by Tasha Black
He stepped toward her, slowly, so that she could move away if she wished.
But she remained where she was, waiting for him.
He wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Was it because you wanted to borrow Tansy’s sexy nightgowns?” he whispered.
“No,” she whispered back, smiling.
“Was it because you craved blueberry pie?” he asked.
She shook her head, eyes dancing.
“Hmm…” he pretended to think. “Was it because you wanted to solve a mystery on a peach farm?”
She tilted her chin up and laughed, the moonlight turning her neck to porcelain.
Drago thought his heart would burst.
“Why then, little mate?” he asked her. “Why did you help us?”
“Because of you,” she admitted, smiling.
A victorious heat burned in his chest.
“Because of me,” he echoed, still teasing her, just a little because he wanted the moment to last.
But when she nodded and gazed up at him he knew he couldn’t hold back anymore.
“I’ve loved you since the day I laid eyes on you,” he growled, pulling her close.
Arden pressed herself closer still, making him wild with the feel of her soft breasts crushed against his chest.
He cupped her cheek in his hand and fought the thunderous demands of his body to kiss her, long and slow.
She melted against him, so warm and soft it seemed like he must be dreaming.
He pulled back slightly.
Arden’s eyes were hazy with need.
It was all happening so quickly, too quickly.
“Arden,” he groaned.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I choose you as my mate,” he told her. “Will you accept me?”
Time seemed to stretch in the instant after the question left his lips. The air was still and even the trees seemed to await her answer.
“Yes,” she said, her lovely eyes luminous. “Yes, I accept you as my mate.”
Then she was pressed to him all over again, her tongue tangled with his, hands twining around his neck as he lifted her in his arms.
Drago prayed for the restraint to carry her back down the hill and into her room above the barn before claiming her.
“No,” she pulled away from his kiss to whisper. “I want to stay here.”
“But—” he began.
“Here,” she said again, wriggling out of his arms and whipping the wrap off her shoulders.
He looked around them. A mad jealousy was forming at the idea of his mate being in view of anyone but him. Yet he was frantic with the need to claim her.
The forest of peach trees around them blocked the view of the barn and the farmhouse below.
Hardly daring to believe that the moment was finally upon them, he took the wrap from her and spread it on the ground at her feet.
She stepped out of her sandals and onto the fabric.
As she watched, he peeled his t-shirt over his head and laid it by the wrap.
Arden licked her lips at the sight of his bare chest.
He smiled and pushed his jeans and boxers over his hips slowly, making her wait.
Her eyes widened at the sight of his cock, which was already rigid and pulsing with desire.
When his clothes were removed, he moved toward her.
She slid her hands up over his chest, the gentle contact sizzling his blood.
When he dragged the hem of her shirt over her head, she lifted her arms to help him.
The scent of peaches was released as the shirt moved over her hair.
She stood before him, nothing but her lacy bra separating him from her breasts.
He slid a hand around to her back and flicked the thing open.
Arden gasped in surprise, but she let the scrap of lace fall at her feet.
He went to his knees as he licked one nipple into his mouth, teasing the other between his thumb and forefinger.
Arden’s breath caught.
He moved lower, nuzzling her belly as he peeled off her shorts and panties.
The sweet warmth of her filled his senses. He placed one hand on each of her thighs and leaned in close, losing himself in her delicate fragrance.
Arden held perfectly still, waiting for his touch.
His heart was full at this evidence that she yearned for him too.
He pressed his lips to her sex, unwilling to make her wait another heartbeat.
She tangled her fingers in his hair and he gripped her hips, pulling her more firmly against his mouth.
She tasted like he remembered, unlike anything he’d ever experienced, and better. He lapped at her again and again, losing himself in the sounds she made, the feel of her opening against his tongue.
When Arden began to whimper and thrust her hips against him he knew she was ready.
He managed to stop long enough to take her hand and ease her down onto the ground with him.
22
Arden
Arden’s body and heart were finally in perfect sync, both racked with waves of need for Drago as she joined him on the makeshift blanket of cast off clothing.
Drago cushioned her head with his hand, in an instinctively protective gesture that nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“Drago,” she murmured, unable to put words to her need.
“Yes, my love,” he whispered back, running his free hand down her body, caressing her breasts, her belly, her hips, and cupping her sex.
“Please,” she whispered.
“You’re ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whimpered.
He smiled triumphantly and leaned down to kiss her.
The sensual movement of his tongue against hers made her lust boil over. She kissed him back with something between need and despair.
At last he crawled on top of her, caging her head in his arms.
“Arden Green, I love you,” he told her, gazing into her eyes.
“I love you too,” she said.
When he pressed his enormous cock against her opening she was surprised to find that she felt no fear. She wanted him, needed him. If pain was part of it, she was ready.
