Dragon's Pleasure (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 3)

by Isadora Montrose

  Zeke doggedly moved snow from the front door, trying to ignore the playful bear prancing in the snow. He returned to the back of the cabin when the sitting room windows were cleared. The extra snow from the roof had made it harder to expose the rear windows and his disgruntlement increased. He began to scoop the snow away from the kitchen window.

  Jen bumped his rear with her own flank and took him by surprise. He turned to glare at her. Jen was darker than Laura’s cinnamon colored bear. A bit bigger too. Her muzzle was a sort of golden bronze color and she had two mischievous eye spots the same color.

  She looked lovely and smelled better. He had never been aroused by a female in bear before. She blinked at him and her mouth opened in a husky moan. She shook her head and snow flew, revealing her round gold-tipped ears. She was a beauty. She ran off and began to turn somersaults in the deep snow.

  While he stood glowering, a snowball the size of a small boulder smacked his rump and darted off. Clumps of snow slid off Jen’s back and she looked flirtatiously over her plump black shoulder, whuffed, and took off.

  Zeke was galloping towards her before he thought. Jen looked back at him coyly, tossed her head, and bounced. Then she ran headlong into the woods. He was in hot pursuit before he knew what he was about. She galloped amongst the huge trunks, ducking under branches bent low with snow. He followed as if she had him on a towline.

  Her scent was heavy in the damp air and her romp seemed to be intensifying its ambrosial appeal. He wanted that female, and he was going to catch her. He could see her deep footprints in the snow around the trees. He could smell her, but he couldn’t see her. She dropped down on his back from a tree branch. Great gobs of wet snow pelted him as she cannoned off him and headed deeper into the forest.

  She was smaller than he was, and more nimble. She scaled a slender pine and panted open mouthed at him, enjoying his confusion. He bumped the tree with his hind quarters and she made a deep moaning noise and pounced on his head. In moments he was wrestling with her, legs tangled, bodies rolling until their shaggy black fur was patched with wet snow and pine needles.

  He was bigger so he won. Jenna’s body went limp beneath him and he placed his muzzle over her neck and inhaled her delicious scent. Peace and happiness flooded him. It seemed an entirely new feeling. He licked her fur the wrong way and she wriggled in protest before subsiding with one of her merry whuffs. He backed off of her and she stood up and led the way as sedately as a matron on her way to church.

  Now why wasn’t he deceived by this apparent docility? Because he wasn’t. He was watching to see what his joyful mate was up to. Nonetheless, he was surprised when she swung her plump hindquarters into a snow laden tree and the boughs dumped their heavy wet load onto his head. She took off again, forelegs stretching and back legs pushing powerfully.

  He caught up to her and pounced. They began to roll and wrestle again in the deep snow. Jenna shoved at him with all her strength and forced him on his back. Even though he was restraining himself, it was easy to displace her and pin her down. Before long, he stood over her prone body resting his deep belly on her spine.

  They lay like that together for a long while. Both panting happily. Each enjoying the presence of the other. Zeke licked her head and let her up. He had to or he would be doing something unseemly. Jenna’s eyes seemed to mock him under her golden eye spots as she cocked her head at him before she scuttled off again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Zeke was past thinking. His vision had narrowed to the enticing black rump of the plump female running from him. He was bigger. He could catch her. But she was fast and he wasn’t gaining on her as he should have been.

  Jen looked back, exhilarated by the chase. Zeke looked wet and scruffy and dogged. She had forgotten his ordeal! He should be indoors, keeping warm and replacing his fluids. Not outdoors frolicking in the snow. She doubled back and raced to the path he had made to her back door.

  His little female was running for the cabin. Zeke turned and slid sideways. By the time he righted himself, his she-bear was shaking a cloud of snow from her hide. In the blink of an eye she became a six foot Amazon with the most beautiful, rosy ass he had ever seen. She rushed laughing into the lean-to and slammed the door behind her.

