by Selena Scott
Where was Idris? She felt like an idiot for hoping he was nearby, but there was no fighting it. She wanted him.
Even so, she squeaked in fear when the door to the playroom swung open.
“It’s me,” Idris said in a low voice, filling the light in the doorway with his bulk. The room fell dark as he stepped in, closed the door. She heard the soft swishing sound of his shirt coming over his head. And then the clop of his shoes being kicked off. She heard a belt hit the ground and she mentally roped her lady parts down.
Come on. This was crazy. She was not about to jump this guy’s bones. Everything in both of their lives had just been completely turned upside down. Hell, the very RULES of the world had been turned upside down.
But still, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t get a lady boner from listening to him undress in the dark. She braced, still as a mouse in the bed.
He stood over her.
“I’ll sleep on the floor if you want. But I’d rather sleep on the bed.”
Well, shit. She’d rather he slept on the bed, too. She just didn’t want to have to say it out loud. Even after everything that had happened tonight, she still had a little pride.
Instead of saying anything, she just scooted all the way over to one side. And then he crawled into bed and stretched out in one smooth move.
They both laughed out loud when his weight flung Isla’s side of the bed up in the air and rolled her right over onto his chest. His arms automatically came around her back. The way they had in the hallway at his mother’s house. It made her want to purr.
“So, apparently I’m a dragon shifter,” he said. And the two of them were laughing even harder.
“What does that even mean?” she gasped, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Fuck if I know. Apparently they want to show me tomorrow. Take us to…” he paused. Like he didn’t want to say it out loud.
“Oh, I heard. The dragon realm.”
He was chuckling at how hard she was giggling. A little bit of hysteria from her day seeping into the moment.
"It's nice to hear you laugh," he murmured into her hair. "I never heard you laugh at the club."
She wiped the tears from her eyes and propped her chin up on her fist, his chest beneath her. "There wasn't a ton to laugh about at the club."
He murmured back in his throat, like he couldn't argue. One large hand swept down her back, almost absently, as if he knew his touch was welcome. He was enjoying her without the nervousness of first touches.
She couldn't lie. She liked the confidence.
"So, what do you think?" he asked her. "Should we go with these crazies tomorrow?"
Isla closed her eyes, felt his solid presence beneath her. Smelled his smell. Vaguely smoky, all man. She sighed. "Look, Idris, I don't care if we're going to the moon tomorrow. If it's somewhere that Ivan can't follow me, I'm in."
The smile that grew on his face damn near burned her eyes out. She'd never seen a face change so completely. He suddenly looked a lot like his younger brother, boyish, delighted. "So. We're going."
Whatever wall that Isla had firmly bricked into place after their first kiss pretty much came tumbling right down.
"One condition," she said.
His face sobered. Serious, calm, waiting.
"You have to tell me how you got these," she said, one finger tracing the edge of the bruises on his cheekbone. She followed the line down his neck and, after only a second of hesitation, over his shoulder and chest.
He stayed very still under her touch, like he didn't want to scare her away. "You gave me those," he said.
Her eyes snapped up to his. "Excuse me?"
"You distracted me. I fight, for money. Only I was thinking of you. And not of my opponent."
"What were you thinking about?" Her voice was huskier than she might have wanted it to be at that moment.
"I was thinking about what it would be like to have you thinking about me while you danced tonight."
"And what was it like?" Suddenly, the lines where their bodies touched, her weight up on his chest, weren't lined with warm comfort. There was a thin, slicing edge of fire between them. One that shortened her breath. Liquefied her insides. Sent everything within her on a slow, liquid slide.
He chuffed out a little frustrated laugh. "Pretty much the hottest fucking thing I've ever seen. All that focus, that attention on me. For me."
She shifted against him although she was doing everything she could to hold her body still. He wasn't moving. He was somehow doing the iceberg thing while simultaneously melting her against him.
His voice lowered an octave. "Your body was yours. There, under such control. But it was also mine. All those men wanting you. Screaming for you. But you were mine."
Isla shifted her legs, she couldn't keep still, and they slid along the length of his. She felt the rasp of his hair against her sensitive instep. Her hands flattened and then fisted against the skin of his chest. He didn't move except to pull the hairband out the end of her braid. He cruised his hand through her hair and sent it tossing all around the two of them.
"You were moving for me," he continued. "Showing me what you'd do for me if we were alone."
Isla's breath started coming up short. She'd never had someone describe this to her before. For her, stripping had always been deeply impersonal. It had to be. In order to get up on that stage every night and do it over and over again, it had to be. But here he was, peeling that theory like an orange. Because it was right. It had been personal. And it hadn't been just a dirty moment between two strangers. She would never have admitted it then, but now, with the events of the night crystallizing around them, with nothing but their heartbeats and her thin shirt between them, she had to tell the truth. At least to herself.
"In those moments," he said, "I was a king. And you were my queen."
Isla dropped her mouth to his, unable to stop herself. It was like she was dying of thirst and she'd just stumbled upon an orange. She devoured him. Her hands were in his hair, her legs instantly banding around his waist. She pressed herself to him, knowing he could feel her heat even through her thin pants.
