Due to the inter-demesne functions they had attended over the last year, she had learned how to dance in a formal setting. The experience of waltzing with Dragos was something she would never forget, his power and assurance as he swept her around a ballroom while he looked down at her, unsmiling and severe in his black tie.
She had never seen him dance just for the fun of it, though.
She sighed happily as their server set a beautiful salad in front of her and gave Dragos his meal. When they were alone again, she told him, “I sure love to dance.”
Dragos said, “No.”
She almost burst out laughing. Instead she raised her eyebrows pointedly. “Don’t you love to dance with me?”
Amusement creased the sides of his mouth. He cut into his steak. “What a talent you have for asking loaded questions. You made a political chore very enjoyable. It’s important to present a united front and to demonstrate to everyone that we are a team.”
“You don’t have a romantic bone in your body, do you?” She grinned and thought about teasing him some more, but he had been so responsive about taking a vacation, she decided to take pity on him and relent. “Never mind. I’ll just have to enjoy those waltzes enough for the both of us.”
They talked more about plans for moving upstate, and the decision became more real with conversation. While they had made the decision because it was best for Liam, by the end of the meal Pia started to look forward to the change.
After all, young parents move to the ’burbs all the time, for all kinds of reasons. To get away from crime, to get away from the noise and crowdedness of the city. To raise their children in greater peace and safety, and to give them greater freedom to roam.
Raising a magic baby dragon wasn’t so very different.
She thought of the long, lone flights Dragos took periodically to relieve the stresses of city life.
She said, “This is going to be good for all of us.”
“I think it will too. I’m starting to look forward to it.” He took the last bite of his lobster and set his fork down. “Do you want dessert or coffee?”
While Dragos didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, she did, and he often chose to have a cheese plate and port to keep her company. She shrugged. “I could take it or leave it.”
“Then come on.” He stood and held out a hand.
Obligingly, she slid out of her seat and slipped her fingers into his grasp. “We haven’t paid yet. What are we doing?”
He slanted a black eyebrow at her. “We’re dancing.”
She went into delighted shock. He led her onto the dance floor.
Chapter Five
No, Dragos didn’t have a romantic bone in his body, but Pia made it easy for him. Whenever he did something for her, she lit up with pleasure. Her midnight-violet eyes sparkled, and joy glowed from her skin. Canny businessman that he was, he invested in her happiness and reaped the returns in bright laughter, soft smiles, gentle touches and impulsive hugs.
His world turned grim when she was unhappy, and his thoughts became aggressive and bladelike. He grew intolerant and quick to slash out. He did not trust a world that had the audacity to hurt his mate. Her happiness filled him with contentment.
What was a little dancing compared to that?
They reached the crowded floor. Without the discipline and structure of a waltz, he wasn’t sure what he should do. He stood, hands on his hips, as he studied the movements of the other dancers. Some of them looked like they had been tasered and were shuddering just before they collapsed.
That, he would not do. Could not.
Pia touched his biceps. When he looked down at her, her face brimmed with… Okay, that was more than just joy. That was laughter, too.
“Just move.” She put her hands on his hips. “Don’t overthink it. Listen to the music, do what you want and be natural.”
Do what you want. Those instructions were easy enough to follow.
He tugged her close, and she came readily to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. However, she did more than just hug him. She rubbed her slender, curvy body against his rhythmically, twisting and swaying in time to the music, and Dragos’s opinion about dancing underwent a drastic change.
He stared at the sinfully gorgeous woman in his arms. She slid along his body with such sensuous grace she set his skin smoldering.
“You know, Dragos,” she said with an upward glance and a twinkle, “when two people are dancing, it usually requires both of them to do something.”
At her words, his attention snapped to the music. The song was a popular one, bright, quirky and with a strong, tribal beat. He caught the rhythm of it and began to move, and it wiped the laughter off Pia’s face.
Holding her gaze, he set his hands on her hips and guided her to move with him. They swayed and undulated together. After a year of living as mates, he was so attuned to her, he could anticipate what she did. Ever the aggressor, he bent forward, and she bowed back. She draped one arm around his neck, her gaze never leaving his.
The music changed, and the next song was darker, smokier. It wormed its way into his blood, and the rest of the world fell away. Their movements together, hip to hip and thigh to thigh, were as necessary and as elemental as sex. The connection between them was always present, but now it grew bright and taut like a bridge of fire.
Sometimes he grew afraid that he burned too hot, that the roar he felt in his blood for her would overwhelm or frighten her, but she never turned from him or backed away. Instead she met his fire with a fierce passion of her own, her cooler, moonlit energy burnishing under the force of his attention until she shone.
She straightened and tugged at the same time, and he bent his head. She whispered in his ear, “If you don’t take me out of here, I’m going to come right on the dance floor.”
Each word caressed his ear. Her lips were trembling.
It doused him in a sheet of flame. He took her arm and led her off the floor. Everything happened from a distance, on the other side of the urgency that pounded in his body.
To the exit. Someone came and bleated at him. Their server. He dug in his pocket and shoved cash at her without counting it. The server stepped back, beaming.
