“Why?” I ask, taking a step toward him. “You told me to try things with Seth.”
His lips tighten. “I didn’t want you to want to.” He sighs, dropping his head slightly. “You never make things easy for me, dragon heart.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I ask.
“Wishful thinking maybe,” Griffin says. “Or maybe it’s just what we always pictured as a mate. It’s a good thing. I just don’t know if it’s true or not.”
I take another step forward, encouraged when he doesn’t run away from me.
He’s so tall that I have to crane my neck to look up at him as I get closer.
Feeling bold, I grab the flannel of his shirt, trying to yank him in.
His gray eyes are stormy. “Don’t,” he says, reaching for my hand to pull it off his flannel. I don’t let him. Something is supposed to happen between us. I can feel it. The longer we wait, the more wrong it is. “You don’t know how much I want you. If you do this, I can’t hold back.”
“So don’t,” I say, reaching up on tiptoe as far as I can to whisper in his ear. “Give me everything.”
My whole body is hungry like never before. It wants him, and I don’t want to stop this.
He lets out a growl as his hands catch me by the arms and he tosses me on the bed behind him as though I weigh nothing.
I’m barely able to grasp what’s happening before he’s on top of me, pinning me down, his hands lifting my hands over my head as his lips find my neck, kissing and licking me.
I wonder if he is touching where Seth did…
Griffin stops, and his eyes look up at me, burning. “I don’t care what he did with you. I’m about to wipe him out of your mind.”
My jaw drops, but before I can ask him what he means, his lips crash over mine and a wave of heat floods my body as his hand cups my breast.
I gasp against his mouth but am cut off by his tongue, insistent, deft, stroking the inside of my mouth until I can’t think straight.
And God, what he’s doing to my breast with that big, rough hand. Even through my bra, I can feel everything, and when he pinches my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, I let out a little yelp.
He pulls back from the kiss, his eyes wide with concern. “Too rough?”
“No.” I gasp, reaching for the hem of my shirt to pull it over my head, loving the way his heavy thighs weigh me down. I toss the shirt aside and then go to work on my bra, tossing that away also.
Then I suddenly feel nervous and cover my breasts with my hands, feeling more vulnerable than ever as I look up at him.
I reach for the hem of his shirt tentatively, and he curses before whipping it over his head in that way guys do by reaching behind him and pulling it over his head.
For a second, I’m breathless, unable to think or speak as I take in his body.
Every muscle is perfect, and I couldn’t have imagined it better in his mind.
I run a hand over his abs, grazing his belly button, and then hook one finger into the waistband of his jeans, playing with the button.
He lets out a groan as he falls over me again, one hand on either side of my head on the pillow. “If you want me to stop, tell me now,” he says, grazing little kisses over my neck and shoulder. “Otherwise, I need to touch you. To make you mine, dragon heart.”
“Anna,” I say softly.
“Anna,” he says like an oath. And then he’s kissing me again and my body is writhing against him, my hips bucking into his, turned on by his heavy weight and the way his tongue owns my entire mouth.
I moan, and he gets more aggressive, stroking and swirling with his tongue in ways I’ve never felt.
His hand cups my breast again, and this time it’s much more sensitive and raw. Shocks of pleasure shoot through me as he fondles it, running his thumb over my nipple as his other hand goes down to the zipper of my pants.
“Please,” I say, bucking against him, and he smiles against my lips as he unzips my pants and shoves his hand down inside them, palming me over my panties.
It’s so male and possessive the way his big hand can cover my entire sex, and I can’t help but feel safe and aroused as his finger gently explores my cleft.
“Can I?” He pauses, his finger playing with the edge of my panties. Suddenly, I’m regretting the gray.
I nod, and he strokes my face and kisses me again as his hand slowly goes inside my panties and beings to play in my warm, wet heat.
He explores my folds slowly, carefully, then works his way up to my clit, his fingers wet with my own juices.
He slowly circles my swollen nub, and I want to scream against his mouth at how good it feels.
“Scream,” he says, licking my lower lip with his tongue as his finger dips again to my slit and then up to flick gently over my clit. “I’ll take them away from you. I’ll take your everything.”
And then he presses down on my clit, and I’m lost to everything but a wave of pleasure so intense I can’t breathe. When I can catch a breath, I scream, but as he promised, his lips cover mine and he muffles it so my scream is only for him.
“Yes,” he says as his finger works against me, not leaving me alone even through the most powerful orgasm of my life. It’s blindingly sensitive as I come down. He’s still stroking me, but I can’t bring myself to tell him to stop.
I can’t ever let go of this pleasure. I want to keep riding it until I pass out. I—
His hand slowly withdraws. “Maybe we better—”
I grab his hand and shove it down there. “Don’t you dare stop.”
He grins at me, and I swear it’s the first real, genuine, unguarded smile I’ve seen.
It just makes my body even hotter. God, I think I’m falling for him. It feels like this is more than just sex.
His hand is gentler this time as he strokes over me, and then he moves down on the bed, positioning himself between my legs as he slowly pulls off my jeans and then my panties.
