by Lora Leigh
“Actually, perhaps I was.” He smiled over the rim of his cup before sipping at the tempting drink. Ahh, yes. He could almost feel the caffeine soaking into his pores, the flavor nearly a carnal delight as it washed over his taste buds.
“Dragon, this isn’t going to work.” He stilled as her expression turned resolute. “This is my job, my responsibility. Just because your powers are stronger than mine doesn’t make you boss here.”
He leaned back in his chair, taking another, longer sip of the coffee as he watched her.
I could teach you the power. He allowed his mind to touch hers, his thoughts to flow through her.
A strong mental shield immediately snapped into place as her face paled.
Really, beloved, as though such a shield could keep me from your mind. Or your body. He smiled, swallowing his coffee with a murmur of appreciation.
“Stay out of my head, you alien pervert.” Her eyes flashed dark fire, her cheeks flushing with anger as he glimpsed her sudden memory of him pleasuring himself.
Alien pervert? He took another deep drink of the coffee. He would need patience for this woman. She had not been nearly so stubborn in her past life.
“So help me, Dragon, if you don’t stop this insanity I’ll shoot you myself.” She pushed her fingers through her hair in a gesture of frustrated fury.
Her hair was too short. He didn’t like it, he thought as he watched her. Before, it had been long and flowing when freed from her braid, falling to her hips and creating a cloak of fragrant silk down her back.
It was now cut above her shoulders, tapering back from her face, and though it gave her face a pixyish look, and was still more than attractive, he couldn’t forget the need he had once had to have all that hair brushing over his body. His eyes narrowed on her head for a second.
He watched as she frowned and ran her fingers through it again, massaging her scalp. Ah, some things must just be done an inch at a time, he thought in satisfaction. Growing hair, fucking into a tight sheath, there were times when patience was needed. Yes, the added inch of soft silk looked much better.
“So, you are threatening to shoot me now,” he sighed as though saddened. “It is a cold, cruel world when a man cannot even show his desire and his need for his chosen woman. I believe my heart may be breaking.”
“Not,” she snorted as she flashed him a disdainful look.
She was once again dressed in one of those snug little tank tops, a forest green this time. He would like to see her in black skin cloth, the material shaping over her breasts rather than confining them as the snug bra beneath her shirt did now. Skin cloth would hug and love her body, bring her pleasure, keep her cool when needed, warm when the temperature dropped.
He rubbed a hand over his chest at the thought. Yes, a gift of skin cloth would be a good idea.
“What are you up to now? This habit of yours of trying to run my life is going to piss me off,” she informed him as she propped her hands on her jeans-clad hips. Skin cloth for certain. Shirt, pants and soft-soled shoes. Those jeans would be rough against his flesh and would take more energy to remove than it took for his cock to part the cloth that was part of his home world.
His body clenched at the thought. He could merely lift her against him and the material would part for the heavy length of his erection. He would move between her thighs as her cloth parted at the tiny slit of her entrance. He almost groaned at the thought. There was nothing like fucking as the cloth caressed your body. It was almost as good as fucking nude.
Of course, after the first wearing of it, her body would develop the ultra sensitivity that came from its use.
“You’re scary,” Lynn said softly as she watched him.
He raised his eyes from her soft curvy hips and met her gaze.
“How so?” he asked her, braving the heat of the coffee for a longer drink.
“If you could see your face you would know,” she grunted as she moved to the coffee cup she must have set down earlier.
He watched as she refilled it, admiring the curves of her rear, imagining his hands parting them, his fingers finding the small little rosette of her anal entrance, stroking it, opening it…
She turned around slowly. He gave her an all too innocent look and sipped at his coffee again.
“Ms. St. James is sleeping well this morning then?” he asked her, as though he hadn’t been imagining fucking her tight little ass.
