Bella pulled him up the front stairs, under the statue of the dragon, and into the house.
“You know what you’ve stolen, thief,” Bella said imperiously. “You’ve stolen my heart. You’ll have to work off the debt.”
She tried to ignore Dorian’s nakedness, but it was impossible. The man had spent all of their time together wrapped head to toe in suits. She knew he was lean underneath, but she hadn’t been prepared for how incredible his body was. His muscled chest and rippling abs were a surprise—a very pleasant surprise. And he had a beautiful cock hanging half-hard between his legs—a human cock, for a moment she’d been worried. How would it feel to have his fever-hot skin pressed against her? She’d find out soon enough.
“How shall I work it off?” Dorian asked, his voice low and sexy. The golden light shone in his eyes, but underneath it he was still Dorian.
“I’m sure you can think of something,” Bella said. Electricity passed between them where she held her hand. It buzzed within her, melting her. Her bones turned to liquid and her skin felt alive and like it needed to be kissed all over. It was amazing that she was still standing. “I’m sorry, do you feel this, too? I’m finding it impossible to walk any further.”
“It’s the mating magic,” he said, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her up the stairs.
“Well, of course it is,” Bella agreed. The more he touched her, the more she felt like a cat in a sunbeam. She was getting drunk just from having his arms around her. How would it feel when more of their skin touched? “What’s mating magic?”
“Every shifter, like me, has one true mate in the world. My father spent centuries looking for his, and never found her. While I fell on my ass, and mine showed up to pick me up and dust me off.”
“It is a nice ass,” Bella laughed. “You shouldn’t hide it so much in those suit pants. When I’m queen of the dragon castle, my first order will be to mandate that you always wear very tight clothing to show off your rear. And no shirt. You’ve been holding out on me, Lord Winterborn.” She ran her fingers across his chest and gasped as gold sparks erupted from his skin.
“I have been holding out, but not anymore. You’re mine now. Forever and ever,” he said the words, but she could see the question in his eyes. Are you mine?
“Maybe you’re mine, forever and ever. You ever think of that, thief?” You are mine, and I am yours.
“How long until I work off the debt?” he asked, a smile on his lips.
Bella put her arms around him and pulled herself in close for a kiss. She kissed him tentatively, tenderly, as if he might shock her or taste weird, like whatever it was a dragon tasted like. But he tasted like she’d always wanted kisses to taste like. She kissed him again and again, hungrily, as he carried her all the way to his room. The electric buzz tickled her lips as they kissed.
“Will we always make sparks like this? Because it might make dates and dancing a little awkward.”
Dorian kissed her greedily. “It’s a side effect of the shifting, I think. It should pass in a while.”
“It might take you forever to work off this debt, thief,” Bella murmured in between kisses.
Dorian nudged open the door to his room and carried Bella to his bed. “I have to warn you, dragons are known for their greedy behavior. We’re covetous and jealous. And intensely possessive.”
Bella stripped off her ripped and stained dress and lay back on the bed. “So possess me already,” she said with a laugh. In the moments he wasn’t touching her, Bella missed it intensely. She wanted him always beside her, always brushing her hand with his, always finding an excuse to lean closer.
In an instant she understood—she’d freed Dorian from one set of chains, only to replace them with another tying him to her. Love was a chain that bound them inextricably together. But it wasn’t a curse, it was a blessing. Some chains restricted you and held you down, but others—other chains lifted you higher.
Dorian crawled onto the bed and ran his hand up her leg. The electricity bounced between them with an erotic energy. He kissed her toes and her ankles, the insides of her knees and her thighs. Every kiss melted her more. She felt like she could hardly move. The magic flowed between them, slowing time and making every touch last forever.
“What’s going on?” she gasped.
“I have no idea,” he murmured as he kissed his way up her thighs. With his big hands he spread her open and then dove into her. He watched her with his golden eyes and Bella found the strength to grab onto his hair and hold him close. His tongue was everywhere that mattered. His lips found her clit and sucked it, rolled it around, lavished attention on it. Bella didn’t know if she could stand it. It was too much and not enough all at once. The electricity was entering her all over and the effect was mind blowing.
Would sex with him always be like this? Could she live like that? She’d have to clear her schedule and make no plans for three days after, she’d still be a puddle of quivering happiness for at least that long.
She whispered encouragements to him and directed him with tugs of his hair until in a rush her climax took her. She curled herself around her lover’s head and he sucked and licked harder, slower. Time moved slowly and her orgasm seemed to roll on and on. Her legs shook uncontrollably, and she felt something change inside of her.
The magic, it’s altering me, Bella realized. Did Dorian know this would happen? Is this what it meant to be a dragon’s mate?
She was still trembling and quaking with the aftershocks, when Dorian pulled his mouth away and stood up. For a moment they weren’t touching and a sense of anguish filled her. Him too, by the look on his face.
“Come back to me,” she pleaded.
