by Callie Rose
I was about to open my mouth to thank him—I was beyond healed by now, the marks from Wyatt’s claws not even visible as faint scars anymore—but instead of rising to his feet, he crawled between my legs, tugging my boots and leggings off in a swift, smooth motion. I kicked my feet a little to help him, my eyes flying wide as I watched him pull his own shirt off next, followed by his pants.
Fucking hell, he really was beautiful. He was lean and muscled, not as bulky as Xero or Jayce, but perfectly defined. His pecs were smooth and lightly tanned, and I bit my lip so hard it nearly bled as I counted each ridge in his eight pack before sliding my gaze over to greedily take in the chiseled V at his hips.
My breathing had grown heavier, and without even meaning to, I had reached up to cup my breasts, pinching and tugging at my nipples as need built in me like steam gathering in a covered pot.
Kingston made a noise that made my clit throb, and when my gaze flew up to meet his eyes, I swore I could see flames dancing behind his glittering green irises.
“You’re beautiful when you touch yourself, Piper.” A sinful smirk curled his lips. “I like a woman who knows how to take charge of her own pleasure.”
Keeping his gaze fixed on me, he moved deliberately, reaching down to fist his thick cock in one hand, stroking up and down with long, deliberate motions. A whimper fell from my lips as I watched him swirl his thumb over the smooth head, twisting his fist slightly before stroking downward again. He made another noise, this one a little strangled.
“Touch yourself,” he murmured, still stroking his cock as his gaze dropped to my bared pussy. “I want to see what drives you wild. I want to see you come.”
A full-body shiver worked its way through me at the raw need in his voice. Fuck it, I would take this. If Kingston wasn’t ready to take things further between us, this was the next best thing I could imagine. My clit throbbed with an aching need as I watched his fist glide up and down on his cock, the muscles of his abdomen clenching in time to his strokes.
I was dying for some damn relief, but just to make sure he knew he didn’t get to call all the shots here, I took my sweet time following his command. One hand continued to play with my breast while the fingers of my other hand traced a lazy path down the pale skin of my stomach, detouring to brush over my ribs, circling my bellybutton, before finally sliding over the rise of my pubic bone and finding the hard nub of my clit.
My gaze flicked up to his, and I grinned at the way the green of his irises seemed to deepen and darken. When my fingers began to move in small circles, his jaw ticked and his nostrils flared.
I dipped my fingers down, sliding two into my pussy and spreading my lips, and Kingston’s breath hitched.
His own hand moved faster, the motion growing harder and more desperate, and I couldn’t decide where to look—at his hard, beautiful cock, his perfect body, or his gorgeous, lust-filled face.
We both watched each other raptly, consumed by everything about the sight of each other’s pleasure. There was something oddly intimate about it, and even though no part of our bodies were actually touching, the very air around us seemed to be infused with so much sex, so much energy and desire, that I could feel it powering me up as I breathed it into my lungs.
Kingston cursed under his breath, the strained, almost angry expression on his face tightening even further as he sat on his heels between my legs, jerking himself off with sharp strokes.
“God, so good.”
My moan was breathless, and my hips arched off the mattress to meet my fingers, which became a blur of motion as I worked myself toward a toe-curling orgasm.
I was close, so close, my body starting to shake and my heart thrumming in my chest, when Kingston gave a loud grunt and yanked my hand away.
Shock flooded me, and I yelped in surprise before letting out a plaintive moan. I was still hovering on the edge, and I just needed one more touch to send myself hurtling off a cliff into blissful oblivion.
I was about to pull my hand out of Kingston’s grip when a single word stopped me.
“Mine.”
My heart stuttered, and my arm went limp in his grasp as my gaze flew up to meet his. Something had shifted in his expression, and the dragon in him seemed to be lurking just below the surface as he regarded me like the most precious treasure he had ever seen.
Then, keeping his gaze locked on mine, he dragged my hand up to his face, drawing three fingers into his mouth. His warm tongue swirled over each fingertip, lapping at the sticky arousal that coated them, and I felt the vibrations of his moan all the way down to my clit.
When he finally released my fingers, his focus shifted to the place between my thighs, zeroing in like a laser on my soaked pussy.
“Mine.”
The word fell from his lips with even more conviction this time, and before I could react, his face was buried between my thighs, his tongue thrashing my clit with hard, quick strokes.
I came.
And he was right—this orgasm belonged solely to him.
My mouth fell open in a soundless cry as pent-up pleasure exploded inside me, making my hips jerk and buck on the mattress. Kingston rode out my orgasm like a cowboy on a damn bronco, holding onto my hips and keeping his lips pinned to me as his tongue kept up the delicious assault.
When I finally stopped shuddering, he tilted his head, staring up my body at me. And then he surged forward, moving up in a fluid motion to drape his body over mine. His hands found my wrists, pinning them above my head just as his cock found the still clenching entrance to my pussy, and he drove inside me in one hard thrust.
We both stilled. Even the air around us seemed to still, the moment of silence seeming as loud as a shout after the gasps and groans that had filled the room earlier.
