by Tami Lund
Morning sex would be awesome, his dragon whispered.
Nope. Morning non-sex.
She blinked open her eyes and bit her lip. He smiled back at the lovely lady lying in his bed. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Lifting his hand, he trailed a finger down her throat, around the swell of her breast, until he reached the nipple. While he twisted the hardening nub between his finger and thumb, he said, “Don’t suppose you want to continue what we were doing last night, do you?”
“Mmm.” She grasped his erection, gave it a couple of test strokes. “Looks like we didn’t break it last night.”
He chuckled.
“Too bad we don’t have any condoms,” she said with a pout.
Nope. There would never be condoms. Because condoms would give them permission to penetrate, and that wasn’t happening.
Releasing her nipple, he moved his hand down over her belly, to those sleek, wet folds between her thighs. She let her legs fall apart, and he stroked through the heat gathering there while she continued to work his junk, her breath hitching.
“Oh, we can improvise. We’re clearly good at it. Experts, at this point.”
Her yes faded into a dragon-like hiss as he swirled his thumb over her clit while pumping two fingers into her in a steady rhythm that she matched with her own hand on his shaft. His hips bucked, pushing his cock through the circle she’d made with her thumb and fingers, and he worked her with more urgency as his own climax began to curl up in his balls.
“Hey, Gabe—I mean, Dad—do you know where—?” The bedroom door swung open. Talia made one of those noises she made when she was orgasming, although he suspected it was from surprise rather than a release.
Talia jerked her hand away, but it was too late to stop the train. He rolled toward her as he shot his load all over her stomach. With his teeth clenched and his hips still bucking, he grabbed the quilt that had fallen to the floor next to the bed and pulled it up, covering their bodies.
“Christ,” he muttered, massaging his cock under the covers. Aborted orgasms were the worst.
Talia clutched the blanket to her chest, her face as red as a tomato while she pushed her hair back and tried hide the fact she was probably still pulsing with her own not-quite climax. He slid his hand her way, happy to help finish her off, but she slapped at the quilt, stopping his movement.
“Oh,” Ruby said, stopping in the doorway. “That’s where you are.” She looked at Talia, who gave her a blindingly bright, fake smile in return. The little girl canted her head. “Why are you sleeping in my dad’s bed?”
“Oh. Uh. Um…”
“She had a bad dream,” Gabe blurted. “Got scared. I offered to share my bed, to keep the monsters at bay.”
Talia stared at him with her mouth hanging open, so he tapped her chin until she snapped it shut.
Ruby nodded and said, “I’m hungry. Are we going to visit school today? Can we go swimming again after? Are the kids nice at this school?”
Gabe glanced at Talia. “Wow. That was a lot of questions.”
“Kids are inquisitive,” she said dismissively. “Ruby, why don’t you run downstairs and see if Noah is in the kitchen? He’s Gabe’s—I mean, your dad’s chef. I bet if you ask, he’ll make blueberry pancakes.”
“Okay,” Ruby said, and then she was gone, leaving the door open, but at least she was no longer standing there staring at them, naked, together, in his bed.
Talia shoved away the quilt and eyed the mess on her stomach.
“Looks like you could use a shower,” Gabe said, waggling his eyebrows.
Climbing to her feet, she said, “Yes. But I’m going to my own room to take it. That may have traumatized me for life.”
“Better not have,” he called after her. “Because we’re doing it again tonight.”
Wait, we are?
***
Gabe strolled into the kitchen twenty minutes later, whistling, his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts, his outlook on life far brighter than it had been for quite some time. Roughly six years, but who was counting?
Ruby sat at the counter, devouring pancakes as quickly as Noah could slide them onto her plate.
“Hey, save some for me,” Gabe protested.
Ruby patted the seat next to her, and with a mouth full of half-chewed pancake, said, “Sit here.”
