by Alisa Woods
“We’re rather… territorial.” The disgust was working hard to make an appearance. “But trust me, my brother will be happy to oblige any tastes you have.”
Her eyes glittered. “Older or younger?”
“Younger by two minutes.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and speed-dialed Leonidas. “We’re twins. Fraternal, although he’ll tell you, he’s the better-looking one.”
That put some spark back in her eyes.
Leonidas picked up on the first ring. “Did this plan of yours go south already?” he asked. “I would have expected—”
“Leonidas! So glad I could catch you. I have a lovely woman here who can’t wait for you to warm her bed.”
“Arabella is lovely, but I thought—”
“Her name is Sandra.” Lucian managed to keep the swell of his roar inside, but he was shocked by the sudden intensity of it. Along with the desire to strangle his brother should he lay a hand on Arabella. Shit. That wasn’t good. “I’ll text you the address. Be here in twenty.” He hung up the phone and forced a smile for Sandra. “He’ll be here soon. In the meantime, let me order up something to set the mood. I hear the French Merlot is exceptional. Perhaps some chocolate-covered fruit to accompany it?”
Her smile grew wider. “Sounds like a party. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay?”
He was already on his feet, ready to leave all this in his brother’s capable hands and retrieve Arabella from the horror of a neighborhood where she worked. “Trust me, you and my brother will have a much more enjoyable time without me.”
He ordered room service, and that came in no time at all. He had two glasses of wine into Sandra before his brother knocked at the door. A flood of relief filled him when he opened it—barely nineteen minutes had passed, and Leonidas’s eyes were still flashing bronze, his dragon just recently tucked away. He must have flown straight from the keep.
Sandra grinned at him from over Lucian’s shoulder then waved.
Leonidas scowled and dropped his voice low. “Green eyes? Lucian. What are you playing at?”
Green eyes. It was Lucian’s attempt to signal his desire to Arabella. But of course, his brother would see it as something completely different. And perhaps he wasn’t wrong. They were Cara’s eyes. “It’s not like that.”
“It damn well better not be.” Leonidas put on that charming smile, the one he saved for the many human females he’d bedded over the centuries, and brushed past Lucian. His brother was the kind of dragon that suited this business of seducing women. If only he could fulfill the treaty as well. But no, it had to be the prototokos, the firstborn of the king of the House of Smoke… and that was Lucian, by accident of birth order, when he was first to leave the womb of his mother. The fae were nothing if not exacting in their following of the letter of the law—their magical law—and in this case, it was binding with magic just strong enough to keep them contained. It was his fate, and he had to accept it… even if it broke him.
Lucian closed the door without looking back.
Arabella was silent on the long ride back to the keep.
She chose one of the seats far from Lucian, on the opposite side of the limo, and she kept her gaze to the windows, serving him one-word answers to his questions while ignoring his attempts to capture her attention with a look. He had allowed her to assume he had gone through with the hookup, but that Sandra simply wasn’t his type of woman, and thus they were back to square one in the hunt for his mate. She had barely questioned it—a simple nod was all he got when he came to retrieve her from her miserably unsafe office. He had wanted her to believe he had tried and failed, that this other woman simply wasn’t the True Love he was seeking, all while triggering a moment of jealousy, some blossoming of feelings for him… but instead, she radiated nothing but anger. And small verbal and body-language complaints about returning to the keep.
She seethed at his keeping her prisoner, and what could he expect? She was even more right than she knew. He was a monster for what he was doing.
His runes writhed along his skin, his agitation building stronger during the long drive through the mountains. He knew what was coming—he would have to escalate this seduction to the realm of the physical, and that tormented him. On the one hand, he salivated at the thought of finally touching her. The few times he’d taken the liberty had left his hands and mouth and the rest of his body aching for more. At the same time, there lay the danger of losing himself in her. He knew it would eventually come to this, and in truth, he should have bedded her right away, before he could come to know her better. But even then, it felt like dangling over a dark precipice where his doom awaited with hungry, snapping jaws.
