Silverback Dragon (Return to Bear Creek Book 6)

by Harmony Raines

  He sighed. “The same thought had crossed my mind.”

  “Is that something your lawyer can look into?”

  “I have someone else I can ask. I don’t want my lawyer's hands to get dirty in any way.” Harlan looked up at the stars. “When I met you this morning, I figured we would spend the evening having a nice romantic dinner, and then flying together over the mountain and up to the stars.”

  “Instead we are babysitting.” Fiona smiled apologetically.

  “And I would not have it any other way,” Harlan said. “They need us.”

  “They do.” Fiona turned her face up to the sky. “But I do like the idea of flying. It’s been so long since I stretched my wings with another dragon.”

  “As soon as we can, we are going to spend a night under the stars. You and me. Mates.” He leaned in, his hand brushing a stray strand of hair from her face. “Do you know how much I want to reach up and pull that clip from your hair and let it tumble around your naked shoulders?”

  “I’m not naked,” Fiona retorted.

  “You are in my imagination.” She blushed beautifully, pink flooding her skin, which was no longer smooth. The creases and wrinkles told her story, and he wanted to trace every one with his finger and learn all he could about this incredible woman. “I’ll settle for one kiss.”

  “One kiss? And I thought you were an ambitious man.” Fire flashed across her eyes, and he glimpsed the dragon inside of her, as he bent his head and kissed her lips.

  Fiona sighed against him, her hands reaching up and holding his sides, sliding around his back as she pulled him closer. She was a woman who knew what she wanted. And she wanted him, just as much as he wanted her.

  Their kiss deepened, and he slid his tongue along her bottom lip, teasing her, questioning how far she wanted to go. Fiona opened her mouth and let him in. Giving her answer in the quickening of her pulse and the heaving of her breasts. His cock hardened, and he slipped his hand around her, sliding it down her back and over her bottom, pulling her tightly against his body.

  He wanted to leave her in no doubt as to his desire for her. This wasn’t the bond talking, this was his body, the primal side of him, the side that had waited for the perfect woman for so long.

  Fiona sucked on his tongue, driving him wild. He pulled back, it was too much, she was too much. His self-control was in tatters, his breathing ragged.

  “My, dragon, I think you need a cold shower,” she said silkily.

  “No. I need you.” His voice was raw, and her expression softened, filled with pain and longing.

  “Will you stay with me tonight?” she asked. “In my bed.”

  He cleared his throat and sucked in a breath. Had someone stolen all the oxygen from the air?

  “If you want me.”

  “I thought you had already presumed I did.”

  He frowned. “Why do you think that?”

  “Nevis drove here. He came to give Chrysi a ride home. You planned to stay.”

  “I didn’t want to leave you alone.” He tore his eyes from her face and looked at the floor. “I hope you aren’t insulted.”

  “Why would I be?” Fiona asked.

  He bowed, with a flourish of his hand, like the knights of old. “I offer you my protection, my lady.” But when he stood up all humor left his face. “But I believe it is my heart that needs protecting, for it is lost already with one kiss.”

  She giggled. “Oh, Harlan. Do you miss those days?”

  “Yes. Although not the pants.”

  “And I do not miss the corsets,” Fiona agreed.

  “Corsets.” He groaned. “You have filled my head with such images.”

  “Down, boy,” Fiona said, and pushed him away before opening the kitchen door and slipping back inside. “I’ll allow you a moment to retrieve your composure.”

  “It might take more than a moment.” The door closed and he was left outside alone. Turning away from the house, he walked toward the tree line. He grinned. Being with Fiona had unearthed long-forgotten memories.

  “Are you OK, Harlan?” Nevis’s voice called from in the trees.

  “I am checking our defenses. At least I am in my mind. I feel as if the clock has been turned back a century or two,” he admitted.

  “Finding your mate does that to you,” Nevis said. He came to stand by Harlan’s side. “I can’t scent or sense anyone close by. But I have phoned Sheriff Brad and asked him to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious.”