And praise Jesus, the iceberg was gone. And there was a volcano in its place. Idris's hands instantly found her ass. He gripped and slid his hands along her curves like he was holding on for dear life. Not for the first time, Isla said a little prayer of thanks that she had more than enough for a man to grab onto.
Their mouths were in a fused, biting slide. They warred for control of the kiss. Isla fought with him and with herself. So much of her just wanted to melt into him and take and take and take. She was sinuous melting wax over top of him, heating and moaning into him.
She needed him.
The thought cooled her like lemon on a paper cut. Had her eyes flinging open and her lips tearing away from his. She'd had a hard day. There was a lot going on. But she didn't need him.
She reared back, caught halfway between straining toward him and away from him.
But he was sitting up then, too, smashing his chest against hers as he pinned her legs around him with his hands.
"Enough," he said, and his voice had enough surety, enough primal command that he silenced her internal battle.
She held still. His hands were strong on her knees, but he wasn't holding her down. The only thing that was restraining her was his eyes. And she was caught. Pinned. She felt an electric wire buzzing between them that she didn't dare break. If she looked away, she'd go spinning off into the atmosphere.
"Don't twist away from me," he growled. "You need this. And I’m going to give it to you."
Isla couldn't help but press her hips forward the tiniest amount.
Something just on the edge of arrogance touched at his eyes, but his expression remained stern.
He continued on, not moving an inch. "And then you're going to fall asleep in my arms. And know that you're safe. Do you hear me?"
She remained still, like a rabbit faced with a fox.
"Don'
t make me repeat myself."
She nodded her head. "Yes," she whispered.
"Say it again." The command was so crisp, so clear, that it had the words tripping out of her mouth.
"Yes. I want it."
And those were the last words before he'd gripped her shirt in his hands, ripped it off over her head. He growled at her sports bra, but that too was gone in a matter of seconds. His eyes bored into her breasts, but he wasn't deterred from his mission. He lifted her off of him like she weighed nothing. He rolled her over and slid her pants off of her. He growled even more when he realized that she didn't wear any underwear.
Her heart was racing like the hoofbeats of a runaway horse. She'd never known this kind of rising feeling. It balanced on the delicious edge of excitement and panic. She felt like she might just cease to exist the second he stopped touching her.
But luckily he didn't stop touching her.
He reared up over her on all fours. Caging her in. His chest rose and fell in massive breaths. He was equal parts wild and controlled. Rising, thrashing, and restrained. Isla felt that looking into his eye was like looking into the eye of a circling tiger.
But he didn't give her long to think it over. Because then he dropped his face to her breasts. She could feel his beard intentionally scraping over the tight gather of her nipple. He inhaled the scent of her like a madman. And then his mouth. A painful pull at her breast that spoke of such need for her that she arched and rose up off the bed, wild for him.
But then he was back on his knees, ripping himself away from her. His eyes went serious. There was still so much heat. But he was sober.
Bending over her, he reached for one arm. He grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers for just a moment before he circled her forearm and dragged his hands down to her shoulder, touching every inch of her arm. The other one got the same treatment. And then it was her chest. Her breasts were covered with his massive palms, pressed, kneaded, but he moved down, over her belly. One finger dipped into the crater of her navel before he went down even further. Over her hipbones, to her thighs, around to her ass. He stroked over her thighs, down her calves, all the way to the arch of her foot. He traced in between each of her toes. And then slid his hands under her, to touch her back. And then her ears, her nose. He gently glided his hands over her face, threading his fingers into her hair, over every inch of her scalp.
And then finally, so gently, he trailed his hands over her neck, over the bruises that were starting to shine in a delicate necklace. She shivered against the touch. But not in fear. Not in pain.
In understanding. He was reclaiming her body, ensuring she wouldn’t remember anyone else. Not the men who tucked dollar bills in her g-strings. Not any lovers who may have come before him. And certainly not Ivan.
She wanted to touch him, but couldn’t move from being touched. Her body trembled. Rose. Heated. For all of her last year trading in her sexuality, she’d been touched almost never. There were never any liaisons. No dates. No furious scuffles in the back seat of some guy’s car. There was the endless rev of stripping, dancing. And there was solitude. Home alone.
But he was remedying that, stroking it away with each persistent touch of his hand. He was undoing her. Hatching her shell away. She was opening for him.
And then, when the thought was too much, too intimate, he leaned down over her and touched the pit of her arm. She giggled with the tickle of it and he did her one better, burying his face there next. He took a hearty sniff of her there and her eyes went wide with laughter and surprise.
“You perv!” she giggled as he bit and buried his face there.
“I’m not a perv,” he said, smiling. “I’m a man. And no man can turn down that smell. The smell of a woman all sweaty and turned on for him.”
And then his mouth took hers again, for just a second. A sliding meeting of tongues that was over too fast. Because he slid down her body, little by little, open-mouthed kissing as he went.
He shouldered her knees apart and looked up at her.