Our bodies were pressed together from head to toe, our naked skin brushing together, and my eyes nearly rolled back in my head from how good it felt.
Better than I had ever imagined—and I had imagined it quite a bit.
“Mine.”
Kingston repeated the word for a third time, his gaze bouncing between my eyes as our faces hovered so close together our noses were practically touching.
I felt the truth in his words. They hit me like a Mack truck carrying a ton of bricks, and I wrapped my legs around his trim waist, locking him tight to me as I ground my hips against him.
He wasn’t just giving in to the bond.
He was almost… embracing it.
Emotions stronger than I was willing to admit to surged through my chest, and to keep him from seeing all of them in my eyes, I hauled his face to mine and kissed the hell out of him.
The last of his restraint seemed to have snapped when he’d slid inside me, and now he set a punishing pace, withdrawing almost completely before slamming in again, making us both grunt like animals with each thrust. Our lips and hands consumed each other as he claimed me with his cock, marking me as his both inside and out.
I came again at that thought, electric energy bursting inside me as I tipped my head back and screamed his name.
“Fuck, yes, Piper.”
His own voice sounded as frantic as mine, and he picked up the pace, pounding into me as my pussy walls clenched around him.
When he came inside me, euphoria spread through me like a drug as his hot cum flooded my womb.
“You’re mine too, Kingston,” I whispered, barely able to form words. “You’re mine.”
This was everything I’d needed, and nothing at all like what I’d expected when I’d gotten out of bed this morning. My expectations in the underworld had become depressingly low, but I hadn’t even dreamed that I would end the day by having sex with my dragon shifter bond mate.
Best damn surprise I’ve had all school year.
The thought flickered through a satiated haze as Kingston slowly withdrew and collapsed onto the bed beside me, pulling me against him and tucking me into his arms.
As we lay gazing into each other’s eyes, I saw more emotion on his fa
ce than I’d ever seen before. He was warm and open, vulnerable and caring. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was actually falling in love with me, but I purposefully didn’t let my mind linger on that thought for too long.
Trying to figure out what was love and what wasn’t when you were magically bonded to someone felt like an impossible task. It was hard enough for regular humans to differentiate between lust and love sometimes—adding powerful succubus magic into the mix made the whole thing feel like a jumble of tangled up Christmas lights that I’d never be able to sort through.
Whether I wanted to or not, I needed all four of the men the marks on my neck represented. I needed their desire, needed the pure sexual chemistry that sparked to life between all of us. But more and more, I was starting to feel like I needed them for other things too. For their companionship, for their laughter and banter. For the way each of their wildly different personalities complemented a piece of my own.
I needed them. In a way that went far beyond sex.
Jesus. Am I falling in love with all of them?
Too chicken-shit to answer that question, I just nuzzled closer to Kingston, breathing in his rich scent. Kingston smelled like money and boredom, like the finest brandy and expensive leather. It was an addictive aroma, like inhaling pure luxury.
He tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled gently. It was as soft and meaningful as one of Xero’s rare smiles, but it was uniquely Kingston. The aristocratic curves and planes of his face couldn’t lessen the effect of authentic feeling, and for the first time, I saw how he must have looked before wealth and dragonism had hardened him, shifting his priorities.
“I’ve been keeping a secret,” he murmured as he stroked my cheek. “There’s something I want to show you.”
He slid off the bed and I rose up onto my elbows, intrigued. All kinds of things floated through my imagination, from all over the spectrum.
He’s really a prince.
He’s really a spy for Gavriel.
He’s been keeping a wet bar hidden in his room somehow and is going to make me a cocktail.
That one made my mouth water, and for a wild moment, I hoped I was right. As my brain speed-cycled through every imaginable possibility, he rifled through his discarded clothes. When he pulled a small black rectangular object out of a hidden pocket, I blinked.
My mind had come up with some pretty out-there possibilities, but this wasn’t any of the things I had imagined.
“You have a… cell phone?”
He handed it to me, and I studied it, turning it over in my palm. It looked like a twenty-year-old flip phone, but when I opened it up, it had a modern screen.
I frowned at him in confusion. “What the hell?”
He took the phone back from me with a little grin.
“It still connects to earth,” he said, tapping at the screen a few times. “See?”
“What?” I shot upright on the bed so fast my head spun. “You have internet access?!”
“More than that. It can make phone calls. I brought it with me when I came to Fallen University. I’ve stayed in contact with my business associates this whole time.”
“But—how?!”
“It’s enchanted—” he began, but I cut him off.
“No, not that part. I mean, yes, tell me about that, but first tell me how you managed to keep this a secret for so long? You’ve been interrogated twice! And not by some human detective either, but by a serious magical team!”
His smile turned extremely smug. “I’m a dragon, Piper. And this is my treasure. The thing is, the empath and the siren connect to emotions. That mage, Charles, connects to spells. Those are all warm or cold talents, you see.”
I totally didn’t see, but I nodded anyway so he would continue.
