by Lolita Lopez
Wrapped in the warmth of the comforter, Cora felt her fear melt and exhaustion take hold. The last four days had been incredibly long. Sleep, she needed lots of sleep.
Cloaked in the welcoming arms of Morpheus, Cora experienced the most vivid dreams of her life. She was asleep and yet so incredibly aware. Her synapses fired rapidly and amplified every sensation. Touch, smell, taste—they were so very strong.
In her dreams, Cora became aware of a male presence. His scent, a potent mixture of cedar and earth and sweat, teased her nose. Like an aphrodisiac, the smell provoked an aroused state. Her nipples tightened into hard peaks pressing against the simple cotton of her camisole. Her sex pulsed as desire blossomed in her belly and spread its warm tendrils of electric current through her lower half.
There was no stopping the downward movement of her hands. They outlined her curves, taking time to tweak her nipples beneath the thin fabric before sliding even lower. Her fingers slipped beneath the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms and panties and slowly drew them free.
Undressed from the waist down, Cora sat up against her pillows and opened her thighs. Cool air met the blazing hot skin of her most intimate region. Wet and slick, the tender folds of her pussy yielded to the gentle parting of her fingers. Her throbbing clit begged for attention. With the tip of her forefinger, Cora stimulated the swollen nub in lazy circles.
Big and burly, the man loomed naked in the doorway and bathed in shadows. The sight should have terrified Cora but she found it oddly thrilling. There was something so sexy about a little exhibitionism. Moonlight spilled through the window and splashed across his lower half. His magnificent cock, so thick and erect, betrayed his obvious interest. Although she couldn’t see his eyes through the darkness, she could feel his heated gaze locked on her. It swept along her body, leaving a prickly sensation of awareness.
Cora watched in fascination as the naked man fisted his meaty hand over his stiff length. Wanting to give him quite a naughty show, she licked her upper lip and moaned loudly. She arched into the tantalizing touch of her circling finger. The fingers of her other hand found their way between her lips and into her mouth. She ran her tongue over the skin, slicking it with her saliva, and then slipped them inside her tight, hot channel.
A gasp sounded from the doorway. So he liked that, did he?
She moaned and swiveled her hips. Her finger thrusts felt so good, the slick cream of her cunt coating her digits. Little sparks of pleasure flickered through her lower belly. Cora’s toes curled against the sheets. Her wrist moved faster as she strummed her clit with more fervor. Mouth agape, Cora pursued her climax.
Still standing in the doorway, her mystery dream lover breathed hard and loud. His forearm rippled as he stroked his cock. Their competing pants echoed in the stillness of the room. Cora wasn’t sure who would come first. It was almost a race to the precipice of ecstasy.
In the end, she cried out a few seconds before the shadow man. Her pussy contracted and clenched around her fingers as she rode out the waves of her orgasm. He grunted as if in pain and spilled his cum in ropy bursts.
Separated from her partner in exhibition, Cora was suddenly gripped by the desire to touch his sweat-slicked skin, to taste the salty cream now dripping from the blunt head of his cock. She wanted to be held close and caressed like some soft creature. She wanted to feel his soothing breaths against her forehead and hear the reassuring beat of his heart as she slept against his chest.
But none of those desires were to materialize.
As quickly as her dream lover had appeared, he vanished. In the next instant, Cora woke and shot up off her pillow. Trembling and sweating, she sucked in a sharp breath. She wiped a shaky hand down her face. Her thighs clenched with the last tremors of her fading orgasm.
Cora’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment. She’d just had a wet dream in the room next to Stig’s. As a former marine, he was bound to be keenly aware of his surroundings. Had she cried out in her sleep? Oh God. Had he heard her?
Groaning in humiliation, Cora flopped back against her pillow and buried her face in the crook of her arm. How the hell was she going to face him at the breakfast table in the morning?
Chapter Two
Stig woke with a start. The built-in alarms on the locks beeped incessantly and annoyingly. He smacked the buttons in irritation and rubbed his face. The skin was smooth, his scales banished by the rising sun. From the ache along his left shoulder and hip, he surmised he’d fallen asleep slumped on that side against the cold, wet stone. Stig hissed in pain as he slowly climbed to his feet and stretched the stiffness from his muscles and joints. He yawned and reached high overhead. He’d survived one night without complication. Only eight more to go.
