by Cara Bristol
Even better!
Her human teeth were blunt. There would be no worries about sharp fangs. She speared a morsel on her plate. Her lips moved as she chewed. She swallowed, the food sliding down...he gouged a divot in the table.
She dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Do I have food on my face?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re staring at me.”
“I’m not,” he denied.
“I smell a lie.”
That shouldn’t be possible. “You smell that?” Could she smell him? His desire? His need? His indecision?
She licked her lips, causing his temperature to soar. “Figure of speech. No, I don’t smell anything—other than the food, but it’s obvious you’re staring.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re still doing it.”
“I want to kiss you.” Sacred fyre! Had he really said that? But even as he castigated himself, he sprang from his chair. Two steps, and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet.
“What are you doi—” She curled her fingers into the fabric of his jumpsuit. “This is a bad idea.” The scent of arousal blossomed.
“I smell a lie,” he whispered, shifted closer to man form for a better fit, and claimed her mouth. She parted her lips, and her tongue touched his.
He groaned, the scent and taste of warm honey flooding his senses. She made a little hitching noise in her throat and melted against him. He tangled his hands in her fiery hair and found it silky soft; she was soft everywhere—her lips as they moved over his, her cheeks as they brushed his skin, her breasts melded to his chest, and her tummy pressed tight against his aching cock.
His tongue slid over hers, savoring texture and taste. Her breath, like ambrosia, caressed his senses, enflaming them. He cupped her ass, pulling her close and tight, rocking, grinding against her. His heart thudded, his cock throbbed, his fyre burned! His dragon, for once, remained silent.
How could a human taste and smell so good? Feel so good? He broke away, dragging air into his lungs.
She stroked his cheek. “Your scales are softer than I imagined.”
She’d been thinking about him? He growled in triumph. “My scales can be harder or softer, depending on the shift.” The harder they were, the greater the protection; the softer, the greater the sensation. He felt her touch like a teasing whisper over his skin.
She pulled his head down and rose on tiptoe to kiss him. She dragged her fingernails down his back, the sensation registering as a slight scraping.
He completed the transformation to man form to make himself smaller so she could reach and he could better feel. She lacked sharp talons; her human fingernails could do no harm.
This time when she scratched, he felt it. “Harder,” he growled.
She dug in and raked her nails down his spine.
Fire coiled in his belly and shot to his cock. “Need you now. Can’t wait.” He cupped her breast, pinching the beaded nipple through the fabric of her shirt as he pressed his lips to her throat. He sucked, shuddering with the need to bite. No bite. No bite. Fucking, yes. Biting, no. She was human, not a potential mate.
He jerked away before willpower dissolved and he bent her over the table.
Her chest heaved with her ragged breathing. “The waiter…what if somebody…if somebody comes in?”
“Then he dies,” T’mar growled, only half joking.
“What!”
“Or I could seal the door.” He snapped his wrist at the ship and followed through with a long sweep that cleared the table. Dishes and cutlery hit the floor with a crash.
“T’mar!” Helena gave a half-shocked, half-amused laugh, but the scent of her desire spiked.
He extended a talon from a fingertip, hooked the waistband of her pants, and sliced them off.
“Are you crazy? I have to wear those!” She squealed.
The orange shirt could stay. He liked it, but her undergarment fell away when he sliced through it. He scooped her up, deposited her onto the table, and sank to his knees, unable to resist tasting the arousal he’d been smelling. He buried his face in her pussy.
Sacred Fyre! She was sublime.
She moaned, her hands tugging his hair, the pulls of pain ratcheting up his lust. He licked and lashed her sex, attention to the nub at the apex eliciting deeper moans, so he focused his attention there. Her nectar coated his fingers, teased his tongue, infused his blood.
Leaping to his feet, he ripped his uniform open to free his erection. Then he positioned her over the table. There was a picture of a device on the shirt back, along with some Earth lettering. Byte Me. Did it mean what his translator said it did? Was she inviting him to… He shuddered with the need to sink his teeth into her flesh. Can’t. Can’t.
