by Amelia Jade
He desired her. Wanted her. Needed her. She could feel it not only in the hardness around which she wrapped her hand, but also the urgency of his voice and the tightness of his body. Somehow she’d managed to seduce the hottie to end all hotties. More than that though, he wanted her for her mind, not just her thick body.
Probably more for her mind, she told herself.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?’ she whispered, stroking him harder.
“Whatever it is that goes on in your head that causes you to shy away from me. To cut me off.”
“I don’t mean to,” she apologized. “It’s just that, though you’re hot and I have an interest in you that I really shouldn’t, I can’t help but wonder why you’re interested in me.”
“Well, right now, I want you,” he replied. “Your mind. Your body. Your soul. Yes, I may be fixated on your sexy curves and fantasizing about just where else your freckles cover, but I want this because I want to be closer to you. I want to have you. I want to make you mine, just like I want to be yours. It’s as simple as that, I promise you.”
“You want me?”
“What part of anything I’ve done has ever said anything but that? From the moment I met you, I told you I wanted to call you mine.”
“I just thought you wanted another sexual conquest. A notch on your belt.”
“Sex is an integral part of it. But it’s not the only part, Annalise. There’s so much more to you than the physical attraction I feel. I’m intrigued by you on a mental level, a metaphysical ground. However you want to define it, I’m there, and I want you there as well.”
She shivered at the intensity. “How can you know?”
He winced. “Don’t hit me. But it’s a dragon thing.”
“I want to hit you.”
“You said you wouldn’t!”
“No, you asked me not to. It’s very different.”
Caine lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t push the issue.
“A dragon thing, is it?”
He nodded.
“Well, you’ve shown me that you’re a dragon. How about you show me that you’re human?”
She started to stroke his hard cock through his pants once more. “Think you can handle one more demonstration today?”
Caine laughed, lifting her into his arms and making a beeline for the bedroom. “What’s all this talk about just one demonstration?”
She yelped as he threw her down on the bed, leaping atop her and pinning her down by simply being there.
“Well, I suppose a double confirmation wouldn’t hurt,” she admitted. “If you think you can manage that.”
He all but tore her clothes off in a frantic rush to get her naked. Somehow in the process of his eyes going wide at the sight of her exposed skin she was able to maintain her composure and strip him as well. Annalise marveled at the hard lines between his muscles, the way they flexed and bulged as he lowered himself to kiss her some more.
Curious, she reached around and dragged her fingernails down his back. Yep. More muscles there. Caine groaned into her neck as she did that, producing a thoroughly arousing sensation as her skin vibrated under the low noise.
He kept kissing his way south, drawing a line from her neck to one breast, down just below her navel and then back up to the other side, taking her nipple into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around it, sucking gently. Pleasure from his touch mixed with heat from his body. It all flowed in and around her to create a heady mixture that left her weak and ready when his mouth finally made its way between her legs.
Caine licked hungrily, and her body responded to the soft, heated touch of first his tongue, and then his fingers as well. He played her body like an instrument, not needing to speak as he learned what made her tick, and more importantly, what made her cry his name out softly into the pillow she had buried her face in. Fuck, it felt so good. Why had she waited this long!
“Right there,” she gasped as he hit a particularly delightful spot. She craved more. Needed more.
Her body was shaking now, unable to keep the tightness in her legs from spreading until it enveloped the rest of her. She grabbed at her breasts, touching herself while Caine watched. He growled something, lost in translation from her ear to her brain as he overwhelmed her body with an ecstasy she’d never known before.
Spine arching to the ceiling, everything went rigid at once an instant before her brain, breasts, and entire body exploded. The orgasm slammed through her body. Her legs tightened around his head and she gathered great fistfuls of comforter in her hands. His name ripped from her mouth over and over again until she was out of breath, her lungs refusing to work.
Air became a precious commodity and she struggled to suck it in, her vision going dark. Warm juices flowed down her thighs, brought forth by the perfect combination of tongue on clit and fingers inside her. It was unlike anything Annalise had experienced. Her sexual life was limited in scope, but she’d thought it to be adequate.
Only now was she finding out how very wrong she was.
“Are you sure you want just two confirmations?” Caine teased, kissing the insides of her legs as he did, making her shiver.
It took a few seconds for her to find the breath to reply as she ran her fingers through his oddly white hair. Just another thing that made him weird, yet gave credence to his claims of being an ice-wielding dragon. His brothers also had the same colored hair, though his was longest. She kind of liked it that way. It gave her something to hold on to.
Like now, when she gripped it and pulled him away, leaving her a soaking wet mess. “I don’t think I could handle another one like that. Not yet at least,” she admitted. “That was some intense work.”
Caine grinned, not bothering to hide how much he enjoyed hearing those words. Every male liked confirmation of his sexual prowess, and this time she was more than glad to give it to him. He had fucking earned it.
He lowered himself to briefly kiss her. With their bodies so close together she was pointedly reminded of what was to come next. His hips glided back and forth slowly as they locked lips, dragging his shaft against the top of her raised mound in delicate strokes that had to be more than just tantalizing to him.
