No, she really wouldn’t. Man or dragon, mate or otherwise, she was not going to become subservient to Grigor or any other man. So he could go fu— “What do you mean, put myself in danger?” she questioned sharply, her brain having just caught up with that part of the conversation.
“We discovered earlier today someone has been watching the castle.”
Her mouth fell open. “They have?”
“Yes.”
“Who?” Her run-in with the Russian bratva was still too raw for Gayle to feel comfortable with the knowledge of there being an intruder out here in the wilds of Wales. Not that she thought Gregori Markovic or his second, Nikolai Volkov, would send someone to harm her. They had parted as friends. In fact, she was still trying to decide whether or not, when she returned to London, she would take the job Gregori had offered her working with his own computer geek, Adam Bishop.
Although, after Grigor’s comments, perhaps she should now consider whether or not it was if she returned to London, not when.
Grigor scowled. “If I knew the answer to that, this person would no longer be a problem.”
Gayle eyed him nervously. “What are you going to do when you find them?”
“Whatever I deem necessary to protect my mate.”
To protect her, Gayle realized as her stomach churned. She didn’t want to be the reason Grigor might deem it necessary to kill someone.
His mouth thinned. “You made yourself vulnerable by running away from me.”
Gayle really wished he would stop saying that. “I wasn’t running away from you exactly.”
His brows rose. “Then what?”
“This whole weird situation!” She scowled her frustration. “And I wouldn’t have left at all if someone had bothered to tell me there was an intruder out here.” Gayle gave a shiver at the thought of how easily she might have walked into danger by leaving the castle without telling anyone. “I’m not a mind reader,” she added defensively.
Grigor’s mouth twisted. “But as my mate, you will learn, over time, to discern my mood.”
She gave a derisive snort. “I don’t need to be a mind reader to know that right now you’re well and truly pissed.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” he bit out grimly.
“Look…” Gayle tried using a reasoning tone when Grigor added nothing to that last statement, “…this is too much to take in, okay? Until a short time ago, I didn’t believe dragons even existed, let alone that your whole bloody family can change—shift,” she corrected as she remembered Chloe’s books, “into them.”
Grigor appeared unmoved by her appeal. “I told you the truth. I gave you the choice of whether or not we were mated. Voluntarily kissing me has made that mating irreversible.”
“Shit,” she gasped as more details of Chloe’s books came flooding back to her. “Does that mean I’m going to die within three weeks if we don’t—if I don’t agree to complete the mating?”
He gave an inclination of his regal head. “We will both die.”
She felt her face pale. “Well, that—that just sucks, big-time!”
Grigor was still inwardly recovering from the shock of realizing his mate had left the castle, and so putting herself in danger from whoever was watching them. For what purpose still had to be ascertained. Until they knew that purpose, any movement outside the castle, by any member of the family, would have to be monitored. Gayle having left without telling anyone was unacceptable.
Having her leave him, when their earlier kiss meant their mating had already begun, was extremely painful to him, both physically and emotionally.
As it was now going to be painful to Gayle.
“What are you doing?” she squeaked as Grigor easily picked her up in his arms.
“We’re going back to the castle,” he stated as he turned and strode in that direction, Gayle still firmly held in his arms, despite her struggles to be put down.
“I— But—”
“From now on, so that I can ensure your safety and well-being, you will be sharing my suite of rooms,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “When I am not there, you will be shackled to the bed—”
“I’m really not into that BDSM crap!”
Grigor glanced down at her. “I will never cause you a moment’s pain. Ever. Not for any reason,” he vowed. “When I am not in my bedroom with you, you will be secured to a piece of furniture so that you remain where I have instructed you to stay.”
“I’m not a fucking dog!”
Grigor’s mouth thinned. His mate’s language seemed to deteriorate whenever she felt she was losing control of a situation. “You are my mate.”
“Who you intend tying up once we reach your bedroom,” she accused.
