Bane's Dragon: Confessions (Bane Dragon Wars Book 1)

by Roxie Spears

  Logan didn’t need telling twice. He climbed between her legs, his hands supporting him on either side of her head. It was under eyes full of wonder that Emilie felt him pressing at her entrance.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured as he stared down at her, taking in every delicate feature of her face from her brown eyes to the pink lips swollen with his kisses.

  As he watched her, Emilie felt the heat rushing toward her cheeks, warming her entire chest. He took her lips once more as he pressed into her, groaning as her warmth yielded to him. Emilie’s every moan was caught in Logan’s mouth as he began thrusting in and out of her. The intense desire that had been building and building throughout the evening approached its climax and Emilie could only hold onto Logan for dear life, wrapping her arms around his strong shoulders. She could feel his muscles rippling beneath her fingertips and it only made her hotter. She raised her hips to meet his as he quickened his pace.

  “Emilie,” Logan whispered, pulling away from her mouth.

  She dragged her lips down his neck, nipping the skin between her teeth. It made him groan and suddenly, his hands were on her ass. He pulled her toward his thrusts, his pelvis brushing against her clit with each move he made until finally… she exploded.

  Emilie gasped and whimpered as the pressure finally released and she came all over Logan’s cock. The feeling of her grinding and clenching around him finally sent Logan over the edge. She could feel when he was about to orgasm because the thrusts of hips grew more erratic. When he let go, he pushed himself deep into her and she could feel his cock twitching inside her, could feel new warmth as he emptied his seed.

  Afterward, Logan pulled out of her and pressed himself up against her side. They were covered in a light sheen of sweat, breathing heavily, and Emilie had never felt more satisfied. Her clit was still pulsing. Logan ran his fingers up and down Emilie’s body gently in the aftermath, lighting up her nerve-endings.

  “Wow,” Emilie breathed.

  “I second that too,” Logan said with a grin.

  Emilie didn’t know what time it was, only that she was exhausted in the best kind of way. Pleasure played its way through her body and she let her eyes fall closed as sleep wrapped its hand around hers. Logan found himself pressing closer to Emilie, his warmth enveloping her as they drifted off together.

  An Unexpected Obtrusion

  Emilie blinked herself awake to the sunlight shining through her curtains the following morning. Her muscles ached in an oddly pleasant way as she stretched her limbs out, releasing a sigh. Happiness spread through her long before Emilie recalled the events of the previous evening. The memories brought with them confusion as she sat up in bed, looking around the room.

  Logan was gone and so were his clothes, as far as she could see. Her bed was empty and the spot where he’d slept the night before was cold, which meant he’d been gone for some time.

  With a sigh, Emilie flopped back down. She felt kind of silly to think that Logan would have stayed at all. For all she knew, he’d snuck out as soon as she fell asleep. It didn’t seem like something the man who took her out the previous night would do, but it did seem like the man of their first impression. At this point, she wasn’t sure which of them the real Logan was.

  She allowed herself no more than ten minutes to feel like a silly little girl before she decided it was time to drag her butt out of bed and into the shower. It was short, but much needed. The steam and heat brought refreshed her and she felt better by the time she climbed out to brush her teeth. The morning routine made her feel as though everything was normal, but Emilie still felt a pull from somewhere deep within and it made her miss Logan.

  If he didn’t have an explanation, Emilie didn’t know if she would ever be able to see Logan in the same way. They’d had such an amazing night that she didn’t want to believe he would leave, but the evidence spoke for itself. It wasn’t as though she had anyone to turn to either. Emilie could only imagine going to her partner about such a matter. The odds were that he’d simply tell her he told her so. Logan was a Bane and she should have kept her distance, should have stayed far away from him. Rather than turn her away from the case, however, Emilie found that she wanted to solve it even more. She wanted to make sure that she would never be bothered by the Banes again.

  Finding out why Krystal was killed was the best way to make that happen.

