She jutted out her chin. “Yes. I am threatening you. If you go out that door and after Valentine, I will run far from here—from you.”
He raked his hard gaze over her.
She did her best to appear brave. “And I’ll stay hidden for the next few months. I’ll stay on the run. When you do find me, because we both know you eventually will, it will be too late.”
Too late for what? She wondered but kept her questions to herself.
“You came here knowing who you are to me?” he asked, stepping closer to her.
She licked her lower lip. What was he talking about? “Um, yes?”
“Then you know what’s within my rights to do to you?”
Oh crap.
She pointed at him. “Stay right there, Mr. Dragon Dude. I get that you’re immortal. I’m not, so keep that in mind before you hurt me.”
He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “Hurt you?”
“Well, you were just threatening torture or something, weren’t you?”
Rayer stopped glowering at her, his expression softening somewhat. “Alondra, the truth, please. Do you know who you are to me?”
She bit her inner cheek. “No.”
“Yet you sought me out. Why? Because of your grandfather’s journal?” he asked, his voice even.
“How did you know about his journal?”
“I found it in your bag,” he replied, and then crossed his arms over his chest.
“It’s rude to go through another person’s bag without permission,” she snapped.
“You think I was rude, you should have words with Timothy.” He shrugged. “Tell me why you sought me out.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she began to wring her hands. “I don’t know. I just started thinking a lot about the stories Grandpa used to tell my cousins and me when we were little. I mean, I started thinking about them after the first attack by the mayor’s men. Then I dreamt of coming to you. Dreamt my grandfather was alive and he was having tea with me, telling me to go to you, not to wait. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“No,” he said, putting a hand out to her.
She felt compelled to take it, so she did. “I stood outside of the building more than once over the past month, but I chickened out each time. It wasn’t until the last attack that I decided I had to do it. That I had to meet you.” She touched her upper arm lightly. “I don’t know why.”
He stared at her arm and then moved closer, his hands suddenly on the sleeve of the sweater he’d given her. He didn’t ask before pushing the sleeve up high enough to reveal the long, angry gash marks that were scabbed over on her arm. “Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know his name,” she confessed. “But I know the mayor hired him and the others to kill me.”
“I will kill him. That is what is within my rights—as your mate, I have the right to protect you from danger.”
“So you didn’t mean you could just force yourself on me?”
He looked horrified at the suggestion. “No!”
She nodded…and then thought about what it would be like to have Rayer take her then and there. Her cheeks heated and desire raced through her.
“I would never do such a thing,” he said. “But I will kill any who harm you. Know that. Know that I will risk your anger with me and risk never being able to have sex again, never being able to properly claim you, and I will risk never having a family with you, to assure you are safe and the men who hurt you are dead. I will risk all for you.”
Everything he said had her head spinning. When it finally sank in, she jerked and then pushed on his chest, needing space from him. He didn’t budge. She stared up at him. “What the plot-to-a-chick-flick are you talking about there?”
He appeared confused.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. The truth please, Rayer. What are you talking about? What do you mean, never have sex again? Not have a family with me? Not claim me properly?”
He watched her with a serious expression for what felt like forever. “How much do you really know about me?”
“I only know what I could read in the journal. What was in English. I don’t speak or read Latin. Grandpa did, and a lot of the journal is written in Latin.”
“So your threat to me about leaving was born from what?” he asked, looking slightly amused.
She blushed and then glanced away. “I don’t know. It just flew out of my mouth. I was scared you’d go off, kill the guy, and risk everything for me. I don’t want that. I want you safe. I want your secret safe.”
He touched her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “And I want you safe, my love.”
His love?
“Alondra, I believe fully that you are what my kind calls the one. That you are my mate. A woman created for me and me alone. A woman whom if I do not bed and claim fully within the next few months, I will no longer be able to have sex again—ever.”
She blinked up at him. “What?”
“I did not make the rules. I am simply forced to live by them.” He bent, putting his face close to hers. “There was something that was confusing me at first, though. You smell human. Mates to my kind have never been human. Yet I know with every fiber of my being that you are mine. That you are my mate. I fight the urge to claim you even as we speak. As I said, I would never force you into anything. I fight the need to bury my cock in you and fill you with my child. And when Timothy told me of his connection to you, it helped it all make more sense.”
She was pretty sure her face was red enough to match the shirt he’d had on the day before. He wanted to do her? He wanted to have kids with her? She was so not ready for all of that.
She made the sign of the cross with her fingers and took a giant step back. “I’m a virgin!”
The minute the words left her mouth, she blushed more.
Rayer’s lips twitched. “I see. Well, that changes…nothing. It changes nothing. I’m still going to bed you. And trust me when I say, you will like it. And I will not take you until you are willing. Until you ask for it.”
She put her face in her palms and shook her head. “This isn’t happening. I’m not standing in some eccentric, reclusive billionaire’s foyer, talking about my virginity after having just watched him turn partially into a dragon. Nope. Not happening. I’m crazy. That must be it. Crazy just like my grandfather was. Clearly, it runs in the family.”