Grigor glanced down at her. “Would you prefer I secure you in the torture chamber we keep down in the basement next to the dungeon?”
She raised her eyes heavenward. “My God, whoever would have thought the mighty Grigor Pendragon has a sense of humor!”
His brows rose. “Do I sound as if I’m joking?”
No, he didn’t. “There’s really a torture chamber down there?”
He shrugged. “It served its purpose of scaring our enemies into talking in the earlier centuries of our existence.”
Gayle couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like to be born into the fifth century, let alone live through all the turmoil and wars in the centuries that had passed since. All in all, Grigor was pretty well-balanced, considering how long he’d been alive and the shit he must have seen.
“But you’ve never actually used any of that stuff, have you?” She wished her voice hadn’t risen to a disbelieving squeak. But hey, a torture chamber!
Grigor’s eyes glittered mercilessly. “Where do you imagine I will be acquiring the shackles from?”
Gayle fell silent at the realization she had pushed Grigor too far with her attempt at running away from Pendragon Castle. Worse, running away from him, her mate, which was apparently a definite no-no.
She was vaguely aware of several silent members of the Pendragon family standing in the entrance hall as Grigor strode through with her still held securely in his strong arms before he took the stairs two at a time. Not that she would have spoken to any of them anyway. She hadn’t forgotten they had locked her in the dungeon earlier today just because she told them she was going back to London. Besides, now she could see Grigor clearly, she was too concentrated on him to concern herself with anyone else.
He really was magnificent as a man or a dragon. Tall, handsome, arrogant, and just all-round bloody powerful. Intimidating as hell.
His expression now was one of grim determination as he strode down the hallway to what she presumed was his suite of rooms. He had totally ignored the door into her guest bedroom.
Grigor’s suite showed none of the modernization of the rest of the castle. The stone walls of the sitting area were covered with brightly colored tapestries, the stone floor with scatter rugs, and huge mahogany furniture and an open fireplace completed the décor. The bedroom was the same, except it was dominated by the huge four-poster bed Grigor now placed her down upon to remove her jacket. The bed was covered in gold damask, as were the heavy curtains secured at each corner.
Gayle’s earlier lack of confidence returned with a vengeance as she stared up at him. “You can’t really want someone like me as your mate.”
“No,” he confirmed as he unhooked one of the gold braids holding back the curtains at the top of the bed, studying it for several seconds before unhooking a second one. “I do not want someone like you as my mate. I want you specifically.”
“Because fate chose me for you, not you,” she maintained stubbornly.
His expression softened slightly. “Admittedly, you are not how I imagined my mate would be—”
“Thanks,” she snapped.
“You are more,” he added huskily. “So very much more.”
“In what way?” Gayle hated that needy whine in her voice, but she really want
ed to know what Grigor meant.
“In every way.” Grigor leaned forward to loop one of the gold braids about the hook in the post. “You are fiery as well as beautiful.” He lifted one of her hands and looped the other end of the braid about her wrist twice. “The way you stood up to Markovic and then to me shows you are also fearless.” He made a slip knot and looped it about the hook before tightening it so that Gayle’s wrist was secured above her head. “Strong and fiery enough to be a dragon mate and a protective mother to our offspring.” He picked up the second braid and began to repeat the intricate knots about Gayle’s other wrist.
“Um, well, that’s really nice and everything, but I’m not sure I really want to have children yet— What the hell?” his mate gasped, pulling on the ties as she realized her wrists were both secured above her head. “What are you doing?” she demanded as Grigor unfastened and unzipped her jeans before pulling them down her silky thighs.
He glanced at her. “I am preparing my mate to receive her punishment—”
“Look, when I said I’m not into that BDSM crap, it included spanking—”
“—which I intend to do by pleasuring you with my mouth and hands,” Grigor continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“What? Stop that!” Gayle kicked at him with her long and slender legs as he pulled down her pink lace panties and discarded them onto the floor with her jeans.