“I want all of you, dragon heart,” he says, lifting my legs onto his huge shoulders.
Oh God, he’s so tall and so strong and so—
“But this will have to do for now.” His eyes are on me as he lowers his head to my sex, and all I can do is stare in desperate anticipation as his mouth kisses down on me.
I don’t have time to be self-conscious about my wetness as he kisses me hungrily, tongue lapping at my juices, exploring every part of my folds.
I never knew it could be like this, and when his lips cover my clit and his tongue swipes down on it, I swear he owns my whole soul.
I’ve always been a sensitive person, but I didn’t know how it would be with a partner and—
His head lifts. “You’re a virgin?”
I’m never going to get used to the mind reading thing. “Yeah.”
He lets out a gruff breath, shaking his head. “Dammit. I need to be careful.”
I’m touched by that, coming from someone who still might sell me.
He jerks my legs up higher on his shoulders so I’m even more vulnerable to his mouth.
He kisses me there, building the pressure. “If you think I’m ever selling you, think again.” His tongue flicks out to swirl against me, lighting me on gentle fire.
“Oh God, oh God,” I murmur because it’s impossible to think when I’m on the crest of something so good. When his tongue is everything I want right now. When his big hands are on my thighs, holding me prisoner to his pleasure. When his eyes are possessively locked on all of me.
“I’ll never sell you,” he says, licking up my slit to my clit again. “After this, you’re mine.”
Then he turns all his attention to my clit, sucking it, and I come with another explosion of pleasure that lights up my whole world.
It shakes me, and I’m lost to it as he watches me, his tongue still licking me, shamelessly savoring my arousal as I convulse and shake against him.
His gray eyes are so hot that they burn.
Chapter 18
&nbs
p; I’m still gasping, breathing so hard I can’t remember how to breathe easily, as Griffin slowly gives me one last, long, slow lick that swirls up to my clit, caressing it gently before he pulls back and lowers my legs from his shoulders.
Dammit, just when I was—
“I’m sorry,” he says, and I just stare at him like he’s out of his mind because everything we just did is the last thing he should have to apologize for.
“No,” I say, getting on my knees and coming over to him as he edges back on the bed. “Why are you sorry? You—”
But he pushes himself off the bed, still beautifully shirtless, his lips glistening from going down on me, eyes still blazing with passion.
But that little tense tick in his jaw is back as he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth roughly, as if trying to draw himself back to the present.
God, I love his red hair, his gray eyes. I’m attracted to him, even if I don’t know what else this is.
I do know that with anyone as good-looking as he or Seth is, it would be easy to catch feelings.
But on top of that, I like to think Griffin and I are friends.
“Wait, let’s talk this out,” I say. “It wasn’t a big deal. We just—”
His eyes flare. “It was a big deal to me, dragon heart.”
I thump my fist down on the bed, not caring that I’m naked. “People need to stop calling me that until they tell me why it matters.”
“Because in another world, we could have mated. We would have been together forever, and if you had a dragon heart—that is you were extremely brave and worthy—you would have inherited one of our powers. But we aren’t in that other world. We are here where everyone is ruthless.”
He sighs, clenching his huge hands into fists. Just a few moments ago, those hands were holding my thighs… caressing me.
He walks to the window and looks down, presumably in the direction of Seth’s camp. “Every dragon here will want you. Some of them much more powerful than me.”
“Is anyone really more powerful?”
Griffin sends me a dark look. “Everyone is more prestigious. Everyone has better powers. The black dragon has poison. The gold dragon… Anyway. I’m just red. Just strong. Just boring. No one would have even wanted to be my pair.”
I grab a blanket to wrap around me and walk over to him, standing next to him just so he can feel my support. “I don’t think that. I think you’re a pretty cool dragon.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” Griffin says, looking down at me. “Where I’m from, who I am. Hell, I was threatening to sell you. You have to guard your heart better, Anna.”
At least he isn’t calling me dragon heart. Still, it aches a little.
“Just a few minutes ago, you called me yours. You said you wouldn’t sell me.”
“I can’t sell you,” he says, running his hands through his hair with a tortured expression. “I never would have been able to. But it kills me that you are going to meet other dragons and you’re going to want them more than me. I just know it.”
I blink at him, shocked. “What?”
He turns to me, his hands cupping my shoulders as he looks into my eyes. “Of course I want you. I wanted you from the moment I saw you in that damn camp. It would be better for me to sell you. Then I wouldn’t have to watch while another dragon wins your heart.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what will happen. I’m just trying to survive in this world and—”
“And I’ll make sure you survive,” Griffin says, squeezing my arms. “I guess I was trying to ignore a part of me that has always tried to protect you.” He looks past my shoulder at the wall, but I can tell he is seeing memories in his mind. “I never tried to protect anyone before. I think it’s part of me.”
He releases me to step back, and once again, my mind is blown by just how big he is.
I can’t say how I will feel about him compared to other dragons. I didn’t really come here to date.
I still don’t know why I was sent here.
