by Riley Storm
Slipping a hand back between them, Liz found his belt, and then pushed her palm flat against his pants and continued downward until her fingertips pressed into his shaft, lying flat against his thigh under the fabric.
Oh my, she thought to herself, feeling his girth, his length, and just his overall size. He was…packing.
“I’ll be gentle,” Valla said into her ear, the words barely more than a whispered murmur, yet loud enough to send shivers down her spine as he anticipated her thoughts.
“Hopefully not too gentle,” she said, teasing him right back by slipping out of his grasp and walking across the front room.
The kitchen was off to her left, the TV room to her right, but those weren’t of interest to Liz. Not just then. Not after the tension that had been flowing between the two of them all night long. Just then, her focus was on one place, and one place only, and it was at the back of her house, down the hallway.
“Well if that isn’t just a scintillating sight.”
She looked over her shoulder, hoping it was as demurring and attractive as she wanted it to be, and then reached up behind her and tugged at the zipper of her dress, slowly pulling it down to her waist as she disappeared into her bedroom.
Footsteps made their way across the original hardwood floor with speed, and seconds later, Valla appeared in her doorway, having managed to lose his suit jacket at some point along the way.
“Can you help me with this?” she asked, wondering where the strength of her seduction was coming from.
The answer, of course, was Valla, as he came up to her, his hands slipping between the dress and her skin and gently pushing it down over her thick waist. It had to be Valla.
She’d gone out after work with several of her friends from another department, to celebrate someone’s birthday. After all, it was a Friday and things had been going great at work lately, so she felt like it was well deserved on all their parts.
The tight black dress hadn’t been overly revealing, with but a hint of her cleavage and coming down to just above her knees as well. Yet when Valla had laid eyes on her, there’d been no hesitation. He’d strode over to her, the crowd parting around them like in a fairy tale.
She could still remember it now, hearing his voice for the first time as he extended a hand to her and asked if she would like to dance.
That had been the beginning of her downfall. The way he could move his body! Oh, it had been something else. All night, they had danced, and drank, and danced, and she was thoroughly exhausted, but Liz wasn’t about to stop now.
Not when he felt so good pressed up against her, his hard muscles and her soft skin. She shivered at the contact, then frowned.
“Hey, where did your shirt go?” she asked. When had he had time to take that off? The man was a magician.
But just then, her dress fell to the floor and supple fingers sent her strapless black bra to join it seconds later. Now she had nothing but a thong on, and was feeling abruptly self-conscious about the figure she presented compared to him.
“Hey,” a deep voice rumbled from next to her. “None of that. You’re obscuring my view of your body. I want to see it all. I want it all. All of it. All of you.”
She couldn’t help it. Her mouth opened in a small circle, forcing her to breathe deeply as Valla’s hands explored all of her. Not just her sides, her shoulders, not even just her breasts. Fingers pushed between her legs, almost immediately finding her clit, teasing it with gentle circles until her knees threatened to give out.
Sensing the impending collapse, Valla turned her around and with an easy effort, grasped her thighs and lifted her from the ground. Liz yelped at the sudden weightlessness but before she could do anything, Valla was laying her back onto the bed, climbing atop her.
“Valla.” It was all she had time to whisper before his mouth descended to cover hers in yet another fiery kiss.
They had stopped an untold number of times on the way home from the bar to kiss. Make-out would have been the better term really, because it was never just one or two kisses. Valla believed in doing everything thoroughly.
Very thoroughly, as she found out when his lips began to make their way south, seeming to touch every inch of her skin as he went, leaving no nerve ending not on fire.
She’d not been touched like this before, or at all, in a long time. But there was something about Valla.
Something different.
Taking a man home wasn’t Liz’s usual style, but she was hard-pressed to find a reason to dislike her decision.
Everything seemed to be going very, very right.
His mouth breathed hot fire over her clit through her thong, and the sensations that followed blasted all remaining thought from her mind except one.
Holy fuck! This is going to be good.
Chapter 3
“You’re sure about it?”
Liz rolled her eyes, sitting back into the couch, nervously fingering at one of her loose strands of hair, pulling it tight, letting it curl and then pulling it tight again.
“Yes, I’m positive, Cheryl. Come on. Four times. Three different days. How much more certain can you get? That was a month and a half ago. I’ve been to my doctor since. He confirmed it. So yes, I’d say I’m pretty sure about it.”
“Sorry.”
Sighing Liz shook her head. “No, no don’t apologize. I just bit your head off for no reason.”
“I asked a stupid question,” Cheryl said, holding up a hand to stop her. “Of course, you’d be sure before you decided to tell me. I should be here to support you, not question you.”
“Thanks.” Liz wasn’t sure what else to say. “I…I want this, Cheryl.”
“You mean you’re going to keep it?”
“I debated that for a long time. A long, long time.” She rubbed at her eyes, still swollen from crying earlier, before Cheryl had arrived.
The two had become friends lately. Though Cheryl was her boss, they worked well as a team, and so far, things hadn’t been awkward at all at the workplace. It was also one of the reasons why Liz had called Cheryl first. She knew she could count on the other woman to understand.