His mate’s mound was covered in curls the same red as her hair. Wet curls, Grigor noted with satisfaction, her nether lips slick with the juices of her arousal.
“Stop staring at me in that—that I’m-going-to-eat-you way!” Gayle pressed her thighs tightly together so that Grigor could no longer see those glistening lips between her thighs.
“But eating you is exactly what I am going to do,” he answered her distractedly, realizing he hadn’t thought this through properly when he’d secured only Gayle’s wrists. How could he when his nose and mouth, all of his senses, were awash with Gayle’s unique scent and arousal?
“But— What are you doing?” Gayle stopped thrashing about on the bed as she watched Grigor unfasten the curtain ties at the bottom of the bed before grasping hold of one of her legs. “No way,” she protested as he deftly tied that ankle with the third tie, kicking at him again as he tried to loop the fourth tie about her other ankle. “This is— You can’t—”
“I can’t not,” Grigor groaned as he lowered his head lowered and buried his face in the red curls covering her mound.
Gayle felt color heat her cheeks. No man had ever seen her down there, let alone—let alone— “What are you doing?” she demanded as she heard Grigor breathing heavily.
“I am breathing in your delicious perfume,” he admitted gruffly, moving purposefully up the bed to kneel between her parted thighs. “Your unique scent calls to me.” His eyes had darkened, and his cheeks were flushed. “Give me permission to kiss and lick you in a way that will please you.”
God, this was so…so… Erotic best described it, Gayle realized. She was literally tied to this four-poster bed, with an enrapt Grigor kneeling before her, pleading with her to let him pleasure her.
She might be inexperienced, but she wasn’t a fool. “Yes.” She relaxed her legs in invitation, the burning longing in her own body too intense to resist.
Instead of lowering his head again, Grigor leaned forward until his face was just inches above hers, his dark eyes glittering. “Now that I have your permission, I am going to tease and drink you down, until my senses are saturated with the texture and taste of you, and you plead and beg.”
Much as she wanted to tell him to go to hell, Gayle couldn’t deny the heat coursing through her body. “I’d really appreciate less talk and more action.”
Grigor ignored her impatient demand. “I will use my lips, tongue, and fingers to take you to your peak again and again, but never to completion—”
“What the hell?” Her eyes widened. “Why not?”
“It is your punishment for disobeying me.”
She glared. “That’s—that’s inhuman!”
He gave a satisfied grin. “But I am not human. And you…” He sobered, eyes narrowed, “…you will learn never to disobey me again.”
Chapter 8
Gayle couldn’t believe this was happening to her. That any of this was happening to her. “How can I have disobeyed you when you didn’t tell me I couldn’t leave the castle?”
“Do not play word games with me,” Grigor growled. “You knew you were not supposed to leave.”
“Knowing and telling are two— Oh my God!” Gayle’s body arched in pleasure as the rough rasp of Grigor’s tongue swept from the wetness of her labia up to her clit. “That is so— Oh God…” Her body became boneless as that tongue—surely longer and thicker than a human tongue?—now licked and probed beneath the protective hood to her clit before centering on that throbbing nubbin.
Having Grigor’s mouth on her was exquisite, beyond anything Gayle had ever imagined as she pleasured herself late at night in her single bed thinking of some imaginary hottie. Except Grigor wasn’t a hottie; he was man personified. Handsome. Fierce. Possessive as hell. A relentless lover whose lips and tongue took her quickly to that pinnacle—
Before stopping.
“No!” Gayle protested desperately on behalf of her abandoned and aching clit.
“Yes,” he insisted, his lips forging a path of fire across her abdomen now, hands pushing up her T-shirt to bare her breasts covered in pink lace. “Pretty,” he murmured before easily snapping the inch of ribbon between the two lace cups and pushing them aside. “Prettier,” he approved gruffly before lowering his head and taking one aching and erect nipple into the enveloping heat of his mouth, while his fingers and thumb grasped its twin to roll and squeeze.