He kicked her legs apart, brought his cock to her entrance, and plunged inside. Her muscles closed around him, squeezing him tight. She arched her spine and thrust her buttocks out, taking his cock deeper.
He cupped her mound, his fingers finding the nub that seemed to bring her pleasure. He thrust. Hard. Fast.
“Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Oh god, don’t stop,” she cried.
His fingers moved faster, his hips harder.
She tossed her head. Her hair fell over her shoulder, baring her nape.
Bite. Bite. No bite. Can’t. Human, human. Can’t. His fangs came down. His fyre snapped and curled, flaring. Shooting out tendrils. Seeking…seeking…seeking…
She cried out, her pussy rippling around him. His body responded to her ecstasy, and he convulsed in orgasm, his cock contracting, releasing his essence. Growling, he flung his head away from her neck. He squeezed his eyes shut as the inferno consumed him.
When there was nothing left but ashes, he disengaged. Facedown on the table, Helena panted. Her orange shirt with the provocative invitation had ridden up to expose smooth skin. Unable to resist, he slid his palm from her shoulder to her rounded buttocks. She still burned in his blood. It would take many more couplings to rid her from his system.
Why did you not bite her, claim her? the dragon demanded.
Because she is not our mate.
She is. You kissed her.
Kissing females doesn’t make them our mate.
She is the only one you have kissed.
Because Draconians don’t kiss. She is human.
You fucked her.
I fuck a lot of females. Although not lately.
You fed her.
I provided her with dinner. She is still unfamiliar with the replicator.
No. You fed her by hand, announcing the intention to claim her as our mate.
Sacred fyre! He had fed her, offered bite after bite for her to try. You tricked me! You told me to coax her to eat so she would know the food was safe. You deceived me into hand-feeding her!
It’s not my fault you weren’t paying attention.
No, he’d been focused on Helena’s honeyed arousal, her facial expressions, her voice, her laughter.
This means nothing. He had fed her! Fucked her. Had come very close to biting her.
Helena was standing, staring at him with those big green eyes. His scent clung to her. Her lips were swollen from his kisses. “Is everything all right?”
No. “Yes.” He turned away, pretended to stare into the expanse, fighting the urge to soothe her uncertainty by kissing her and then bending her over the table again. He doubted he could fuck her again and not bite her. He didn’t trust himself—didn’t trust her. This female was more dangerous than all the humans on Earth combined. She had the power to ruin him. I fed her! How could I do that! It had happened naturally, instinctively. Her pleasure had been his pleasure.
“Get dressed. I’ll take you back to your quarters,” he said.
Chapter Sixteen
What the hell happened? What did I do? Why? What got into me? She’d never in her life experienced such overpowering lust. The urge to fuck had countermanded everything else.
>
“This is your suite.” T’mar halted outside a door and uttered the first words since leaving the observatory.
“How long before we reach Draco?”
“We land the day after tomorrow.” He stared over her head.
Asshole! The next two days would be interminable if this was how he treated her. They’d had sex, he’d shifted into demiforma, and then he’d hustled her out of the observatory like he couldn’t wait to get rid of her. She bit down on her quivering bottom lip. Never let an asshole see you cry. Because he’d cut off her jeans and underwear, she’d had to take the walk of shame with the denim tied sarong-style around her hips.
“Then what happens?” She cringed at having to ask, but she had to know. She refused to be cowed into silence just because he behaved like the biggest jerk on two planets.
“Then we continue in accordance with the original plan. Under the circumstances, it would be best if we avoided further contact with one another. You’re human. I’m a dragon. What happened was…a mistake.”
She reeled as if he’d slapped her. “You’re a real prince!” She spun away, the door to her quarters opened, and she escaped inside.
