by Jory Strong
The snow globe in his cubicle, the dragon taking a virgin in this same position flashed into her thoughts but disappeared with the press of his cock head to her opening.
She rocked backward, sheathed him in her channel and nearly came with the hard burn of his shaft against the walls of her pussy.
Protection, she thought but didn’t pull away. Couldn’t, not with her internal muscles rippling, clamping on Taine’s cock. And then he thrust, and any possibility of insisting on a condom was obliterated.
Pleasure was all that mattered.
Their movements were perfectly synchronized, his cock stroking over the g-spot that no other man had been able to find, his hands cupping her breasts, his mouth brushing her shoulders, her neck.
There was nowhere to go but up and up and up.
Up with each thrust.
Up with each stroke over her g-spot.
And those strokes came harder, faster.
His cock felt larger than it had the night before. Different than when he’d taken her from behind before being called out.
He hadn’t hit her g-spot then. But now…
Vicious pleasure gripped her each time he struck that spot deep inside her. His hands left her breasts and the rough drag of his wrists over her skin had her channel clamping in merciless demand on his cock.
He made a raw, fierce sound, bit the place on her shoulder where he’d left a hickey the night before and catapulted her into a release that whited her mind—tumbled her for surreal moments into a snow globe fantasy of being mounted by a dragon.
Instead of the silver-and-black beast taking the blonde in Taine’s trinket, the dragon was dark blue and silver. And in the afterglow, she basked in that fantasy, couldn’t quite disengage with her channel clamping and releasing, clamping and releasing on Taine’s cock.
He reclaimed her breasts, and she liked the feel of his hands on them, the feeling of closeness, the sense that they’d been together forever. It was so unlike her that she knew she should be struggling to separate, but she was too lethargic, too content, too infused with pleasure.
Slowly their breathing returned to normal. Her heart found a steady beat and his cock pulsed in time to it, still inside her, still without a condom.
Even that shining example of another personal rule violated wasn’t enough to drive her to separate. It was fatigued arm muscles protesting the continued need to brace against the door, especially with Taine’s added weight that forced her eyes open.
Twin scratch marks were on her stomach, exactly where she’d felt the drag of his wrists, though obviously she’d been mistaken and it’d been his nails.
Fair enough, she thought, given that she’d probably left scratches on his back.
“I think I have enough energy left to make it to bed now,” she said.
Another kiss to her neck and he pulled away, pulled from her channel then made her laugh when he swung her into his arms. “Trying to earn points with me?”
“That’s always a good move if you’re male.”
She smiled against his mouth. “Just so you know, I consider the interest on the shirt loan paid in full.”
“Tomorrow is another day.” He carried her to the bed, lay her on it then dropped down next to her.
She rolled onto her side and snuggled against him, her back pressed to his chest. Outside it was still dark, but dawn wasn’t far away. “Do you think we’ll find the egg before there’s another fire?”
“We’ll do everything possible,” Taine answered, pulling his mate more tightly against him. “Maksim will utilize every resource. Someone saw something and will have posted it online.”
“Good,” she said and drifted off into an innocent sleep, not knowing how thoroughly she’d wrecked his control when she’d rocked backward and sheathed his bare cock.
Even the memory of it was enough to have his shaft stirring against her satiny ass, to have his heart returning to the same fast, hard beat as it had in the aftermath of their frenzied lovemaking.
He’d bound himself to Saffron. Lost control, the spur in his cock heightening her pleasure and the ones at his wrists catapulting her into an ecstasy that’d allowed for the coupling of his soul to hers.
He rubbed his cheek against her hair. Inhaled her scent and didn’t have a clue what to do next.
He could revisit the conversation they’d had after leaving The Deep. He could admit to being a dragon but nothing had changed.
And everything had changed.
He wanted her to want him for himself, not because he was a dragon. And not because he was now bound to her, his time in this realm defined by her lifespan.
We’ve only just met, he reminded himself and cursed the sorcerer who had kept him busy for the past month. Then cursed the one who threatened San Diego.
Crew’s earlier words mocked him, calling attention to his foolishness.
If I were a betting man, which I am of course, I’d say you’re suffering under the delusion that you can control the course of true love. You can’t by the way.
No. He couldn’t.
But he had no regrets. A mate was the ultimate treasure. And Saffron a treasure worth any sacrifice.
He pulled her more snugly against him knowing that morning would come too soon.
And it did.
Taine woke to find beady dark yellow eyes staring at him, challenging his claim to Saffron.
Instinct had him answering with a hiss though the green lizard on her pillow was hardly a threat.
Saffron woke and mumbled, “Some pet owner I am. I must have forgotten to latch Emerald’s habitat door.”
She stroked the iguana’s head and neck. “But you were a good girl, weren’t you?”
The trespassing creature wasn’t large enough to have developed the secondary characteristics that made it possible for humans to easily determine its sex, but for Taine, it was clear that the lizard wasn’t a she.
He swallowed a growl as his mate continued to give the interloper all her attention. He battled against exhaling a well-directed stream of flame that would handle the problem.
