by Sharon Page
She couldn’t run away now.
But if she started to change shape, she would have to. She couldn’t let the Duke of Greystone learn she was unusual, that she was one of the Drago clan, who could transform from a human into a dragon.
Fear made her shoulders tremble. If a kiss could trigger her shape-shifting ability, what would lovemaking do?
But this wasn’t lovemaking, was it? She didn’t want to do it. This had nothing to do with love. This was something she had to endure to save her family.
The kiss had been something she had wanted. She had been in love with the gentleman—the younger son of the Earl of Montley. It had been years and years ago, when she had been just sixteen. Desire, love, emotion—somehow they had scuttled her control, and the experience of losing control over her shape-shifting had taught her she could never marry a mortal.
She didn’t even like the Duke of Greystone. There would be no risk of feeling heat and excitement with him. So no risk of having her body shift shape involuntarily.
A knock came at the door, but it opened before she could say a word in answer. Dressed in a simple gray gown, wearing a white mobcap, a young maid came in. A very buxom maid. It shouldn’t surprise her, Lucy thought coolly. No doubt a libertine duke hired his female servants based on their appeal in his bed.
“C-c-can I help you w—with your dress, m-m-miss?”
Lucy couldn’t prevent the small jerk of shock as the maid forced her sentence out. The girl stuttered. Was it nerves? “Thank you. I hope I haven’t frightened you.”
“N-no.” The girl hastened over, and Lucy found herself in capable hands. She was down to her shift in no time at all.
She could see her reflection in a large cheval mirror. Her blush deepened with every passing moment. The maid worked efficiently, without speaking, but Lucy knew what the girl must think. That she was a lightskirt. A wanton.
“This is not what it appears—” She stopped. What else could she say it was? She couldn’t say she had to take off her dress because she’d been caught in the rain, for heaven’s sake.
“It—It’s not m-m-my business, miss.”
Lucy saw the maid’s face. She wasn’t stuttering with nerves. She had seen the girl’s small frown of frustration as she got stuck on one of the words.
“Y-you’ll like H-His G-g-grace,” the maid whispered. The girl smiled tentatively.
“Like him?” She thought him wretched. Then her blush rushed like wildfire, like dragon’s fire, over her face. “Has he ... been intimate with you?” Had the maid meant she would like him ... in bed?
“N-no, miss. ’E d—don’t allow that. With me s-stutt—” The girl sighed.
With an ache of sympathy, Lucy supplied, “Your stutter. Yes, I understand.”
“C-c-couldn’t keep a place. Th-thought me d-d-daft. Not His Grace. Not him!” The girl spoke vehemently at the end, so filled with force, her stutter left her.
It surprised Lucy. Apparently, the arrogant rogue had done something kind for this young woman.
“Y-your shift, m-miss.”
The maid took it by its lace-trimmed hem and slithered it up, over her head. As the muslin flew past her hips, Lucy felt a breeze through her nether curls and between her thighs. As it brushed past her breasts, it made them bounce and they jiggled, heavy and naked, as her shift was pulled off completely.
Instinctively she put a hand to cover the juncture of her thighs and used her other arm to shield her breasts. The maid gave a shy giggle and turned away. She scooped up Lucy’s clothes and laid them over a chair, keeping her back to Lucy. Then the girl hastened out, closing the door behind her.
Lucy let out her breath with a whoosh. Even alone, she covered her body with her hands. She had never stood anywhere utterly naked. Not even in her bedroom. The mirror threw her image at her. Her hair loose and falling to her hips, her curvy nude hips. Her breasts squashed by the pressure of her forearm into round and jiggly spheres. Her full thighs, her calves, her bare feet. She looked like some sort of wild creature. In her mind, she looked more like a wild thing now than she did when she changed to dragon form. She turned away, flushing more vigorously.
You have to let the duke, this man, this stranger, see you like this.
Goodness, she couldn’t even look at her body in the mirror, much less show it to that ... to him.