“The way you come, it’s amazing. I want to see it again. The way you cry out—I’ve never heard anything like it.”
“Is this more dragon magic?” she asked.
“I think, maybe, you’re just really fucking sexy,” Dorian grinned.
He moved closer to her, lying next to her on the big bed, and stroked one hand up her belly, to her breasts. Lightning danced between his fingers and her nipples making her gasp and writhe.
“I’ve never felt sexy like this, not even close,” she said.
“That’s a shame,” Dorian said. “Because you’re gorgeous.” He bent his head and took a nipple in his teeth, licking it roughly.
“Not every guy is into curvy women,” she said, though words were becoming hard to form. Dorian’s cock pressed heavy and hard into her thigh.
“You’re the sexiest person I’ve ever met, Bella. And I’m going to make you my mate now.” Dorian’s voice came out like a growl. His eyes flashed with a deeper fire. Something was happening inside him, too.
She reached down and stroked his hardness where it pressed against her. He was hot, feverishly hot, and big. She wondered how he’d taste in her mouth, what sounds he’d make if she was the one on top lavishing attention on him, but her body was too liquid, too molten to even consider it. Later, she promised herself. Later she’d have a turn blowing his mind.
“What does being your mate mean? Do we need a contract? A pre-nup?” Sometimes it was had to turn off her internal lawyer.
“It means that I will be by your side forever and never stop loving you,” Dorian said softly.
Bella smiled at how good that sounded.
“Well, you better get to work, thief. You have an awfully large debt to pay off.”
Dorian kissed her again, but this time felt different, more tender, not as greedy. Had she just agreed to marry him? It sort of felt like it. She wanted to ask more, but then Dorian was on top of her, his knees spreading her legs apart and the head of his cock was right there, against her.
He kissed her again and she couldn’t believe where her life had ended up. She thought she’d burned her life to ashes, but instead she’d found something better in the arms of this generous, gorgeous man.
Bella moaned uncontrollably as he entered her, the lightning they’d been pla
ying with danced between their skin all over but inside her it was overwhelming. Dorian looked down at her with a look of shock, he was feeling it too.
“Slowly,” Bella begged. “Slowly.” He was bigger than she expected. Bella wrapped her legs around him, her arms too, trying to get as much of their skin touching as possible. The magic pulled them together and she never wanted to let go.
Dorian growled as he slowly thrust into her and Mina cried out. Time went all liquid again, with each motion of Dorian inside her lasting a thousand blissful seconds. Her lover thrust deeper into her with each thrust, opening her deliciously, filling every inch of her cunt. It was like he’d been made just for her, just in the right perfect size and shape to scrape against all of the sweetest spots inside her. He was fire and electricity and magic and patience all at once, and he’d be hers forever.
She’d never leave the bedroom again.
Dorian wasn’t wearing a condom and the sensation of his skin on hers, of the rawness of their sex was hotter and dirtier then she’d ever felt before. Why wasn’t he wearing a condom? She’d always insisted on it before? But no, she knew on some primal level that for the magic to work they’d need to skip it, at least this one tie. He surged into her, again and again and she screamed encouragements and reached between them to rub her clit.
He was kissing her then, and murmuring her name over and over, telling her how much he loved her, how he’d never leave her, how perfect she was. And with every minute his thrusting grew harder and hotter until he was groaning with need.
“Yes,” Bella moaned. “Yes. Come for me, baby,” she gasped.
Dorian seized her hips in his hands and fucked her hard and deep and fast. She could feel her world shattering apart. “I’m going to mark you now. I need to mark you now,” he growled in her ear before kissing his way down her neck to her shoulder.
She was at the edge, right on the precipice. Time had stopped and she was doomed to stay there at the edge of coming forever and ever until she lost her mind. But then Dorian bit her, sinking his teeth into her shoulder deep enough to scar, but it didn’t hurt. It felt amazing. The mite triggered something in the magic and suddenly time moved again and Bella was screaming herself raw as her orgasm crested and broke and rolled on and on. And then Dorian was coming too, his cock swelling and bursting inside her, filling her with a liquid heat that surged through her bones.
EPILOGUE
T hey stayed in bed for two days, talking and laughing and figuring out who they were now. Both of them were changed. Their lives had been irrevocably altered. The magic electricity faded after that first mating, but the sex was better with its absence, less distracting. They could take their time and Bella could actually move on her own when the mating magic wasn’t reshaping her. She blew Dorian’s mind, and then he blew hers.
Chloe found them late in the evening on the second day. They were naked and wrapped around each other, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She’d eventually found a way out of the skull room, she explained. A helpful spirit showed her a secret latch that opened the door and with the help of Agatha and some bolt-cutters she’d manage to open the chests in the room.
“What was in them?” Bella asked.
“What chests?” Dorian said, sitting up in bed and trying to hide his nakedness behind Bella’s hand, which had several unintended effects.