He wasn’t ready for this. He knew this to be true. But the treaty left him no choice.
Cinaed parked the car in the common garage, the one that lay cloaked off a small winding dirt road leading up to the keep. His frown echoed the tension rippling through Lucian’s body.
“You look as though a demon is walking over your grave,” Cinaed said quietly to him as he held the door of the limo. Arabella was striding with angry paces ahead of them to the elevator.
“Well, the grave is certainly on my mind.” Lucian grimaced as Arabella kept her back turned to them. She was waiting for the elevator, arms crossed.
“My liege.” The look of concern on his friend’s face was a mirror of his brother’s earlier, only more kind. Cinaed was relatively new to the House of Smoke, having come with his own baggage and troubles not long before the move from France, but he had been Lucian’s steadfast friend throughout everything that counted in his life.
He clapped a hand on Cinaed’s shoulder. “Worry not, my friend. Save it for someone who deserves it.”
“Lucian—”
“And tell the House I’m not to be disturbed.” He scowled to keep any more questioning at bay and left Cinaed cursing softly in his ancient tongue, the one he was born into before he fought for his freedom from the House of Fyre and swore fealty to the House of Smoke.
Lucian activated the lift when he arrived and gestured for Arabella to enter first. The car went straight to his lair, private access to his individual apartment within the sprawling expanse of the House. The ride was tense and quiet, with Arabella keeping to the back corner of the small space, bracing against the brass rail that ran along the center.
He needed to start thawing this arctic breeze—the sooner, the better, now that they were alone. “Were you able to catch up on your work?”
“Some.” She watched the crack of the door like it held her release, not her imprisonment.
“I imagine those you help are grateful for it.”
No response.
“Do they tell you as much? Or do you see the change in their lives and simply know?”
Her eyes flashed—flitting a hot look to him—then she returned her hard stare to the door, waiting. “I know all I need to.”
It was more words, all in a row, than he’d gotten in the last two hours.
The motion of the elevator ceased, and the doors slid open. She broke for the exit like she was escaping a dungeon. He hurried to follow her into his lair. It was as if she were running away from him, but to where, he couldn’t imagine. Was she planning to hide in the guest room?
“How do you know?” he tried, trailing behind her determined strides through the front hall. “It is because you’ve been in that same position—”
She whirled on him just before she turned the corner to the great room, and he had to check his stride lest he barrel right into her. Her finger jabbed the air near his face. “You do not get to ask me personal questions. Do you understand? That is not part of this deal.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“And speaking of our deal, what the hell was wrong with Sandra?” Her arms locked across her chest, anger flushing her cheeks. “How can you even know who she is after fucking her one time? Was it really that bad?”
He grimaced. Here it came. “No. Or rather… I woul
dn’t know.”
Her face scrunched up, those green eyes dazzling in their rage. The red in her cheeks highlighted the freckles that floated just below the creaminess of her skin. That he found her alluring in the full flower of her anger… it was a danger sign he should be heeding.
“What does that even mean?” she demanded.
He stepped closer and softened his voice. It felt as dangerous as tiptoeing at the edge of a cliff. “I didn’t bed the woman.”
“What?” The heat in her eyes flared to dangerous levels. She unlocked her arms and flung them out in exasperation, her fingertips nearly reaching him. “First, you reject one candidate after another, all because they don’t have green eyes, for whatever fucking stupid reason. Then you refuse to even meet with the first two who managed to get your approval. And then you don’t even go through with the hookup? Are you even trying with this?”
“I am,” he said, barely breathing the words. “Very hard.”
“The hell you are!” She turned away from him, and he reached to stop her from fleeing—
The rest happened in a blur. She spun on him and hit him, a soft hand bunched and plowed into his shoulder, nudging him back simply with the surprise of it. Then she grappled with him, moving in to plant her body to throw him over her hip, some kind of close-quarters fighting move that reminded him of her actions in the alleyway. Only she hadn’t reckoned on his size—he was a mountain compared to her. The attempt only brought her angry, teeth-gritted face close to his, the warmth of her breath brushing his face.