“I think I’m ready to handle this though.” She wrapped her hand around him. He was as rock hard as his muscles, throbbing in her grip. Annalise slid the tip a little lower, biting her lip as he brushed against her opening.
She was plenty ready, rocking her hips forward, silently begging for him to push inside her. Although she expected it, wanted it, and knew it was coming, the sudden sensation as he pushed her walls apart ripped a gasp from her throat. She looked up at him wide-eyed, focusing on the intensity in his gaze as he watched her face.
Caine wasn’t intent on what was going on between their thighs, but instead he latched on to her facial expressions. With each gasp, lip bite, or moan his breathing grew harsher, raspier, which was the only sign of his arousal until he was fully encased inside her. Then, and only then did he let out a shuddering sigh, his eyes closing.
It was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
Her fingernails caressed his cheek, her touch lifting his eyelids once more. They stared at each other, lost within one another’s souls. Connections on a level this deep just didn’t exist. She’d told herself that for years on end, having it reinforced by the horrors with which she was forced to live.
But right here, right now, Caine was shattering those preconceptions and hurling them into the abyss. Never again would she look on love and happiness in the same cynical manner. True feelings for someone else was possible, and Caine was the prime example of that. His unabashed, unashamed, and unrestrained desire to have her was a force that broke down her previous notions and inserted his own definitions in her mind.
Plus it felt damn good. That was a side that she’d not thought about either. That when two people were intimate for reasons beyond mere lust, that the pleasure each felt would be amplified as well. Caine was t
hrusting into her harder now, leaning back on his knees as he towered over her, and she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted something before in her life.
“Harder,” she moaned, reaching over her head to push off the wall, trying to capture more of him inside her, hoping to satisfy the hunger his cock had awoken.
They writhed and crashed against one another, uncaring of the noise, uncaring of the covers falling from the bed or the way the frame rolled onto an angle on the floor. At one point Caine lifted her up and pinned her against the wall, thrusting up into her.
As a curvy woman Annalise had never before experienced being tossed around and manhandled. Caine taught her the true meaning of it now, using his strength to both of their advantages. They were against the wall, on the edge of the bed, and at one point he simply stood in the middle of the room and lifted her up and down while she scratched and clawed at his back, driven wild by his demonstration of strength and power.
Eventually he all but threw her down on the bed, climbing on top of her, preventing her from rolling over onto her back. She frowned, but when he slid inside her from behind, she nearly came. Something about that position struck every wonderfully pleasurable spot inside her all in the right order.
She was going to come, and there was little she could do to stop it.
Her walls clamped down around him, her jaw tight, unable to tell Caine what was happening as her body reacted of its own accord. But he grunted, obviously feeling the reaction inside of her. A hand pushed underneath her, finding her clit instantly.
It was too much. She buried her face in the bed and screamed his name as he fucked her to a second orgasm, his thick cock gliding in and out of her with abandon, relentless and yet never too hard all at the same time.
“Anna!” Caine called her by her shortened name for the first time as he slid from her, unable to contain himself.
She shivered as warmth splashed across her ass and back again and again. Only one other person had called her Anna, but they couldn’t hold a candle to Caine. He claimed her for his own, and she let him, urging him onward as he spilled himself across her freckle-covered body.
Moments later he collapsed next to her, his breathing deep and rushed, his cheeks filled with redness. She stared into his beautifully sculpted face, smiling to herself at the flushed features and dilated pupils, all signs of someone in the throes of perfect ecstasy.
“Wow.”
Caine nodded. “Wow.” It was a gasp, the huge lungs only able to suck in enough extra air for the one word.
“That’s it?” she teased, feeling him running down her back in rivulets, pooling in the small of her back. Normally she hated the feeling and sensation, but with Caine…with Caine everything was different.
With him, she didn’t mind it if he claimed her as his own.
No, she craved it.
“That’s it? Did you seriously just ask if that was it?” he panted.
“I meant your response,” she giggled. “No smartass remark or comeback?”
Caine grinned. “What, one ‘come back’ isn’t enough for you? Okay. I suppose we could do it again, if you insist.”
Annalise groaned, closing her eyes and burying her face in the pillow once more.
What had she gotten herself into?
Chapter Nineteen
Caine
He lay in bed, pinching his leg over and over again to ensure that he wasn’t dreaming, that this had really happened.
After agonizing for days over when the right time to tell Annalise would be, he’d just sort of told her, and then he’d shown off. The ice-rink trick was a little over the top. He could have done something smaller, but no, he’d wanted to impress her. It had worked, and he’d gotten his kiss from it.
Well, his kiss and a little bit more.
Annalise lay asleep next to him, her face completely slack and relaxed in the manner of those sleeping far deeper than they’re accustomed to. It had been a long, tiring day for her, he thought with a grin. For both of them. Even though he’d eaten more for dinner than he was comfortable doing in front of his mate, he was still tired. It would take time for his reserves to replenish themselves.