  “Thanks, Nevis.”

  “Will you be safe here?” Nevis asked. “I guess what I’m asking, is do you think there is a threat?”

  Harlan shook his head. “Probably not. If this Roxanne woman wanted to harm the girls, she would have done it, not taken them to a foster home.”

  “Because their deaths would have raised suspicions.”

  “Yes. I think she likely has what she needs.”

  “The treasure.” Nevis nodded. “Yeah, this all still takes some getting my head around.”

  “That is what has thrown Fiona and me into such conspiracy theories. We were hunted and persecuted. Each of us hiding in our own way.” Harlan took one last look into the trees. “But this is a different world. You can’t kill people and hide the evidence. Roxanne married Ruby and Sapphi’s dad. She doesn’t need to kill them: the money, the treasure, everything is hers by right.”

  “Unless there was a prenup.”

  Harlan spun around, his eyes like lasers on Nevis. “There would be. There almost certainly would be. Their mother would have seen to it.” He slapped Nevis on the arm. “Let’s go back to the house. But we keep this to ourselves.”

  “You don’t want to get their hopes up?” Nevis asked.

  “Exactly. This could be a long-drawn-out process, with or without the prenup. Especially since, if there is a prenup, Roxanne has probably done her best to bury it.” Harlan shook his head. “Shocking business that someone could do that to two girls.”

  “Do you think she murdered their dad?” Nevis asked, falling into step with Harlan and keeping his voice low.

  “God, I hope not. The whole thing is a tragedy.” They reached the back door, and Harlan opened it, letting Nevis go inside first. Pausing, he allowed himself to relive the sensations he had experienced with Fiona in this exact same spot.

  “OK, Dad?” Chrysi asked, from the kitchen.

  Harlan started, feeling guilty. “I’m fine. Just enjoying the night air.”

  “There is nothing as sweet as Bear Creek mountain air,” Chrysi agreed. “I know that even without all the super senses you shifters have.”

  “That’s because you have good sense. The kind that steers you true.” Harlan entered the kitchen and shut the door behind him, Nevis had gone through to the sitting room, leaving Harlan alone with his daughter. “You have a good man in Nevis.”

  “I know.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “Do I have to have a reason?” Harlan asked.

  “No,” she replied cagily. “But you never say anything spontaneously.”

  “Don’t I?” Harlan frowned. “I do.”

  “Nope. Not when it’s a judgment on someone’s character. You are always very cool and considered.”

  “I’ve taught you well.” Harlan walked further into the kitchen and leaned forward to check that no one else was there. “Can I ask you to do me a favor?”

  “Oh, now I am worried.” She smiled, but let it drop when she saw his serious face. “What do you need?”

  “Do you remember that PI we hired to trace any other women Ross might have blackmailed or ransomed?” Ross was the man who had tried to kidnap Chrysi. He and his accomplice, Bart, had been sent to prison for a nice long stretch when it turned out they pulled the same stunt three times in the past. Each time they had taken the money and then created new identities before repeating their crime. It took some creative detective work to trace the other victims.

  “Sam? Yes. Why?”

  “I
need him to track down a prenup.”

  “A prenup? For you?” Chrysi asked incredulously.

  “Not for me and Fiona.” He drew Chrysi toward the furthest corner of the kitchen; he knew just how acute a dragon’s hearing was. “Through the ages, a dragon’s treasure would pass from one generation to another. Traditions were upheld. Treasure passed from dragon to dragon. So if I had got married to a woman who was not a dragon shifter, and had children, my fortune would have passed to my children.”

  “You mean Ruby and Sapphi’s dad never owned the treasure?” Chrysi nodded.

  “Yes, it meant the treasure was never lost to the dragons.”

  “And when you and Fiona have children, your fortune will pass to them.” She smiled weakly.

  “Hey, no.” He hugged her. “Don’t get upset. Listen, I have a second fortune that is all yours. And I can gift whatever I want to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not upset about the money.”