He gripped her shoulders. “Arabella—”
She growled and squirmed, half wrestling to try to move him, half attempting to escape. He released her, so she wouldn’t think he was trying to keep her, but then she swung for his face—he caught her hand at the wrist, then found the other before it could attack. Holding both up, he turned to pin her against the wall of the entrance hall. He drew close, exchanging air, the whisper-touch of her disheveled hair on the bare skin of his arms…
“You’re lying to me.” She threw the accusation at him, almost spitting across the short distance between them. Her eyes were wild as she squirmed in his hold. She quickly gave up that fight as useless, and it pained him to feel the energy drain from her arms and see the horror bloom on her face. “You’re never going to let me go.” Her words were a sob.
Of course, that was exactly his intent. And he was vile for it.
He kept her wrists pinned, but he softened his grip, afraid he had already held her too roughly. She was strong, but all humans were delicate compared to his dragon strength. “Could you never love a man like me?” he asked, voice low.
She looked at him like he was crazy. “No.” But her arousal betrayed her. He could scent the rise in heat, the passion those words evoked.
He loosened his hold further and dipped his head to peer in her eyes. “Are you quite certain?”
“No.” It was ambiguous, both in tone and meaning, but the pupils of her eyes were dilating with need. He could feel it pulsing in her wrists.
He leaned in and brushed his lips across her cheek. Her body stiffened as he breathed her scent, drawing a line with the tip of his nose across the softness of her skin. “If I cannot have you for a mate,” he whispered against her temple, “then let me slake this thirst we each have for the other.”
He felt her gasp as much as he heard the sound, the surge of her taut-nippled breasts spanning the gap between them to touch his chest.
“I don’t… what about…” Her mind was struggling, resisting, but her body was already scenting as ready. She was aching with need for him, and it fired a heat low in his belly, a fire he’d been suppressing from the moment he saw her in that alleyway, strong and vibrant and troubled.
He dipped his head to nuzzle her neck. “It was always you, Arabella. Always you.” She responded by tilting her head a fraction of an inch to give him more access. It was almost an instinctual move, and it spoke to something deep inside him—claim your treasure. He skimmed his lips up her neck and along her jaw. Her breaths were rapid and short. “You want me,” he whispered. “I can taste it on you, my treasure. Your need. Don’t deny it.”
She let out a small whimper that ran through him like liquid heat. His heart was already pounding fit for heated, grappling sex, and he hadn’t even kissed her. Another warning. His mind clouded, ignoring it, focused only on the thrumming that pulsed everywhere he touched her.
He released her wrists, finally, sliding his hands where they ached to go—one at the back of her neck, lifting her away from the wall, the other to her waist, bringing her soft body hard against his.
“Let me pleasure you.” He was barely holding himself back, but he needed to hear it from her lips.
“Yes.” It was so soft, it was more air than word.
But it blared through him. The roar rumbled inside his chest as he devoured her lips with his, using his hands to angle her head and her body so he could claim her with his mouth. She whimpered into him, and it fired even more heat straight to his cock. She tasted of berries and musk, sweet arousal and feminine skin. And that was merely his tongue plundering her mouth. His magical tasting of her, this intimately entwined, her hands clawing into his shoulders, spoke of hunger and electric tension, dark need and urgency. He pulled back to see her lips swollen from his bruising kiss. He reveled in the flush of heat in her cheeks, even as his hand skimmed up her body to grasp hold of her breast. It pushed a hardened nipple through the thin fabric of her shirt, and as he filled his hand with the weight of it, his cock throbbed in response. The feel of her was quickly making him drunk. Her hooded eyes fluttered open. Those eyes. Green crystals of beauty and brilliance, no gem could be more treasured or bewitching…
He tore his gaze from hers, squeezing his eyes shut for a pained moment.