“Samuel was not crazy,” Rayer said evenly.
She peeked out at him. “You’re not helping here.”
He waved a hand at her. “Carry on. I shall wait for you to finish absorbing all this. Though you should know that while I am immortal, I do not have forever. Also, your grandmother was a witch, born from a line of true magiks. She was Timothy’s sister.”
“Oh geesh. You are totally nuts. My grandmother couldn’t have—wait, Timothy is related to me?”
“He is your great-uncle.”
“Of course he is. So is he a true magik too?” she asked snidely.
Rayer nodded. “He is.”
She lowered her hands and tipped her head. “I’m not your mate. I can’t be. This person would also live forever, right? I’m going to die. I’ll live a normal human life, so long as Valentine doesn’t speed that process along.”
Rayer was suddenly in her face. “He will not touch you!”
She patted his beefy chest. “Take a calming breath, big guy. I’m just pointing out a flaw in your logic. I’m not immortal. I’ll die.”
“You will not, and you will stop saying such things!” he shouted, lifting her high off the ground. He glowered at her in a way she knew probably meant she should be scared. The harder he stared at her, the more turned on she became. “And you will not age once I claim you. Your life force will be tethered to mine.”
Chapter Seven
Unable to stop herself, Alondra pressed her lips to his—and then gasped when he thrust his tongue into her mouth, claiming it fully. The next she knew, her hands were roaming into his hair, her legs were wra
pping around his waist, and she was rubbing against him. She truly was nothing more than a horn-dog around the man.
Alondra knew they were moving, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was his tongue moving around hers. She closed her eyes tight, letting him carry her wherever he wanted. When she opened her eyes, she found they were in the living room, near the floor-to-ceiling windows. He sat her down, breaking their kiss before bending before her and skimming his hands up her legs. He met her gaze as if waiting to be told.
“I told you I would only take you if you are willing,” he said. “Are you?”
Was she?
She opened her mouth and the smallest of “yeses” fell free from her lips.
Part of her wanted to stop everything before it went further, but the rest of her wanted to be touched by him. She didn’t tell him no. She nodded, and he hooked his fingers into the top of her leggings and drew them down, taking her socks and panties with them. She gasped and put a hand back on the window to steady herself.
Rayer tossed her panties and the leggings aside and remained on his knees before her, staring up at her with so much raw need on his face that she couldn’t imagine telling him no. Yes, she was scared and unsure of what to do, but she knew he’d guide her.
You trust him, she thought.
He kissed the front of her bare thighs, and she shivered. As he ran his hands over her legs, she shook more.
“You are cold.”
“I am?” she asked, surprised, because she sort of felt as if she were going to burst into flames with his every touch.
He stood so fast that it made her gasp. The man cleared the distance to the fireplace in the blink of an eye. He cranked a small lever and then bent before it, his face shifting partially once more. Exhaling, a line of fire shot from his mouth to the gas-log area of the fireplace. That was all it took, and a fire began to burn. Standing, he shook his head, and his features returned to normal.
She smiled weakly at him. “Still super cool.”
He returned to her and crowded her with his body against the window. The glass was cold to the touch, but she still pressed her palms against it, facing Rayer, her breathing quickening.
His lips were on her in a flash, and she moaned into his mouth. As she felt his hand inching up her long sweater, she tensed, but he increased the level of the kiss. Alondra melted against him and he eased his hand between her legs. As he parted the folds of her pussy, she tensed, and then felt as if she’d shatter in his arms as he began to rub her body there artfully. She tried to get away as pressure began to build in her. She didn’t really want to put distance between them; she just wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle what was about to happen.
He smiled against her lips, his tongue moving into her mouth once more. He worked his finger over her clit and Alondra cried out in his mouth as her entire body burst with pleasure. Wet slickness coated her inner thighs, and she knew then and there that she was literally dripping with need for the man before her.
He pressed a finger to her opening and held it there, letting her ride the wave of her orgasm. As her climax began to wane, he pushed a finger into her, meeting fleeting resistance before there was a quick, sharp pain. Rayer moved his thumb over her already swollen bud and brought another wave of pleasure rushing over her. He then thrust his finger into her fully, and her body clamped down around it.
He gasped, his body tensing against her. He broke the kiss a moment and then locked gazes with her. “Am I hurting you?”
She shook her head.
“Good,” he said, adding another finger, stretching her more.
She pressed her hands against the window harder, positive she wasn’t going to last if he made her orgasm again.
He kept fingering her as he kissed her forehead. “I wish very much to be one with you. To be inside you, but you are so tight. I could hurt you with my size.”
At that moment, she didn’t care. She wanted the fullness he was talking about. Wanted all of what he had to offer her. “Rayer.”