“You guys should come see for yourselves,” Chloe said. “After you take care of business.” She winked at Bella and returned to the kitchen to cook up the best post-sex feast she could think of. When the lovebirds came down and realized they hadn’t eaten in days, they devoured everything she put in front of them. Omelettes stuffed with veggies and cheese, pancakes dripping with maple syrup, and vanilla waffles of Chloe’s own creation.
When they’d finished feasting, Chloe brought them up to the secret room.
Dorian was appalled at what they found inside. “All these skulls. These poor people. I knew he was a monster, but I had no idea it was this bad.”
“About that,” Chloe said. “These people want to be freed. They want to move on. I was hoping you could help with that.”
“What do I need to do?”
“We need to burn these skulls, and to throw the ashes to the wind,” Chloe said plainly.
“I can do that,” he said. With great strength he ripped the skulls out of the mortar, while Bella went through the contents of the trunk.
“There’s plans in here. Blueprints,” she said. She flipped through them, struggling to make sense of what she saw while Dorian and Chloe carried skulls out of the room. He paused after taking each load out to kiss her, to brush a finger against her cheek. He couldn’t bare to be apart from her, not anymore.
Once they had all the skulls outside, Dorian piled them in the middle of the maze. Franklin watched from a respectful distance but said nothing. When the pile was complete, Dorian shifted, becoming once again an enormous dragon and with a booming exhale he spit fire on the skulls, making ash of them and the maze.
Chloe cried as the skulls burned.
“You okay?” Bella asked.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I wish you could see what I see.”
Dorian shifted back to a man and walked over to Bella, magical lightning crackling on his skin. When she touched him with her fingertips, sparks exploded and showered the ground. Instantly Bella craved to feel him inside her again, to have the dragon energy pour into her, and by the way Dorian’s cock quickly hardened, he was thinking the same.
Bella stepped between Chloe and Dorian, hiding his erection as best she could from her friend.
Chloe didn’t see any of it, her eyes were watching the embers of the fire. Occasionally she waved at some departing spirit. “The house is going to be really quiet now,” she said.
“Yeah, about that,” Bella said. “In that trunk upstairs are plans. Lots of plans. Things Octavian drew up but could never decide on.”
“Plans for what?” Dorian asked.
“For what to do with this estate. He knew it couldn’t sit idle like this without falling into ruin, so he had planners create contingencies. And invested funds to be used for redevelopment.”
“Funds?” Dorian asked.
“Lots,” Bella agreed. “As far as I can tell. Not enough to run the estate forever, but enough to develop it into something self sustaining.”
“Develop it into what?” Chloe asked, suspicion in her voice.
Bella shrugged. “That’s for us to decide. There are thirteen plans in that chest. One for each brother? Or did Octavian just love the number thirteen? Anyway, there’s a plan to turn it into a grand hotel.”
“I could cook hotel food,” Chloe said, nodding and already planning a menu.
“Or into a museum.”
“We do have a lot of old artifacts. And creepy paintings,” Dorian said.
“Or a school. Or an animal hospital. And that’s just the first few. There’s detailed blueprints, cost breakdowns, and impact statements for each one. And the weird thing is, they’re dated from right around when he died.”
“You’re saying he knew he was going to buy it?” Chloe said.
“That’s impossible.” Dorian shook his head.
“My mate is a dragon and my best friend can talk to ghosts, who am I to say what’s impossible?”
Bella kissed Dorian then with a laugh. Sparks jumped between them and he gave her that “let’s go back to the bedroom” look. They said goodnight to Chloe and arm in arm hurried back into the house.
Chloe, for her part, sat near the embers of the fire and watched until the light faded and all the spirits were at rest.
* * *
The Bearfield story starts here!
MATT MORRISSEY IS a bear shifter with a sweet tooth, an easy smile, and muscles for miles. Mina Brooks is a baker who couldn’t take the heat of a mobster-infested kitchen. When Mina crashes her car in the charming, sleepy town of Bearfield she thought her life was over, but then she met Matt. As fa
te pulls the two of them closer, and the dangerous men close in on Mina, Matt has to prove he's got what it takes to defend the woman he loves from the mysterious forces pursuing her.
A SLICE OF HONEYBEAR PIE
(Bearfield - Book One)
ABOUT JACQUELINE SWEET
JACQUELINE SWEET IS the USA Today bestselling author of the Bearfield paranormal romances. She lives in Oakland, California with her fated mate.
For a free book and special deals on all new books, please sign up for her mailing list.
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ALSO BY JACQUELINE SWEET
the Dragon’s Heart series
Chained
Book 2 (coming May 2016)
Book 3 (coming June 2016)
the Bearfield series
A Slice of Honeybear Pie
A Taste of Honeybear Wine
Honeybear Halloween
A Honeybear Christmas
The Honeybear Alpha (coming May 2016)
Fake It Til You Mate It (coming May 2016)
Table of Contents
Copyright
Sneak Peek
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Also by Jacqueline Sweet
Chained: Reckless Desires (Dragon's Heart Book 1) Page 13