She hurried to her clothes. Her hands were on her shift before she got control of her thundering heart and spoke sense to herself. “You cannot run, Lucy. If you go, your family will be ruined. If you go, you know Helena will marry the Odious Earl to save the family.”
The Odious Earl. She shuddered. He was a dragon-shifter, a distant relative in the Drago family tree, but he was also a fifty-year-old, grossly fat earl. And he wanted to marry Helena. The Odious Earl was certain he was going to be given Helena, because he knew how desperate they were due to her brother’s debts.
Lucy had almost wed a horrible, terrible man. After the Earl of Montley, she had determined she would only marry another dragon. And she had been fooled by a handsome face. For her fiancé had been the worst beast imaginable.
She couldn’t let Helena be forced into a horrible marriage. Her sister was nineteen. Lovely and innocent. Helena deserved to marry for love. The earl was a lecherous old debaucher. If Lucy erased a thirty-thousand-pound debt with a fortnight of sex, the Odious Earl could be booted out of the house on his backside.
She heard a soft sound. A footstep? Was the door going to open and the duke walk in, wearing just his trousers?
She stared at the doorknob so hard, she was surprised she did not set it on fire with the ferocity of her glare. A soft, sliding sound came behind her and a man’s voice said, “You have a delicious derriere.”
She almost jumped out of her skin. Jerking around, Lucy realized her breasts had moved a few moments before her arm caught up to cover them. No doubt he had seen her curves, even her dark brown nipples, which looked so scandalously ... hypnotic when they were unclothed. Even she could barely tear her gaze from her bare nipples when she caught a glimpse of them.
But the Duke of Greystone was watching her face. He calmly sauntered through the secret opening, one that had been covered by a sliding wall panel. He strolled into the bedroom the way some men strolled through the park on a pleasant afternoon.
Except he was completely naked. And he was obviously, rigidly, shockingly aroused.
2
Stripped Bare
Lucy spread her fingers to cover her private place again and clamped her arm over her breasts. She desperately tried to look everywhere but at this naked man who stood before her. But her eyes betrayed her, and her gaze slid to him. She caught glimpses of broad, straight shoulders. Glimpses of his pectorals, with the dark circles of his nipples, and the long, hard muscles of his thighs.
And once or twice her gaze strayed back to that part that revealed how much he anticipated having her.
“Lady Lucy,” the duke said coolly. “You offered me the free use of your lovely body. Please move your hands. I wish to enjoy the view.”
“I—” She couldn’t. She simply could not stand in front of him so boldly. Already she was blushing like fire because he could see so much of her, just as she could see every inch of him. If she wanted. If she looked.
He could see her generous thighs, her hips, and her stomach. He had already seen her naked bottom, even if it was only for moments. She felt so ... embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated. Her body was too lush, too curvaceous. Her body had always been a curse. When she’d been just thirteen, she had begun to shift into dragon shape. That had been bad enough, for it had taken her years to learn how to control it, to learn how to live with the pain of the shift. Then her body changed from slender and boyish to this rounded, embarrassingly wanton-looking shape.
Lucy glanced at the duke through her lashes, but he had turned his back to her. He strode to a cupboard. At least he wasn’t ogling her, but she was surprised he wasn’t. As he opened the door, he sa
id, “Lady Lucy, just because you are paying with your innocence, does not mean the surrender has to be unpleasant.”
Unpleasant? It was mortifying. She’d had no idea she would feel this awkward and embarrassed. She’d thought she could do this, but all she wanted to do was run for the door. She kept her gaze fixed on her arm, ensuring it shielded her breasts. And ensuring she did not look at his muscled back. Or his naked buttocks. “Could we not just ... just go to the bed and put out the lights?” she asked desperately. “I did not think you would want to stand in front of each other without any clothes.”
A flash of red flew at her and she jerked back. A robe, she realized, as it billowed and floated to the floor. His Grace kept his back to her as she pulled it on. She firmly fastened the belt and knotted it.
