Dark Dragon's Desire (Dragongrove Book 4)

by Imogen Sera

  She reached for the hem of his shirt, feeling exposed, and a second later he’d removed it. He pressed against her, his bare chest against hers for the first time, and as her arms wound around his back she felt something soft and cloth-like. Bandages.

  “I’m fine,” he murmured when she looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I’ll be fine.” He attacked her mouth again with no restraint, lips and teeth and tongue all working together to undo her. Her stomach fluttered, and a scorching hear pooled low in her belly. Her nipples pressed into his hard chest, and when he reached down to unbutton her pants she wasn’t sure if her heart was pounding from reluctance or eagerness.

  When she was completely nude his fingers found her right away, went straight to the spot where she’d never been touched by another. He caressed her folds, slowly, his tongue still tangled with hers, and when she pushed against his hand, searching desperately for friction against her aching bud, he chuckled but obliged.

  She melted— felt like she was melting into him. His calloused fingers strummed against her, and as she thought that nothing could be better than this— better than the overwhelming sensation as he touched her— his finger moved to circle her entrance and then slowly, slowly worked inside of her. She’d been wrong a moment ago, because this was better; his finger filling her up while his thumb rubbed her insistently. She was building to something, something unfamiliar and terrifying, but for once didn’t consider how vulnerable she was here, how vulnerable it made her to do something so big, so important for the first time while she was in his company.

  Then she was shuddering on his hand, clenching around his finger, no longer kissing him but still being kissed. His other arm was around her waist, holding her to him tightly, keeping her from toppling to the floor on her weak legs. He hauled her up against him, her feet off the floor, and then she was on the bed with him covering her, his weight pressing her into his mattress.

  His hard length strained at his pants, and she wrapped her ankles around his muscular thighs and rubbed against him shamelessly, greedy for more of what she’d just learned her body was capable of. He kissed her hard as she did, and a moment later his hand was unfastening his pants and then every naked inch of him was pressed against her. He was big… intimidatingly so, and she had a last desperate thought that he must know that she was a virgin, must have seen it in her eyes when she came on his hand, must have known from her unskilled kissing that first day when he’d shoved her in the empty room.

  If he knew, though, he didn’t acknowledge it, and as he pushed inside of her, she hissed out a slow breath. He paused and looked down at her, his expression unreadable, and she relaxed her face as much as she could so that he wouldn’t suspect. Because he hadn’t known, and now she didn’t want him to.

  She ignored the discomfort and encouraged him with her legs, not wanting to pause too long and arouse his suspicion. After a minute of his gentle movements, of burying her face in his neck to not be seen, of disguising her groans as moans, the pain subsided almost completely. She was left with a sweet sense of fullness, of being stretched in every unknown place inside her, of a heated urgency building to her now familiar release. As she relaxed under him he began to move in earnest, and soon after, all she could do was cling to him as he filled her, surrounded her, devoured her.

  Her nails dug into his shoulders as she cried out for him, called his name, spasmed around him until she couldn’t see and couldn’t think and couldn’t breathe. He stilled for a moment and watched her, and when she’d recovered he began again, furiously, thrusting hard and fast into her. As he shuddered his release, his grip tight on her arms, his teeth bared and his wavy hair hanging down over her, he breathed a name.

  “Aurelia.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mira froze. Her fingertips were still digging into his arms, her feet still pressed against the backs of his thighs. Over his shoulder she could see the portrait; mocking her, hating her, judging her. Her traitorous chin began to quake, and at the sight of it, Tarquin’s expression which had been— regret?— turned to loathing.

  “What do you want from me?” he growled, still inside her.

  She wasn’t sure how she could have said everything more clearly than she just had, so she furrowed her brow, set her jaw, and pushed at his chest. “I want you to get off of me, thanks. You’re really fucking heavy,” she said, carefully keeping her expression blank, cursing the way her eyes burned as she said it.

  She rose and pulled on her gown quickly, focusing on her breathing, steeling her nerves and promising herself that she could do this later— just another minute and she would be alone. He was where she’d left him, nude on the bed, but as she stood before him in her stupid dress she had never felt so naked.

  “Mira—” he began, but she shook her head and turned for the door.

  “Thanks for the fuck,” she said, enjoying the face he pulled at her vulgarity. She laughed out loud, then slipped out the door and darted down the corridor, back to her room, hoping he wouldn’t follow her and wishing he would.

  She drew another bath, cold this time, and scrubbed herself furiously until she could no longer feel where he’d touched her. She was sore inside, and she both relished and cursed the ache. Her mind was silent, for once; thankfully, blissfully silent. She wrapped herself in a stolen robe when she was finished, then proceeded directly to let her wet hair dry on the cold terrace.

  She watched the stars, pointedly not thinking about what had just happened while simultaneously feeling it all over. She stayed outside for a long time, not thinking, not remembering, just feeling… empty.