As Stig gathered the lengths of chain and hung them on their wall pegs, he was troubled by the vivid dream snippets now flashing through his mind. He was a little ashamed he’d conjured up such a dirty vision of Cora touching herself. Despite the shame, Stig started to get hard at the images of Cora sliding tongue-slicked fingers into her tight cunt. Her breathless moans as she came rang in his ears. The urge to work the head of his cock overwhelmed him.
God! What kind of a pervert was he?
Stig shook his head, got dressed, and left the unlocked chamber. He climbed the stairs slowly, his body still sore from its night of punishment. He hesitated on the top step and listened carefully. His highly acute dragon senses picked up on the faint sound of Cora’s deep and relaxed breaths.
Certain she still slept, Stig cautiously entered the kitchen and quietly crept up to his bedroom. His gaze hovered on Cora’s door. Standing in such close proximity, Stig was overwhelmed by her scent. The light, bright smell of freshly cut grass and some kind of citrus tickled his nostrils. And there, even more powerful, was the musk of sex.
That was a scent he hadn’t expected. Stig inhaled deeply and confirmed his initial identification. The smell of her arousal filtered through him, setting his body on edge. He could practically taste her sweet pussy. His tongue slipped out to wet his lips in anticipation. He took a step toward her door before stopping abruptly.
“What the fuck are you doing?” His harsh whisper sounded incredibly loud in the quiet house. It was enough to shake him from his lust-induced stupor.
With a gulp, Stig took a step back and tried to make sense of his primal urge. He remembered his dreams. The sight of Cora writhing atop her bed spurred his desire. A troubling thought entered his mind. What if that hadn’t been a dream after all? What if he’d connected with Cora on a much more intimate level?
“Shit.” Stig turned on his heel and shut himself away in the bathroom. He started a hot shower and peeled out of his clothing. A quick glimpse in the mirror and he caught the flash of his dragon’s reptilian eyes. The beast was subdued during daylight but lurked and waited for his chance to strike. If Cora’s smell made him ravenous with need, how the hell was he supposed to control himself in the same room with her?
With a groan of frustration, Stig stepped into the shower and stuck his face in the bracing spray. The blast of hot water cleared his foggy head. After a night forced into dragon form, he always woke a little groggy and confused. Hopefully a shower and some breakfast would allow him enough time to get his dragon instincts under control. He couldn’t risk behaving inappropriately with Cora—or revealing his true identity.
Shit. Cora. What the hell was he going to do about her? She couldn’t stay here—that was for damn sure. Until his mating period ended, it was too dangerous to keep her nearby. She spurred his arousal into dizzying heights. He couldn’t imagine how strong his scent must have been last night. Were it not for the safety of his lair, he’d have been a bright shining beacon for the Knights who hunted his kind.
Thankfully his human form produced very little dragon scent of any kind. The sunlight burned away whatever excess might have clung to him. In the old days, dragons had used the precious daylight hours to move from hiding place to hiding place, their scent signature mas
ked. Shunning—the practice of separating males about to go into heat—had been common among the small tribes. Separate one to save many.
By the dawning of the twentieth century, new compounds were discovered by the alchemists among the dragon communities that suppressed the heat phases. The side effects were mostly intolerable and often dangerous. Stig had requested the drugs to suppress his phases during his military service. Because the Brotherhood of the Green Hide—the dragons charged with protecting their species from the slayers of the Knights of St. George—needed intel and artifacts from areas like Afghanistan and the old buried sites in Iraq, he’d been given permission to obtain and use the compounds.
They’d very nearly killed him. After leaving the service, he’d spent four months at Nico’s manor in a sort of rehab. He’d sworn then that he’d never take the drugs again. Locking himself up in the cell was better than going through that.
