by Alisha Basso
After a moment, she got up to eat breakfast. Maybe even an egg. She needed to be strong for the baby. As much as she loved chocolate, she didn’t think it would be enough.
Chapter 10
“What are you doing? Checking to see if there are any stories about your absence?”
Noah’s question made Jin snap her head up. She was on the recliner, her tablet on her thighs, but she’s been thinking of Hamish.
She missed him. She ached for him.
Soon. Soon they would be united again.
She took a deep breath to center herself in the present. Looking at the tablet, she said, “I looked up Claude Willowby.”
“Your stalker. What did you find on him?”
“He avoids media attention.”
“Can’t fault him for that.”
“It doesn’t say what he is.” She frowned down at the tablet. “Entrepreneur. Businessman. Investor. From now on, I’ll think of all of them as substitutes for dragon men.”
“Or women.”
“You’re the only man I know who’s a full dragon. I don’t know any female dragons besides myself who are left, or if there are any. Do you know any?”
He shook his head. “If there’s a secret dragon society, I haven’t received an invitation.”
“We’re not social animals.” Her fingers clicked the keys of the tablet, then she angled it so he could see the screen. “The only society we would form would have Keep Out signs on caves. Here are his images.”
Noah bent to study the pictures. In almost every one, Claude was with a young woman. Usually a different woman each time.
“A player,” she said.
“Or he’s looking for a mother substitute.” Noah straightened. “I’ll recognize him when I see him.”
She nodded. She knew from her observation of Noah that he was generous, strong, kind, and musical. And looking at his austere face that reminded her of an ascetic monk she’d known long ago, she gave him one more title.
Hunter.
She shivered.
“Cold?” Noah asked.
“I’m just wondering if I should have stayed far away from you.”
The shower turned off, but he kept his gaze on her. “Never be sorry. I won’t be.”
She hoped he wouldn’t change his mind. If anything happened to Lila... Well, she just hoped nothing did.
And that nothing happened to Noah or Hamish or the egg.
Nothing had better. After all, she was a full dragon, and Claude was only half.
But still there was the doubt ... the possibility ... the worry.
The small hairs on her arms and nape lifted. Her heartbeat sped. She set the tablet aside. Time to check the egg. She’d rather do that than think about Claude Willowby.
Some men were just trouble, and that was the truth.
* * *
“Have you heard from the baby’s father yet?” Lila asked.
The question changed the atmosphere in the kitchen. Though Noah continued to eat, he admitted to himself that talking about the father of his half ... well, egg ... did take away the edge of his appetite.
“It occurs to me,” Jin said, “that he hasn’t had a place to charge his phone.”
Noah nodded. That was plausible. But looking at Lila, he saw the doubt in her face, as clear as if she had shouted it.
“Lila is right,” he said. “We need to be prepared for the worst.”
“And ready to celebrate the best,” Lila added.
Jin looked from Lila to him, then nodded. “What do you need from me? Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
Noah understood. Unlike other species, dragons weren’t prolific breeders. When they were breeding, the urge to protect the baby was strong. Just the thought of someone harming it was likely igniting a small fire inside his mother.
Inside him, too. The churning low in his gut was not because of the bacon. The baby—because dragon or human, it would still be a baby—mattered to him. He normally minded his own business and let others take care of theirs, but the need to protect the egg was powerful. The last time he’d felt this need to protect was for Lila when they had both been in danger and fighting for survival.
“We want to protect you and the baby,” Lila said, as if she’d read his mind.
“And you.” Noah held his hand out to Lila. She was always first in his life. First before others. First before himself.
She laid hers in his. “And you,” she whispered, her eyes darkening.
“And the store,” Jin said.
“The store doesn’t matter.” Releasing Lila’s hand, he turned to his mother. He loved his shop. He loved the city. He loved the blues bar next door. He loved his saxophones. His horns. His pipes.
But all of that was temporary. He had gold and silver bars in different banks, and he had money in different accounts. If it was necessary, he was ready to leave Nashville in a minute, and Lila had said she’d be willing, too.
“Is your enemy smart?” Lila asked.
“I don’t count him an enemy. Just an annoyance.”
Noah narrowed his eyes at her. He’d heard a small pause before she’d said annoyance.
“He’s not a friend,” Lila said.
She shook her head, her mouth full of bacon.
“He’s smart, though, right?”
“He didn’t seem so smart when he was telling me that I needed to mate with him because he wanted a dragon baby.”
“That’s arrogance.” Lila’s nostrils flared. “I despise men who think they can tell women what to do.”
Noah nodded. His world had changed so much in less than a full day. But that was often the way it happened. Even to normal humans. Their lives humming along nicely ... then, bam! It exploded in an instant.
“Do you think he’ll harm your baby?” he asked. That was the important question.
Lines creased on her forehead. “No. I don’t think he wants to harm me, either. He just irritated me. Like a bug that won’t leave me alone.”
“You have doubts,” he said. “I hear them.”