She rubbed a hand over the curve of her ass as though confused by some sensation there and nodded slowly. “She was awake for a while this morning. We have to keep the shields carefully in place while she’s awake. Her control is so shaky right now it would be easy for one of Jonar’s men to latch onto it and slip past us undetected.”
That was a problem. Psychic waves were damned hard to control unless they were your own. Ariel was still so weak, physically and emotionally, from her ordeal that her natural controls were still shaky at best. In most cases, psychics protected themselves from others detecting and riding into their unconsciousness on the waves of their power. The mind would automatically block even one of Dragon’s powers from doing such a thing. But in Ariel St. James’ case, her mind was fighting so hard to repair her body and the psychic wounds Jonar’s abuse had left, that she couldn’t do this now without help.
“Gryphon can do this more effectively than you or any of your people,” he informed her quietly. “I will send him up to sit with—”
“No men.” She shook her head, almost violently. “Even our men don’t go around her. Orders from Devlin. We don’t mess with his orders, Dragon.”
He sniffed impatiently. Human jealousy amazed him. It was not Devlin’s directive; rather it had been Shanar, the Savage, who had given that order. He would have to talk to that Viking soon. Lynn was exhausting herself.
“He does not have to be in the room.” He finally shrugged. “I can have him positioned in the hallway…”
“Won’t work.” She shook her head again. “I can allow a male to work with me if the situation is dangerous enough to require it, such as yesterday. No men. No male power otherwise. Period. Let it go.”
“You are exhausting yourself, Lynn.” Dragon fought to keep his voice low. “This I will not allow.”
Her slender shoulders lifted in a negligent shrug as she sipped at her coffee. She leaned her hip against the counter, watching him with a glimmer of amusement.
“You can’t stop it.” She seemed to derive great pleasure in this, Dragon thought with a frown.
“And you know this how?” He leaned forward as he held his coffee cup carefully between his hands, assuring himself he wouldn’t become angry with the little spitfire.
She watched him warily. “Your code would refuse to allow you to stop me from any free choice I would make,” she pointed out.
Dragon smiled slowly. “You have been talking to Devlin, of course.” He nodded, thinking of the warrior who had just completed his claiming of the Earth Mistress. “In most cases he would be right. But there is one instance where my Dragon code can be overlooked and I may force my will on a single, special person.”
Ah, yes, now she was looking decidedly worried. He liked having her off balance, wondering, uncertain what he would do.
She licked her lips slowly, nervously. “And that would be?”
He rose to his feet, abandoning his much-loved coffee for a hotter, spicier treat. He paced closer to her, staring down at her, ignoring her gasp as he lifted her from her feet and sat her on the cabinet. He stepped between her thighs, holding them apart, cursing the human cloth that separated him from her.
He caught her hands in his, pulling them behind her back and shackling them with his power as his head lowered.
“I can force my will on one person and one person alone.” He allowed his lips to graze hers, his cock tightening at her strangled gasp of hunger.
“Who?” Her eyes were wide, a dark velvet brown, staring up at him with such innocence, with such aching need, he had to force
himself not to take her then and there.
“I can do no other than protect the one who holds my heart,” he told her before allowing his tongue to rim her parted lips in a long slow lick. “Should that protection be needed, then my code does not stand in my way. My code demands I protect, with my heart…” He nipped at her full lower lip. “…my soul…” He gloried in her moan of hunger. “…and to the fullest extent of my abilities, the life of my bond mate. You, little one, are the other part of my soul and this time, you will not escape me.”
Dragon swallowed her cry as his lips slanted over hers, his tongue plunging into her mouth before she could deny the bond created so long ago. She strained against him, her breasts pressing into his chest as his hands tunneled into her hair, holding her head still as he plundered her mouth.
Her hard little nipples were like fire, piercing the skin cloth, burning into his flesh as her kiss burned into his soul. She moaned against his lips, her tongue twining with his, her thighs tightening on his legs as he ground the stiffened length of his cock against the heated pad of her sex.
