“Okay, that did it. Get out,” Kelly said. “Get out of this castle, and get away from me. Go get one of the servants to call you a cab to take you into town. Leave right now, or I swear to God I will slap the taste out of your mouth.”
Teresa’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Chad threw me out of our house; I can’t go home,” she spluttered. “Oh, and by the way, mother is talking about firing me. It’s not like I could move back in with her. Where exactly am I supposed to go?”
“Bitchlandia. You’ll fit right in. In fact they’ll probably make you mayor.” Kelly turned and stormed off, with Gabriel following her.
Kelly’s phone rang. Her mother. Well, that was just the capper to a perfect afternoon.
She answered it. “No,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?” her mother said, in a huffy, offended voice. In other words, her normal voice. “No what?”
“No I’m not in the mood to be screamed at. Yell at me, and I quit.”
“Your sister was going to marry someone respectable and you’ve ruined it!” her mother screamed into the phone.
“Well, I wasn’t bluffing when I said I’d quit, so thanks for that. I’ll send a formal resignation by email. Yes, I am still on the Dragonsblood case, and as soon as that’s over, I’m done,” she said, and hung up. Then she turned her phone off.
“You look like you could use a break from work today,” Gabriel said.
She had quit. She had really done it. She felt sick and exhilarated at the same time. “I could use a break from my entire life,” she said.
“Care to go flying? I know a little place that you might like.”
She looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then she threw up her hands. “What the hell. Why not.”
He gave her a dazzling smile that caused a swooping sensation in her lower belly, as if they were flying already. “In that case,” he said, “might I suggest sleeping with the enemy?”
“Don’t push your luck,” she grumbled, ignoring the fact that her body responded enthusiastically to his suggestion as she remembered his sure, possessive touch on her naked body. “I’m in just the mood to show you where to shove your witty come-ons.”
“Kinky. I look forward to it.” She swatted at him, and he held up his hands to fend her off. “I’m sorry. Seriously, let’s go flying. I promise to be good.”
She followed him outside, into a paved courtyard. It was in the center of the four towers but open to the sky, giving the dragons a private space to shift without leaving the castle itself. Gabriel stalked into the center of the space and, completely unselfconscious, stripped off his clothes.
He really was a magnificent specimen. His muscled chest narrowed to a trim waist, and as her eyes drifted over his flat belly and lower still, she saw that his cock was standing proudly erect, jutting from the nest of coal-black curls between his thighs. She swallowed and forced her gaze up to his. There was laughter in his eyes, but it was fond, not mean-spirited. She couldn’t help smiling back.
Even in human form, power radiated from him, and the hair prickled on her arms and at the back of her neck as the magic rose and swelled. It was a little like the sensation she’d felt when she’d sensed the Dragonsblood Ruby, but there was none of the hard, angry energy she’d felt from the gem. Gabriel’s power was all confident, vibrant strength.
Crimson scales rippled over the skin of his arms, flowing over his biceps and across his broad shoulders. His eyes flashed scarlet and talons curved his from the tips of fingers, wickedly sharp. He snarled joyously, revealing sharp canines. Massive, leathery black wings burst from his back, and as they sliced through the air in anticipation of flight, they made a sound like tearing silk.
Kelly watched in awe, eyes wide, as Gabriel fully shifted into his enormous dragon form. From the ruby-like glitter and shimmer of his blood-red scales to the sinuous curve of his long neck, he was breathtaking. He snorted a little self-satisfied spurt of flame, aware of the way she was looking at him.
When he lowered his big, diamond-shaped head, she eagerly scrambled astride his neck, wrapping her arms around it and holding on tight as he flexed his enormous wings and they lifted into the air.
