by Cecilia Lane
“Who was here?” She asked in a small voice.
“Penelope. Here, let me get you something to eat.”
He turned back to his cooking and she took a seat at the breakfast bar. She was even more confused when he pushed a plate of bacon toward her and motioned her to eat. He was acting too caring for someone who would send her to the executioner. Was it because she’d freed him?
She paused to take a sip of coffee and was surprised to find the plate almost empty. Rafe watched her with concerned eyes. It made her fidget. She couldn’t take the silence between them. “What is it?”
He rubbed a hand through his hair. “We need to talk about last night and what happened after we returned.”
She'd been shot, she remembered that much. Everything after was hazy. There was a long period where she was so cold and everything was so dark. Then a feeling of nothing ate up all her senses until she woke.
“What happened?”
“You were shot. You would have died if I hadn’t…”
“Hadn’t what, Rafe?” She already knew. Her increased senses, her hunger, her rapid healing. She just needed to hear him confirm what she started to suspect in the bedroom.
“I mated you. You’re dragon hearted now. My mate.”
“Oh.”
She knew what it meant to be mated to a dragon. She’d live a long life. She’d have scales if something tried to go through her skin again. She nearly laughed at her own stupidity. Scales. Dragons. Rafe’s inner animal would have protected him. She didn’t need to throw herself in the line of fire for him. Her entirely human sacrifice was worthless for a dragon.
He continued. “You were weak. You lost so much blood. The bullet ripped through you, tore everything to shreds. It was the only chance of keeping you alive and I did it. I slid my fangs into your shoulder and I mated you.” He glanced up at her then back down again. “I understand if you didn’t want this life. We’re everything you were raised to hate.”
“Just like that, we’re bound together forever?” Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. Her and Rafe, for as long as they lived. He didn’t loathe her. He’d saved her. Again.
“I didn’t want to. Not like that. It shouldn’t be done without pleasure to take away the pain. I understand if you hate me for taking the choice away from you. But I couldn’t let you die.”
She slipped off the chair and rounded the counter between them. “Thank you,” she said softly.
He could have left her to die. Instead, he was worried that he’d forced a life on her. Her stupidly sweet dragon.
He pulled her into his arms and buried his face into her shoulder. “I couldn’t let you die.”
She pulled back from him and chewed on her lower lip. She thought she knew the answer, but she needed to ask it anyway. “How is it supposed to be done?”
She thought she felt his chest rumble with the start of a growl. His voice was thick when he spoke. “I’d bring you right to the point of climax. Then I’d mark your skin. Here.”
His fingers traced over her collarbone and a shiver ran through her body. Fire and need grew inside her, answering the touch of his fingers.
She knew the answer and she wanted him. She didn’t know how she’d gotten so lucky. From a compound that spent more time trying for their next kill than scratching a living out of the lifeless dirt of the property to living with a man who exuded strength and confidence with his every mood. His sharp edges were smoothed by the sensitivity he’d shown her by not pressing her for anything. He was the sort to let a stray animal acclimate and trust him over time instead of trying to break the creature of its wild habits. He’d lured her into trusting and loving him.
She pressed her palm to his cheek and urged him to look at her. “I want to do it properly, then.”
His eyes filled with black and tension lined his body. Desire filled him at her words and echoed what coursed through her. His jaw clenched and the muscles of his arms tightened as he caged her against the counter.
He leaned down and his lips brushed over hers. Sweet, gentle, intoxicating. It made her toes curl and fire grow in her belly. More. She wanted—needed—more. It was the same every time he came near her. She’d never need to sit on her hands and keep herself contained.
Mate.
The word resonated inside her and she nearly vibrated under his palms. She might not have a dragon, but she had all the instincts to press herself against him.
She worked her hands up his chest and wound her arms around his neck to pull him closer. Her tongue swiped against his lips in a plea to deepen his teasing kiss. His arms wrapped around her waist and his hands skimmed over her curves. He grabbed handfuls of her ass and lifted her to the countertop.
His hands trailed down her body. He cupped her breasts and circled her pebbled nipples until she arched into his touch. He grazed his palms down her ribs to the sound of her whining for more and then he reached the juncture of her legs. His palms moved to her knees and slid up her thighs to slip under the edges of her shorts. The flimsy material was brushed aside easily. A shiver rippled through her body when she felt his hot fingers touch her wet panties.
“These have to go.”
Lola moaned her agreement. Rafe’s fingers hooked into the band of shorts and panties both and she lifted her hips to help him tug them down her legs. They dropped to the floor with the shirt he pulled over her head a moment later.
“You have too much on.” Her hands pushed up his shirt and she was rewarded with the salivating sight of his washboard abs. His muscles flexed with movement as he hauled the offending material over his head and let it join the rest of her clothes.
She turned her head and groaned into her shoulder. He was perfection. And all hers.
His fingers caught her chin and turned her to face him. “Never hide from me, little bit. You’re too beautiful for that.”