But Drago moved so gently that a burning stretch was the worst of it and then he was fully seated inside her.
“Arden,” he whispered, his voice filled with wonder.
She felt that wonder too, the peace of having him inside her, even as her body clawed for more.
She twined her arms around his neck, lifting her hips to encourage him.
He growled and slid himself partly out of her, then gently back in.
The pleasure sent shivers down her limbs. Arden sank her nails into his arms.
He moved in and out again, groaning as he filled her.
Arden felt the pleasure gathering already, circling around her like storm clouds, pushing her closer.
Arden jogged her hips up to meet him, craving stronger, deeper thrusts, her body crying out for him to let her have it all.
“Easy,” he whispered to her through a clenched jaw.
“Please,” she moaned. “Please, please, please.”
“Arden,” he groaned.
But she must have broken down his resolve. Suddenly he was thrusting furiously, filling her again and again, sending her into a paroxysm of need.
He slid a hand between them and massaged her clitoris as he filled her.
Arden was flying. She lost track of her own sounds as the pleasure pulled her nearly out of her body and then crashed her down again in a series of ecstatic convulsions.
Drago cried out and she felt him swell impossibly larger inside her, moaning her name as he filled her with his seed.
The air had been so still, but suddenly it seemed to swirl around them, as if it were a part of their joining. The breeze whispered in the branches of the peach trees overhead.
And the trees whispered back, with the gentle sigh of a hundred violins.
Arden opened her eyes.
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“Drago,” she whispered, unwilling to look away from the sight before her, even for a moment.
“What is it, my love?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
But she knew the moment he saw it too, because he went silent.
Silhouetted against the moon above, peach blossoms unfurled from every branch as far as the eye could see.
Not just one tree or two or ten, but all of them, all of the peach trees were blossoming in the moonlight.
“Did you do this?” she whispered.
“No,” he said softly. “We did.”
23
Arden
Arden stood beneath the peach trees again the next morning.
She and Drago had repeated their performance several times last night. Drago teased her that he only wanted to aid the trees, but they both knew it was because he couldn’t help himself. She couldn’t help herself either.
At dawn they had dressed and crept down the hillside to clean up and wake the others to bring them up here.
Now the six of them stood under the fragrant canopy of the trees.
The blossoms were so beautiful, delicate as if they were sugar-spun, pink as the blush of pleasure on Tansy’s cheeks.
“I can’t believe it,” Tansy said again.
She had been repeating this happy phrase over and over since the blooming trees had come into view.
Burton stood beneath one of the trees, watching Tansy, his roughly handsome features gone soft as he observed her joy.
It won’t be long before they are mated too, Arden thought to herself.
A little shiver of happiness shot through her at the idea.
“What are you thinking?” Drago asked, stepping close to wrap an arm around her.
And although they had spent the night in one mad embrace after another, his touch still sent butterflies fluttering in her chest.
“I am glad to be here,” she told him, wondering if he would realize she was repeating his words from last night.
He squeezed her tight and pressed his lips to her head.
“We’re saved, guys,” Tansy said, spinning around to face them all.
“Not so fast,” Sage said. “We still have to get ready for the season. Hundreds of tourists, hundreds of bushel baskets, hundreds of parking spaces…”
“One thing at a time,” Tansy told her sister. “First we need the bees. These things won’t pollinate themselves. I’ll text Hal.”
“I’m really glad you’re here,” Sage told Arden. “Not just for the peaches, for everything.”
Sage smiled and Arden was touched. Sage was the sensible type. Her words meant something.
“Thank you for taking us in,” Arden said. “We had no idea how lucky we were when you did.”
“Guys,” Tansy said, looking down at her phone in dismay. “I hate to break up the love fest, but we’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?” Burton asked.
“Hal’s bees were stolen.”
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“What do you mean stolen?” Sage demanded.
“Bees are a valuable commodity,” Arden explained. “They’re essential to crops, but they’re dying off in droves. This kind of theft is not unheard of.”
“She’s right,” Tansy said.
“What do we do now?” Sage asked.
“I’ll start making some calls,” Tansy said. “This is a problem that can be solved.”
“Any problem can be solved,” Drago said, looking down at Arden.
“Easy, tiger,” Tansy joked.
Arden and the others laughed, but as she looked up into the twinkling blue eyes of her beautiful mate, she knew he was right. They were still fugitives. She didn’t know what the next day was going to bring, let alone the next year. But suddenly it didn’t matter.
There was no mountain they couldn’t climb together.
***
Thanks for reading Drago!
Keep reading for a sample of the next Stargazer Alien Mail Order Brides book: Burton.
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http://www.tashablack.com/stargazer.html
Burton (Sample)
1
Tansy
Tansy was dreaming, but in the dream she wasn’t herself.