Stig wrapped a towel around his waist and crossed the hall to his bedroom. He paused in the doorway. The smell of bacon and brewing coffee made his stomach growl. He backed out and craned his neck at Cora’s door. It stood open and revealed a neatly made bed and stacks of luggage. He fought the urge to go inside and snoop. The odds of finding anything in her bags to tell him why she’d shown up on his doorstep were low. He’d rather not risk being discovered rifling through her things.
The ring of his cell phone startled him. He snatched it off the dresser and glanced at the display. It was Ignatius, the oldest dragon of their cobbled-together tribe and the head of the Brotherhood.
“Yeah?” Stig didn’t bother with the usual “good morning.”
“Any problems last night?” Ignatius was gruff and all business.
“No.” Stig didn’t hesitate. Mentioning Cora’s presence would just piss Ignatius off, and that was the last thing he needed right now. There was no reason for his very, very old friend to get bent out of shape. Cora would be gone by lunch.
“Good. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
The line went dead. Stig tossed his phone onto the bed and made quick work of pulling on some jeans and a navy blue tee. His work boots and belt completed his laid-back ensemble. Finding out what had brought Cora to his doorstep last night, complete with her entire apartment in boxes, remained his top priority. If she was in real trouble, he’d move heaven and hell to protect her, but if it was something less pressing, she had to get out of his cabin until his phase ended. As he dressed, Stig tried to think of how to approach the subject of evicting Cora from the guest bedroom. It sure as hell wouldn’t be easy.
Downstairs the delicious scents of a home-cooked breakfast nearly knocked him off his feet. His mouth watered with anticipation as he entered the kitchen and swept his gaze over the table near the bay window. Plates laden with his favorites took center stage: biscuits fresh out of the oven, scrambled eggs, and crispy bacon strips. Apparently she intended to butter him up with food. Frankly that was a-okay with him.
“Morning.” Cora smiled at him from behind the butcher block island. Seeing her in the same light blue camisole and striped cotton drawstring bottoms from the dream hit him like a punch to the gut. She alternated scoops of vanilla yogurt and berries into rocks glasses. “You don’t have parfait cups,” she explained, and placed the glasses on the table.
“Never needed them.” Stig poured a cup of coffee from the steaming carafe and sat in his usual chair. He grabbed a plate and piled food onto it. Across the table, Cora served herself and sipped apple juice. Bringing up the dreams seemed best done while they were occupied with food. “You sleep okay?”
“Yes.”
Her clipped reply caught his attention. Despite her downward gaze, the stain of a blush was evident on her cheeks. His belly clenched. So that hadn’t been a simple dream. His dragon had preyed on Cora’s psychic energy. That type of thing had happened before but never in such a sexual manner. In the close, cramped quarters at war, Stig often found it impossible to keep from feeding off the dream energy of his comrades. He’d joined his friends on fishing excursions and football games and the like but this thing with Cora? That was all new.
Cora held up a glass jar. “Where did you get these raspberry preserves?”
Clearly she wanted to change the subject. “Farmer’s market in town. They get together every Saturday morning on the courthouse lawn.”
“I’ll have to check it out.” She painted a thin layer of the deep red spread over a halved biscuit.
Her comment reminded him of the real issue at hand. Best to approach the situation delicately. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“Awhile?” She glanced at him as if to gauge his response. “Maybe. Possibly.” She bit her plump lower lip before continuing. Stig tried not to focus on the soft pink flesh compressed between her teeth. If he did, things might get a bit more heated than necessary. “I…um…the thing is…I’m sort of in trouble.”
Stig’s ears perked. All thoughts of a lustful nature fled. “Sort of?” He frowned. “You either are or you aren’t. Which is it?”
“In,” she said quietly. “I’m really in the shit.”
“Money trouble?”
“Kind of.” Her sheepish expression told him there was more to this story than he probably wanted to know.
Stig sighed and sat back in his chair. “No more ‘kind of’ or ‘sort of,’ Cora. Just tell me what’s going on, okay?”
“Okay.” She exhaled heavily and launched into her tale. “So you know how after Grams died, I inherited the bakery, right? Well it turns out Hector was in a lot of debt after he died. He’d started gambling, I guess. Underground stuff.”