The castle dwindled below them until it looked like a toy, a puppet theater for little wooden knights and dragons. From up here, all her problems seemed so small and inconsequential, and she allowed herself to shove them aside and concentrate on the fresh mountain air whipping past her face and the contrasting heat of Gabriel’s scales underneath her. The joy of flying blossomed inside her, and when Gabriel banked sharply and swooped into a descending spiral, she crowed with joy. There was a deep answering rumble of satisfaction from Gabriel’s enormous chest. He flapped his wings, the supple membranes holding them effortlessly aloft, and took them higher and higher into the sky before tucking his wings back against his body and going into a controlled dive that had her shrieking with exhilaration.
Only a hundred feet from the ground, he pulled up smoothly so they were skimming over the treetops, then he turned again and headed for the mountainside, setting them down at the side of a lake, on the other side of which stood a cluster of chalets.
The lake was mirror-still and placid, and the wooden buildings looked as if they belonged on the lid of a chocolate box. It was charming and very peaceful, and Kelly realized it was exactly where she needed to be to calm her mind and forget about all the drama and intrigue of Pandora’s obnoxious family and the hunt for the Dragonsblood Ruby, not to mention the control-freak histrionics of her own mother and sister. She took a deep breath of the mountain air. It felt crisp and cool.
When she turned to Gabriel, she saw that he’d shifted back into human form.
“It’s beautiful up here,” she said.
“I think so,” he agreed. “My family keeps a cabin on permanent reservation, though it’s deserted at this time of year anyway. I fly up here when I want some alone time.” Unabashed by his nakedness, he started gathering wood for a fire.
“Alone time?” she asked. “Your family seems so close.”
“Oh, we are,” he assured her. “That doesn’t mean they don’t drive me nuts sometimes. My mom’s the original drama queen, and—”
He broke off and concentrated on carefully laying kindling and arranging larger evergreen branches into a conical framework. “Come and get warm by the fire.” He aimed a blast of flame at the wood he’d gathered and it crackled into life, giving off fragrant pine smoke.
Kelly sat on the floor and held out her hands to the blaze, and Gabriel settled down next to her. They looked into the dancing flames, lost in their own thoughts.
Kelly glanced across at him, taking in his high cheekbones and the firelight reflected in his dark eyes. He was so sinfully handsome it made her stomach flip and a tingling warmth spread between her thighs just looking at him.
“Who would have thought we’d end up here?” she mused.
He glanced at her and smiled. “Me,” he said matter-of-factly. “I knew the first time I laid eyes on you that we were meant to be together.”
She gave an unladylike snort. “Hah! As if you even remember it. You were too busy flirting with every female in that nightclub in—”
“In Mayfair,” he interrupted her. “London. It was just past midnight and you were wearing this tiny little black silk dress that left just enough to the imagination. When I first saw you, you were licking a bead of condensation off the side of your glass. You had no idea how sexy you were.” His eyes glinted wickedly. “Your hair was pulled up, and it showed the curve of your neck and the dip of your collarbone. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. There we were in a room full of trust fund babies in designer dresses and dripping with jewelry, and for me you were the only woman in the room.”
Kelly was stunned. She remembered every moment of that evening and of their dance together – the firm pressure of his hand against the small of her back, the intoxicating scent of him…the way he’d melted away into the crowd, leaving an aching hollow
inside her where her heart should be. She’d assumed he’d forgotten that night, that it hadn’t lingered in his memory as it had lingered in hers, returning in the small hours when sleep eluded her.
She’d been wrong. He was gazing at her with frank, lascivious hunger in his dark eyes.
Her lips parted as he leaned towards her and took her mouth in a passionate, demanding kiss.
She kissed him back, their tongues twining and dueling in an exchange that was playful and intense by turns. He grasped her head between his big hands and plundered her mouth, pushing his tongue urgently against hers and pressing his hot, naked body closer against her. When he pulled away to gaze at her, his brown irises were flecked with fire-dragon red and gold, and he was breathing hard.
He tugged at the tie of her wraparound dress, and groaned softly when he pulled it away and saw that she’d opted to go braless. She’d always been self-conscious of her small, high breasts, but as he pulled her into his arms and bent his head to suckle her nipple, she felt a thrill of power. There could be no doubt that her slender body excited him. His cock was hard, straining towards her with a bead of creamy fluid glistening at the tip, and as he kissed and tongued her breast, he fondled the other with his palm, his breathing harsh and excited.