“I’m a new mother. I doubt everything.”
“So what are you going to do if he comes?” Lila asked.
“I doubt that he will.” Jin switched her gaze to Lila. “I’m probably imagining everything. And despite all the tales about dragons, we’re not into fighting much.”
“Unless you’re pushed to the wall,” Lila said.
“Unless our loved ones are threatened.” Noah heard the steel in his tone and was aware of the look that Lila shot him. Aware that she was remembering what had happened to them, too. “Perhaps that’s why we tend to live alone and don’t interact often, which makes it difficult to feud.”
“Or breed,” Jin said. “I had to travel to another province to find Noah’s father.”
“Why did you?” He caught himself leaning forward and pulled back.
“I wanted to have you.” She looked him straight in the eyes, her head held high.
A glow warmed him, and he recalled that she’d watched over him as a dragon after he’d left her cave. She’d changed to human to follow him, and she’d kept track of him in this new life.
She loved him. All these many years, she’d loved him, and he hadn’t known.
The warmth changed, splattering apart, and a howl started in his mind. Sorrow for all the years they’d missed—
“Noah?” Lila’s voice, sharp with worry, penetrated through the howl. “Are you okay?”
Still, he couldn’t answer, his eyes closed, the howl taking over him. Too intense, too—
Lila grabbed his hand, holding it tightly. “Noah.” Her voice was low. “Noah.”
He shuddered and shut the howl off. Stopped it before it could come out of his mouth, a wordless yell of anger and hurt, more sorrowful than anything he’d ever played on his sax.
His eyes opened, and he looked at her face, taking in the frown on her forehead, the concern in her eyes, the way she gripped his hand so tightly that if he were fully human, it would hur
t.
“I’m okay.” He fought the urge to pull her to him. To kiss her until they had no breath. To feel her soft skin against him. To feel the warmth. Especially the heat between her legs and where he...
Her soft laughter slowed his thoughts, and he saw her smile and the glow in her eyes. Saw that she knew what he’d been thinking and saw that she wanted him, too.
Still smiling, she shook her head slightly, then picked up her fork.
And being a civilized man—because dragons had always been more civilized than humans—he looked at his mother, who was finishing her breakfast, clearly pretending not to notice their emotions. The way she hadn’t contacted him though she’d tracked him all these many, many, many years.
It was the dragon way.
Still, he wouldn’t mind changing that dragon way. Wouldn’t mind at all.
I think,” he said slowly, and his mother looked at him, and so did Lila, “that if this half dragon follows you here, we have no choice. We would need to kill him.”
She looked up. “I think you’re right.” And though her face was human, he could see his dragon mother, the one who could fend off enemies with a flame of fire.
Chapter 11
Lila nodded, glad that Noah was seeing it her way. Like Jin, he was more deliberate than her. He thought first and acted second.
She acted first and thought second. It’s what had gotten her into trouble more than once.
And more than once, it had saved her from death.
With their longer lives, dragons had more time to think. But human lives were quick, sometimes changing by the second.
“What are you thinking?” Noah’s voice was low, intimate, warming her.
She smiled at him, silently sending love. Even if she died tomorrow, she would have had this. She would have loved. She would have been loved. Spectacularly loved.
No matter what would happen, what they had was worth it.
“I was just thinking how my life has changed. I’m leading the life of a heroine in a graphic novel, with dragons and half humans and baby eggs.”
“And a sexy babe,” he said.
She glanced at his mother, who watched them with a small curve to her lips.
Not the usual boyfriend’s mother.
Noah’s hand touched her arm, and she felt the warmth and comfort through the long-sleeved top. “You,” he said. “You’re the sexy babe. The sexy, kung-fu-fighter babe.”
With a laugh that caught in her throat, she turned back to him. “And you’re the rock-hard sexy man.”
“Who’s part beast, part man.”
“That makes you even hotter.”
Heat smoldered in his eyes, a small flame shooting up.
Her skin felt as if it were sizzling. As if one small spark would set her on fire.
The scrape of chair legs caught her attention. Reluctantly, she tore her gaze from his as Jin took her plate and silverware to the counter.
“I’m going to watch the egg. You two might want to ... rest awhile.” Without another word, Jin headed out of the kitchen.
Noah stood and held out his hand to Lila. She stared into his eyes for a long moment.
He was potent, this dragon-man of hers. Irresistible to her. She would trade all the chocolate in the world for him.
Reaching out, she took his hand.
His eyes closed, as if in gratitude. As if she were the answer to his prayer. And her love that was so strong and so full that she knew it would fill Knoxville’s Neyland Stadium grew even bigger and stronger, so big the stadium would overflow from her love. The benches would crack and the top would blow off.
He tugged her toward the doorway. They left their dirty dishes behind, and she didn’t say a word about them. And she didn’t look back.
They had more important things to do.
The need he had for her felt urgent now. More than usual.
The chance of danger, whether it was real or not, was the cause.
Danger sex was even better than makeup sex.