How could attraction that had felt so right go so wrong? How could the charming, attentive man turn into such a jerk? Maybe because he’s an asshat shifter! Blinking, she gazed at the ceiling, trying not to cry. He wasn’t worth it.
She jumped as her door slid open to admit Patsy.
“I saw him haul ass out of here! Are you all right? What did he do to you? Oh my god, did he rape you?”
Torn jeans, swollen mouth, hair like a rat’s nest, possibly a hickey—the evidence looked damning. Fortunately, Patsy could only see what was visible. After a long dry spell, Helena had been fucked hard and fast by a very well-endowed man. If her friend guessed how sore she was…
“He didn’t rape me. It was consensual.” But, was it? She’d never, ever experienced such uncontrollable lust. Had he zapped her with some mesmerizing mojo? Had there been chemicals in the food she’d eaten?
“You had sex with him willingly?” Patsy appeared more horrified.
It’s not bad enough the guy I slept with turned out to be an asshole, now my friend is looking at me like I’m a skank. And, bigger picture, this is not going to help Patsy overcome her aversion.
“You don’t have to sacrifice yourself this way,” Patsy said.
“I didn’t sacrifice myself. I chose to do it.” God, his smell. Like cloves and cinnamon and woodsmoke from a campfire. Irresistible. Then. Now she found him quite resistible. “But it’s not going to happen again.”
“I’d better get Henry.”
“No, wait!” she cried, but her friend flew out the door.
She cringed, wishing Patsy hadn’t seen her with her jeans sheared off. Why did I do it? What came over me? I’ve been attracted to a lot of men without sleeping with them. It would be convenient to blame T’mar. Patsy and Henry would automatically believe the worst of him, but the sex had been consensual. She’d craved it. He never asked, “Mother, may I,”—he’d just claimed what he wanted—but the aggression had been hotter than hot. She relished every rough caress, every crushing kiss, every hard thrust of his rock-hard cock.
Fuck. Just thinking about sex with the jerk turned her on again.
Forget him. He’s going to forget me. Ignoring him would be the prudent thing. This kind of lust couldn’t be normal. However, being relegated to the harem would throw a wrench into her pseudo plan to negotiate a peace accord.
Patsy rushed in with Henry at her heels, and Helena almost regretted the access T’mar had granted them. Right now, she’d prefer to be alone. She wished she’d thought to grab a robe. But she couldn’t be rude to her worried friends who’d been by her side the whole time, who’d enabled her to escape.
“Patsy said you were assaulted,” Henry said gently. “Are you all right?”
Helena couldn’t help but scowl. “Patsy, that’s not what I said.” She looked at Henry. “That’s not what happened. I understand how you both would be concerned, so let me say again, T’mar and I had consensual sex. I’m fine! He did not physically assault me or hurt me in any way.” Feelings were a different matter.
“However, as this is personal, I would prefer to not discuss it.” She wanted a shower, bed, and a good cry. “I’m fine,” she repeated.
Henry raked a hand through his hair. “I get that you don’t want to talk about this. Maybe the two of you clicked but maybe not. You need to ask yourself why it happened. Did he set out to seduce you for a purpose?”
“Maybe I seduced him.”
“Is that what happened?”
She recalled the setting in the observatory, his attention to her likes and dislikes, how he engaged her in conversation, his musk growing more alluring as the night wore on, and him feeding her.
The fucker deliberately seduced me!
“Nothing to do with the dragons can be dismissed as inconsequential. As Patsy and I learned as operatives, the smallest clues can reveal the most. Obviously, you’re attracted to Prince T’mar. Don’t forget the Draconians are still the enemy. The truce is shaky; we have no idea how genuine it is or how long it will last. We don’t know why they requested another concubine or what they hope to gain.”
“I don’t know…peace?” While her judgment could be considered suspect, she felt like the attraction and subsequent sex between her and T’mar was personal and had nothing to do with the conflict between their governments. She hated the idea of being a notch on a bedpost, but better a casual sexual conquest than a means to a political end.