  She ignored the soft knock on her bedroom door, and ignored it again when it was a bit louder. She watched the stars and the lake and the inky blackness of its surface, and that reminded her of the time, months ago, when wings that dark had descended on her for the first time, terrifying her and changing her forever.

  Before she crawled in bed she looked out into the corridor, faintly hopeful, and on the floor she found her neatly folded trousers.

  Mira resolved herself to never seeing him again, but the next morning at breakfast, when he seated himself across from her and stared at her unashamedly, she revised it to seeing him as little as possible. She avoided his gaze as she ate quickly, then she slipped back up to her bedroom, in the dark abandoned wing of the palace.

  She set off to explore more rooms, and found a white gown with a pretty top. She carried it back with her along with a golden goblet and a pair of ruby earrings. She stashed the cup and the jewelry in her cabinet, and then retrieved her pair of scissors and set to work separating the skirt from the bodice.

  A few minutes later, she had what might pass for a blouse—if it weren’t for the badly frayed edges at the bottom. She sighed at it, disappointed she’d done such a poor job, then tucked it into her black trousers. She fingered the lace around her wrists as she wandered over to her mirror and looked herself over. She had a boyish figure with slim hips and small breasts, but she thought that the pants showcased her bottom nicely. She smiled at her reflection for a minute, and the face she saw when she did was unfamiliar. She dropped her smile and painted on her red lipstick.

  She was dressed and pleased with her appearance, for once, but the only person whose opinion she cared about was the very person she was trying to distract herself from. It bothered her, how upset she was about what had happened. She hadn’t much cared about losing her virginity; she’d have stopped him if she had. She continually heard that name in her mind, though, the one he’d murmured so lovingly while he was still inside of her.

  Aurelia.

  Being alone with her thoughts was too much, so the next morning she made another trip to the queen’s parlor, wondering if it would become habit. It was the first time Mira had seen Ingrid in the parlor, but there she was, looking exhausted and pale and relieved. Ingrid was seated on a couch, slumped into her mate’s side, clinging to his arm and staring in his eyes. Mira felt as if she had intruded on an intimate mom
ent, despite the activity from the other women in the room.

  Lily smiled at her, though, and pulled her over to a small table, insisting they learn a new game together. She relaxed at that, pleased to not be lingering awkwardly in the doorway. She spent several hours that way, learning games and watching Olive poorly attempt to paint the queen’s likeness. Even Ingrid was laughing along, and Mira felt some relief for her would-be friend, who seemed to be brightening right in front of her. She clung to Helias’s hand, still, and he couldn’t seem to stop his eyes from roaming over her, an expression of disbelief on his face.

  Mira was winning soundly at the new game she’d learned, pitted against Lily, Elsie, and Vivian— another of the queen’s ladies. She was facing away from the door and regretted it as she heard a familiar voice, the one that she’d finally banished from repeating her name in her head. She never thought she’d stumble into him here, not in this sunny room filled with light and laughter, everything he wasn’t. She focused intently on the cards in her hands, ignoring the way she could feel the space between them, trying not to visibly flinch when he strode to her side.

  “I like your shirt,” he said quietly, just for her.

  She glanced up at him, met his gaze briefly, and then returned her attention to the game before her. She didn’t like the way her stomach had jolted when she’d looked into his eyes, and she certainly didn’t want him to think that she was going to ever see him on purpose. She could feel the air as he opened his mouth to say something else, then seemed to think better of it, crossing the room to talk to his brother.

  She tried to ignore their conversation, but couldn’t help overhearing scraps of words that floated her way. Helias was sorry about something that he wouldn’t stop apologizing for. Tarquin was insisting on something, over and over, that neither Helias nor Ingrid approved of.

  Mira attempted to keep her gaze away from him but caught herself repeatedly studying him. She couldn’t help but watch the way his shoulders moved under his shirt, couldn’t help remembering the way they’d looked in the dim light— bare and tan and sweaty, couldn’t help remembering their unyielding firmness under her fingertips. He met her gaze once, then twice, until she’d finally won the stupid game.

  She excused herself quickly and darted back to her room, bolting the door behind her.

  Mira didn’t last long. She passed him in the corridor, later that evening, and maybe it was the memories she couldn’t shake from the night before— the good ones, or maybe it was the oddly concerned way he’d watched her as he passed. She suspected, though, that it was the thoughts that had been plaguing her; she didn’t want a summation of their history to have culminated in that awful experience.

  She brushed his hand with hers, and then pushed him into a deserted room where they came together like it had been much longer than a day since they’d last touched.

  Gone were the sweet, soft kisses of the night before. She kissed him like she wanted to hurt him. She faintly hoped his lips would be bruised and he would feel it afterward to remind him that she had been there, like she’d been reminded, all day, by the ache between her thighs.