Away from the beach, toward the car.
The sun had set while they ate their dinner. White light from halogen street lamps threw pools of light along the streets and the beach, heightening the darkness beyond. Pia almost stumbled, but his tight hold wouldn’t let her. She looked etched, the contours of her face marked with tension. His sharp predator’s eye caught the subtle shift of her slender throat muscles as she swallowed. Her scent was feminine and musky at once, and he listened to the tiny friction of her silk dress against her skin.
They reached the Mercedes. As he looked at it he thought of the myriad, complex movements it would take to drive the machine. How mundane. How human. The dragon rebelled at the thought.
He wrapped them in a cloak of invisibility and picked her up. A muffled noise came out of her. It sounded stark and needy. She hooked her arm around his neck as he strode to the edge of the parking lot. A waist-high stone wall separated the asphalt from the sand. He leaped it and ran down the beach, faster and faster until the wind whipped through their hair.
Within moments they left behind the bright lights of the dockyard and the incessant chatter of humanity. The ocean murmured against the sand in a rhythm far older than any music. Lights dotted the dark shoreline, and a slice of moon curved in the dark blue, starred night, but the place he found was deep with shadows.
He walked into the deepest of the shadows, where the line of trees and bushes met the beach. Only then did he set her on her feet. Now her whole body trembled. He could hear her heart racing.
He did that. He caused her body to shake and cry out. He set her heart racing, made her laugh, created her happiness. He reached past the bone and sinew of her body and touched the invisible, mysterious core of her, the place that defined her.
That place. Tha
t invisible, mysterious place was his home.
He lived for it. He would die for it.
It did not define him. He was too old and too wicked. But if he were ever to believe in a place called Eden, paradise or heaven, that invisible place would be it. It had nothing to do with forgiveness. It was more necessary to him than redemption.
She could break him. Him. In their year together, the surprise had still not left him. He had lived through cataclysms. He had survived the undying enmity of Elves and the shifting of continents, but she held his old, jaded heart in her two slender hands.
“Here?” she whispered.
“Here,” he told her. “Now.”
He pushed her against the trunk of a tree and went to his knees in front of her. Sliding his hands up the taut, graceful line of her thighs, he made a startling discovery.
She wore no panties underneath that short—very short—thin dress.
Her audacity shocked a growl out of him. He cupped her round, silken-smooth ass and buried his face greedily in the soft, private hair at the juncture of her thighs.
She gasped, shaking all over, and leaned back against the tree while she hooked one of her fabulous legs over his shoulder, opening herself for his exploration. He licked and suckled at the velvety, succulent flesh of her sex. She was slick and inviting, and she tasted like arousal.
The sensation shot down his spine. His already hard cock stiffened further until he felt thick and swollen.
Gods, he loved to fuck her, with his tongue, his fingers, and his penis—anything he could use to get inside her most private place, and to feel how she responded to him. He inserted his forefinger into her gently, feeling how her inner muscles gripped him.
Her body vibrated with tension as her pleasure escalated. She cupped the back of his head with trembling fingers as he found the stiff little nubbin of her clitoris and licked. He inserted a second finger. She arched her back as she accommodated him, and her moisture coated his hand.
“You need this,” he growled. “Say it.”
“Yes.” She stroked her fingers through his hair.
“You need me.”
He knew what he sounded like. He sounded arrogant and demanding, and slightly ridiculous, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Yes!” she cried out.
He used the back of his knuckle to press her clitoris to his mouth, rubbed his teeth gently, gently across the delicate, delicious flesh and felt the shock waves shudder through her body. She shoved a hand against her mouth to muffle a cry.
His own need was growing urgent, and his pants felt too tight. Too civilized. He unzipped and yanked them open to let his engorged penis spill out, never once letting up from working on her.
The incantation he wove on her was his greatest enchantment. Each stroke, lick and thrust was a line that made a verse, each verse necessary and building on each other to create the final spell. She showed him the way the spell should be cast with every gasp and flex of her muscles, every tiny betrayal revealing the intensity of her pleasure.
Her tension escalated until it broke apart. She bucked against his hold and forgot to muffle her cry when she climaxed. The tiny shock waves rippled through her muscles. He felt it through his fingers as he stroked her deep inside, at the site of her second pleasure center, while he never stopped licking.
She was so hot, so tight. He was dying to sheathe himself in her, but he held himself under rigid control while he sucked hard and drove in with his fingers at the same time—and she convulsed again, sobbing.
That’s it, he murmured in her head. There you are. Give it to me again.
She shook her head jerkily. “I can’t— Those blew my mind. I can’t— I can’t stand up any longer.”
Yes, you can, he told her. I’m going to take you right up against that tree trunk. Right after you come for me one more time.
“Good God, Dragos!” She clenched her fingers in his short hair.
He fucked her with his fingers while he never let up on the pressure with his tongue. The heat coming off of her body was unbelievably erotic. She made a strangled, mewling noise at the back of her throat, and the sound went straight to his cock. In that moment, he was absolutely sure he was going to die if he didn’t get inside of her just as quickly as he could.