“As a dragon, I don’t have any guilt over guarding my treasure, so they can’t find that. Protecting my treasure is a vital aspect of my primal makeup; telling me to reveal my treasure is like telling me to stop breathing. I can do it voluntarily or through direct interference, but if they don’t know it’s there, they can’t interfere directly. It’s fail proof.”
My mouth had fallen open in astonishment, and I closed it again. “That’s incredible.”
“Yes, it is,” he said proudly. “The point, though, is that the phone is enchanted to connect to anywhere from anywhere—across any distance, through any barrier. Even into a different dimension. Which means we still have a lifeline to earth.”
I opened my hand for the phone, and he let me see it again, though I could tell he was growing more reluctant every time he handed it over. He was a dragon, after all. And just like he’d said, this was his most valuable treasure.
Holding the phone with more reverence than I had the first time, I looked for a logo or brand, but the black casing was unmarked.
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. “You know how I said I hopped on a private jet and went to Africa to meet with the shaman after I was turned?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he wasn’t the only person I met. Before I went to Africa, I stopped at the home of a warlock who’d managed to remain hidden from the Custodians for years, a lot like Kai did. He made this for me.”
I wrinkled my nose, looking up at Kingston. “How did you find him?”
“Money,” he said simply.
Yeah, that sounds about right. With the right amount of money, it seemed like almost nothing was impossible.
“So…” I cocked my head at him, handing him back the phone. It seemed to take him a lot of restraint to resist snatching it from my grip. “Let me get this straight. You got turned into a freaking dragon shifter, and the first thing you did, even before visiting a shaman to try to reverse it, was have someone make you a magical cell phone. Why?”
He met my gaze, determination and a hint of deep sadness reflecting in his dark green eyes.
“My family’s business was my whole life, Piper. I knew that after what had happened to me, my looking around in strange places trying to get myself turned back could draw unwanted attention, and that I might end up somewhere—unpleasant. I had this made so that I could maintain my position in my family’s company no matter what.” He sighed. “That has turned out to be less successful than I’d hoped, although I’ve at least been able to maintain some connection to the business back home. But… it’s possible it could have other uses as well.”
I stared at him, finally grasping what he was getting at. Why he’d chosen to show me his most coveted piece of treasure.
“This isn’t just a lifeline for you to your business,” I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper. “This could be our key to getting home.”
Chapter Eleven
I sent out a beacon as Kingston and I dressed, a subtle sort of “come hither” to the rest of my men. I didn’t want to make it too strong. If I sent out a full-blast distress signal, they’d come running so fast I probably wouldn’t even have my shirt on yet when they arrived.
And having them meet me in Kingston’s tiny room would be awkward, especially since the whole room screamed of what’d just happened in here. Not that I was shy about having sex, and not that I thought any of them would be shocked. But it was the first time the aristocratic, proud man and I had crossed this line—just the two of us coming together, sealing our bond one-on-one—and I wanted to preserve the memory of this moment.
I made the vibe stronger as Kingston and I made our way to our little secret perch over the library.
We met Xero and Jayce in the hall outside the library. They were talking and laughing, and Jayce lit up when he saw us coming.
“Piper! Oh, God, you should have seen it. I’m sitting there with my roommate—you remember Giorgio, right? Anyway, we’re just sitting there talking when I get slammed with this feeling like I have to go meet you, so I get up to leave, and he’s all like, ‘where are you going?’ and I’m like, ‘my girl needs me.’ He’s all, ‘how do you know?’ and I’m like, �
��it’s my super power.’ He started yelling at me, but now he’s off researching hellhounds, so I guess that’s good?”
I shook my head and laughed. “Sorry. If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t have called.”
“I’ve never been happier not to have a roommate,” Kingston said, wrinkling his nose.
“Same here, man.” Xero looked mildly horrified. “That’s too much.”
“That’s why I scared my roommate away.” Kai’s smug voice came from behind me.
I turned to face him, happy that he’d actually responded to the call I’d put out, but he shot me down with a look of warning.
Okay, still persona non grata with Kai. Fine.
“Come on.” I shook myself, wrenching my gaze away from the cranky vampire. “Kingston has something to show you guys.”
They all followed me into the library, and we made our way as quietly as possible to the corner of the stacks where the entrance to our private room was hidden. So far, nobody had seen us go up or come down from there except for Hannah, and I wanted to keep it that way.
But the universe apparently had other ideas, because Sonja and one of her friends—the little blonde one—were sitting on a couch in the isolated corner as we walked up.
Damn it. Really?
I paused, then turned around. There was another way to get to the secret room. We could go the long way—the route we’d taken after Sonja had trapped us behind the wall several weeks ago.
“Stop.” Her piercing voice rang out in the quiet library as she sprang to her feet. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Just over to Nunya,” I said innocently.
“Nunya? What’s—?” She squinted in confusion for a moment. Then her expression morphed into a mask of annoyance. “Oh, goddamn it—”
“That’s right. Nunya damn business,” I finished, smirking at her. “See ya.”
“Hey! Get back here!” She was in front of us in a flash. “What are you up to now? Sneaking around planning more attacks on the school? Where are you going to send it this time, back to the Jurassic era?”