It was twilight, the last of the sun’s glow trailed pale fingers along the hillside, setting the blossoming peach trees alight.
The earth was cool against dream-Tansy’s feet. She turned from the trees and trotted down the hill into the berry bushes, her stride smooth and silent.
In the shadow of dusk, the bushes seemed much taller than usual and the leaves and berries larger, releasing the scent of sunlight with every step she took into the valley.
Something was very different.
The soil was so fragrant, and soft beneath her feet, as if she were walking on a trampoline. Her muscles tensed like a coiled spring.
She tried jumping and was amazed to find herself sailing sideways through the air.
She landed lightly and lowered herself instinctively to the ground, ready to pounce and pin.
She definitely wasn’t herself tonight. But she wasn’t sure what she was.
Before she could concern herself with it, an incredible scent caught her attention.
It wasn’t danger or milk or meat, but something just as heady and attractive.
Her feet were moving before she had made up her mind.
She stalked her way across the farm, sticking to the shadows, pulled like gravity to the force that called to her from across the acres.
She slipped under the split rail fence that separated Martin’s Bounty from Dolly Strickland’s farm just west of theirs.
Bright eyes gleamed from the shadow beneath the oak tree.
A shiver went through Tansy’s frame.
He slipped out of the shadows, sleek and sinuous. Yellow eyes, midnight black fur, muscular shoulders rolling under that sleek pelt as he approached.
Jett. Dolly Strickland’s cat.
But he was as huge as a panther.
No. He wasn’t bigger. Tansy was smaller somehow.
She froze in place as Jett reached her at last, thrusting his head into her neck and rolling his body against the length of hers.
The delicious scent of him enveloped her and she applied her own cheek to his haunch. A rumble warmed her chest as she realized who she was in this dream.
She was a cat. That much was clear.
But she wasn’t just any cat - she was Cleo, Jett’s paramour and companion.
Tansy was her own cat.
She’d never dreamed as another person before, let alone another species.
Jett abruptly ended their greeting and stalked into the trees at the edge of Strickland’s farm.
Tansy followed, fascinated.
They traveled between the trunks, the looming trees making her feel even smaller.
A bug skittered across Tansy’s path, its movements oddly jerky.
Her paw shout out automatically and she batted the air around the bug, testing.
But it continued on its anxious way into the shelter of the undergrowth.
Jett turned over his shoulder and fixed her with his amber gaze.
Follow.
Tansy pretended to be bathing her paw, as if to say she hadn’t been playing with the passing bug at all, just washing up.
Follow, his eyes repeated.
She relented and went to him.
He gave her an affectionate head butt, then continued on his way as her senses reeled again at his scent.
The dim of the trees gave way to soft green light ahead.
Jett hung close to the trees now, his dark fur nearly invisible as he cloaked himself in shadow.
Tansy’s tabby coloring camouflaged her well, she hoped. But she followed Jett’s lead, trying to make herself merge with the leaves and soil.
In the clearing ahead, Tansy saw a human figure. He was male - tall and muscular. And there was something fami
liar about him.
Then she saw another figure, seated on a stump. This one was also familiar.
Tansy froze, whiskers quivering.
The seated figure turned to look at her.
It’s me…
The world seemed to blur out of focus.
She blinked.
When she opened her eyes she was looking at Cleo, who stood frozen at the edge of the meadow.
She could feel the stump beneath her, the rough bark under her fingers.
The clearing was a brighter green than before, but its fragrance was more subtle.
Cleo blinked at her and she felt faint.
“Tansy,” a deep voice said.
She had forgotten there was another human in the clearing.
She turned to the voice.
It was Burton. Of course it was.
He moved toward her, the lean muscles under his t-shirt reminding her of Jett for a blinding second.
He knelt at her feet, luminous brown eyes searching hers. An expression of concern made his unbearably handsome face somehow even more beautiful.
“Tansy,” Burton whispered, placing his big hands on the stump, caging her hips.
But now that she was in the thrall of his nearness, she couldn’t remember what had frightened her.
Warmth emanated from him and he smelled delicious, a combination of forest and spices and something so masculine…
She leaned in to him, a flower to the sun.
The concern in his eyes turned to hunger.
She twined her arms around his neck as he kissed her, one hand between her shoulder blades, pulling her closer.
Tansy’s pulse thundered in her ears, her body tingling with stimulation, hardly able to register each sensation. His warm mouth sought hers, demanding yet gentle. His strong arms felt so solid around her, and the beat of his heart thumped against her chest, not as frantic as hers, but resounding. It pounded out a rhythm of need that pulled at her until she hurt.
Something cried out in the distance.
Tansy tried to push the sound away, to lose herself in Burton’s embrace.
It cried out again, in a familiar cadence.
