by Starla Night
And he wanted that proud cock to be hers.
Her pussy throbbed.
She’d wanted him for so long.
“I’m really glad you didn’t leave on your socks,” she commented, trying to lighten the heart-swelling emotion flooding her.
“There can be no hiding in this, our first mating.” He rested his forehead against hers. His cock teased her trembling thighs. “You see me as I am. Flawed and disgraced. And I see you as you are. Beautiful and enticing.”
“I think I made out better,” she laughed, over her shaky need. “You’re incredible.”
“Look carefully. Know that I, Peridot Ovaline, am the male you wish for your mate.”
Mate.
Dragon-speak for serious engagement.
Karmel pressed her index finger to his hot chest. “You sure you want me?”
He nodded. His brown hair flopped, tousled.
“Prepare for things to get messy. You’re not going to be ‘perfect’ if you’re dragged around by me.”
“Understood.” He owned her mouth with his kiss.
She broke free with a gasp. “Did you have any conditions?”
“No.” He scooted her to the edge of the counter, leaned her against the cabinets, and unplugged the candy melter. With a half-lidded, lazy smile she would have never imagined possible on the uptight male, he drizzled chocolate on her nipples. “I’m ready to enjoy my ‘mess’ now.”
She leaned on her elbows. “You must have expectations for me.”
“Smile.” He lapped the chocolate from her breasts and sucked the nipples into his mouth. Her feminine heat slicked. “Laugh. Tease. Keep me guessing.” He tongued to her mons and spread her legs, filling his gaze with her glistening, chocolate-coated pinkness. “Feed me treats.”
He licked her inner lips.
Pleasure shot to her center. She moaned.
“Give me your sweetness, Karmel.”
She canted her hips, opening for him.
He feasted on her delicate nub and coated her sex-lips with chocolate-scented honey. Her insides buzzed like bees, boiling for release. He stroked her like a master, painting her with pleasure.
She begged for him. “Fill me.”
He released her nub and surged up her body. His cock nudged her throbbing, wet entrance. Pleasure popped like pink champagne bubbles with his touch.
She needed him inside. Karmel wrapped her legs around his taut buttocks and squeezed.
He eased in. His cock caressed her. It felt like Christmas morning.
The adult kind.
Delicious fizzes sparked in her brain. Everything Peridot did was perfection.
She moaned.
He thrust deep, filling her feminine channel, stroking her insides like a ribbed pleasure wand. He locked onto her eyes, focusing his full intensity, barely breathing as he plunged in and out of her slickness. She skirted the rim of a honey-sweet orgasm.
“You are beautiful, Karmel.”
The devotion in his gaze took her breath away. He meant every thrust, every word, every caress. Every word of sweet love.
She curled her fingers around his stubbled jaw.
He growled.
She exploded. The orgasm raced through her veins like a hundred Christmas poppers, champagne foaming out the neck of the bottle, fizzing through her whole body.
He filled her channel with sweet, hot liquid and collapsed on his palms. His forehead dropped to her shoulder. Shudders wrecked his body. At this moment of vulnerability, he trusted in her to keep him safe.
She felt the same way.
After a long moment, he lifted his head again. His eyes were damp. He swiped her lips in a satisfied kiss. This was the love she had waited for. Soft, sweet, and sticky from the sugar.
Peridot eased free. He was floating several inches above the linoleum and landed on the ground with a firm thump. Sticky sanding sugar and chocolate powder dusted them.
She giggled. “Not so perfect now.”
“I was never perfect.” He lifted her by the waist and eased her onto the floor. “Just in your dreams.”
“Then, I must not have woken up yet because you still look amazing.”
He poured himself a drink of water and finished it in one long pull. Silhouetted, his form was the kind that male models envied.
Her fingers stuck together. “Shower?”
He fished his cell phone out of his trousers pocket, frowned, and folded his clothes across the back of her kitchen chair.
A twinge of familiar discomfort needled into her newfound confidence. “Or do you have to go?”
“I can stay a few hours.” He frowned.
Worry and another emotion flowed under his taut tone. What was the other emotion? Guilt?
She crossed her arms over her sticky, nude chest. “What?”
“I am dirty. Now it would be most efficient to clean.”
“The lobby? No. Cleaning requires putting on clothes.”
“Does it?”
“It does.” She put her newfound fears out of her mind. Whatever he felt guilty about she would learn in the morning. “Come. Shower. We’ll work out your ‘schedule’ after we’re both clean.”
He frowned.
“I’m your mate.” She took his hand and tugged him to the shower. “Don’t argue. There are better uses of our time when we’re both naked.”
Chapter Ten
Ching.
Peridot woke to an ice-crusted gray morning.
Karmel’s sleeping arm draped across his naked chest. He floated in a bed soft as whipped cream. Her maroon velvet blankets cocooned their bodies like chocolate coating.
Ching. His phone chimed a second time.
He sucked in a deep breath and eased out from under his sleeping mate.
Mate. He, disgraced Peridot, had earned his mate.
He took his earbud from Karmel’s bedside side table and put it in his ear. They had finished their shower late. He eased into her hallway, pulled the bedroom door closed, and murmured. “Sir?”