She rose to her knees, and his hands strayed down her body to span her narrow waist. He nibbled on her lower lip, pulling away to watch her with heavy-lidded eyes as he dipped his fingers beneath the waistband of her panties and worked his hand between her thighs.
She was slippery with arousal, and he slid his fingers through the silky fluid, parting her folds and teasing her entrance until she clenched on nothing and groaned with need, desperate to have him inside her.
With a hungry growl, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her towards him, laying back on the carpet of shed pine needles and tumbling her on top of him. She gave a squeak of surprise that turned into a breathy moan of arousal as she sprawled against him, their bodies pressed intimately together. Her small breasts were crushed against his chest, and she could feel the insistent pressure of his thick erection. She wriggled against his hard body as she shimmied out of her panties, eliciting a groan of longing from him, and kicked the scrap of fabric away so they were both lying gloriously nude, exposed to the chilly mountain air. Heat from the fire licked one side of their bodies with invisible tongues, and she shuddered with want.
Parting her thighs, she straddled his pelvis, kissing him as she rolled her hips, allowing his rigid length to slide teasingly through her wetness, the friction kindling sparks in them both. She darted her tongue against his and teased him with her teeth and tongue even as she slid against him, back and forth, in a promise of what was to come.
His patience unraveled and he grasped her hips firmly in both hands, lifting her slightly to position the sensitive, slippery head of his cock at her aching entrance. Then, as he guided her down, he slowly thrust upwards, pushing into her with exquisite control until he was buried balls-deep in her wet heat. She moaned helplessly and clutched at his biceps, enjoying the almost unbearable fullness, before she started to move.
She rose and fell, working his cock in and out of her sopping channel, and each time she thought he was as far inside her as he could possibly be, filling her as completely as she could bear, he flexed his hips and pushed her that little bit further. She gasped, her breathing becoming ragged and a rosy flush washing down her throat and over her chest as he ran his hand up her thigh and found her clit with his thumb. He strummed gently at the sensitive bundle of nerves and Kelly moaned and writhed, her muscles locking as licking flames of excitement shimmered inside her, rising and curling until her arousal was a wildfire burning out of control.
As heat washed through her limbs and the tingling in her core intensified, Gabriel rolled her onto her back and drove into her. She came, clenching around him as he pounded into her, stoking the trailing embers of each orgasm into the igniting sparks of the next and making her all but scream with the intensity of the sensation.
As she clutched at the tensing and relaxing muscles of his back, wrapping her legs around his hips to let him drive deeper still inside her needy body, he uttered a low, broken moan that fractured into a series of hoarse, helpless shouts as he jerked inside her, shuddering with the pleasure-pain of his climax.
Chapter Eighteen
Gabriel landed in front of the castle with a thud, and Kelly slid off his neck and watched him shift back into human form. The air around him rippled as his wings melted into his back and his scales smoothed out. In less than a minute, he stood there in human form, tall and impossibly handsome. The breeze whipped through his hair as he strode towards her.
“Isn’t it nice to be home?” he said.
“I get what you’re doing,” she said with amusement. “You’re trying to send subliminal messaging so that I’ll think I actually live here.”
“Nothing subliminal about it,” Gabriel said, grinning. “Stay here with me and give birth to my dragonlings. I’ll make it worth your while by plying you with great food, great sex, and lots of jewelry. An offer you can’t refuse.” Then his grin faded into a scowl as a cab pulled up in front of the castle. Teresa was sitting in the back seat. She climbed out and walked up the steps, with an expression of martyred dignity.
“Your mother’s secretary called me and said that my belongings are here, so I came to get my clothes. I won’t be able to get my furniture until I have a place to stay,” she said to Kelly. “I’m sure you’re delighted by this whole development. What with me being homeless and unemployed.”