If she hadn’t already been wet and needy for him, that would have done it. She didn’t have a chance to find an appropriately mushy answer, not when his thumbs toyed with her hip and inner thigh. Her arousal zinged back to the forefront of her mind.
Rafe’s nostrils flared as he caught her scent. He inhaled again and his eyes darkened. “What you do to me, little bit,” he growled.
His thumb stroked her slit up, then down. They were slow, unhurried movements that left her panting for more. She craved his touch. More than craved. Needed. No one had touched her before Rafe. No one had stroked her body and ignited the flames flickering in her core. No one would ever touch her the same way he did.
“Like that?”
She nodded, biting her lower lip to hold back her plea for more. Pleasure bubbled inside her.
His fingers teased against her soaked pussy, tracing her lips and tormenting her with the barest of touches. She whimpered and rocked her hips for more. He didn’t deny her for long. A stiff finger pierced her entrance and slid into her wet heat.
It was slow, torturous, maddening. He pumped slowly in and out of her sheath. She moaned and let her head fall back when he pressed deep inside her. Her hands scrabbled to hang on to the counter, to him, to anything when he pushed a second finger inside her.
He fucked her with his hand and somewhere deep in her mind she knew she needed it before he could fuck her with his cock. She was still so new to everything and he was so big...
He pressed deeper and added a flick of his thumb against her clit. She jerked to attention, naked hunger on her face when she met his eyes.
“Like that?” He asked again, his voice thick with arousal.
“More, Rafe,” she panted against him. She pushed her hands between them and popped the button on his jeans. She couldn’t wait any longer. “Need more.”
Rafe growled and the vibrations stroked her insides. He shoved his pants down and kicked them away, leaving them totally bare for the other. Lola eyed him hungrily, from the black of his shifter eyes, down over his strong chest and the nip in his waist. The long lines at his hips arrowed her gaze straight
to what she wanted at that moment: his thick, hard cock.
“Mine.” She reached for him and wrapped her hand around his length. She stroked him from root to tip, enjoying the hold she had over him. But it wasn’t enough. Her pussy clenched around nothing. She wanted him inside her. She wouldn’t be satisfied otherwise.
“Lola…” Rafe groaned when she pressed the velvety head of his cock against her heat. He brushed away her hand and grasped himself, rubbing the tip up and down her slit. “Want my cock, little bit? Want me to fuck you?”
“Mate me.”
Those were the right words. Desperation and desire flared to life on his face and sent another thrill of excitement through her. They belonged together. Their arousal fed off the other and blossomed into a beast of its own.
Rafe growled again and Lola snapped her teeth at him. She might not have a dragon side but she knew what she wanted her mate to give her. He teased her again and gathered her cream on his tip.
“More,” she demanded and wrapped her legs around his waist to tug him closer.
Nice and slow, he pushed inside her. She offered zero resistance. She needed him inside her, needed to feel him pushing against all her delicious spots. His veined cock stroked against her inner walls and sent pleasure coursing hot and thick through her limbs. He settled into her as if he’d been made just for her.
She gasped as he filled her completely. Her pussy stretched around his cock and she panted. Each breath adjusted her to his thickness a little bit more and deepened her arousal. Her legs tightened around his waist and she sucked in a breath when his finger found her clit.
“Rafe!” She squirmed under the hard press of his thumb against her sensitive bud. The fire in her core grew to an inferno within seconds.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous when you’re about to come,” he whispered hotly in her ear.
Lola trembled against him. The dark and dirty words only increased her arousal and threatened to toss her off the edge. And he knew it. The bastard knew what he did to her.
“Do it. I want to feel your pussy tighten around my cock. I want you to scream for me.”
Her toes curled as he continued to swipe his thumb against her clit. She rocked her hips into him, trying to get him to move. She needed to feel him rubbing inside her, giving her more than he did.
“So close. Rafe, please.” She whined and raked her nails down his back.
“Do it, Lola. Come for me. Come for me, little bit.”
His teeth nipped at the mate mark on her shoulder and pleasure erupted inside her in a blinding explosion. It gushed out of every cell and wrung a wordless cry from her lungs. Her pussy milked Rafe’s length as every muscle in her body seemed to tense and release as one. She pressed her face into his shoulder and gasped as she slowly floated down from the heavens.
Rafe grinned triumphantly. “That’s it, little bit. You feel so good wrapped around my dick like that.”
He chuckled at her strangled moan.
His hands slipped under her ass and urged her legs to stay wrapped around his waist. He had one destination in mind. He’d already marked and mated her, but he wouldn’t have the repeat be a dirty fuck in the kitchen. He had his fun there. It was time to spread her out on the bed and have his way with her with room to spare.
“Rafe!” she sputtered when he lifted her.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck and nipped at her skin again. Her sigh made his cock jump inside her. He’d never get tired of hearing her noises.
He took a seat on the edge of the bed, not wanting to break their connection. Her knees bracketed his hips and her hands braced herself on his shoulders. Slowly, before he could flip them around, she rose off his cock. Her silken walls whispered deliciously against his length until she held only his tip inside her. Then she reversed direction.