“Don’t judge yourself for that,” Cheryl said, pulling her into a hug, as if sensing that she was on the verge of another breakdown. “Don’t judge yourself at all, Liz. It’s totally normal to have such thoughts. Even if you’d chosen to go the other way, you needn’t have judged yourself. It’s your life, your body, you get to make the decisions. Nobody else is in your decision.”
“I want kids,” Liz said. “I do. But I hadn’t envisioned this as the way it would happen. I thought, you know, husband, white picket fence, two-car garage. Dinner parties.”
“Straight out of the fifties, in other words,” Cheryl joked.
“Pretty much. I…I really never expected it would happen from a one-night stand either.” Liz hung her head weakly into Cheryl’s shoulder. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“You weren’t stupid. Stop that. You’re beating yourself up for allowing yourself some pleasure. Sex is great. It’s fun. You should let yourself enjoy it, and from what I recall you telling me at the time, you did enjoy it.”
Even now, Liz couldn’t stop from feeling slightly warm, nor could she completely hide the smile. “Literally the best I’ve ever had. Full stop. Not even close. I didn’t walk right for days.”
“Ew!” Cheryl giggled, both of them laughing.
“We used protection. I’m on the pill. Yet still…”
“Not to be a bitch, but like, it’s definitely his? You weren’t with anyone else?” Cheryl asked tentatively.
“You’re not a bitch. It’s a fair question. But no, nobody since, and far too long before him for it to be anyone else’s. Nope, mystery-man is the father.” Liz wasn’t sure why she didn’t feel comfortable giving out his name, even to Cheryl, but she didn’t. Perhaps it was a bit of embarrassment, at not even having a last name. Either way, she’d kept mum on the topic so far. “And I’ve not seen or he
ard from him since. Three months, and just poof. Nothing. He even knows where I live, but he never came by.”
“I’m really sorry.” Cheryl squeezed her knee. “It must be tough.”
“Actually,” she admitted. “I think it’s a little easier now that I’ve decided to keep it, you know? Like, that decision is past, I’m going to have the child. I can’t punish it for my actions, right? And who knows when I’ll get the chance to have kids again, if ever. Things just felt right about keeping it.”
Cheryl nodded slowly. “Of course. I understand.”
“But…”
Her friend didn’t even flinch.
“But what about Mystery-Man?” Cheryl supplied after a moment of silence.
“No, it’s not about him at all actually.” Liz grinned at the surprised look on Cheryl’s face. “He’s him. It’s been three months. He can’t know I’m pregnant with his child. But he has my number, and he has my address. If he wanted to see me again, he would have by now. No, he’s gone, and that’s that. I will not waste my energy trying to track down someone who so obviously wants nothing to do with me.”
Cheryl hugged her tightly. “I’m so proud of you. You’re going to make such a great mother. What is the ‘but’ about then, if not wondering where the father is?”
Liz shivered.
“What? Is everything okay? Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” she said, reassuring Cheryl that all was fine. “Not that you could know. Just…what do you know about my family?” she asked at last.
“Um. Nothing, actually,” Cheryl said, frowning as she answered. “We’ve never really talked about it before.”
“That’s ‘cause I don’t talk about it. Them. Whatever. Family life isn’t something I was graced with, growing up,” Liz said heavily. “It was…well, I don’t want to go into detail.”
“You don’t have to Liz. It’s okay. Whatever you do or don’t want to tell me is perfectly fine.” Cheryl was sitting up straight now, attentive, her focus fully on Liz.
“I just want to give this child better than I had, you know?” she asked, one hand subconsciously moving to touch her belly where even now, life beat within her. A second life.
“And you will, Liz. Oh, I know you will. You’re so strong and caring. You’re going to be a great mother. Nobody in their right mind would question that.”
“They will,” she said softly. “Because there’s no father. People will talk.”
“Fuck ‘em,” Cheryl said with a bit of a snarl. “Seriously, fuck anyone who judges you otherwise. You’re going to be a badass momma, and that’s all that matters. Your kid is going to know you love her—it’s going to be a girl by the way, sorry—and you’re going to give it every opportunity in the world to succeed. Anyone who knows you knows that.”
Liz blushed. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it with all her heart. “That…I appreciate that. But I worry I won’t be able to provide it all, on my own.”
“You will,” Cheryl said with an absolute certainty that made Liz more appreciative than ever to have her as a friend. “You absolutely will. There’s a greatness in you Liz, and I think motherhood is going to emphasize that for everyone to see.”
“Thanks,” she said again, feeling like she was repeating herself.
Hearing her friend voice her confidence—not only in Liz’s choice to keep the child, but also in her ability as a future mother—was reassuring.
But it didn’t dispel the doubts circling in her head. Liz knew that until the child arrived, nobody truly knew if she would be able to be a good mother. After all, it was not as though she had any experience with the role. Even growing up, her best role model had been…well, not a role model at all.
“I don’t want to screw this up,” she said.