She had to get this over with. Keeping her eyes downcast, she moved to the bed. She would lift the covers and get in. Surely, he would then join her. She was shaking at the thought of what would happen once he got into bed with her. His naked body would rest over hers. She would open her legs. And he would go inside her. She knew that much of this business. She would close her eyes and not think of what was happening to her. She’d overheard the maids in her home whisper about sex. They said for some men, the act did not last long. Only minutes. Hopefully the duke would be such a man.
Before she reached the bed, he turned. Lucy sensed it out of the corner of her eye and she looked at him. She saw the firm, taut plane of his stomach, the bulge of his chest muscles, the taut indents of his haunches. His hair was gold and spilled to his shoulders, the way men had worn their hair decades before. Her gaze went down, where it should not go, and fixed on the wobble of his erection as he moved toward her.
Really the dark would have been much better. She could have faced this if they were beneath covers in a shadowy room. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes—tears of frustration over her predicament, of anger over her brother’s stupidity.
The duke prowled across the bedroom and this time she couldn’t look away.
His erection was so ... astonishing. It was long, thick, topped with a acorn-shaped head. It was flushed as much as she was sure her cheeks were. Pronounced veins twined along it. Golden hair curled above it and his large testicles dangled below. It was a primitive-looking thing. It looked so ... odd on the smooth, sculpted planes of his body. Yet it was intriguing, and a strange ache shot from her belly to the place between her legs. She clutched the belt of the robe.
Fear. Anger. Nerves. And illicit, forbidden, wrong physical desire. How could she feel so many different things at once?
Lucy had been supposed to marry four years ago, just after she had turned eighteen. Her father had brought him to the house as a suitor from the Drako family. Allan Ferrars. He had been handsome, charming. Dragons had to marry dragons, her father had said.
But Mr. Ferrars had hidden his true person behind a gentleman’s gloss. He was rough. Cruel. She had caught him attacking one of the maids. She had rescued the girl by shifting to dragon-shape. Forgetting Mr. Ferrars could change, too. He had thrown her across the room, had swiped her stomach with his brutal claws. As she’d struggled to her feet to attack him in return, she had realized Allan Ferrars didn’t love her at all. Then Jack had caught them... . Jack, her brother, had shifted shape and had fought Mr. Ferrars. They had been forced to destroy Ferrars to survive... .
She mustn’t think about that. Not now. But she would never forget that moment when she’d realized she could have married such a man. She could have blindly gone to her wedding night without any idea she had wed a vicious brute.
It had scared her. It had made her vow never to marry. And here, now, she felt the old fears surging up. She was going to be intimate with this man, this stranger, and she was ... terrified to know what it would be like.
“Look up for a moment, my dear.” The duke’s baritone voice was gentle in the quiet room.
She jerked her gaze up, her cheeks burning as hot as dragon fire, but her blood felt ice-cold.
He smiled, and lines bracketed his full, firm lips. He was a handsome man. Mr. Ferrars had been terribly good-looking too. That was what she had learned. Beautiful men believed they could get away with anything.
“I know you are nervous, my dear,” he said softly. “I promise I will be very gentle. I will make this good for you.”
How could it be, when she’d been forced to do this by the actions of the brother she had always adored, by his debts? And by the arrogance of the duke? She stalked to the head of the bed and pulled back the covers. “I just want to get on with it.”
“All right, then, we shall.”
She didn’t look at him. She clambered onto the bed and slid beneath the sheets still wearing the robe. Her toes touched something hot—a bed warmer—and she squeaked.
A low, seductive laugh made her scowl. Her fiancé had possessed the same sort of deep, sensual laugh. It used to make her heart beat fast. It had made her blood hot and her skin feel too tight. Now, hearing it on the duke, it screamed a warning in her head.
How had she thought she could do this?
She must do it. Lucy nudged the warming pan aside with her toe and slid further under the covers in this strange, unfamiliar bed.
But she had changed. She used to tremble with girlish desire at a deep, masculine laugh. She used to look at a handsome man and feel desire. She had dreamed of kisses. Of more ... of pleasure and sex and intimacy.