  Jen was standing in the shower room off the lean-to when she heard Zeke come in. She concentrated on soaping up and waited for him to leave. She was breathing hard and fizzing with the cocktail of hormones created by her shift and by being around Zeke. She wanted him to enter. To choose for her. No matter how stupid it would be to risk having more sex with this stranger.

  Belatedly, Zeke realized that the frosted glass door led to a shower. He could hear water running. He looked down at himself. His legs were shaking. His chest was matted with sweat. He was all in. But his stupid cock was straining for its lodestar. His angel was naked in there. Naked. Water running down the slopes of those fantastic breasts and trickling between the twin globes of her round, bouncy ass.

  He slid the door open and as it recessed into the wall he saw her, rosy, naked and lovely. Her braid was twisted up and held by a stick. She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled like Circe or Lorelei or some mythical enchantress. He didn’t think. He acted.

  He grabbed her and spun her so she rested against his trembling body. His erection was an iron spike between their bodies, pressing hard against his bulging abs and into her soft belly. He bent and took her mouth with his.

  She tasted of spice and woman, of home and peace and paradise. He tangled his tongue with hers and swept into the secret recesses seeking treasure. She responded tentatively, but then her hands tightened on his biceps and she kissed him back as if she too were starved.

  He ran his hand wonderingly from her shoulders to her bottom, squeezing and caressing her abundant, silky flesh, He grabbed her bottom in both hands and lifted her so her mound pressed against his rock hard cock. She gave a little shimmy and squirmed closer. His fingers slipped between her magnificent cheeks and tested her slit. She was slick.

  He didn’t stop kissing her, but he hoisted her just a tad higher. She clutched him with powerful thighs and he staggered a little. He steadied them both by setting her against the tiles of the shower room as he thrust into her. Her sheath was hot and wet and little muscles held him like a vise. He pulled out and returned home. She tightened her legs around him and pressed her heels into his butt.

  The rocked together like that until the rippling of her vagina sucked the last drop of semen from his enervated trouser snake. He was shaking as if he had run the marathon when he let her slide down his body to stand gazing open mouthed at him.

  Jenna covered her mouth with a hand that shook. Zeke was looking a lot the worse for wear. He was white and he shivered as if he was standing naked in a gale. As he sort of was. The water had run cold and he was wet and nude. She fetched the bath towels and handed him one. He stood holding it looking dazed. Jenna began to dry him and he snapped out of his stupor and began to blot water from his face.

  “Turn around.” she said and dried his back, marveling at the great slabs of heavy muscle. No wonder Uncle Pierre’s sweater was tight on him. Zeke’s barrel chest was supplemented by thick layers of muscle front and back. And so was his hard ass. This time she couldn’t even pretend to a professional indifference. She knelt to dry his massive thighs and calves.

  “Okay,” she said briskly. “Let’s get you dry and dressed.” She pushed him into the lean-to and handed him his clothes and the throw and towed him into the warm kitchen. Zeke went passively and sat obediently on her kitchen stool while she pulled his sweater over his head and dried his feet off. She took the socks from his unresisting hands and pulled them on.

  “Up,” she said and led him into her bedroom. She pushed him and he sat down on the bed. “Lie down.” His eyes were closed before his head hit the pillow. Jen covered him up and left. She was naked and getting cold herself.

  * * *

  She had done it again. She had purely lost her m
ind over this bear. Zeke was addling her brain. Not seducing her — he was too surly and stunned for seduction. No it was his scent that kept enticing her and telling her bear he was her one and only mate.

  He smelled dependable. And like sex itself. She felt like singing. And then she felt like crying. She was acting like a tween with her first crush. Except that she had twice danced the dirty rumba with this potent shifter. This was no crush. This was mate lust.

  She would be coming up pregnant next. No one knew better than she did just how very fertile the women in her family were. And she didn’t even know if Zeke was mated with someone else. Bears tended to be hyper-loyal, but Zeke wasn’t himself. And even bears would grab a willing piece of ass if they were offered it. And she had offered herself.