“Isla,” he said, his eyes like burning emeralds. “This is the only touch I want you to remember from tonight.” Keeping his eyes on hers, he lowered his tongue to her pussy and buried it.
Isla bucked with the sensation. Her eyes slammed closed as she tightened around him.
He groaned against her flavor, but he pulled his tongue away. “No.”
Her eyes flew open and she stared down at him.
“Look at me,” he said. “Don’t look away.”
And then he was on her again. His tongue working a tight circle around her clit before he lowered his head and suckled her. Isla was so close already. She hadn’t realized how close to the edge he’d brought her just by working his hands over every inch of her.
She planted her feet and pushed her hips up, rising toward him and approval flashed in his eyes.
He was devouring her, his tongue doing things she hadn’t thought were humanly possible. Isla clamped a hand over her mouth, knowing that they were just one door away from a lot of other people. But she couldn’t silence every moan that worked its way out of her as he worked his tongue over her.
He was sucking her, swallowing her, spearing her until she shook with the pleasure of it. He was filling her with the sensation. Every place he’d touched before that was echoing, buzzing, rising, joining the feeling that was purring in her pussy.
His eyes were hot on hers and she was caught, spinning away and up, through the atmosphere. Her body tensed, down to the head of a pin. And then she exploded.
She was a writhing, straining river of gold as she rode his mouth from the bottom. She couldn’t be contained. She was every element at once. The first woman to walk the earth. The earth itself.
She collapsed in a heap underneath him. As tired as she was, there was no missing the arrogant grin that crossed his face as he crawled back up over her.
“God, you taste good,” he muttered as he nuzzled his face into her neck.
And all she felt was the burn of his beard, his nose at her ear. She only felt the open-mouthed kisses he rained over her collar bone. She didn’t feel the bruises she knew were there. She didn’t feel the echo of Ivan’s hands.
The only touch she could feel was Idris’s. The only touch she could remember.
The thought made Isla's eyes sting. He had reclaimed her body. So that he could give it back to her. So that it could be hers again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
This was ridiculous. Intellectually, he knew it was utterly ridiculous to be hiking into the mountains with a bunch of people he’d never even met before tonight. And, oh yeah, his long-lost father and brother. And his new… girlfriend? All because they wanted to prove to him that he was a dragon?
Jesus.
This wasn’t just ridiculous. This was insanity.
But he was going. Half of him was going because Isla had agreed to it. The other half of him was going because of the racing in his chest. The itch in his skin. The beast that he’d always known had lived inside of him.
He’d always chalked it up to energy. Or having a really strong instinctual side or some shit. He’d never in his life thought that there was literally a dragon living inside of him. But here he was, hiking into the woods to find a portal to the dragon realm. So it must make sense to him on some level.
His mom had been the final nail in the coffin. His mother was the most rational, most stoic person he’d ever met. And she was stone cold and clear-eyed when she’d told him that it was true. That his father and brother and he were all dragons.
He watched the group of them trot up the mountain. All the people he’d met the night before and a bunch of kids he hadn’t yet figured out who belonged to whom. He and Amos brought up the rear of the group. He supposed that it was some deeply-ingrained man thing that they wanted to make sure there were no stragglers.
He knew that there was something here worth following. Some thread that rang true. Even if he hadn’t fully bought in yet. Something
in Idris’s spidey senses tingled though. He knew that there was something they weren’t telling him.
On the drive up the mountain, they’d told him and Isla all about this bad dude, King Dalyer. He was the reason that the dragon realm was in such bad shape these days. Dalyer had apparently driven Idris’s mother and father out when she was pregnant with him. That’s why they’d come to the human realm in the first place. It wasn’t safe for them anymore.
And then when they’d realized that O was an oracle - they’d explained that part to them as well - his mother and father had known that they had to return him to the dragon realm so that he could live in peace. Even Idris had to admit that the human realm was no place to raise an oracle.
“That’s a good way for your kid to end up a homeless, heroin addict runaway,” Isla had said. And he couldn’t have said it better himself.
All that made sense to him. But he knew there was something they weren’t telling him. Something about him that was important. They all looked at him so urgently. So carefully. As if they were waiting for him to do something special or important. He just knew there was more to the story.
He didn’t want to push it though, for Isla’s sake as much as his. So far, she’d rolled with the punches amazingly well. Better than he had, actually. He didn’t want to do anything that might scare her off. The final straw.
He really wanted her with him. That much was clear. His bone deep need to protect her, care for her, that was less clear to him. It had come up quick. Although, he supposed he’d been guarding her for about a year. It was just that the last couple of days had moved quickly.
But no harm, no foul, because here she was, hiking in a pair of skin tight jeans and a little blue hoodie that hugged her curves and brought out the bloom in her cheeks.
He’d been surprised when he’d seen her in the morning light. He’d never seen her without makeup on before. She was so gorgeous it hurt him. Like a lightning bolt to the chest. She’d looked like springtime. Fresh. Young. Blooming. And so sexy it was a struggle to walk straight.