“Order up,” he called out, slapping the ceramic tile counter. Ruby giggled. Noah glanced over his shoulder, arched his brow, and then continued doing whatever it was he was doing before Gabe walked in. Noah had always been a dragon with an attitude, but his food was so damn good, it was easy to overlook such a flaw.
“So, you have a kid?” Noah asked with his back to Gabe.
“Yep,” Gabe said. “Any questions?”
“Nope.”
Huh. Maybe introducing his five-year-old offspring to the colony would be easier than he thought.
Snagging a piece of bacon from Ruby’s plate, Gabe said, “You ready to go back to school?”
His daughter chugged half a glass of milk before saying, “Never been to school before.”
He stared at her. Even Noah paused in the act of ignoring them to stare at her. She glanced from one man to the other. “What?” she asked.
Noah returned to cooking, and Gabe rested his elbow on the counter and massaged his temples. “Dragon offspring generally start school when they’re three or four at the latest. Since you won’t go through your first shift until you’re probably thirteen or so, you need to learn about your history, your species, your…”
“Yourself,” Noah added, sliding a plate loaded with a pile of steaming blueberry pancakes in front of Gabe.
“Exactly,” Gabe said. He doused the hotcakes with maple syrup that Noah had probably made himself. Knowing the man was assigned to cook for him on a pretty much daily basis had helped ease the burden of becoming this colony’s reeve. Marginally, anyway.
“Kimberly used to give us lessons,” Ruby said. “Until she started hanging around with the adults.”
Probably until she started using dragon’s blood, like seemingly every adult in that colony did at some point. How the hell they managed to maintain any semblance of control or governance was beyond Gabe.
“Man, I wish I’d known about you sooner.” He didn’t mean to say it out loud, but he wouldn’t take it back. It was the truth. Sure, he probably wouldn’t have been ready to be a dad when she was born, but he still would have stepped up. Hell, was he ready now? And yet, he was reasonably confident he was holding his own. For the moment.
Although if he had taken responsibility for her when she was an infant, the Elders might have forced him to mate with her mother, and Jasmine didn’t sound like the sort of woman Gabe wanted to be saddled with for the rest of his life.
Not like Talia.
He growled. Noah glanced over his shoulder and raised one eyebrow. “Pancakes not up to par?”
“It’s probably his dragon,” Ruby said. “He’s kind of an asshole.”
Noah’s lips quirked.
“You aren’t supposed to say that,” Gabe reminded her. To Noah he said, “They’re fine.”
“Didn’t think that was the problem.” The chef returned to his cook station.
“If you knew about me sooner, my mommy would have gone away sooner,” Ruby said. “Aunt Talia says I can’t see her until she gets well. And she says Mommy has been sick for a really long time, so it’s going to take a long time to get well again.”
“Aunt Talia?”
Ruby shrugged and returned her focus to her plate. “She said I could call her that.”
There was pain in the little girl’s voice. Even Gabe, with his incredibly limited experience with children, could hear it. He reached out, awkwardly patted her shoulder. “Hey, you’ll get to see your mom again. I promise.”
She kept her gaze locked on the pool of syrup on her plate and didn’t say anything for a long time, until she whispered, “When I do, will I have to
go back there?”
“No.” He didn’t know the rules about dragon parents who lived separately, in different colonies, but he didn’t care. He was a reeve, and if he wanted to keep his own daughter, he damn well would. If her mother wanted to be part of her life, well, Jasmine would just have to move back to his colony—without actually mating with him.
He momentarily forgot about pretty much everything else going on as he watched Talia stride into the room. Her thick, dark hair gently waved over her shoulders. She’d enhanced her face with just enough makeup to add to her beauty without overdoing it, like so many dragon females did. She wore a casual blue, sleeveless dress with flowers dancing along the hemline.
Gabe’s dragon roared, disliking the fact that Noah was able to see her dressed like this. Stupid, pointlessly jealous dragon.
