liquid.
"Malcolm," she whispered, breath hot on his skin. "Damn you."
He smiled against her mouth. He'd lower her to the carpet and thrust himself inside her, he'd have to, though he'd wanted to go slow, and introduce her to the full pleasure he could give her…
The intercom that connected to the door downstairs suddenly buzzed, and a voice said, "Hey, it's Lumi."
They both froze. After a few heartbeats Saba stopped kissing him and slid her hand from his pants. Malcolm withdrew his fingers from between her legs and very slowly let her go, Saba remaining against him as though she couldn't step away. Her hair was fetchingly mussed, her eyes dark and wide.
"I guess we should answer that," she said.
He traced the line of her jaw and drew her lower lip between his teeth.
"I regret…" he said. He couldn't continue with what he regretted, but her answering look told him she understood.
Calmly he zipped and buttoned his pants then went to the bathroom to wash while she talked to Lumi through the speaker. When he returned, she was still looking for her purse. He combed his fingers through her short hair to straighten it, found her purse tucked under a coat on a hall chair, and held her steady while she grabbed her high-heeled pumps and lifted each foot to slide them on.
"Lumi's waiting downstairs," she said, out of breath. "He says his friend is here." She straightened up, two inches taller, and raised her gaze to his. "You know you still haven't explained what you want the locator spell for, Malcolm. Who or what do you need to locate?"
Malcolm thought a moment, his own breath still unnaturally fast, unable to put out of his mind how he felt with her hand around him. He mused over how much to tell her, what might frighten her away, and Ming Ue's advice on how to proceed.
He stroked his fingers once more through her hair. "I need you to locate my mate," he said, then turned and walked abruptly out the door.
He heard her follow, high heels clicking on the wooden floor, her exasperated growl as she drew breath to fling questions at him. But she could say nothing, because Lumi stood anxiously below, ready to lead them to the car where Axel awaited them.
Lumi's friend, who introduced himself as Axel, intrigued Saba. She slid into the back with Malcolm, and he cradled her hand in his as the car sped into the night. He held her hand loosely, but she knew she'd not be able to pull away, and she frankly didn't want to. The zipper of his jeans was still bowed outward, his sex not recovered from their encounter in the living room.
Not that she'd recovered herself. She glanced sideways at him, but he looked straight ahead as Lumi drove the car downhill.
He needed a locator spell to find his mate? What the hell was he talking about? Did he mean another dragon—a female he was trying to locate in Dragonspace? Or a human woman he'd met when he'd been in exile? Saba knew nothing about his life in the human world before they'd met, and he'd never spoke of it. Maybe he'd been married, wonderful thought.
Did he know his cryptic hints would drive her crazy? Or did he think Saba wouldn't care? I came here to fight the white dragon and by the way, can you find a woman I've lost track of? Or a dragon whom I want to lay my eggs? But before that I'm going to make you nuts sexually so when I leave it will be even harder for you.
How did she get into these situations?
She should angrily tell him to find someone else to do his damn locator spell and leave her alone. But she couldn't even unwind her fingers from his, couldn't move her hand from his thigh which was warm and hard beneath his clothes.
The rush of pleasure when she'd stroked him had been impossible to fight. If Lumi hadn't buzzed them, she'd have pulled off Malcolm's pants and shamelessly sunk to her knees in front of him. She'd never considered herself wanton and forward, but with Malcolm all restraints were off.
She wondered if he had put a very subtle mark on her mind that made her throw common sense to the wind once more. But no, a quick assessment showed none of the dark threads that he'd woven over Lumi. She was falling for him again all by her stupid self.
To distract herself, she st
udied Axel, who rode in the front seat, giving directions to Lumi. He looked Japanese but his comfort with his Western clothes and American speech told her he'd been born in America, perhaps second or third generation.
When he saw her watching him, he looked back between the front seats and smiled. "Saba Watanabe," he'd said, drawing out her name as though it interested him. "Konbanwa, Saba-san."
His Japanese was slow and deliberate but delivered with a flawless accent.
"Konbanwa to you, too," she answered.