Swearing, she bent over and draped across his shoulder, and her inner muscles clenched on his fingers as she came one more time. He wrapped an arm around her neck while he cupped her until the orgasm eased.
He was breathing like he had raced a marathon, his own need turning his muscles rigid. As he loosened his hold on her, she slid into his lap. He yanked her torso closer, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as she reached between them.
The sensation of her slender fingers closing over his erection was delicious, agonizing. His head fell back, and he sucked in air through clenched teeth as she stroked him.
“Come here,” she whispered.
He widened his thighs, spreading her legs as she raised herself up and rubbed the tip of his erection against her soft, drenched entrance. Slowly she sank down on him. It didn’t matter how many times they had made love over the last year. The sensation of piercing into her body was indescribable. Every time it was like the first time, like new. A guttural groan broke out of his mouth.
He couldn’t get inside deeply enough. He gripped her and thrust with his hips. The friction of sliding into her tight, wet sheath made him crazy, crazy. Her moonlit hair was tousled and shadowed her face. Watching his expression with wise, loving eyes, she flexed on him as she undulated her torso. She knew exactly what to do, and it sent him over the edge.
Gripping her tighter, he pumped once, twice, three times hard and fast. The climax ran through the muscles of his body, hitting him like a steamroller, and he felt himself beginning to pulse inside of her. The pleasure was so violent it was almost excruciating.
“Fuck me,” he gasped.
“Any time you want,” she whispered. She stroked his face and gave him a siren’s smile. “Any time, anywhere.”
The aftershocks were still hitting him, pleasure slowly spiraling him down to sanity once again. He pulled her closer, one hand at the back of her neck and the other arm wrapped around her waist. “Always.”
She laid her head on his shoulder and pressed her lips to his neck. “Forever.”
The mating frenzy that had gripped them last year was never too far away, and for a moment he wavered on the edge. He could take her over and over, passion blazing through the night like a comet. They had done it before, and no doubt would do it again.
For the moment, instead, peace stole over him gradually, until the dragon let go and eased back, and he could think more humanlike thoughts.
“I think I might be able to drive now,” he said.
She snickered. “Are you sure?”
He smiled into her neck. “Pretty sure. When we reached the car earlier, all I could think of was: Key. Ignition. Stick shift. Wheel. And then: No.”
She laughed harder. “When you picked me up, all I could think of was: Yay!”
“Sometimes the single-syllable conversations are the most important ones.” He kissed her and fell into the private, voluptuous world of exploring her soft, sensual mouth.
She murmured wordlessly, the sound filled with contentment, and kissed him back as she stroked her fingers through his hair. They both sighed with regret when his softening penis slipped out of her.
She said against his mouth, “I think I have sand burn on my knees.”
He shifted immediately to help her stand. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry. If it had been really irritating, I would have said something.”
Together they brushed the sand off her legs. “We should be heading back anyway.”
“As long as you cloak us again on the way to the car. I’m not fit to be seen in public.” She tried to straighten her dress while he zipped up his pants.
He paused to look at her with a private, possessive
smile. While he liked displays of his claim on her—disheveled hair, lipstick gone, or even the slight evidence of marks on her neck—no, at the moment, she was not fit to be seen in public. The thin material of her dress was crumpled, and they both smelled like sex, and that was too private to be shared.
“Of course,” he said. “Are you ready?”
She nodded. This time he took her hand and they walked back, enjoying the night and the breeze that blew off the ocean. When they got back within sight of the bright lights and busy dockyard, Dragos wrapped the concealment cloak around them again.
Pia said, “I am horribly in love with you, you know.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “As I am with you. Horribly.”
Her sigh made him smile. It was such a happy sound. He pulled her closer as they strolled toward the car.
Chapter Six
Early the next morning, Pia dressed in Capri cargo pants, a lemon-yellow tank top and her slender silver sandals. Dragos dressed simply as well, in jeans and a gray T-shirt that stretched across the breadth of his chest and biceps.
After a quick, cheerful breakfast, Pia slipped Liam into his baby carrier and strapped him to her torso. She and Dragos walked the path to the beach, where Dragos changed into his dragon form.
Liam crowed with excitement and craned his neck to look at Dragos. Pia turned so he could study his father, and he flailed his arms.
“This is one excited baby.” She jerked her head back with a laugh as one of his chubby fists clipped her on the chin.
The dragon bent his immense head and nosed Liam, who shrieked happily and pounded the dragon’s snout. Pia laughed harder as she imagined what they might look like to a total stranger. If she had witnessed such a bizarre sight without knowing any of them, she would have been absolutely terrified for the baby and the woman holding him.
The dragon’s huge gold eyes danced. He said to Pia, “Are you ready?”
“You bet.”
Dragos scooped Pia into one forepaw with extreme care and twisted to set her on his back. With the familiarity of long practice, she scooted up to the natural hollow where the base of the dragon’s neck met his shoulders. As soon as she settled into place, she patted his dusky bronze hide. “All set.”
Dragos Takes A Holiday_A Novella of the Elder Races_Elder Races Series Page 5