Gayle wondered if it was possible to come just from having her nipples sucked and caressed. It damn well felt like it as Grigor alternated his attention between her nipples, one minute his mouth sucking and teeth gently biting, the next that wetness being squeezed and pulled and his mouth capturing and suckling the other nipple.
Each time she felt herself on the brink of coming, Grigor would stop this dual assault to instead explore her shoulders and throat with lingering kisses and the lapping of his tongue before returning to begin the torture all over again.
Gayle lost track of time, of everything but the pleasure created by Grigor’s mouth and hands, aware of a voice that whimpered and pleaded in the background. A voice she recognized as her own.
Her nipples were bright red and aching by the time Grigor’s mouth returned to suck her clit into the moist heat of his mouth. Her back arched, hips pressing upward as she tried to force the friction she needed rather than having his fingers lightly tormenting her swollen labia. She sobbed in needy frustration when Grigor denied her release again by grasping her hips to hold her in position before the magical length of his tongue moved down to pierce and enter her channel.
“Grigor!” she groaned. “Please. Oh God, please. You said you would never hurt me!”
He raised his head slightly, lips glistening with her juices. “I am not hurting you.”
“You are!” she accused. “My body hurts and aches so much.”
His gaze softened. “Will you willfully disobey me again?”
“I wasn’t being willful the first time,” she defended. “I was—I was frightened, okay?” she admitted with a sob. “My body started to tremble and ache the moment I was alone in my bedroom, and it frightened the hell out of me when I realized it had to be the mating aphrodisiac. It made everything you’d told me all too real. I just wanted to get away for a while. To think.” Her voice broke on another sob. “I wasn’t running away from you, just… Please don’t… I can’t stand you being cruel to me,” she choked.
How could Grigor resist Gayle’s pleading eyes or the emotion he could hear in her voice? Punishing his mate was one thing, but hurting her in any way was unacceptable. Besides which, he knew Gayle well enough to kno
w how much it had cost her to admit to being frightened of anything.
Had that added to the fear he had sensed in her earlier of being left alone and abandoned? Her plea for him not to be cruel to her certainly indicated that was the case.
His skittish mate needed his reassurance, affirmation of their relationship, not his punishment.
Grigor moved up Gayle’s body until his thighs were settled between hers and his face was only inches above her own. He took the weight of his chest onto his elbows, allowing his hands the freedom to cup the heat of her cheeks as he gazed down into her shadowed green eyes. “I am all yours now, Gayle,” he assured her gruffly. “I will never leave you, never betray you with another woman, will remain steadfast and true to only you for the rest of however long our lives together should last.”
She blinked. “You will?”
“I will.” Grigor made it a vow.
She swallowed. “Would you release my arms now?”
He tensed warily. “Why?”
Her cheeks blushed a fiery red. “So that I can put them around you.”
Grigor studied her face for any sign of trickery. All he saw was the intensity of her green eyes steadily meeting his gaze. The flush in her cheeks. The swell of her lips. The stubborn set of her chin. “You will not run away again?”
“No.”
“I have your word?” He began to untie her wrists.
“You do.”
He paused with only one of her wrists freed. “You said that too readily.”
She frowned her irritation. “Okay, so I was really only promising not to run away again right now. No woman in her right mind would,” she added derisively as she unfastened the second tie herself, “when she has a gorgeous man lying between her thighs, promising to give her unimagined pleasure!”
A smile played about Grigor’s lips. “You think I’m gorgeous?”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she warned with her usual spirit. “I also think you’re stern, dictatorial, cold, and all-round bloody arrogant!”
He gave a shake of his head. “I’m not cold around you.”
Something Gayle could definitely attest to right now, when she could feel the hard and hot length of his cock pressing against the heat of her mound. “I notice you didn’t deny being stern, dictatorial or arrogant.”
Grigor Page 6