He wasn't human but he didn't have the powerful aura of a dragon or the taint of evil that clung to incubi. He wasn't human, though, her witch senses told her that even if his pointed teeth didn't. If he was a demon, why would Malcolm trust him? Then again Malcolm used people for his own ends no matter who they were, and it was useless trying to decipher what he was doing.
Axel seemed the only one who knew where they were going. He directed Lumi to a house in Pacific Heights not far from Saba's, a tall Queen Anne Victorian mansion that was still a single house and hadn't been converted to posh apartments like the building she lived in.
Whatever magic contrived a parking space close to the house let Lumi pull in next to the curb without fuss. Axel leapt out and opened Saba's door before Malcolm could get around to her.
"Here we are."
Saba took his hand to climb out and looked up at the lighted house hulking over them in the dark. A round tower rose on the right side of the house, windows placed in an upward spiral, probably around a staircase. The mansion was well-preserved, the trim neatly painted, gingerbread curlicues unbroken on the porch. The front door was a mass of walnut and stained glass, left over from an era of gold-rush barons and shipping magnates, when opulence was king.
Someone with money still lived here. They'd have to in order to keep the huge old house from falling to ruin.
"I suddenly feel undepressed," Saba murmured.
"You're fine, Saba-chan," Axel said. "These people are a little weird, so stay close to Malcolm and let me get us in the door."
With that reassuring statement, he sauntered across the lighted porch to the door. Then Saba saw it, hanging out from the back of his jacket—a thin, scaly, lizardlike tail with a barbed and pointed end.
"Axel," Saba called. "Your tail's showing."
Axel glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes widened in mock surprise. "Oops." The tail vanished inside his jacket, snapping against his back. "Thanks. Might have been embarrassing."
"He's an imp." Malcolm's breath warmed Saba's ear as Axel pushed the doorbell, then knocked loudly. "Or so he says."
"Eccentric, anyway," Saba answered. "Where did you meet him, Lumi?"
"At a bar." Lumi blushed. "During my bad times. He helped me out one night. I was hallucinating and half out of my mind, and he got me out of wherever I was and back home. Stayed with me until I felt better. He was one of the reasons I went straight."
"Well, that was kind of him." Saba gazed with better appreciation at the black-garbed man who was now talking to someone through the door.
"But weird," Lumi added. "You aren't wrong about that."
The door swung open to reveal a leggy young woman not wearing much. She smiled at Axel, glanced at the other three, smiled again, and gestured them all inside. Saba followed Axel with Malcolm behind her, his fingers resting lightly on the small of her back.
The opulent house was crammed with people, overlaid with odors of perfume, cologne, cigarette smoke, and scented candles that burned everywhere. The house had been decorated in erotic excess, from artwork depicting naked men and women in various sexual acts to ceilings paneled in smoked-glass mirrors.
The people milling about were dressed in clothing made to go with the decor and reveal as much of the human body as possible. Bustiers with garters predominated among the women and a few of the men. The rest of the men wore skin-tight leather or nothing but Speedos, and unfortunately, not all had bodies flattered by Speedos.
A few of the women wore shining black corsets and high-heeled, thigh-high boots, one reclining on a sofa, stroking a flail like a lover. A few women had collars around their necks. Two collared women clung to a black-leather-clad man and gazed at him adoringly, one of them licking his leather-coated arm.
"Ick," Lumi said.
"Goddess," Saba hissed. "This is a BDSM party."
Axel nodded nonchalantly. "Yes. Didn't I say?"
Malcolm looked around as though the party guests and their costumes didn't faze him in the slightest. "The witch is here?"
"Somewhere. I'll find her, you mingle." Axel lowered his voice. "Watch yourselves. They look ridiculous, but some of these people practice the blackest, darkest magic imaginable. There'll be drugs and some nasty practices in the corners." He glanced at a man and a woman who'd collapsed into each other's arms, eyes glazed.
Saba watched him go, greeting guests like he knew them well. She noticed though, that while Axel was good-looking enough, none of the women, or men, made suggestive advances at him.
"Do you trust him?" Saba whispered to Malcolm.
"I barely know him," Malcolm answered, as though it were no matter. "But if he can find the witch who brought in the white dragon, that will be useful." He moved closer to her, his breath warm in her ear. "Do not worry, I will let no one hurt you."