“Yes, Teresa, because everything I’ve ever done has shown how I’m trying to make you miserable. Like when I warned you that coming to work for mother was a terrible idea and she would be impossible to please and never appreciate anything that you did, and I told you that Chad and his family were assholes. And so on and etcetera.”
For once, Teresa didn’t have a sharp retort. She just stared at Kelly with her mouth open for a moment. Finally she said, “I thought you were just jealous of me and Chad. And I thought you didn’t want me to work for our mother because you wanted all the glory for yourself.”
Kelly snorted. “Chad has made me nauseous from the minute I first met him. And there’s never any glory at work. I earned mother millions of dollars in recovery fees, and she’s well on the way to being able to buy back her share of the firm, and she still spends all her time eagerly waiting for me to screw up so she can berate me again.”
“Well. Anyway. You can tell Winthrop I’m sorry,” Teresa muttered to Kelly. “I shouldn’t have yelled at him.”
“He took the day off, which he apparently never does. And when he comes back, you can damn well find him and tell him you’re sorry,” Kelly snapped at her. “He really liked you, and you hurt his feelings.”
“He liked me?” Teresa said, startled.
“No accounting for taste, is there?” Kelly turned and walked up the steps that led into the castle, with Gabriel by her side.
She went up to her room, sat down at her desk, and typed up her resignation letter, which she emailed to Allied. Then she headed back out to find Gabriel.
As she walked into the drawing room, she saw Evangeline sitting on the couch there, crying, and a crowd of guards rushing through the room. They were heading in the direction of the elevator that led to the south tower.
Kelly walked over to Evangeline and sat down next to her. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Evangeline glared at her. “You could help. You could fix this, and you’re not! My uncle’s afraid to ask you because you’ll arrest him!” And she got up and stormed out of the room.
Now what the heck did she mean by that?
Kelly sat there on the couch and waited until Gabriel came into the room about half an hour later. His face was drawn and tense, and when he settled down onto the sofa next to her, he had the thousand-yard stare of someone who’d just come back from a war zone. And the ends of his hair were singed
. Only a dragon’s fire could have done that.
“We need to talk,” she said. “What the hell is in the south tower? Evangeline said that there’s something I could help with, and you’re afraid that if you ask me, you’ll get arrested.”
He heaved a sigh. “That’s not exactly it. But yes, we do need your help with something, and it would require you to set aside your professional ethics to a certain extent. Maybe a lot.”
“I’m listening. With considerable trepidation, but I’m listening.”
“What do you know about jewels that can heal the mentally ill?” he asked. “Specifically, mental illness caused by cloudy opal?”
She looked at him. “The Farriday Opal? It was stolen ten years ago and never recovered. Your father was a suspect in that theft.”
He met her gaze unflinchingly. “Yes. That was when we were still in the jewel theft business. He gave the opal to my sister Alexandra for her birthday. And she went mad within days. We got rid of the opal, of course – destroyed it – but it didn’t help.”
Understanding dawned. “And that’s also around the same time that you opened up the jewelry store and went legit. Mostly legit.”
An expression of pain creased his face. “Yes. My parents were racked with guilt. And once we saw what harm a power gem could do, we would never have risked that again.”
Kelly nodded. The odds of them ever encountering another such gem were slight – but not impossible. Frequently, famous gems, the type that especially attracted the attention of thieves, were power gems. They became famous because people could sense the power in them and were driven to find them, display them, possess them.
“You said that you quit,” Kelly said, “but you guys have been suspects in the thefts of a number of jewels over the past ten years.”
Gabriel nodded grimly. “We stopped stealing for profit. Every time we heard of a jewel with power, we would steal it to see if it could cure Alexandra. We’ve actually stolen several jewels, replaced them with paste imitations, and then put them back when they didn’t work. We did more research, and realized that we would need a gem empath working for us to help us find a solution – and also, possibly, to manipulate the powers of a healing gem, since some gems won’t operate on their own.”
Bride Of The Dragon Page 11