Then he opened them and turned her to face the wall. “Put your hands up,” he whispered hoarsely, not waiting for her to understand, just grasping her wrists and planting her hands palm-flat on the cool stone wall of his lair. She didn’t resist, his cock hard against the tight curve of her bottom, making his arousal, his desire for her, insistently known. She kept her hands planted on the wall as he gathered her flowing hair in one hand, holding it tight and using it to open her neck to his tongue and his mouth. He gently nipped at her sweet flesh, pulling her t-shirt off her shoulder and exposing that to his ministrations as well, then he reached around to grab her luscious breast again, kneading it with his hungry hand. He was tasting her, scenting her sweetness as he pressed his body into hers. Her moans and the rhythmic movement of her backside against his cock, pushing against him as she braced herself against the wall… it was a dance so intense, so erotic, it was as if they were already coupled. His mouth ached with the thought of sheathing himself inside her, to feel the quiver of her body around him.
He pulled back from devouring her and conjured away his clothes—they were magic constructions, easily dealt with, but hers were physical items. He dragged his hand from her breast and shifted a single talon. He renewed his grip on her hair, holding her still, lest she move and he nicked even a bit of that delicious skin.
“I want you,” he breathed into her ear as he sliced her t-shirt from neck to sleeve. The fabric was shorn easily with the sharpness of his blade. She gasped, but he couldn’t tell if it was the words or the shirt falling loose. Her bra strap went next, exposing her breast as it fell. He shifted his hand back to human so he could grasp hold of that bare sweetness. “I’ll take you right here. Against the wall. Keep your hands where they are.” His words were ragged, but as he slipped his hand into the front of her pants, his fingertips finding the slickness of her sex, her breath became even more labored than his.
But through the heaviness of her breath, she hummed her assent, a kind of aching, pitched sound that sung to him—she needed this. He could taste it, feel it urging him on. It was clouded by his own need—it had been so long for him, impossibly long—but her desire sang through the haze,
justifying this, validating all of it. The lies, the ruse, the secrets. At least he would give her this, a slaking of something long-needed and buried.
The roughness of her pants rubbed against the nakedness of his body. He pulled his hand free of her sex, ignoring her protest as he shifted a talon and hooked it at the waist of her tailored slacks.
“Hold still,” he commanded. Then he carefully sliced his way down, kneeling as he went, the fabric giving way like silk before a steel blade. His other hand pressed flat to her back, trailing down, then skimming the curve of her bared bottom. Her clothes fell away, revealing the smattering of freckles that patterned every inch of her. So beautiful. She stayed rigid, hands planted against the wall, shuddering deliciously as he traced his way back up with his lips.
When he stood behind her again, he wrapped himself around her, his cock slipping between her legs, but not yet inside, one hand on her breast, the other diving back into her wetness. His face buried in her hair, and he moved against her, skin on skin, that silent erotic dance that bewitched him before.
She muttered soft curses as he worked her sex, and he was tempted to make her come before taking her, but he wasn’t sure he could last. The pressure was building already, and he hadn’t even entered her. Instead, he stepped back and grabbed her hip with one hand, pulling it away from the wall. His other hand fisted in her hair and pressed her forward just enough until her entrance beckoned. With a roar that stayed contained inside him, he plunged his cock deep inside her.
Merciful magic, she was tight. His roar rushed to the surface, arriving a split second after her shriek of pleasure. He held still for a moment, mind blotted by the intense pleasure of being buried to the hilt in the hotness of her body. She was gasping and cursing again, balling one fist against the wall and pushing back against him with her bottom. He understood what she wanted, and his urge to move was overwhelming as well. He gripped her hip tight, pulled back and slammed into her again, the pleasure whiting out his mind. Again and again, each stroke some kind of mind-altering drug that took him higher.