He sighed. “And, Alondra, you need to understand what this would mean. As much as the dragon side of me does not care about your feelings on the matter, as much as it wishes to claim what is rightfully his, I need you to know. I need you to give your blessing.”
“I give it,” she said quickly.
He worked his fingers into her faster, and she gasped, writhing her hips, wanting more. “You do not understand our way. My semen, if it comes into contact with your skin in any manner, will start the claiming. There is no going back. No changing your mind. You will forever belong to a dragon shifter. You will be my mate. My wife. Mine. I will own you.”
“Own me?” she asked, grabbing his arm to stop his movement.
His jaw tightened. “In a way, yes, but you would own me as well. I would belong to you and you alone. I would forever be yours.”
“We don’t know each other,” she protested, trying to move off his fingers, which were still buried deep in her pussy.
He held them there, his lips skimming over hers. “I know you respond to my touch as if you were under the influence of my risbrosius, but I have used none on you. I know that I want to kill any who harm you. And I know that the threat of you leaving me halted me in my tracks. I want you, Alondra. All of you.”
“But we just met, and we don’t…”
Growling, he withdrew his hand from her, leaving her feeling empty. He stepped back fast and rotated his head from side to side, his body looking strained. She realized then that he was fighting his dragon side, and that it was for her benefit, because she was freaking out about the idea of forever with him.
Trust him.
“Rayer?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her, appearing to be in pain. “Go to the room and lock the door. I must go and shift. I need to fly. I need distance.”
Shaking her head, she took hold of the bottom of her sweater and lifted it higher and higher, feeling wanton and free.
His gaze snapped to her sex and the muscles in his neck popped.
“Alondra, stop.”
“Finish what you started,” she said.
He shook his head. “You do not understand what you’re asking of me. You are young. Too young to fully grasp the consequences of our joining. Too human to understand that mates meet and are driven together—love and getting to know one another come after. And they do always come.”
She widened her stance, keeping her sweater held up. He was going to leave her standing there looking like a needy fool, she could just sense it.
His nostrils flared, and he touched the top of his dress pants. He undid the button slowly, his gaze never leaving her sex. “It will hurt at first. There is nothing I can do about our size difference, or the fact that you have come to me untouched by another. I am thankful for as much, because I know I would have to hunt any man who dared to know your body, but, my love, it means our first time together will not be as pleasurable for you as it will be for me.”
He freed his cock, and she nearly fainted at the sight of it. He was huge. The man wasn’t joking. She noticed something else: he lacked any type of pubic hair or body hair at all that she could see.
He stroked his long, thick, hard shaft and stood there watching her as he did. The tip of his penis began to glisten, and while she was a virgin, she wasn’t totally naïve about sex. She understood that was pre-cum. His early words came back to her.
“If your come gets on or in me, and I’m really the one for you, it will start our mating?” She motioned to his glistening cock.
He nodded.
“What would complete the mating then?” she asked.
“Me buried to the hilt in you while we’re both reaching climax,” he said evenly, as if he talked about sex all the time and it was no big deal.
She took a deep breath, gathering her nerve, and did what felt right. She pushed off the window and reached out, taking his wet cock in her hand. The second her fingers made contact with his cum-slicked sha
ft, something deep within her felt as if it was yanking her toward Rayer.
He gasped and then moved before her, lifting her, her legs going around his waist at once. He reached between them, held his shaft, and then pressed the head of it to her wet entrance.
She stilled; the feeling of thousands of tiny threads weaving them together came over her. She clung to him, feeling so connected to him that she couldn’t imagine going back to her life before him.
“You are mine,” he said, his voice deep, as if he was fighting something.
She touched his face, making him look at her. “Are you sure I’m the one? How do you know?”
His eyes swirled with vibrant silver. “Do you sense the bond forming between us? The connection tying us together forever?”
Her eyes widened and she nodded.
His cock head pressed into her farther and she moaned, the feeling of being tied to him growing even more. His entire body strained as he held her and for a second she worried she was too heavy for him.
He put his forehead to hers. “I fight to ram balls-deep in you. I do not wish to harm you.”
Alondra continued to cup his face, putting her lips close to his. “Do it, Rayer. Make me yours.”
He growled and then thrust into her, going to the hilt, making her cry out in pleasure in his arms. Quickly, her body adjusted to his massive size, as if she truly had been made just for him. She wrapped her legs tighter around his waist, loving the feel of having him inside her.
He pumped in and out of her with controlled motions, making pleasure creep through every inch of her body. She lost herself in reckless abandonment, countering his thrusts, writhing in his arms. It was all too good, too much, and she never wanted it to end. She wanted to remain like this, locked together with him, for all eternity.
He roared and his movements stiffened a second before blinding pleasure burst free from her. Everything around her buzzed with cool energy, yet her body felt as if it were going to explode into a massive fireball. Her pussy constricted around Rayer’s cock and she cried out. He slammed deep into her, locking in place, his cock twitching as he released his seed in her.
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