Noah wasn’t remotely paying attention to her, that dress probably wasn’t sexy to anyone other than Gabe, and since he didn’t want to mate with her, technically, Talia was free to do whatever the hell she wanted. If she wanted to walk up to Noah and rub against him like a cat, she had every right to do so. Gabe might rip the other guy’s head off, but she was still free to do as she pleased.
Talia glanced down at herself before sitting on the stool next to him. “Something wrong with my dress?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re glaring at me.”
Noah turned around and presented her with a plate of pancakes, and Gabe forced his gaze to remain on his own food. “Just uh…that’s a nice dress.”
Her smile was so bright it damn near blinded him. Mental note: Talia liked compliments. It was probably something he should have been aware of before now, given how closely they’d worked together these past five years. Man, he was a self-absorbed asshole.
Just clueless, his dragon said.
Shaking his head, Gabe searched for a distraction from the pretty dress, her long legs, that pleased smile. The fact that he wanted to drag her back upstairs and do more than have non-sex.
Fuuuuuck. He needed to get a grip on his dragon. The damn animal was out of control.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Did you know Ruby’s never been to school?”
“No, I didn’t,” Talia responded, clearly oblivious to the chaos in his head. Thank the gods. “We’ll let the schoolmistress know, though. She may want to give her extra tutoring to catch her up.”
Gabe pushed his empty plate away. “Come on, Ruby. Let’s go brush our teeth so we can get a move on.”
Sitting so close to Talia was making him twitchy anyway.
***
The schoolhouse, an old stone structure nestled against the tree line on the other side of the lake, belonged to the colony, like Gabe’s house and the land on which it all resided. The Elders were responsible for managing and maintaining it all. Which basically meant they determined what needed to be done and then told the younger dragons to do it.
The schoolmistress was one of the Elders, a wily, old, white-haired lady who had taught Gabe everything he’d learned about being a dragon. He always suspected she had been the first to recommend him as successor when the previous reeve died without an heir. Which was weird, because he’d been a hell-raiser even as a child, and it had only gotten worse over the years.
“So the rumors are true?” Old Ilsa asked when they stepped into her office, located at the back of the stone building, behind the classroom where her assistant, Clio, was teaching whatever lesson the young ones were learning today.
The older lady climbed out of her chair and walked over to Ruby, cupping her chin and lifting her face so she could study the child’s features. Ilsa glanced first at Gabe, then at Talia, before releasing the little girl and returning to her seat behind her desk.
“She looks nothing like you,” she said.
He shrugged. “Talia says she’s mine. No reason to doubt her.” Other than the fact that he’d never had sex without a condom in…ever. But things happened, rubbers broke, and Talia was too damn thorough in everything she did for him to question her.
“Who’s her mother?” the schoolmistress asked Talia.
Talia cleared her throat. “She doesn’t belong to our colony any longer.”
“She’s mine,” Gabe said, because it sure felt like Ilsa was questioning Ruby’s paternity. “I’m going to proclaim her as my heir at the next colony meeting.”
Talia’s eyes widened. Oops. He probably should have mentioned that to her first.
“Really?” Ilsa said, her voice perking up. “And are you taking a mate too?”
“Nope. Not necessary. Heir’s already been created.” He waved at his daughter, who stood between them, quiet as a mouse.
“Ruby needs your guidance, Ilsa,” Talia said quickly, probably to waylay any retort the old dragon might make. “She’s a couple years behind in her schooling.”
Ilsa nodded and made a note on the paper lying on her desk. “We will put her with the first years until we get a feel for her skillset. Eight a.m. Wednesday. Bring your own lunch,” she said, looking at Ruby. “Noah’s food is far better than the swill served here.” She wrinkled her nose.
They were back to the house by lunchtime. Noah had made a macaroni salad and left sandwich fixin’s in the fridge. It was another gorgeous, sunny day, like summer was refusing to let fall even think about taking hold. After lunch, Ruby, naturally, asked to go swimming.
“Come with us,” Gabe said, and then he leaned close and whispered next to Talia’s ear, “We can swim out to the dock and fool around underwater where no one can see us.” He was getting hard just thinking about it. Or maybe that was the close proximity to Talia. Damn, she smelled good. Like peach pie. He wanted to eat her up.