“Oh Liz.” Cheryl snagged her up in another hug. “You won’t. You’re going to be great.”
But Liz wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 4
“Tell me again why I’m here with you?” Valla rumbled as they entered the municipal building.
“Because, as you demonstrated once before, you can’t be left alone,” Victor said, his tone tired and uncaring. “Since Aaric is off doing other things, that means I’m forced to babysit you.”
Valla bristled. He hated being thought of as a child.
“It was one time,” he said angrily, staring daggers at Victor’s back. “Nothing bad happened from it.”
“That we know of!”
When Valla had returned to Drakon Keep, the centuries-old home of the dragon shifters, he’d found both Victor and Aaric waiting for him. Neither had been happy. In fact, they’d been downright furious with him for skipping out before they deemed him ready.
Brash, they’d called it. Stupid, they’d said.
More than once in the days that followed, he’d heard them arguing about whether or not it had been wise to awaken one as young as he. Victor, he knew, thought it folly, though the water dragon and his mate had been the ones to awaken him. Aaric was unsure, but that didn’t mean he was any kinder.
His punch after Valla had shifted back had hurt just as much as Victor’s, after all.
“If something bad had happened, we’d know of it by now,” he said, tired of the constant berating.
“You landed in your other form in the middle of a neighborhood full of humans. Humans who could have easily recorded you shifting. Are you seriously that stupid that you can’t understand the potential ramifications of your actions here?”
“No,” Valla ground out through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to kick Victor down the hallway. It was close, and he almost caved to the temptation.
But that wouldn’t solve anything. He was still going to have to sit through a meeting about the building that his brothers were constructing in concert with the town. Not that Valla gave a shit about that. He had been awakened for one purpose, and one purpose only.
Hunt down the vampires.
Which was kind of hard to do when he was chained to the Keep and the grounds around it.
Ice dragons were the best hunters and trackers of dragon kind, and Valla was among the best of his kind, even at his young age. There was no question in his mind that he would find the vampire nest.
Once they actually let me start hunting!
“I could be finding the vampires while you do this,” he suggested, trying yet again to get Victor to cut him loose to do his own thing.
He didn’t expect Victor to agree, and in a way, Valla was okay with that. Though he was an excellent hunter, the prospect of being the one to track down an entire nest of vampires was more than a little unsettling.
They were supposed to be extinct, after all. Everyone knew that. When the shifters had risen to power, they had invaded ancient Rome and killed off all the vampires. Every last one of them, they had been told. The final battle had come in early 5th century. The shifters had stormed Rome itself. Killed the Senate, the Emperor, and all of their vampire lackeys. Not one had survived, at great cost to the shifters themselves.
But now, apparently, they were back? Not only were they back, but they could change. They could shift, like his kind. A new wave of vampires, it seemed, with new powers. No, Valla really wasn’t all that sure he wanted to find them. Not without a few dozen or more elder dragons at his back. Perhaps then, he would feel confident storming into the lair of the creatures, some of which could be close to two thousand years old by this point.
He shivered at the thought of how powerful they would be. A young dragon would be no match for their strength.
“Yeah, you could,” Victor said. “But if you reveal our existence to the entire world while doing it, that’s not exactly going to help us either, now is it? So quit whining. When you’re ready, you can go. Not before then.”
“I’ve completed your stupid course. I’m up to speed. Just let me do my job,” Valla pushed, coming to a halt as Victor reached for the door to a room. Apparently, they had arrived at their destination.
“Soon,” Victor said in a nicer tone. “But first, you need to get a better feel for who we’re working with. The people we’re protecting. Not to mention a more thorough understanding of everything that’s gone beforehand, while you were still asleep.”
Then he pulled the door open, assuming the conversation to be over. But Valla wasn’t about to give up that easily.
“You realize it doesn’t matter, right?” he asked, entering the room first. There were some humans in it, but he barely paid them any attention, turning back to face Victor—though he did lower his voice. “Seriously, none of that matters to me. I can find them either way.”
“Valla?”
He straightened as a feminine voice interrupted his arguments.
Victor, looking past him at the female speaker, letting his eyes narrow. “How do you know him?” he asked.
Swallowing nervously, Valla tried not to notice the thunderclouds forming on the water dragon’s face. Whispering a small prayer, Valla tuned his brother out completely and turned to face the speaker. A speaker he knew.
She was short. A few inches over five feet, with short hair that hung in loose curls. It was currently dyed red, though it was faded, a sign that it had been some time since she’d had it done. That felt about right, because when he’d last seen her, it had been freshly done, catching both the light and his attention.
The thick heart-shaped face he’d remembered as being all smiles and soft moans was gone, replaced by a hardness that had him fumbling for words. Although he yanked his eyes back before they could roam over her body, he’d caught enough to rekindle many memories of what she looked like without the dark jeans and black sweater covering up the lush curves he so desired.
“You!” she exploded in anger before he could even say a greeting.
Yep. She definitely was not happy to see him. Clearly, his first impression hadn’t been good enough for her, in some way. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.
Should I have stayed to the morning? Can she really be that upset over such a trivial thing?