That’s because there was a chance—a very small chance—that it might be the last time.
* * *
Once the door closed behind them, Noah took off his clothes, methodically, tamping down his emotions as much as he could.
He felt different today. Not as calm as his usual self, even in lovemaking, when all his concentration was on pleasing Lila before himself. Giving her pleasure with his hands, his mouth and his body before he allowed himself to experience the ultimate ecstasy.
Today he only waited for her clothes to touch the floor before he took her as they were, still standing. His mouth on her breast, sucking her in. His long-fingered hands on her bum, the pads of his fingers pressing into her softness.
And she grasped his shoulders, holding him tightly. Spreading her legs slightly to brace herself.
Then he touched her there, between her legs.
A long moan came from her. And he touched her again and again. She rocked against him, crooning his name as if it were a prayer. He knelt on the floor, between her braced legs.
Her knees wobbled. “The bed.” Her breath gasped. “The bed now.”
He closed his eyes, still touching her, her moistness on his fingers.
A shudder shook through him, then he surged up to his feet. The bed was only four feet away, but he put one arm behind her knees and one around her back, swept her up, and strode to the bed, where he laid her down gently. Bending over her, he saw the love in her eyes. The joy. The need.
“We have to live,” she whispered. “In the graphic novel, we have to be together.”
“Yes.” He put his hand between her legs, and she gasped. “Yes.”
Then he got into bed on his hands and knees. Instead of moving over her, he crawled between her legs to taste her moistness. To listen to her muffled scream as her body tensed and shuddered, and she grabbed fistfuls of the sheets as she rocked against his mouth.
Until finally she stopped. Depleted. A rag doll.
But he’d just begun, and he moved up her to her breasts again, and by the time he reached them, her legs were around his, pulling him against her, letting him know what she wanted.
But he wasn’t ready yet.
There was a possibility that they were going into battle soon. That they would be facing an adversary.
This wasn’t the first time. The last time, they’d triumphed, but it had been close. Very, very close.
This time their possible adversary was half dragon. He would be more dangerous.
But there were two dragon fighters here—him and his mother. And they had Lila, who liked to think she still had dragon blood inside her. As if it had mixed with her blood and changed her forever. But he didn’t take anything for granted.
He didn’t take the touch of her silken skin for granted.
The taste of her sex on his tongue.
The softness and firmness of her breast in his hand.
The way her nipple hardened inside his mouth.
The feel of his erection between her legs, pushing up against her. Wanting him.
Not yet. He wanted to wait. He wanted it to last longer.
But she pressed against him. “Now,” she whispered hoarsely as her hold around his back tightened, her fingers pressing into his shoulders. “Now. Now. Now.”
He moaned, unable to deny her or himself. He entered her tightness. And it felt ... like everything wonderful in the world. There was just him and there was just her. And there was just sensation and heat and wonder. He moved in and out slowly, slowly, a little faster.
Waves of pleasure shook through him. He could feel her pulsing against him. She moaned and said, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, aaaah.”
All the while, she held him as tightly as he held her. As if she never wanted to let him go. And he for certain never wanted to release her.
The two of them rocked the bed, and though she muffled her screams and he did the same with his moans, he never wanted to stop. Never.
The little ea
rthquakes began. The little trips to bliss, to paradise. Ripping through them in glorious bursts of ecstasy.
Then it was over, and he held her for a long moment before he forced himself to separate from her. As he did, his silent voice screamed nooooo! But he knew he must be heavy on her, so he separated, flopping onto his back next to her. A sheen of sweat covered their skin, their breaths gasped, and the backs of their hands at their sides touched. He was too depleted to move.
“That was ... amazing,” she said finally, only gasping once.
He breathed his agreement. It was always amazing with her. Every time.
She laughed, rich and low. That laugh ... that dirty laugh ... needed no translation.
Still, they lay there. He would have to get up soon and get dressed. Perhaps a quick shower. The dragon sense of smell was sharp, and there were some things he didn’t care for his mother to smell, even though he knew she had heard them. And even though he knew she wanted him to have pleasure. To have love.
“Why didn’t you tell me before that you could have multiple orgasms?” Lila’s voice was lazy and slow now.
He turned his head. “I wasn’t sure that I could.”
She turned her head to his. Her face still glowed, and the corners of her eyes crinkled with a smile. “I’m your first multiple?”
He nodded. “I suspected I could do more, but once had always been enough.”
“Even with me?”
“With you, once is everything.”
“But today was different.”
He didn’t nod, didn’t say anything. Just thought.
There was the possibility of danger, yes, but it was more than that. Something about the baby egg in the bedroom. He’d seen the expression on Lila’s face when she looked at it. The yearning.
He’d been a man in the shape of a dragon for a long time. In the beginning, no one had used birth control—except the kinds that often failed. And though he hadn’t been promiscuous, he had indulged himself now and then, especially in his younger years. And not one woman had told him she was carrying his baby.
He’d never wanted one before. But he’d never been with a woman like Lila before.