Ruby was already in her bedroom, changing into her swimsuit, so he crowded Talia, backing her up until she was pressed against the wall. He wrapped one hand around the back of her neck and slipped the other under the hem of her dress, sliding up until he could squeeze her ass. But when he leaned in to kiss her, she twisted out of his grip.
“I can’t. I promised Petra we’d get together.”
Petra Sharmell was Talia’s best friend. He personally wasn’t a fan. She’d spent a lot of time over the last five years voicing her opinion about the way he was managing the colony. And it was her opinion that he was doing a lousy job of it. While he knew it to be true, he didn’t like to hear it from other people. Especially someone who had no experience in the position of reeve and didn’t seem to give a damn about the colony herself.
He didn’t understand how she and Talia were such good friends, considering Talia seemed to live for taking care of this colony. Or maybe it was just him she wanted to take care of.
Would she be such a devoted PR manager for any other reeve? He’d never really considered it before, but now, he wanted to believe she cared so deeply because it was him.
He dropped his arms to his sides. “Well, at least I know if you’re with her, no other dragons will hit on you.”
Talia gasped and swatted his arm. “What a horrible thing to say!”
He shrugged. “She’s one of the prickliest dragons I’ve ever met. Which is probably why she never gets laid. I bet if she got a little nookie, she’d be a changed person. But, of course, that’ll never happen since she’s so damn grumpy all the time.”
“Thank you, Dr. Dragon Love, for that analysis. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go hang with my prickly friend.”
She headed down the hall toward her bedroom. He called out to her retreating back, “Hey, when you get home, I’ve got something prickly for you to touch. It needs lots of fondling. It gets bigger the more you rub it.”
She shook her head but didn’t turn around. A little voice near his leg asked, “What is it?”
Gabe’s gaze dropped to Ruby, who stood in the doorway to her bedroom, wearing a blue tankini and staring up at him. “What is what?”
“The prickly thing that gets bigger when you rub it.”
“Uh…” He glanced up, but
Talia’s bedroom door was closed. Shit. “Um… Hang on, let me go change into my swim trunks. I’ll be right back.” He retreated to his bedroom and hoped to hell Ruby would forget about the mysterious swelling, prickly object by the time he was done.
Which was exactly what he should do. Forget about the temptation Talia presented. Forget about the fact that his dragon believed she was his fated mate.
Because if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t get hurt.
Again.
Chapter 9
“Living with him?” Petra exclaimed, staring across the table at Talia, who attempted to feign innocence while sipping at the fruity concoction her friend had ordered. It had been served in a fishbowl and contained at least seven different liquors. Talia’s taste buds had gone numb half an hour ago.
She nodded. “I introduced him to Ruby, and the next thing I knew, I was moving into the reeve’s mansion.”
“What about the reeve’s bed?”
It’s quite comfortable, if that’s what you’re asking. Soft, luxuriant, perfect for getting tied to while said reeve has his wicked way with me.
“Oh my gods,” Petra shrieked. “You fucked him.”
With a choked cry, Talia darted her gaze around the room, checking to see if any of the few other patrons in the tavern were paying she and Petra any mind. Thank the gods, no one seemed to have noticed Petra’s outcry.
She shook her head. They absolutely did not fuck last night. That wasn’t to say that it wouldn’t happen tonight, but at the moment… “We have not had sex.”
Petra tilted her head and studied Talia’s features, and Talia focused on sucking down more of the fruity drink to avoid looking her bestie in the eye.
“Fooled around?”
Talia slapped the table. “How can you possibly tell?”
Petra waved her hand up and down. “You look different. Relaxed. And the gods know, there’s nothing relaxing about working for our useless reeve.”
“He’s not useless. He just hasn’t figured out what will make him happy yet.”
“Or how to be a reeve. Maybe it’s the curse.”