  Emilie was making some breakfast in the kitchen when she heard a noise at the door. Normally she played music while she cooked, but she was glad that she hadn’t done that this time around. She was cooking in silence and the sounds of the city. That was when she heard a distinct sound, a sound that music would have drowned out. Her ears twitched and she found herself keeping an ear out for any more sounds when she heard the scratching again. She was certain it came from the front of her apartment. It was a scratching of sorts, audible even over the sizzling pan of oil on the stovetop. She pulled open one of the drawers in the kitchen, one she kept for emergencies exactly like this one, lest someone try to rob her, and made her way toward the front of the apartment.

  Her training came in tenfold as Emilie crept through her apartment, sidling along the cold walls until she found herself in the front room. She peeked around the wall to make sure that whoever the intruder was hadn’t opened the door yet. There was definitely someone outside and as the handle rattled, Emilie raised her gun, training it on the front door. Her heart raced and her finger hovered over the trigger as she waited.

  The door was pushed open with the creak of wood and Emilie gave a cry of surprise. She just stopped herself from pressing down on the trigger and her finger still twitched as she lowered the weapon.

  “Emilie?” Logan stared at her with wide eyes. As she took him in, wearing the suit from the previous evening, she realized why he’d struggled with the door. He had two cups of steaming, hot coffee in his hands and a box resting on his arms. “Why do you have a gun out?”

  “I thought that someone was trying to break into the apartment!” Emilie clicked the safety and tucked the gun into her holster. She always wore one – just in case. “Where have you been?”

  “Oh,” Logan breathed. He seemed unsure what to do, but he wasn’t alone in that since Emilie hadn’t expected him to return at all. “Uhm, well, I can assure you I’m not here to break into your apartment. I actually took the keys. I suppose it’s a good thing you didn’t notice that.”

  The two stared at one another from across the room for a moment before they both gave into the relieved laughter and the bizarreness of Logan holding coffee and a cardboard box of doughnuts. Logan shut the door behind him and after setting the box down onto the table where Emilie kept her keys, he walked the distance between them, handing Emilie her coffee. The minute she took it, he cupped her cheek with his free hand and leaned in to press a kiss to her lips. Under his mouth, Emilie forgot all about the fact that she’d woken up in an empty bed. She let her guilt at having thought he would leave without saying goodbye fade away from her. She was stunned by the need in Logan, but she gave in to the kiss easily. His fingers curled possessively in her hair and her hands moved up and down his chest, brushing against the hard muscle over his shirt.

  Logan pulled Emilie even closer and her center swirled with want. It wasn’t fair to make her so wanton this early in the morning, but Logan didn’t seem to care about that. He didn’t even seem to realize the profound effect he had on Emilie at all. Emilie dreaded what he might do if he found out the kind of power he held over her, but she had to admit some of the thoughts were rather enticing.

  The previous night came back to her and Emilie didn’t know how she’d ever be able to keep her hands off Logan again, not when her desire wouldn’t be tempered. When he finally pulled away, she nearly swooned.

  “Morning,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I was gone for so long. There was more traffic than I expected.”

  “Morning,” she said, unable to stop the giddy smile from coming to her lips. “Yeah, that’s what those o
f us who actually live in Quafin have to deal with at this time of the morning.”

  “Well, it’s something that would take some getting used to, I’ll give you that.” Logan took a sip of his coffee. “I thought I would get us some coffee since I have no idea where anything in your kitchen is. All your cupboards are full of dishes! What do you actually eat?”

  Emilie laughed. “I have a pantry, silly!”

  “A pantry?” Logan looked as if he’d been slapped. “What century are we in that you have a pantry? Don’t get me wrong, I know Quafin is old and all, but this place doesn’t strike me as having a pantry.”

  The only thing that could have broken their moment was the pop of oil sounding from the kitchen.

  “Oh, shoot!” Emilie cried out, racing back into the kitchen. Logan was close behind her. As she walked, she admonished him. “And I’ll have you know, the fact that this place was modern and had a pantry is what drew me to it.”