“Why have you remained at the human lair all night?”
“Karmel has agreed to become my mate.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you, si—”
“Return at once.”
He froze in the middle of the hallway. His suit folded over the back of the chair; one sleeve was visible from this angle. But Sard had ordered him to move at once.
Peridot unlatched the glass sliding door onto the back balcony. Ice-flecked air melted on contact with Karmel’s hot kitchen. He secured the door. Ice particles stung his human skin. He flexed to impenetrable dragon scales and launched, naked, into the frozen sky.
Hopefully, this would not take long. He did not wish for Karmel to wake up alone on Christmas Eve. And he still had to arrange cleaning and decorations for the cookie exchange while she baked her sugar cookies.
The solution to one problem rested with Sard.
His wings pumped through the icy clouds. His nostrils snorted hot breath that crusted. His olive green scales shimmered with an icicle’s coating.
The human planet had never looked so beautiful.
Sard’s spaceship emerged from the clouds like a foreboding ceiling. He flew into the heart of the ship to Sard’s conference chamber.
Normally, Sard conducted business in his Earth office building, but the human employees had demanded a Christmas holiday. Sard had generously granted their demand. He’d closed the office for two days midweek. Business would resume the day after Christmas and they would work on the weekend.
Strangely, the human employees hadn’t seemed grateful for his substitution. All mutterings about a day off for the human “New Year” had quieted. They preferred to keep their weekend vacations on the Saturdays and Sunday, as was the human tradition.
Sard was a most understanding, flexible boss.
Peridot landed inside the corridor and padded on his four clawed feet across the impenetrable metal. Other dragons greeted him as he passed;
some in human suits, others in dragon form. At the door, he shifted back to human form, nodded at the guards, and entered Sard’s office.
Sard Carnelian looked up from his desk. “You did not delay.”
He lowered his gaze. “Sir.”
“I can always rely on you to obey orders.”
The heavyweight aristocrat rested his elbows on the desk. His casual gray button-up shirt pulled back at his large wrists. Distinguished silver ornaments at his eyebrows showed he was a proper aristocrat.
Peridot screwed up his courage. “You offered me the resources of Carnelian Clothiers while I resolved the ‘Christmas spirit’ question.”
One brow rose. “I did.”
“I need every available dragon for the next four hours.”
“For?”
“My mate, Karmel, has advertised a ‘cookie exchange.’ Are you familiar with ‘cookies’?”
“Small, crunchy disks. Thick crackers.”
“They come in many varieties.”
Peridot described the chocolate truffles and sugar cookies. His boss listened with one hand resting on his chin. Behind Peridot, the guard dragons shuffled near the door.
He finished. “And to set up this event, she needs assistance. That is why I would like to offer our resources.”
“I would allow this.” Sard let his hands drop to the desk with a hard clap. “But you have failed me.”
Peridot’s stomach dropped. “Sir?”
“I acquired the human ‘nativity scene’ and presented it to my contact. She laughed with the high-pitched tone humans call ‘hysterical’ and said to stop contacting her because I would never understand.”
The office silence was heavy.
“You appreciate my disappointment.”
Peridot could barely speak. He cleared his throat. “Sir.”
“I trusted you, Peridot. You are my most serious dragon. Yet you gained a mate instead of answering my research question. What do you have to say for yourself?”
He shook his head. There could be no explanation. Only shame.
“Then you will not protest the consequences. The next shipment leaves for Draconis in two hours. Inform the pilot of his reprieve. You will take his place.”
The lump in his throat hardened. He could only nod.
How would he explain this to Karmel? The flight to Draconis would last through the New Year. Who would support her?
But he could not argue. Sard’s orders were just.
And surely the pilot dreaded returning to Draconis as much as he did. As much as any of them did. They had to endure the shame. Barred from old places. Shunned by former friends. Ignored by family. Jeered by the low caste.
He had proved his worthlessness.
Now he would explain himself to Karmel and see her own hopes crumple with his disappointment.
“Go,” Sard ordered him.
He turned to leave.
“Peridot!” One guard burst into the room. “Your mate’s lair is under attack.”
An electric wire burned in his chest. “What?”
“A massive fire has broken out in her apartment complex!”
Karmel rolled over in the bed, yawned, and stretched.
Her muscles ached. Pleased with the workout.
Mmm.
She looked over at the extra pillow.
The head impression was empty and cool. But one of Peridot’s brown hairs was still on the case. She buried her nose in the tousled sheets. Male musk. Her pussy throbbed. Her bed still smelled like him.
She creaked out of bed. They’d gone to sleep way too late. Why was she awake so early? And feeling so revitalized?
Probably the spectacularly yummy sex had something to do with it.
She’d like another helping, please.
Where was Peridot?
Oh, he was probably working on the cookie exchange. Cleaning, or decorating, or … Oof. The pile of tasks she still had to do thumped on her head. No second helpings of sex until after she finished her work.
Coffee. She would need coffee.
She pulled on her chamois bathrobe and padded down the hall to her kitchen. No Peridot. His clothes still hung over the chair. He couldn’t have gone too far.