  She was still excited by the episode in the shower room. Geez, there hadn’t even been any foreplay. Just wham, bam, thank you ma’am. But she had come just the same. Just the feel of that long, thick love rod inside her had catapulted her into bliss. By the time they were exploding together her stupid heart had felt as if they were truly bonded.

  How could she be in love with a guy she knew so little about? What reason did she have to think he was the bear of her dreams and not a fricking nightmare? The morose son-of-a-bear could be an ax-murderer for all she knew and she was spinning fantasies of babies and happy ever after. She needed a reality check.

  And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t the condom queen. She had a lifetime supply for handing out to hormone struck teenagers and new mothers. So she could have exercised a modicum of caution, if she wasn’t too busy acting like a lust-for-brains sow-in-season.

  Not that taking advantage of a guy who was as good as her patient wasn’t bad enough. Nurses didn’t diddle their charges. Not even if they were really, really eager. Like as not, when he recovered, Zeke would be horrified at their hookups, and she would be doing the walk of shame alone when her jeans wouldn’t zip.

  And she would have no one to blame but herself if she wound up with a trio of shifter cubs to raise all by her lonesome.

  Sadly, her lecture fell on ears as deaf as any she had ever met. Truly she was channeling her inner adolescent. And just like any willful teen, she was surely going to come to grief.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The ruined grey-beige urban landscape was even more treacherous than it appeared, but the faces of his team were resolute. Zeke examined each in turn, and in turn each melted and deformed into the bloody mask of violent death. Mouths opened in silent shrieks to display broken teeth or worse.

  Zeke hoisted his rocket launcher to his shoulder and fired into the broken concrete box where the assassins were holed up. The house exploded and debris rained down.

  Jenna was shaking him and calling his name in a firm but comforting voice. He sat up. His hair and chest were running with sweat. He pulled up his knees and rested his head against them.

  “Bad dream?” said that same calm voice. “Get up and move around.”

  When he shook his head and stayed huddled, the voice became determined. “Now.” Strong arms levered him out of bed and he was forced to stand.

  He looked at Jen who was eying him assessingly. “You need a drink,” she decided. She handed him the red throw to add to his borrowed costume and waited for him to drape it around his lower body.

  Zeke found himself seated at the table drinking hot chicken broth. He waited for the interrogation to begin. Jen faced him placidly but didn’t speak. She was drinking coffee, but she didn’t offer him any. The soup was just as delicious as everything else she had fed him. He gulped it down. He was cold and thirsty. When he had finished his mug, Jen rose and silently fetched more. This time she spoke.

  “I should have been keeping a log of your internal temperature,” she said apologetically. “And making sure you were drinking enough.”

  “Huh.”

  “You nearly died last night,” she repeated matter-of-factly. “You certainly shouldn’t have been outdoors doing heavy labor. You overdid it.”

  “I’m fine,” he said sourly. He stalked off to the john.

  When he returned the table was laid for supper. Steam curled from plates of mashed potatoes and meaty stew full of carrots. Another mug of soup sat beside his place. Jen was waiting for him with her hands folded on her lap. She smiled at him as he sat down sullenly.

  The stew was delicious. He scarfed it down and used the edge of his fork to scour the gravy from the plate. He peeked across at Jenna. She was smiling slightly and only halfway through her own dinner. Dammit, he was acting like a barbarian again.

  “Would you care for another serving?” she asked, polite as a duchess.

  “Yes, please. When you’re done,” he ground out through clenched teeth. Something about that serene expression curdled his milk of human kindness.

  Her brows rose. “Help yourself,” she returned. “There’s plenty.”

  Zeke stalked off to the kitchen where sure enough the big pot that had spent the day simmering on the wood stove still held lots of stew. The big dutch oven beside it was full of mashed potatoes. He refilled his plate and returned to his hostess.

  “Thank you,” he said grumpily.

  “You are most welcome.” Jen continued to eat as though he hadn’t declared war.

  Eating mellowed his mood. The vicious edge of the dream faded. He felt as normal as he got these days. Jen still hadn’t spoken except to urge butter and juice on him. Apparently she didn’t want to know about her houseguest’s nightmares. Well he didn’t want to talk about them. So that made two of them. So why did her lack of curiosity annoy the hell out of him?