Stabbing his hand with a knife earlier hadn’t helped much. Looking back, he still wasn’t sure what that had accomplished, besides to prove he turned into a testosterone-infused idiot like any other warm-blooded male around a woman he wanted to impress. A simple cut anywhere would have done exactly the same job, and would have taxed his system far less.
Oh well. In the end it had been worth it. There was still a pink line on his hand where the fresh skin had healed closed. That took the longest to fade, because it wasn’t actually an injury. It was simply fresh skin.
Once more he fingered his scar. It ran from the bottom of his neck, down over his left pec, and stopped around his third rib. The scar had been given to him at the same time he’d been evicted from the dragon enclave with his brothers. As a child. The then-leader of the enclave had come after him in dragon form, and though Caine was fast and wily, he hadn’t avoided every attack. Only a bit had gotten through, but the onyx dragon’s acid had left him with a permanent reminder of the life he and his brothers had once lived.
Beside him Annalise—no, she wanted him to call her Anna from now on he recalled, his face cracking open in a smile at the memory—Anna stirred in her sleep. He reached out and laid a hand on her. She smiled and curled up around him, calming instantly. A few moments later she sighed and relaxed, freeing his hand, though he didn’t move it.
They had made a major breakthrough today. Not just on the physical front, though he knew that was of no small importance either. Today he had seen his mate shine through, the personality he’d only caught glimpses of before coming to light. Fun, flirty, and witty. She had it all a thousand times over.
“Perfect,” he whispered.
It might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn her face twitched upward ever so slightly, looking happy as well as content.
Feeling his hunger return, he got to his feet and padded into the kitchen. His brothers hadn’t come home yet, though he figured they would. Overall it was still early, not even quite midnight. Knowing the foursome, they were probably still at Mcguiver’s Pub, waiting for Andria to finish her shift. He looked forward to the days when Anna and he could join them there.
Assuming they stayed in town. He still wasn’t sure what Anna’s plans were, but he hoped they were starting to figure him into them. He would go with her, if that’s what it took, if she couldn’t settle down in Barton City with him and the others. After they’d dealt with the senator that would be the next thing they’d have to talk about. He was privately dreading that conversation, not sure where it would go.
For now though, he contented himself with stuffing his face with some leftover chicken and scalloped potatoes. Delicious.
Chomping down happily, he leaned back against the fridge, looking out over the downtown core of Barton City. Lights flickered and flashed. Though it wasn’t one of the major coastal cities or interior powerhouses that he’d heard about, it was certainly big enough that it never really slept.
As he watched something flickered and waved in front of the window.
“Wha ‘a ‘ell?” he mumbled through a mouthful of chicken and potato mash.
Putting the containers down, he slipped around the island, squinting his eyes against the reflection from the lights. What the hell was that? A bird?
Something thudded against the window to his right. Then far to his left. Curious, he backpedaled, reaching for the light switch. Killing the lights and dropping the apartment into pitch black gave him a much clearer visual of what was going on outside the windows.
“ANNA LOCK THE DOOR!” he roared at the same instant the windows exploded inward in a hailstorm of glass shards.
He flung up an arm to protect his more vulnerable eyes, ducking low, hoping the furniture would absorb much of the damage. The blastwave staggered him slightly, but he pu
t his left foot behind him and steadied himself, standing up as booted feet landed on the hardwood flooring inside the huge apartment.
“Take him down!” one of the black-clad attackers shouted. It wasn’t panicked, but calm and precise.
A professional.
“Good luck with that,” he snarled.
Behind him he heard the door to his bedroom click shut. “Caine what’s going on?!” There was fear in her voice.
That settled it. He was going to kill everyone. Cold fury settled over him. He harnessed that, calling his powers to him, preparing to fight.
“Stay down and get in the bathtub!” he shouted.
There were four men inside the apartment now, having come through separate windows. Even as they shuffled to the side, raising weapons, Caine spied another four rappelling down the ropes and preparing to enter.
He raised his hand and a gust of snow arose, clouding the air and spinning the unsecured attackers around, the ropes twisting and bouncing wildly. None of them fell, but it bought him time.
“Fire!”
Light from the muzzles of the weapons flashed, and Caine was spun around by the impact of two bullets, the force of it dropping him to one knee. Agony in his upper left chest and right ribcage told him precisely where he’d been hit. The scales prevented serious damage, but it still hurt.
“He’s getting up. Hit him again!”
Caine flung himself behind the island a moment before bullets tore into it. The other dragons would no doubt hear the gunshots, but it would take time for them to come to his aid. If he was going to do this, he was going to need to do it himself.
“Get the girl.”
Rage as cold as the depths of space filled his entire being. His eyes, already a brilliant blue, began to glow white. All around him the temperature plummeted, dropping so quickly the marble countertop cracked as it froze. The air became hard to breathe for anyone not an ice dragon, and he heard the assault team begin to curse.
Caine rose from his hiding place as the gunfire stuttered to a halt. His skin was turning white as his dragon scales came to the fore. He jabbed a hand toward the bedroom door. The two men charging toward it skidded to a stop as ice and snow swirled in front of them, becoming a living entity, held together by the force of Caine’s mind.