“Fuck, Lola,” he groaned.
“Mhmm.” Her eyes flickered shut and her lips widened in a huge, satisfied smile.
Before he could say another word, she lifted her hips again. His cock slid free of her heat one excruciating inch at a time. Up and down she moved, pussy clinging to him while she rode him.
It wasn’t the romantic, hands clasped and gentle strokes he imagined. But he wasn’t about to deny his mate anything. He had a lifetime of being inside her in every position imaginable. Hell, he intended to accomplish a number of them before they left the apartment again.
Besides, he was too in love with her breasts bouncing in front of his face and the sweet grip of her cunt to stop her.
He leaned forward and snagged one of her nipples in his mouth. Her body responded by milking his cock even more. He sucked on the tight little bud again and added a nip of his teeth for good measure. She gasped and her pussy answered his ministrations again.
Nope. Definitely not stopping her.
Rafe wrapped his arms around her curvy body and planted his hands on her shoulders. Each rise of her hips was met with a tug of his arms and pulled her back down on his cock. Her pussy clenched and pulsed around his invasion and made his balls draw up tight against his body.
She needed to come. She needed to be right on the brink of her release when he sank his fangs into her again.
On cue, his gums ached and his fangs started to lower. His dragon roared with the urgency to taste her again, claim her once more while she knew who she belonged to. His cock twitched inside her sheath.
“Come for me, mate,” Rafe growled around his fangs.
Lola upped her pace, slamming her hips down with his help. She panted and moaned, air pushed from her lungs with each meeting of their bodies. Up and down, faster and harder. He chased after his release, but only after he felt her cunt spasming around his cock and her blood on his tongue.
“Rafe,” she whined.
“Come for me. Let me feel you,” he ordered her again. He trailed one of his hands down her back and over the swell of her hips to cup the curve of her ass. He kneaded her flesh as much to feel more of her as to encourage her.
He held on by a thread. The only thing that kept him clinging to the edge was the look on her face. Her eyes were closed and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. At some point, she’d palmed her breast. Desperation that mirrored his own lined her features. So close, so fucking close.
“Now, Lola. Come on my cock now. Want to feel you.”
A moan rushed from her lungs with another rise and fall of her hips and their desperate race for the edge finished. She convulsed against him, around him, shuddering as pleasure quaked through her body.
Rafe struck, knowing the pain of his bite would be best paired with the pleasure surging through her. Her pussy spasmed around his cock and milked his own pleasure from him. The first taste of her on his tongue spurred his release from his body. He groaned against her as he emptied inside her.
She belonged to him. He’d taken her choice from her the first time he sank his fangs into her shoulder, but now she truly gave herself to him.
It was enough to make him want her all over.
“Mine,” Lola purred against his shoulder.
Rafe released his hold on her and licked her clean. He grinned against her skin as each swipe of his tongue sent a shiver through his mate.
They came from such different worlds. He should have let her fall to her death. Instead, instinct pushed him out the window after her to snag her into his arms. And that’s where he intended for her to stay for the rest of their lives.
“Love you, little bit.” He pressed a kiss to her mate mark and reveled in the tremble that raked through his mate. He’d use that to his advantage as much as possible.
“Love you, too.”
Epilogue
The only thing that truly sucked about being dragon hearted was the lack of wings. Lola eyed the setting sun and tapped her foot against the ground. Rafe should have been waiting to pick her up from her shift at the shelter.
Shelter wasn’t the correct word. But it was the word all the residents of the tower used to r
efer to the block of houses. Luca had bought up the neighborhood to revitalize it after some drug kingpin left town in a hurry. A cluster of homes had been renovated quickly to house all the women and children who had nowhere else to go after the compound was destroyed.
A fair number had fled with the men, most likely to the nearest compound. Slayers worked in cells. One compound knew the location of two others. Those knew the locations of others. And so on and so forth, until the entire world had territory to watch for shifters.
At least, that’s what she’d been told growing up. Now, seeing how large cities could be and how calmly shifters moved within them, Lola wasn’t so sure. Slayers didn’t seem to be winning any great war against the shifter species.
It’d been Penelope’s idea to take in the survivors, of course. She requested Lola’s help after wrangling the families into Azra Valley. She thought it would help if they had a familiar face easing them into life where they viewed shifters as friends instead of enemies. For the most part, she’d been right. It was weeks before they would talk to any of the dragons.
Lola resisted, at first. She wanted to leave the slayers behind and fully embrace her life as the mate of a dragon shifter. But after a week of sitting at home or wandering the tower with nothing to do while Rafe was off guarding the royal family, she had to find something to occupy her time.
She started with bringing supplies to the families a couple days a week. Food and toiletries and a familiar face gave rise to all kinds of questions about their captors. She had to explain to them that they could leave at any time. No one truly believed her, until the first family left. They were given money and sent on their way with the warning that they wouldn’t be accepted back.
She knew some still harbored the belief that the dragons had simply executed the group that left but most placed a little more trust in the dragons after that. They could walk out if they chose. They weren't prisoners.