  He cupped her face in his hands, but she hated the affection in the touch, so she shook her head until he released her with a question in his gaze. She ignored the look and pulled his shirt over his head, then ran her lips and teeth and tongue down his chiseled front until she was on her knees.

  “Are you sure?” he murmured as she reached for his pants, but she just shot him a disgusted look and returned to her task. She took him in her hand, running her grip up and down the length of him, wanting to explore him but not wanting him to mistake her touch as a caress.

  They were in a small room with no bed, no couch, no soft surface, so he bent her over a table and thrust into her from behind, reaching around to tease her nipples and caress her clit. She came quickly, and then again, before he shuddered behind her and called her name.

  It didn’t matter.

  He bent to kiss her afterward, but she turned her face away and fastened her pants around her waist, and then left before he could say anything that she didn’t want to hear.

  She returned to her room, breathing heavily, not sure if she hated him or herself more.

  CHAPTER NINE

  They started a routine of meeting in Mira’s room directly after dinner. Tarquin had tried to pull her to his, once, but she’d refused with a strange expression. He hadn’t pushed the issue, grateful that she still wanted him at all after what he’d done. He did wish, though, that she would ever be willing to talk to him about anything. She’d stopped entirely, ignored him completely unless his hands were running over her bare skin or she was wrapped around his cock.

  She had changed. She was no longer the strange woman who kept to herself, who wore trousers under her gown and chopped her hair off on a whim. She was someone different, someone cold and aloof, someone who reapplied her lipstick before he came to her— so she had a reason to not let him kiss her. It was only to him, though— on the rare occasions he saw her with Lily or the other ladies, she was relaxed. She was just Mira. He could feel the change in her demeanor when she noticed his presence. And she absolutely refused to let him kiss her mouth— she adored his lips on every other part of her, especially between her legs, but she anytime he tried to caress her, tried to show any kind of affection, she shook him off.

  It shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did because he was Aurelia’s, and it was a better situation if Mira knew that nothing would ever come of this. He should appreciate her iciness; the sooner he was able to control his conflicting feelings about her, the sooner he could just accept their routine as the best that things would be again.

  He continued to come back to it, though. He wanted her— and not just physically, he found— as time passed. He wanted her rare smiles and her whispered ridiculous jokes and her laughter; her real laughter, not the one she so frequently forced out when she was uncomfortable. She’d done that laugh as long as he’d known her, but rarely around him, until he’d called her the wrong name and ruined everything.

  He regretted it. Of course he regretted it, because despite the loathing of himself that had settled in his chest as he’d accepted it, despite the fact that he didn’t know if he could ever hold her and not feel like he was betraying a dead woman, it had clearly hurt Mira to the point that she’d shielded herself from him. The worst part was that as she became more of a stranger to him— despite how many times a week he was inside her— she seemed to grow closer with everyone else. He should have been glad of it, should have been happy that she wasn’t alone for once, that she seemed to be making friends, but he was selfish and possessive and it just made him envious.

  The only time she talked to him, beyond murmuring filthy things to him, was to question him endlessly about Aurelia. He didn’t know what the fascination was there, why she so desperately wanted to know, but he remained silent on the subject, refusing to give her the barest details. He’d accepted that he was mad for Mira, and that felt like enough of a betrayal. Telling the woman he wanted about the one who’d been his mate was just too much.

  She ignored his obvious refusal to talk about it, protesting that it had been eight years and he clearly wasn’t in a healthy emotional state if he couldn’t even mention her. She didn’t understand mates, he’d told her, didn’t understand the importance of the bond that fate had places between two people before they’d even been born. He hadn’t told her that worst of all, he would never be able to experience that with her.

  So when he ran into her guiding Caelian’s lost mate one day, several weeks after Helias had returned and Caelian had departed to search for her, it had been easy to spit venom at her before leaving to find Caelian. It had been easy to hate the concern on her face over his injured wing— so easy to hate it when the stupid injury was the least of his worries, was the last thing that kept him up at night. She swore at him, then turned her pretty face away and marched off. When he left to find Caelian, t
here was relief for his brother there, but so much bitterness, too.

  The palace had come alive with planning a wedding. It was strange to Mira, a strange thing to witness here in this ancient castle with no concept of marriage but full of strange traditions surrounding mates. Caelian and Maggie deserved it, she supposed, although Mira had wondered aloud whether Maggie’s first marriage had actually ended. Lily had glared daggers at Mira, and Vivian had shushed her. Mira had shut up then, embarrassed, trying to figure out why what she had said was so very awful.

  She seemed to say things frequently that made others take offense, but she genuinely never tried to. Her father liked to tell her she had a talent of putting her foot in her mouth, and she agreed with that assessment, but wasn’t sure how to stop. She tended to avoid the other ladies for that reason. Tarquin had been her only frequent companion for some time, and that thought unsettled her.