  “Chrysi, I will never love you any less.” Harlan wrapped his arms around his adopted daughter. “We have been through so much together, and every day I am thankful for having you in my life. Sharing your life has been the happiest time of mine.”

  “So far…”

  “Perhaps. But times are changing for both of us, and once this child of yours comes into the world, you will understand that the well of love you have inside of you is bottomless. It’s wide and deep, and richer than any dragon that ever lived.”

  “You always did have a way with words,” Chrysi said. “All of those stories you used to read me at bedtime.”

  “They were not all stories,” Harlan said. “And one day I will tell my grandchildren your story.”

  “I know a little one who will enjoy those stories,” Chrysi said, rubbing her swollen belly.

  “Hey, you two, we thought you’d gotten lost.” Nevis appeared in the doorway. “Everything OK?”

  “Yes.” Chrysi hugged Harlan, and kissed his cheek. “Everything is perfect.”

  “Good, because we need to get home. We all could do with some sleep.”

  “Nevis is right.” Harlan hugged his daughter one more time.

  “Are you staying here?” Chrysi asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a good thing you packed your bags already, isn’t it?” she asked with a grin.

  “It certainly is.” He walked her to the door. “Fate knows a thing or two, doesn’t she?”

  “She sure does.”

  Chapter Eleven – Fiona

  Fiona was thinking about fate too, as she made up the spare bed for Ruby and Sapphi. They said they were happy to share, even though Fiona offered them her room too. She could sleep on the sofa if they preferred separate rooms.

  “No way, we want to share,” Ruby said. “I’m hanging on to Sapph and never letting go.”

  “Well, call me if you need me,” Fiona said. “Bathroom is through there. Good night, girls.”

  “Night, Fiona. Night, Harlan,” they both chorused.

  From downstairs, Harlan called, “Goodnight!”

  “Sleep well, and sweet dreams,” Fiona said.

  “You too, Fiona. No nightmares about two teenage girls sleeping under your roof,” Sapphi said, stifling a yawn.

  “I have dealt with worse, I can assure you,” Fiona said. “But that is a story for another time.”

  She closed the door and paused, straightening her hair and smoothing her skirt. Or maybe she was simply stalling. After all, this was potentially the biggest night of her life. Her mate was waiting for her in the small sitting room. Suddenly the temperature in the place grew stifling.

  Fanning her face, and hoping she didn’t look like a flushed teenager on her first date, she walked along the hallway and down the stairs. They creaked loudly; he would certainly hear her coming.

  Gives him a chance to make a run for it, Fiona figured.

  He’ll never run from us, her dragon answered.

  He hasn’t seen me naked, Fiona said. No one had, for a very long time. Fiona had long outgrown taking men to her bed. Casual affairs had long since lost their thrill. Sex was just sex when you knew the person you were sharing such intimate moments with was not your forever love. As a dragon, she might age more slowly, but she still looked past her best. Parts of her body sagged where they had never sagged before. And taut was a word she had not used to describe anything other than her temper for decades.

  He will love us all the same, her dragon reassured her. And, anyway, if his earlier reaction is anything to go by, he likes us just the way we are.

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she made sure her hair was still trapped in the clip she wore to keep it under control. At some point over the years, she had taken on the look and persona of a strict schoolmarm. Was that who she wanted to be now that she had Harlan in her life?

  Did she want to stick to routines and regimes, like those she had tried to enforce onto Jamie when he adopted Juliet and Jasper? Or did she want to be a new woman, reinvent herself, and live with wild abandon, just as she had in the long distant past when she was a girl, with no worries?

  Pushing the door open, she entered the sitting room. Her heart beat rapidly as she caught sight of Harlan. He had lit the fire, and switched off the electric lights, leaving them to stare at each other by fire light. The flames made his silver hair glitter, and his skin appeared to ripple.

  “What color are you?” Fiona asked.

  “I was once a light blue, but now I am mostly silver. Chrysi calls me her silver-backed dragon.”