“Shit.” Stig shook his head and rubbed his jaw. Hector had always been a little too fond of card games, races, and dice but Stig had never imagined he’d get himself in that kind of trouble. Then again, Stig hadn’t ever expected Hector to plow his truck into a telephone pole either.
“Yeah. Deep shit,” Cora clarified. “A few weeks after he died, these guys showed up at the bakery. They were so scary.”
Stig heard the fear in her voice. It rattled his core. He could just imagine what kind of lowlifes had shown up on her doorstep. “What did they want?”
“Money. Lots of it. And I didn’t have it, Stig. The bakery was barely in the black. All of the companies that we depended on for business were closing down or laying off their workers. My breakfast rush was hardly a trickle through the door. Lunch was even worse. Catering orders nosedived. And birthday cakes?” She shook her head. “When families make cuts, businesses like mine are the first to go.”
Cora went silent. Shame flickered across her face. Stig sensed her reluctance. “Cora?” he prodded gently.
“You have to understand, Stig. I’d just lost my grandmother and my brother within three weeks. I was so confused and swimming in grief. I was desperate. I just wanted them to leave me alone.” She blinked rapidly. A glimmer of tears obscured her soft green eyes. “They told me they wanted me to make some deliveries. They’d drop a box with an address at my back door. I’d hide their box in one of my bigger boxes of cookies or pastries and send my deliveryman on his way.”
Stig tried not to let the disappointment show on his face. Inside was a different matter. He wanted to shout at her, chastise her for such stupidity. He counted backward from ten to get a handle on his frustration. “What was in the boxes?”
“Drugs. Money. Guns.” Cora shrugged. “I don’t know. I was too afraid to look. What if the person on the other end of the shipment reported tampering?”
He could appreciate that fear. “I suppose something went haywire at some point.”
“My delivery guy was T-boned at an intersection during a rainstorm. The boxes of cakes and pastries and cookies went flying all over the damn road. One of them just happened to spill out a brick of cocaine.”
“For fuck’s sake!” Stig kneaded his temples. “Were you arrested?”
“No. But the story hit the evening news. At that point, I had, like, nine employ
ees I hadn’t let go because of finances. All but four of them quit. My regulars were canceling orders left and right.” She gave a sad little shrug. “At that point, I figured my ass was already toast, so I told the cops the truth.” Cora issued a sarcastic laugh. “Needless to say, the people I’d been ferrying boxes for were none too pleased.”
More tears welled in her eyes. She sniffled loudly. “I went ahead and opened for breakfast the next morning. You know, burritos and pastries and all that. Right before eight, some jerk in a white cargo van drove by and tossed two Molotov cocktails through the front windows. We barely made it out alive. After the police were done questioning me yesterday morning, I grabbed my stuff and I ran.”
“To me,” Stig murmured.
“To you.” Cora dabbed at her face with a napkin. “You were the first person to pop into my head. I knew you’d find a way to help me, but that eight-hour drive here was the longest of my life. ”
Stig reeled with shock at Cora’s revelation of criminal misdeeds. “We’ll have to get you a lawyer.”
She nodded. “A friend of mine is an intern in the public defender’s office. Her boss was able to keep me out of cuffs but he thinks the district attorney will probably hold jail over my head in exchange for testimony.”
Stig cursed softly and wiped a hand down his face. “Why didn’t you come to me before, Cora?” He didn’t even bother to hide the aggravation in his voice. “I would have helped you! I would have given you the money to cover Hector’s debts.”
“There’s no way you have the kind of cash on hand these people wanted, Stig. You were a marine just like Hector. I’m sure your furniture business does well, but there’s no way you’re pulling in those kinds of profits.”
Of course, Stig thought with some sadness. Cora had no idea what kind of wealth he’d amassed over the centuries. To her, he was nothing more than a former marine and woodworker. She had no way of knowing the truth—that he was an immortal dragon. During his lifetime, he’d bought and sold property, invested in new technologies and pharmaceuticals and more. He wasn’t as wealthy as, say, Ignatius or Reynard, but his bank account showed a very healthy balance.