  Logan snorted, but his voice was kind and affectionate when he spoke again. “You know what? I can believe that.”

  Once they were in the kitchen, Emilie set her coffee down on the counter and took the pan off the heat. The scent of bacon wafted through the air, but it was the good kind of scent. It didn’t smell like black, didn’t smell like something had burned. In fact, the bacon was the perfect level of crispy.

  “Maybe the secret to good bacon is to let it cook while you make out,” she joked, taking a bite out of one of the strips, straight from the pan. “Would you like some breakfast?”

  “It smells really good in here. I would love some.”

  Logan surprised Emilie by pulling plates out of the cupboard, but then she remembered that he had rifled through the cupboards earlier that morning. She wondered if he’d been planning on making her breakfast. Though she didn’t know if it was true, the thought was a romantic one.

  Smiley faces looked up at them as they carried their plates and their coffee cups to the dining room. Emilie made eyes out of the fried eggs and a smile out of the bacon. Eyebrows made out of perfectly buttered toast made their breakfast seem as though it was in a state of permanent shock. It was an unorthodox breakfast, down to the doughnuts at the door and the Styrofoam coffee cups, but Emilie didn’t care, especially when she realized Logan didn’t really care either. He sipped his coffee and ate his breakfast as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  “This is delicious,” Logan murmured over a full mouth.

  The last person Emilie expected to speak with food in his mouth was Logan and her shock turned to amusement as she took him in. He was enjoying the meal so much that he didn’t notice her staring and she gave a chuckle before taking her next bite.

  “Why, thank you. I’m glad you decided to stay.”

  “Always,” Logan murmured.

  Emilie looked up at him, saw the sincerity on his face, and felt her throat go dry. She hadn’t expected him to answer so seriously and she could tell that he meant it. Something had definitely changed between them and Emilie wondered if Logan felt the same pull she did.

  She never got the chance to ask as, suddenly, everything around them imploded.

  The sound of every glass in the open plan dining and living room caving in crashed across the entire apartment. The whole place seemed as though it were trembling as the crash rang out and something massive flew into the space from outside. The sound of it came from every direction and she could barely hear Logan shout a warning, telling her to get down. It was out of pure reaction that Emilie found herself diving beneath the dining room table. Logan was right there with her, their bodies slamming into one another as they landed on the hardwood floor. Her hand flew to her holster in an automatic response.

  Glass covered the floor and pieces of it had sliced into her bare arms when the windows shattered. They stung and bled, but Emilie had more important things to worry about. Her wounds weren’t going to kill her, but the sight above her might. Two dragon shifters had flown into her dining room and were menacingly flapping their enormous ribbed wings in her apartment, their yellow eyes resembling the narrow slits of a snake as they searched the room for Emilie and Logan.

  It didn’t take them long to discover their prey and Emilie screamed. In return, the creatures roared and shrieked fiercely. That was when they let the fire rain down on Emilie and Logan.

  All Emilie could see was orange and red. All she could feel was the heat of dragon breath as it rained down on the table above her head. All she wanted to do was fight back.

  Swarming

  What Emilie was seeing was impossible as far as she was concerned, but when it came to Logan, she was beginning to learn that nothing was actually impossible. The man, his biceps bulging, lifted the dining room table up over their heads and, with all his might, threw it across the room. One of the dragon shifters was hit, hissing as he was knocked back by the heavy table, and the rain of fire finally ended as it flew back against one of Emilie’s bookshelves with a loud crash. Emilie’s books scattered across the floor, skidding in the pieces of glass that covered it, but she was too preoccupied to care.

  Emilie couldn’t help but notice that the dragon shifter that was hit looked an awful lot like the one that had escaped in the alleyway the first time she ever saw Logan shift. Was it the same shifter? Did it come back to finish what it started? Were she and Logan on the Makinen hit list now, if they had such a thing? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had a memory for a scene and she recognized this particular shifter. It had the same redness to its scaly skin, while the other one looked more yellow than anything else. Both dragons were equally as scary, large with sharp claws and angry snouts. Their mere existence made Emilie’s heart race. Smoke came from those snouts and Emilie knew it meant that they were ready to breathe fire at any moment.