He wanted to disintegrate the clothing she wore. He wanted to surge inside her, part the tight muscles of her cunt with his demanding erection and listen to her scream out her need for him.
His hands gripped her hips as the taste and heat of her kiss shattered reality around him. There was nothing but the two of them, their power flowing through their kiss, wrapping around their senses. If he didn’t have her soon, he thought as he moaned against her lips, his hands pushing beneath her shirt, he would expire of lust. And it was beginning to appear that just such an end was what she had planned for him.
Chapter Nine
Lynn was beginning to fear for her own sanity. There she sat, on her client’s kitchen counter, her hands restrained behind her back and kissing Alyx as though she were dying for him. She was dying for him. The sensations spearing through her body were destroying all her preconceived ideas of sex.
She was restrained, unable to fight him, unable to move, and rather than pissing her off or terrifying her as it should, she was glorying in it. She had no control. Alyx controlled each touch, each move, and it was turning her on to the point that she was nearing orgasm from that sensation alone.
His lips covered hers with heated hunger; his tongue plundered her mouth and no matter how desperately she struggled to capture it with her own, he eluded her.
She thought the pleasure couldn’t get any better. Then his hands moved to the hem of her tank top. His fingertips grazed the skin of her waist and cool air met hot flesh as he began to lift the material.
She moaned against his kiss, arching closer to him, her breasts trembling in anticipation of his touch. She shuddered in excitement. She might be restrained but she held every second of his attention for now. She knew. Knew every iota of his power and his mind was concentrated solely on her.
She knew she should be wary. Should be frightened. She could feel the strange power she feared so desperately moving stronger within her now, reaching out to Alyx. She clamped down on it, fighting to control it. But his kiss stole her mind, stole her strength.
Lynn couldn’t help but cry out when his lips abandoned hers. She moved, reaching for him, needing more, needing his kiss as desperately as she needed oxygen.
“Look at you.” The harsh, broken sound of his voice had her eyes opening, her heart racing at the intent, flushed expression on his face as he stared at her bared breasts. “So full and swollen. Your little nipples so pink and tempting they make me hunger as I never have before.”
“Alyx, what are you doing to me?” He arched her back, lifting her breasts closer to him as his head lowered.
“I am having my morning meal,” he groaned. “Sweet tender nipples and passion-ripe breasts.”
His mouth closed on the tip of her breast as weakness flooded her entire being. Heat surrounded her nipple; a lash of moist, rough pleasure flayed it as he began to suckle at her hungrily. One hand cupped the firm mound, lifting it closer as the fingers of his other hand tweaked the nipple of its twin.
It was too much. Too much pleasure, too many sensations washing through her, ripping apart her control. She could feel his energy holding her up. Knew it was his because she was so damned weak there was no way she could have held herself up. All she could do was moan weakly, pleadingly, as he suckled her, rasped the sensitized nipple and sent flaming bolts of sensation spearing into her pussy.
Oh God, her cunt was so empty. She could feel the hollow ache there, the gripping need to be filled, to be taken. It was destroying her.
“Alyx, please.” She arched closer to his tormenting mouth, her thighs tightening on his as she rubbed her sex against the hard ridge of his cock.
She didn’t care how strange it looked, she needed it, wanted it now. She had to have him filling her. Fucking her. If he didn’t soon she was going to go insane.
“Ask me.” He was kissing her breast heatedly now, pushing the mounds together, his tongue licking from one nipple to the other.
His breathing was as hard as hers. His silvery eyes were dark, his long hair falling forward and creating a shimmering curtain of mercury around her breasts.
“Please, Alyx,” she begged again, breathless, struggling against the coil of need tightening in her womb.
“Please what?” His voice was a raspy demand, desperate, filled with hunger.
“Oh God, Alyx, please…”
“Lynn, Zach is flying…oops…” The voice was a sharp intrusion, shocking Lynn, tossing her from the headlong flight into rapture and back into cold hard reality.