But I do know that no matter how many dragons I meet, Griffin will always have a place in my heart for all the times he has saved me.
His eyes soften as he looks down at me. “What are you thinking, Anna?”
I take his hand. “Just that I don’t know what this world holds for me, but I know you’ll always be special.”
He squeezes my hand, running his rough thumb over my palm. “I don’t deserve you.”
I smile up at him. “We don’t really deserve things in life. We just take them or leave them as they come. I like spending time with you, and I like… what we have.”
He sighs and walks back to sit on the bed again. When I walk over to him, he pulls me onto his lap, wrapping me up in his arms as we watch the rain fall.
It’s so safe and warm here, and I don’t know if I ever felt this good in my world.
Not for a very long time.
So despite the fact that it’s gray outside and I don’t know who might be trying to kidnap me and I still don’t know why Lee sent me, I’m happy and at peace.
“Poor Seth,” I say, glancing out at the window.
Griffin lets out a growl. “I didn’t like that you kissed him. I didn’t like it at all.”
My cheeks heat. I liked kissing Seth. I’m not going to deny it. I’m not committed to anyone.
“But I understand why you did,” he says. “And I understand we are attractive. What matters more to me is how you think about me, and I’m going to do my best to be someone you could think well about.”
I glance up at him, wanting to trace my fingers over his freckles to make a constellation.
“I love when you look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m not evil,” he says.
“You aren’t.”
“Bullshit,” he says. “I fucked up enough in your world to be sent here, and all I’ve done is selfish shit since then.”
I bite my lip. “I guess you’re changing, then. Isn’t that enough to make you not evil?”
“Not yet,” Griffin says. “I won’t even share you with Seth, even though he might need you. Right now, I guess I’m still a bit dark.”
I blink, unsure how to react to that. I can’t believe Griffin could be jealous. A powerful, handsome, strong man who is also a dragon, jealous over me.
Things have changed a lot, but I definitely don’t want to go back to my world anymore.
Not without Griffin.
I’m still figuring out my feelings about Seth.
Griffin plays with my hair again, pulling it over my ears. “It’s partly my fault he’s here. Mine and someone else. All of us, I guess.”
“Who is all of us?”
“The original six,” Griffin says. “My kind is born in a group of six. Raised apart, brought together to pair. But as you can see—”
“No pairing.”
“Right,” Griffin says. “So that’s what Seth keeps trying to do. Pair us. But I just don’t know. Perhaps that means I’m still wrong inside and I don’t belong in this world. But I don’t want to share you. I want you to only be mine.”
I gape up at him, remembering his intense gaze as his mouth was between my legs.
“I don’t think it’s wrong to be possessive,” I say.
“It might be,” Griffin says. “Because you might not be able to mate anyone at all, and I might be stuck here for life. And as much as I’m already drawn to you, we should really find a way to get you out of here. So you can be safe.”
“Things have changed quickly,” I say, pushing out of his lap and moving to my clothes bag to grab pajamas.
It feels like Griffin is pushing me away again, and after being so close, it hurts.
I pull on new underwear and draw a nightshirt on over my head, but before I can turn around, I feel Griffin’s arms encircle me.
“I would hate to be without you, but if I can save you, I’ll let you go,” he murmurs against my ear, making it heat
ed.
Once again, my entire body is responding, but right now, I know we both need space to calm down.
And I still need to think.
As we get ready for bed, Griffin tells me the plan for the morning, when we’re going to get up and meet Seth, and where we’re going.
“To a town called Arcwood. You’ll meet the silver dragon there,” Griffin says. “Try not to fall in love with him.”
I smile at Griffin as he lifts the covers for me to get in bed, then turns off the light and gets in on the other side.
“You know what, Griffin?” I say just before it feels like we are both about to fall asleep.
“What?”
“You really aren’t a very bad dragon.”
He snorts but stays rolled over, facing away from me, and I smile fondly at his back for a moment before rolling over to face the window and the rain.
I hope Seth is doing okay right now out there alone in the cold.
Even now, a part of my heart is out there with him, wishing he could be inside with us.
My heart feels split in two directions, and it’s a situation I never thought I would face.
As I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, I wonder about the silver dragon.
I hope the other dragons aren’t as quick to draw me in as Seth and Griffin.
If they are, my heart could be in more trouble than any of us could take.
Chapter 19
Seth shows up the next morning, and Griffin lets him in to shower while we go downstairs to get breakfast in the lobby.
A few patrons wander in and out while we are eating, some of them wearing worn human clothing from a decade ago and some of them wearing the weird robes like the innkeeper had.
“Fae clothing,” Griffin says, seeing my interest.
“What is a fae again?”
“Fairies,” Griffin says. “At least that’s what the term refers to. See, this world has all of our unwanted paranormal, and it joins with areas where the fae sends their own castoffs. So there are clothing styles from both worlds.”
“Fairies?” My eyes are practically sparkling, every childhood dream coming true.
“No, not like you’re thinking,” Griffin says. “God, I hope you never see one.”
Kiss of the Dragons (Bad Dragons Reverse Harem Book 1) Page 13