  The next thing she knew, Logan was shifting too, joining the dragons. His expensive suit landed on the floor in tatters and Emilie didn’t have the chance to wonder if all shifters simply left what was left of their destroyed clothes everywhere. The crunch of bones and joints as Logan’s entire skeleton changed was as disturbing as the first time and she winced on his behalf as he turned from a man into a giant wolf. The second dragon shifter attempted to attack Logan while he was in mid-transformation, diving forward with claws outstretched.

  “Get away from him, you stinking reptile!” Emilie shouted.

  Without thinking, she stood from the ground and unclipped the same gun she’d had trained on Logan only a short while earlier from her holster. She aimed it up at the dragon shifter and this time, there was no hesitation in her shot. Her finger was firm and sure as she pressed down on the trigger. Again. And again.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  The shots rang out in the apartment, deafening this close to Emilie, and the dragon shifter screeched in pain as each hit knocked it back slightly. Holes appeared in its soft underbelly, each of them spurting red blood onto her floor until she stopped shooting, conserving her ammo. The wolf looked back at her and she could swear the blue eyes looked grateful. In the next moment, he leaped into the air and his claws dug into the dragon shifter’s shoulders, dragging it down to the wooden floor.

  Emilie heard the tearing plastic sound as Logan growled and dragged his claws down the dragon shifter’s shoulders, ripping through the leathery flesh. The skin ripped open and it seemed as though they had the upper hand when, all of a sudden, both dragons gave a hiss. It sounded as though there were ten snakes in the apartment and Logan and Emilie gave pause.

  That was their first mistake. The hissing grew louder, as if it was coming from everywhere, and Emilie looked up at the sound of another screech. Both dragons began breathing fire at the same time and the whole place felt like a furnace. Emilie screamed as the heat burned the back of her neck. Her apartment was turning into an oven and the smoke-choked her.

  Logan leaped backward with a high-pitched yelp, releasing the shifter from his grip as the smell of singed fur hit Emilie’s nostrils.
>
  “Logan!” she shouted, pointing to the window, warning him of the impending doom that glared down at them.

  The wolf looked up at the sound of her voice and followed her finger, facing the window. Hovering outside the window of Emilie’s apartment were three more dragon shifters, each one as mean as the last. They observed the scene before opening their mouths. Their leathery wings flapped with a whooshing sound.

  Emilie raised her gun, aiming at the one in the middle, but she never got a chance to shoot. The wolf dived at her and when his body crashed against hers, shielding her from the fire as it blazed down against his bare back. Logan had shifted back into human form and he was butt naked. His strong arms wrapped themselves around her, lifting her from the floor and carrying her away from the chaos that was her apartment.

  “Come on!” he yelled. “We have to get out of here!”

  On the way past the table in front, Emilie’s hand shot out and she grabbed her car keys out of the bowl. With her other hand, she aimed over Logan’s shoulder and managed to knock off two more rounds, bullets penetrating the thick skin of the dragon in the middle. The cardboard box was knocked off the table and it clattered to the floor and its lid opened, revealing four perfectly iced doughnuts. The sweet scent made her stomach turn as panic flooded through her.

  It wasn’t until they got down to the underground parking that Emilie came to be aware, keenly so, just how naked Logan was. He set her down on the ground and ran around the car to climb into the passenger seat, the dimple in his well-shaped ass the last thing she saw before she holstered her gun and opened the driver’s side, climbing in.

  From somewhere behind them, Emilie thought she heard the sound of hissing and imagined the snakes slithering along the floor in chase. The sound of screeching echoed in her ears as she started the engine up. The car skidded and she sped out of the parking lot, heading straight for the Bane Mansion. She had to resist the urge to look up, almost certain that she’d see the terrifying forms of the dragons following them.