She believed him. Malcolm was strong, even if his dragon powers were limited in the human world. She didn't think of herself as invulnerable, but she knew Malcolm would be at her defense in a moment's notice.
The person she worried most about was Lumi. Malcolm protected him with the black dragon mark, true, and dark-magic witches would have to work hard to penetrate it. But when Lumi had gone through rehabilitation, he'd had a hard time of it, she'd learned from Ming Ue. Drugs had nearly killed him. If someone here convinced him that taking one hit was fine… she knew that as with alcoholics, one hit was one too many.
Silently she invoked a protective spell, mixing it with Malcolm's magic already surrounding Lumi, mentally tracing the shape of a pentagram above Lumi's head. Lumi was a nice guy who didn't deserve to be dragged back into trouble, not to mention that Ming Ue would never forgive them.
As Saba completed the spell, she felt Malcolm's gaze lock on her. He knew what she was doing; he felt their magics entwining. His eyes darkened, and he looked at her as he had when he'd kissed her in the apartment.
Heat stirred low in her belly. She'd never tried using sex to enhance magical energies, but now she realized that with Malcolm the practice would be wildly powerful. Even touching his magic now to do a simple spell excited her.
Her imagination took it further. Malcolm over her in her darkened bedroom, candlelight tracing shadows on his body as he made love to her. Crystals surrounding the bed to catch the massive energy of their climax, the feeling of him deep inside her, his mouth on hers.
She swallowed hard and tried to banish the picture. Malcolm gazed at her as though he shared the vision and was more than willing to put it into practice. If only they weren't at this stupid party looking for a witch and worrying about the white dragon, she could explore her fantasy. All night if necessary. She wet her suddenly dry lips.
Lumi, oblivious to the heat between her and Malcolm, looked around in distaste. Not many people seemed interested in them, but those who did stared openly, trying to sort out what they were doing here. Malcolm certainly didn't look the submissive type, but even so they were all being eyed like fresh meat.
Malcolm led Saba and Lumi through the crowd toward the back of the house, oblivious of the guests' suggestive stares. The three of them stopped in a dim hall that was relatively private, the music and loud conversation in the front rooms providing a blanket of sound to cover their own discussion.
"Something is very wrong, here," Malcolm said. "I feel it."
Saba raised her brows, still not quite recovered from the erotic mixing of their magics. "Really? At a BDSM party with drugs and dark-magic practices? What could possibly be wr
ong?"
* * *
Chapter 5
Malcolm ignored her humor. "Axel might be helping us, then again, he might not be. He has no reason to be loyal to us. We need to search for this witch ourselves."
Saba tried to sense the witch's presence, but she was nowhere near as attuned to magical strains as Malcolm, and any sensitivity to vibrations was buried under the avalanche of excess and a dark layer of cruelty that blanketed the house. Beneath the calm that Malcolm's magic provided, her skin crawled with the wrongness of the place. She hoped they could find the witch and interrogate her as quickly as possible.
She tasted, as Malcolm obviously did, the taint of darkness in the air, magic perverted. Witches sometimes called upon the dark aspects of the Goddess or asked deities like Kali or Morgan to help them, but those goddesses were not evil and could be very protective. This magic smacked of demons and darkness. And she and Malcolm and Lumi had been led here by an imp.
"Do you think we've walked into a trap?" Saba asked Malcolm. "I can't feel any dragon magic other than yours. Not that I can sense much."
Malcolm shook his head. "I don't think so. The white dragon is nowhere near here, and none of these people bear his mark. Take Lumi with you and start searching upstairs. I want to find the witch quickly."
"What will you be doing?" she asked him, not liking the idea of roaming the house without him.
"Searching, too. There are cellars under this house, and I don't like what I'm feeling from them. If you run into trouble and need me, simply call for me, and I'll be there."
Saba put her hand on his arm, liking the hard feel of it beneath his jacket. "What if you run into trouble?"
"I'll turn into a dragon."
Lumi gave a nervous laugh. "That should scare them. So if the walls burst apart, we'll know you found trouble."
The Black Dragon Page 6