Was he cleaning naked? The idea made her snort. For her neighbor’s sake—and everyone passing by the lobby windows—she sure hoped not.
Actually, the weather looked like it might sleet. Traffic was quiet. A new worry twanged. Peridot had said he would arrange the delivery of the decorations today with the help of his dragons. But if the clouds ripped open to a blizzard—or freezing rain coated the streets in deadly ice—then the cookie exchange would be shut down like God had pressed the seasonal “off” button.
She sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. Hopefully, that wouldn’t happen.
Karmel set her cookie dough on the counter to take the chill off. She filled and plugged in the coffee maker, and then headed down the hall, still yawning, to wash her face.
First things first.
She’d get herself ready, bake the cookies, and trust in Peridot. She’d waltz into the lobby ready to go. For once, she wouldn’t be a hot mess. She’d be on time. Supervising. Ready.
Karmel double-checked her appearance in the bathroom mirror. Everything had to be perfect.
And it was.
The woman wearing makeup — nice makeup! — that highlighted her eyes stared back with excitement and confidence. She was no longer a frumpy pet groomer who always seemed to run late, with lipstick smudged and coffee forgotten on the stained counter.
Today, she was ready early.
For once, the warm glow of laughter and cheer would fill her isolated building. It would be like having her family home for the holidays. Finally.
It was all thanks to Peridot.
Last night had been amazing. Memories made her cheeks crackle. His hands had cupped her tenderly, his hot tongue had swiped across her taut nipples, and hard, commanding, delicious thrusts of his powerful cock had taken her straight to a soul-shattering orgasm.
She smoothed her dress.
After the cookie exchange, she would spend Christmas Eve with Peridot. And Christmas. Her first holiday with a delicious, dangerous, reliable male! They would kiss as they rang in the New Year. How they started their relationship would be how they continued, and Peridot would definitely stay by her side. He knew how important the holidays were. Abandoning her would be a slap in the face.
He would never abandon her.
Something was wrong with the coffee maker. The machine—or was it bad beans?—emitted a stench like burning tires.
She hurried out of the bathroom.
The stench intensified. It was harsh. Bitter. Her throat burned and her head ached.
She raced to the kitchen.
The wind outside roared. Heat emanated like she’d left the oven door open and strange shadows reflected on her hall floor. She reached the doorway.
The coffee maker was fine.
But the back wall of the kitchen was engulfed in roaring yellow flames.
How did I screw up this time? I didn’t even turn the oven on yet.
Acrid black smoke engulfed her.
Her eyes and throat burned.
She stumbled back. Cough. Cough, cough.
Too big for a fire extinguisher. She had to call 911.
Phone!
She dropped to her knees and crawled.
Oily black smoke roiled down the hallway like a river, staining her silver garlands.
Cough.
Her purse. New COACH. Was in her bedroom.
Cough. Cough, cough, cough.
She pushed open the bedroom door and crawled in.
Cough, cough cough cough cough.
There, on the bedside table. Her purse. She reached inside. Fumbled for the metal.
She couldn’t stop coughing.
Couldn’t catch her breath.
Her bedroom window blackened.
Smoke writhed like an evil spirit. It s
wirled around the closed window, burning her. She dropped below the searing heat. How had the fire spread so fast? She crawled back to the hall and gagged.
Could she make it to the front door?
Crunch.
Behind her, green claws tore into the bedroom wall. Drywall exploded. The entire wall pulled away.
Her alarm clock teetered off her nightstand and fell three stories to the street.
A dragon had ripped her apartment wall off.
He landed on the bedroom floor next to her and shifted.
Long claws slid back into his shrinking hands and feet. His tail sucked up into his fine backside, and his dragon neck shortened while his eye ridges receded into an all-too-familiar worried expression. Green scales shimmered into his smooth human skin.
Peridot was all human.
And naked.
He scooped her into his arms and flew her free.
Icy cold scratched at her bare skin.
She hugged his warm, nude body and shivered. “There’s a fire.”
Her voice croaked in her raw throat.
“We saw it on our sensors.” He floated her to a small crowd gathered across the street. “Dragons have deployed to hunt your attacker.”
“Attacker?”
Black and yellow smoke billowed up into the atmosphere. Sirens wailed in the distance. Help was coming.
Her teeth chattered. She stroked his nude back. “You must be cold.”
“No.” Heat radiated off his body like a soothing space heater. A puddle melted around his bare feet. “But you are coughing.”
She coughed up black phlegm. Gross. “Smoke inhalation.”
“We must go to the med bay and heal your cough.”
“Was everyone evacuated?”
He hugged her. “Let me heal you.”
“There’s the landlord.” She stumbled on her wet, frigid socked feet.
The landlord looked shaken and confirmed that everyone had escaped.
Her knees shook.
Peridot caught her. He held her tight.
A fire truck parked on the far side of the building and hosed the apartments. An ambulance pulled up and workers gave her, the shell-shocked landlord, and Peridot blankets. Her shivers subsided.
She felt hollow.
The fire had consumed her nutcracker collection. And her sugar cookie dough warming on the counter. She’d been about to make the royal icing.