  When they were finished eating, Jen picked up their plates and said, “You should put your feet up. Couch or bed?”

  “I’m fine,” he barked.

  Again with the brows. She shook her head. “Rest,” she instructed. “Couch or bed?”

  He settled for the couch and she produced a heavy woolen blanket to cover him. He did feel better lying down, and it was comforting to have her look after him. He fell asleep before she crossed the three steps to the kitchen door.

  Jenna washed up and set her kitchen to rights. She loved her kitchen. Her cousins had listened to her and designed an efficient workspace with counters at the right height for a tall woman, and lots of storage. She didn’t like clutter, so she liked her appliances handy but hidden. Joey and Lenny had exchanged knowing looks when she said she wanted appliance garages. And when Nick and Matt had started to tease her, they had shaken their heads warningly at her brothers.

  “Women purely do love hidey holes,” Joe told the twins, as a man might instruct apprentices. Sixteen-year-old Matt and Nick had nodded and, to her amusement, had tried to imitate Joey’s worldly-wise expression.

  Whatever his comment had meant, Joe had made her a beautiful kitchen that was a pleasure to work in. Jen did the dishes and decided that Zeke would probably need a snack before bed. There was a lot of muscle on that man to feed, and he needed fuel to recover. She set to work to whip up a batch of cheese scones and a pan of brownies.

  Zeke’s rumbling breath from the sitting room told her he was still napping. Well, no surprise there. She checked on him. His face had lost the white, drawn look it had had after their shower room sex. And, aside from his heavy stubble, he looked more or less normal. Only she supposed his stubble was pretty normal for a Bascom.

  She got out her knitting and went to work on Matt’s socks. She was probably going to have to make a fifth pair this month. She didn’t think Zeke was going to give back the pair she had lent him. In her experience, once a man felt the comfort of hand-knitted wool on his size fifteens, he never wanted to wear anything else. Socks that fit made all the difference.

  Was she going to be knitting socks for this big, tough soldier for the rest of her life? She hoped so. But the combination of snarling and leering didn’t suggest that he had tender feelings for her. What had Mama said to her girls when they were young? If you give a man milk, why would he b
uy the cow? An old fashioned sentiment, but here on the Ridge folks were plenty old fashioned.

  She couldn’t for the life of her think why she was so drawn to this cantankerous mountain of a shifter. He was bad tempered. Uncommunicative. Far from handsome. Battered. And he had the manners of a savage. Of course, he was also wounded. And yet having him in her house felt good. Better than good. It felt right. She was in such trouble.

  The scones and brownies had cooled to room temperature, and she had turned the heels of Matt’s socks, when Zeke opened his eyes. He swung his feet off the couch and padded to the bathroom with no more than a grunt in her direction.

  Zeke looked at his five o’clock shadow disparagingly. He rubbed it with his fingers. He needed a shave. He didn’t want to shave with that damned dull blade and nick his face up again. But the thought of Jenna’s peachy-soft skin made him reach for her pink razor. Gone. She had set out a blue disposable on the countertop. It was still in its plastic pouch.

  This was the first sign he’d found of the owner of his sweater. He scowled at the commonplace object. Was he going to have to kill someone to keep his angel? Because he planned to keep her. If she would let him. Fate had given her to him and he intended to hold fast to his prize. If that meant running off some other, better man, he was fully prepared to do battle.

  But that was different from using the SOB’s razor. Only the memory of showing up unshaven to evening inspection his first week at West Point, made him pick it up. Ten days in full kit marching quick time as penance for a five o’clock shadow. Because scruffy wasn’t allowed in the army.

  Sgt. Lindstrom had used him as an object lesson to teach his plebes that when the army said, ‘Jump” they meant ‘Jump’. No excuses. No explanations. Just accept responsibility. That you hadn’t been given the opportunity to shave since breakfast was just bad luck. That it wasn’t fair you were the only seventeen-year-old who needed to shave at all, let alone twice a day, was of no consequence.