It was a ridiculous, irrational jealousy. He knew that intellectually but that didn’t prevent him from wanting to breathe fire.
He occupied his mouth instead by kissing Saffron’s neck and shoulder.
She shivered and her nipples beaded.
See? He directed at the iguana. She’s mine.
Mine! Mine! Mine!
Though the claim immediately brought last night’s loss of control to mind.
His heart kicked into a faster beat. Hers, hers, hers more accurately reflected the situation.
Bound. He’d bound himself to her with no possibility right now of Saffron reciprocating the bond.
The image of the elderly couple they’d visited the day before had panic edging in.
He fought the panic off. Didn’t have time for it.
The hunt for the sorcerer needed to be resumed. He was surprised there hadn’t already been a summons to IRE headquarters.
Sunshine filtered into the apartment through gauzy curtains. He contemplated rolling his mate beneath him and demonstrating to the ugly green lizard the truth of his claim.
Imagining Crew, Gaige and Kellen one day hearing the story was enough to have him sitting and saying, “I’ve got a change of clothes in the sedan. I’m going to grab them and take a shower.”
She didn’t insist he remain and pleasure her. But he did feel her admiring gaze, even if she also continued to murmur nonsense to the trespasser.
Taine retrieved the clothes and retreated to the tiny bathroom to wrestle his primitive urges into submission.
His cock was longer than the lizard’s entire body! It was ridiculous to imagine that his mate might prefer her pet to him! Troublesome mate that she was. And oh, he’d known that about her from the very start.
He stood beneath the hot water. Swept his hands over his body, Saffron’s soap scenting his skin.
The bond thrummed her name,
heightened his need for her. But where was she? She was—
The stall door opened and she joined him in the shower.
It was a tight fit compared to his shower stall but Taine wallowed in the closeness, in the slick rub of her body against his, the appreciative sounds she made as he soaped his hands and glided them over her skin.
“Nice,” she said, head back and eyes closed.
He cupped her breasts, rubbed his thumbs over her nipples until they grew tight. “Just nice?”
She laughed. “There’s a chance that I can be convinced another word is better.”
“A chance? It’s a given.”
He set out to prove it with the plunge of his tongue into her mouth and the press and rub of his fingers over her clit. Brought her to orgasm twice and would have done it a third time if not for Crew’s ringtone.
“Back to work,” he said, ending a kiss.
Chapter 10
Taine left the shower, Saffron following him to the counter separating kitchen from living room. Picking up his cellphone, he hit the speaker button and said, “What do you have?”
Crew said, “We know who Dirk Powers is. His real name is Elon Moates.”
“Any previous run-ins with IRE?”
“No. Completely off the radar. But get this, he’s a ranger at Cleveland National Forest.”
Saffron’s arms lifted as she toweled her hair dry, the jiggle of her breasts and stretch of her glorious body sending a lightning strike of heat straight to Taine’s shaft. Praise the First Ancestor for taking a human shape! If not for that ancestor, he wouldn’t be able to claim such a beautiful mate.
Nelson Arrington, that mate mouthed and it took Taine a heartbeat to wrench his thoughts back to the conversation.
Was it a coincidence that the man who’d once occupied the house that Elon Moates needed had been found dead in Cleveland National Forest?
“Are you at HQ?” Taine asked Crew.
“Heading out, why?”
“Twelve years ago, the man who rented the ground zero house died in Cleveland National Forest.”
“You’re thinking he was also a sorcerer?”
“Hadn’t gotten that far. But it’s worth looking into.”
“I think Kristof is still here. I’ll check. Anyone not tracking leads is out in the city. Maksim has them working a grid pattern on the chance someone will pass close enough to the egg to feel its signature magic, or close enough to feel a shield strong enough to be hiding the egg.”
“That’s a long shot.”
“Better than nothing. Who rented the house before Moates did?”
“Nelson Arrington. Supposedly he died of a heart attack while hiking.”
“Got it. I’ll pass it on. Gaige and I are heading out to talk to Moates’s father, also a sorcerer. You and Saffron get the sister. Shanna. She’s a regular human, like the mother. No magic.”
“She’s expecting us?”
“Yeah. I’ll text the address.”
“Kellen connect with the astrologist?”
“The astrologist shortened the time frame. He told you maybe forty-eight hours. His best guess as of right now, we’ve got fifteen.”
Saffron crossed her arms over her breasts, vibrating tension and fear for her city. Taine stepped closer, pulled her against him. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Same here.”
Taine set the phone back on the counter. His cock pulled away from his abs in favor of touching hers.
“Time to put that thing away,” his mate said, making an effort to lessen the tension that came with having so little time remaining to find the sorcerer.
She tormented him with a tongue-swipe over his lips before retreating to the bedroom. His cellphone pinged with the address.
He followed Saffron into the bedroom and got dressed. Sent a questioning glance her way at catching her quickly suppressed smile when he tugged on a black T-shirt with a red dragon facing forward, menacing golden eyes backing up a Don’t Mess With Dragons message that was also in red.
She rolled a change of shirt and underthings in a fresh pair of jeans, then said, “Ready to go.”