Alyx moved quickly, shielding her body, but it was too late. Face flushing, Liz turned and practically ran back through the swinging door as though the hounds of hell were riding on her ass.
“Fuck!” Alyx’s curse ripped through the room at the sound of a helicopter overhead.
Instantly her wrists were released, her bra and shirt lowered and he was helping her quickly from the counter. She rested against his chest as she fought for balance, her mind whirling as the hunger seemed to eat her alive.
“Tonight.” His hands tightened against her back as his body seemed to vibrate with intent. “Tonight, Lynn. I can wait no longer. Give me leave to come to you then. Quickly, Lynn.”
“Tonight…” She shook her head, meaning to question the odd request.
“Tonight.” He moved from her quickly. Before she could correct the misunderstanding, call him back, or deny what he seemed to be asking, he was gone. Just that fast. One minute he was there, the next he was gone.
“God, he has to stop doing that,” she muttered, her voice as shaky as her body.
She vibrated with need. The feeling was like nothing she had ever known in her life, yet more than she wanted to admit. He wasn’t human, she reminded her body desperately. Her body wasn’t listening.
As she stood there fighting for control, a tentative knock came at the door. Lynn flushed in mortification. Thank God it was Liz who walked in on her and not one of the men. She was even more thankful of the fact that the psychic abilities the agents possessed weren’t strong enough to pierce whatever shield Alyx had placed around them. Otherwise, Liz would have sensed what was going on behind the door and would not have entered.
“Come in. He’s gone.” She swiped her fingers through her hair and frowned.
Her hair felt a good inch longer than it had earlier. Maybe it was time to get it cut again.
“Sorry about that, Lynn.” Liz entered the kitchen, her expression filled with wry amusement. “I didn’t know…”
Liz pushed her shoulder-length black hair off her shoulder in a gesture of nervousness, while her dark blue eyes twinkled with warm amusement. She was one of the best agents on the force, and despite her slender build and exceptional good looks, got along well with all the men.
“Neither did I,” Lynn muttered as she dragged in a hard breath. “Geez, Liz, that man is dangerous.”
“Yeah.” Liz smiled as she
drew out the word. “I have to admit, he looked pretty damned determined. Pretty damned good, too.” She laughed. “Sorry about the interruption, but Zach’s helicopter just landed. I thought you would want to know.” She shrugged regretfully.
“I will consider it a lucky rescue,” Lynn breathed out roughly. “And thank God it was you bringing the message rather than one of the men.”
“I don’t know.” Liz shook her head regretfully. “Maybe they could take lessons or something, Lynn. The world needs more of what you were getting there.”
Lynn’s blush heated her face as she stared at the other woman in shock.
“Bite your tongue,” she hissed in mock reproof. “We’ve barely managed to convince them we can walk without an order to do so. We don’t want them to know they actually have power over us.”
Liz frowned in amused thoughtfulness. “Hmm. Okay. I’ll go along with you on that, but I think you just want to save the good stuff all for yourself. Greed, Lynn, can be a bad thing.”
They laughed as they left the kitchen, neither seeing the shadow that crept slowly along the floor, its intent the stairwell and the helpless woman sleeping above.
Chapter Ten
“Devlin says they’ll be arriving here in two more weeks.” Zach was tired and cranky and Lynn could sense the worry tugging at his mind.
His full force of elite agents was concentrated in one area, making them an easy target for enemies desperate to rid the world of the good guys, Lynn thought.
Alyx and the two men who fought with him stood quietly on the far end of the study, their expressions intent, their hard faces impassive.
“I think we can let half the force here go, Zach,” she told him as her brother finished running through the information he had brought with him.
His original trip had been a supply run. They weren’t buying any groceries or supplies from the towns surrounding the estate, which meant everything had to be flown in personally.
“Good,” Zach sighed. “We’ve had several calls come in and they’re needed if you can spare them. But Miss St. James is high priority. Thankfully, she’ll be under Devlin’s protection soon.”