Pillow talk whispered in the wrong ears could topple dynasties. She doubted she’d revealed damaging information, unless, don’t stop, oh god, don’t stop was somehow politically significant.
“That’s a huge assumption,” Patsy said. “And by huge, I mean ungrounded. To date, everything they have done has proven their instinct is to attack.”
“They haven’t attacked us,” she pointed out. “They only threatened to.”
“So the space lizards’ intention is to terrorize us?” Patsy retorted.
“Please don’t call them space lizards,” Helena said.
Patsy opened her mouth as if to argue but sighed. “All right. Sorry.” She closed her eyes. When she opened them, tears glistened. “I’m scared for you.” Her voice quavered. “You’re my friend! Henry and I have served on many missions together. You have to get close to the subject, but you must maintain your mental distance. You can’t get sucked in emotionally. I’m worried you’re showing signs of Stockholm syndrome.”
“That’s ridiculous! In the first place, I’m not a hostage. We’re not being held captive.”
“Aren’t we?” Henry said. “We’re contained in a single passageway on a huge ship. Until a short time ago, we couldn’t see the doors of our own cells.”
“Does this look like a cell to you?” Helena swept her arm to encompass her spacious quarters. Everything was revealed now—a wide computer screen, the food replicator, the door to the sleeping chamber, and a space observation window.
“A gilded cage is still a cage,” Patsy said.
“No passenger on any commercial space flight is allowed to roam where they wish. You can’t hang out on the bridge or visit the engine room or the crew quarters.”
“We can visit each other, but otherwise, we’re confined to our staterooms,” she said.
“They’re a bit wary of us, that’s true,” Helena admitted. “But if the situation was reversed, and we had three Draconians on an Earth ship, we wouldn’t let them go wherever they pleased.”
“You’re identifying with the dragons,” Patsy said.
“Or am I keeping an open mind?” she countered, but her friends’ arguments had done their damage. She questioned T’mar’s motives more than ever now.
“They can change form,” Henry said. “They might have other abilities, too.”
�
��They can smell emotions…” She recalled the scents T’mar had listed off. At times, she’d almost imagined she could smell him, his growing interest, his desire. But his rejection? That had come as a huge surprise.
“What?” Patsy and Henry said together.
“T’mar told me emotions exude specific odors. It’s how they read people.”
Henry stroked his chin. “So they can smell biochemicals…I wonder what substances they exude? What if they release odorants that stir another person’s emotions?”
Like lust. The idea had already crossed her mind but not seriously. Could it be possible? She hadn’t been able to get enough of him. His smell, his kiss, his touch had driven her wild. Had she been under the influence of a pheromone?
It would explain her behavior.
She dropped onto the giant sofa, scooting over so she didn’t fall through the gap. Even the furniture emphasized the difference between their people.
“Are you all right?” Henry asked.
She took a breath and nodded. “I will be.” She needed to regroup, recover, get over the irrational sense of loss. Those were hormones talking. Hormones that had been manipulated. She’d almost fallen for his enticement, his charm, his dimples. Like a predator, T’mar had stalked her, played with her.
Patsy perched on the edge of the sofa. “I’m so sorry.”
She blew out a huff of air. “Thank you guys for watching out for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” True friends didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear but what you needed to hear.
“What are you going to do now?” Henry asked.
“Keep my distance. Avoid him like the plague.”
Chapter Seventeen
Clutched securely, but gently, in K’ev’s dragon’s claws, Rhianna flew over the royal city toward the temple. Marble spires and towers rose from craggy black rock. A thin band of lava, meandered from city to countryside and, in the distance, she spied a few wisps of smoke curling out of fumaroles.
She took a puff from the inhaler around her neck, realizing that she hardly needed the respirator. What benefited humans hurt dragons. Elementa suited them, but it wasn’t home.