They ate breakfast burritos snagged at a take-out window, the human version of swooping on prey. Fast, easy, drive-through food was another of the human inventions he appreciated though nothing trumped a good hunt.
As he drove, he cast glances in his mate’s direction. More than once he caught her staring at her phone, turning it over and over in her hand, her expression troubled.
Fifteen hours left to find the egg, but that was a best guess and so far best guesses had proven to be overly optimistic.
Finally she said, “If the phoenix emerges from the egg, how fast will the city burn?”
“I don’t know.” He carried her hand to his thigh. “I can’t tell you not to worry. But I want to.”
Her smile swelled his heart. She said, “Part of me wants to contact everyone I care about and tell them to leave San Diego. But how would that be morally right? And it’s not like my mother or sister would leave. They’d stand-by, get ready to be called into work.”
He wanted to promise her that those she cared about wouldn’t perish. He couldn’t. The only comfort he could offer was to say, “Supernatural Ops and IRE have a long record of success when it comes to dealing with sorcerers.”
“A long record? It’s only been in the last three or four years that anyone has even heard of them.”
“That doesn’t mean agents haven’t been hard at work for centuries.”
That earned him a skeptical glance. “Centuries?”
“So I’ve been told.” And then to distract her from the topic, he asked, “Do you want to take the lead in questioning Shanna?”
“Sure.” Though his mate wasn’t so easily put off. “What does IRE stand for?”
He wasn’t ready to tell her, not yet. “E is for Enforcement. The other two letters will have to wait.”
“Until?”
You know I’m a dragon.
“Soon. I’ll tell you soon,” he promised. He wouldn’t be able to stand keeping the truth from her much longer.
Her attention turned away from his face and back to her cellphone. She rolled it in her hand. Over and over and over, her thoughts returning to those she cared about.
Their destination was an automobile dealership converted into studio rental space. Easels, along with boxes and tables, created individual workspaces. Through the floor to ceiling glass showroom front, a half dozen artists were visible.
They got out of the sedan and Saffron pushed thoughts of family and friends aside. Taine took her hand and warmth spread through her chest.
She liked that he respected her ability to connect with people, was letting her do something, be an asset to the investigation. The fury she’d initially felt at being assigned to IRE, the worry about being involved with Taine and on the job together, now seemed laughable.
They reached the glass front door. She opened it and they stepped into the renovated space.
The place smelled of oil paints and turpentine. Six artists glanced their way. One of them, a thin blonde wearing cutoffs and an oversized white T-shirt knotted at the waist, placed a paintbrush into a jar of water.
“Shanna?” Saffron asked.
The blonde came forward. “Can we do this outside?”
“Sure.” Though Saffron took a minute to check out Shanna’s paintings. The ones she could see were bold colors and bold lines, graffiti in acrylics and on canvas. “I like your work. Do you sell it?”
“Mostly online.” Shanna pulled a card from a back pocket.
Saffron took the card. Made a mental note to tell Sabra to check out the artwork. Last time she’d visited her twin, there’d still been space for pictures on a couple of walls.
Outside Shanna said, “Elon and I aren’t close. He was raised by our father. I was raised by our mother. They split when Elon was seven and I was three.”
Shanna looked twenty-two, twenty-three tops. Wa
nting to nail the detail down, Saffron asked, “How old is Elon?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Do you have a picture of him?”
“No. Typical sorcerer. Gets pissed if you aim a camera at him. My father’s the same. Like they’re both afraid of ending up on wanted posters.”
I’ve come a long way, Saffron thought, realizing that a few days ago she wouldn’t have known what to make of Shanna’s casual mention of sorcerers. It was going to be interesting the next time she and Sabra got together. They didn’t keep secrets from one another, and as soon as her twin found out about the assignment to IRE, she’d put the squeeze on for information.
“Are Elon and your father close?” Saffron asked.
“I wouldn’t say close. They get along okay now I guess.”
“They didn’t always?”
“No. To put it bluntly, my father, also sometimes known as the sperm-donor, is an asshole. It’s all about power.”
Taine snorted. “And there you have it, a definition that covers a majority of sorcerers—assholes with power.”
Shanna vigorously nodded. “Exactly! He cheated on my mom with a sorceress. More than once. Said he couldn’t help himself, their power drew him. I’m not sure exactly how many times it happened but finally Mom got smart. She changed the door locks and paid a fortune for a charm that kept her from turning a blind-eye to his straying.”
“If a guy cheated on me, it’d be the last time that particular piece of equipment would be functional,” Saffron said. Feeling it. Meaning it. And holy hell, where had that come from? She didn’t do serious.
A glance at Taine and he grinned. “I’ve been warned,” he said, and damned if her heart didn’t flutter and melt in a totally traitorous reaction.
Saffron forced her attention back to the manner at hand and Shanna. “You said Elon’s relationship with your father changed. Do you know when and why?”
“Sure. Growing up Elon might as well have been a zero, same as me, as far as our father was concerned. But the summer before ninth grade he finally started being able to power spells.”
Saffron did the math and her pulse quickened. The change would have taken place twelve years earlier, right around the time Nelson Arrington died in Cleveland National Forest.