Allan Ferrars had changed her. He had ruined everything for her. She didn’t feel those things anymore. She was only two and twenty, but after his attack upon her, she’d felt so much older. So wary. So cynical. She had been afraid of love after that, afraid of any stirring of desire. Certainly, her heart would never be touched—unless by a man she knew she could trust completely.
Sinking her teeth firmly into her lower lip, Lucy looked up at the duke, who stood at the foot of the bed. She could not trust this man at all—he had carelessly, cruelly ruined her brother, and by extension that meant he had ruined her family. Her heart hammered like the thunder of dragons running. “Stop laughing and come and ravish me. I cannot stay out all night. I simply cannot.”
The duke sighed. So loudly she could hear it. “My dear Lady Lucy, I do not approach sex as you seem to think I do. I’m not just going to get on top of you and plow you while you grit your teeth and shut your eyes. You will enjoy this or I will not consider it payment for your brother’s debts.”
Sinjin folded his arms over his chest. Lady Lucy Drake, who lay beneath his sheets, grimaced as though she was about to take foul-tasting medicine.
He scratched his jaw, his fingertips grazing over his smooth skin. After he had become a vampire, unlike others, he had never grown stubble again.
Lady Lucy had come to him. She had offered her body. Why did he feel as though he was the villain, about to ravish a terrified and unwilling victim?
Worse, his mind was urging him to do it. He drank blood, but while he was the type of vampire that fed on blood, consuming the fluid didn’t satisfy him unless he could also drink in the powerful emotions of his prey. It was his victim’s desire, or fear, anger, horror—along with coppery-tasting blood—that satisfied his undead body.
Emotions rolled off Lady Lucy like fog pouring down London’s twining streets. She would be a feast for a vampire like him. And she was a dragon. He should feel no pity for her. Had dragons felt anything for him when they had murdered his family? Had those dragons showed a scrap of pity when they had killed his younger brother and sisters?
Anger. In him, it drove his sexual desire instead of quelling it. It washed away pity and sympathy. It hardened his heart. It brought ice flooding through him. Ice gave him the hardness to slay dragons.
He was going to pleasure Lady Lucy Drake. He was going to use her to find his nephew. Then he was going to do to her what he did to every dragon. He would summon the ice to toughen his heart, he would take out his sword, and he would rid the world of one more deadly beast.
But he said gently to her, “You’re afraid.” Which was obvious—she had her robe wrapped around her up to the base of her throat, the covers pulled up to her chin. He sat on the edge of the bed.
She tipped up her chin. “I don’t understand why you don’t just get in here with me. Why are you drawing this out?”
Sinjin cupped her cheek. The feel of her dewy skin against his palm—it made his jaw ache with hunger, with desire, with need. She went tense beneath his touch.
“Drawing it out is supposed to be part of the fun,” he informed her, watching the way her eyes widened in obvious dismay. Softly, he let his thumb brush her lips. Velvet and plump, just as he liked them. “It is called foreplay, my dear. Most women enjoy it.”
“We made ... a bargain. I will do what you want. I promise you that.”
He could terrify her and feed off that emotion. He could do what she so obviously wanted—fuck her without conversation or care, thus evoking her anger and hatred. The power of her hatred would sustain him for a week.
But there was another way he could satisfy himself, he realized. Make Lady Lucy enjoy her seduction. He imagined she would feel so many emotions, he would feel like a drunkard unleashed in a brewery.
She was lovely. Her skin was alabaster and the scarlet robe was an erotic splash of color against it. Her lips were a deep wine red. Her hair, still pinned in place, was ebony, and promised to feel like silk. She had fetching dark nipples, the kind whose bounce could hypnotize a man. And she had the covers drawn almost up to her throat.
“As for going home ...” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I think not, my dear. Not tonight.”
He whisked the bedcovers down and had the belt of her robe undone before her hands could move. One of the advantages of vampiric speed was how quickly he could disrobe a maiden.