  “I like that.”

  “And you?” Harlan asked, weaving his way around the sofa, and taking her hand. He kissed it, glancing up at her face as he ran his tongue across her skin.

  She shivered, her desire creeping up her spine, in a delicious way. “Me? These days, I am a rather dull brown.”

  Harlan laughed. “I don’t think there is anything dull about you, Fiona.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to be a good judge.”

  “Then let me get to know you better. Let me in, Fiona, let me under your skin. Show me every blemish, every scar.”

  Fiona swallowed down her desire for him, but it did no good, her head was swimming, her brain turned to mush as he stroked the inside of her arm with his fingers. He knew exactly where to find her most sensitive skin, the places where a million nerve endings tried to feed her brain information, only to overload her circuits.

  So she did what any woman would do, she disconnected all sense and reason, and lived for this one moment in time.

  Harlan pulled her close, his breath warm on her neck as he inhaled her scent. If she had known how the day was going to end, she would have made more of an effort with her lingerie, as it was, when he unbuttoned her blouse, he unveiled a plain white, serviceable bra. His sigh of contentment told her he hadn’t noticed the cotton encasing her breasts, he was more interested in her soft flesh.

  “Beautiful,” he breathed as he lowered his head and kissed the swell of her breasts, setting off all kinds of sensations in her body. He was waking her up, just as, this morning, she had taken off the jade ring and awoken her true self.

  Closing her eyes, she drowned in the sensations he drew from her body. Her skin tingled, her spine shivered, and deep within her, an ache grew in intensity. An ache that needed satisfying. And only one man was up to the job.

  Coming back to herself, she realized he must be feeling a little left out. Never one to allow a man too much responsibility, she set to work.

  Fiona pulled Harlan’s sweater up, dragging it over his head. He was a least a foot taller than her, and she needed his help, which he gave her willingly, even if he hated dragging his eyes off her body. Then she unbuttoned his shirt, while he unclasped her bra. This was where she would die of embarrassment as gravity took control.

  Yet the hunger in Harlan’s eyes spoke of his enjoyment of her body exactly the way it was. They were not two young people in love, they were two people mated
for life, who had waited for the other for far too long. Harlan chased her worries away; it was not what was on the outside that mattered. He would love her as she was now, and for the rest of their years to come.

  Eager now, Fiona pushed his shirt off his shoulders, finding a man who had looked after himself physically. His chest was broad, strong, the smattering of graying hair the only real tell-tale sign this was not a man in his prime. Pressing her lips to his skin, she trailed kisses across his chest. Then her tongue flicked out and curled around his nipple.

  With their bodies pressed together, she could feel his cock hardening in his pants, and she was torn between making their foreplay last longer, or satisfying the growing itch they both had that needed to be scratched.

  Of course, she had hands, so while her mouth tortured his nipples, her right hand dropped down to thread between their bodies. Easing herself back slightly, she managed to curl her hand around his cock and use enough to pressure to make him gasp. Squeeze and release, squeeze and release, she soon had him in the palm of her hand. Literally. She could ask anything of him now, and he would do her bidding. Men were so easy to control.

  “Enjoying yourself?” he growled in her ear.

  “Aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah. But before I come in my pants, there is something I want to do.” His hand cupped hers and covered it, moving with the same rhythm as hers before he wrestled back his self-control, and drew her hand away.

  “What did you have in mind? Hot cocoa?” she purred.

  “Something that tastes much sweeter than that.” He placed one hand on either side of her skirt, and he yanked it down over her thighs, taking her panties with it. She automatically squeezed her thighs together, which only made her arousal more intense. Her clit begged to be touched, her sex ached to be probed.

  Which is what Harlan intended, with his mouth.

  Lifting her up effortlessly, the muscles of his strong arms bulging, he placed her down in her comfortable chair, hooking her thighs over his shoulders, and gazing on her sex. Fiona wanted to curl up and die of embarrassment as he touched his finger to her moist heat and then slipped it inside her sex.