Dragon Mated: Sexy Urban Fantasy Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds Book 4)

by Kara Lockharte

  “Princess…I,” he began, as he rubbed her deep inside.

  “Still clear,” Jamison said inside his ear, and Damian was glad their connection was just one-way—what he would say next was just for Andi.

  She pulled up, balancing on one elbow, as her hand reached for his wrist to still it. “We always fight or fuck or both, Damian. There’s hardly been any in-between. Do you think you could be gentle with me? Just this once?”

  His confession was swallowed by her request. He hadn’t seen her in weeks; of course he’d give her what she wanted. He nodded and pulled his hand out of hers to undo his belt buckle and unzip his jeans. His cock swung out and aimed for her the second his boxer briefs were lowered, and he took his hands and stroked them down the inside of her thighs, soft as a whisper, carefully pulling her toward him to the counter’s edge.

  “Like this, princess?” he asked.

  She nodded quietly, her dark eyes wide, and he wondered how big a part his perpetual violence toward her and around her had had in pushing her away, even if just subconsciously. If she didn’t feel safe asking him to slow down ever. “Princess,” he began anew, to apologize, but then her hand was between her legs again. She reached for him, touched him, and he gasped.

  She pulled him closer, rubbing the head of him up and down in the line that he’d just kissed, teasing him with her slick, wet heat, listening to him moan. How had he lasted this long without her touch? He fought not to tense his fingers on her waist, to pet her body instead of pinch it, and to wait until she pushed his tip inside of her, closing her legs around his hips to draw him in. Of course she wanted him. She was his mate—even if she still didn’t know it.

  “Andi,” he groaned, letting himself sink into her, feeling his thick cock slide halfway in like he belonged there, watching her as he did so, the way her eyes closed, her back arched, her lips parting in a sigh. She was fucking perfect and she fit him perfectly—because it was destiny, and he needed to tell her so before things went further and their actions swept all the words away again. “Andi,” he began again, stepping back, pulling himself out.

  Her eyes focused in on him blurrily. “Damian?”

  “I can’t do this anymore, princess.”

  She laughed, shaking her head to clear it. “What…be nice to me?”

  “No. Not tell you what you mean to me.”

  He watched heat wash up her in a wave. “Damian—”

  “You’re everything to me, Andi. But I don’t know what this is today for you. The end of a dry spell? Why do you want me here? Do I get to stay?”

  She pushed herself up on the counter with both arms, her gaze turning bright. “I needed to see you; I thought you felt the same.”

  “I do, fucking hell. But if we do this now, Andi, we can’t just stop. You can’t fold me up and put me in a box and wait to play with me later.” He tucked himself away roughly and pulled his jeans back up.

  “I don’t want that, Damian, but we both know it’s not safe for us. Helicopters?” she said, her voice rising, and he took a step back as she pushed herself to fully sit up. “I saw the survivor at work last night. It wasn’t pretty.” She put a hand on his chest. “I’m not judging you. I’m simply scared for you, is all. I don’t want to give my brother’s destiny any chances. I can’t have all of everything I’ve been through without you be for nothing.” He watched her chest heave and the fear radiating off of her was almost palpable.

  “What if I told you we had a destiny too?” he asked quietly.

  “Damian,” she said. Her shoulders sank as she bowed her head.

  “Let me finish, for once,” he said, grabbing and pulling her up until she looked at him, and he realized this was not a conversation he wanted to have while she was half-naked, nor while he was looming above. He picked up her coat and swung it around her shoulders, then went out into the bakery’s front and grabbed a chair. He returned and put it down in front of her, and caught her holding the gemstone he’d given her protectively as he sat down. Seeing her do that, a gesture she’d clearly made a hundred times before in his absence, gave him strength.

  “Andi, I know you don’t want another destiny, but I’m sorry,” he began, and then realized he wasn’t. There were many things in his life to apologize for, but this was not one of them. “Actually, fuck it, no, I’m not. This is real to me. And I want it to be real to you.” He stared up at her, her ankles daintily crossed, the curves of her body barely hidden by the coat, his gemstone glinting at her neck. She stared down at him with eyes both curious and concerned, biting her lips.

  “You’re my mate, Andi. Every time I ever said you were my one and only, I meant it. What we have is not just a relationship, and it’s not something we can opt out of or decide to put away for good. This thing between us is timeless and endless and it echoes. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to please you, and if it means you send me away again, I’ll do that, too, but please do not because life without you has been murderous for me.”

  And for me as well, his dragon quietly added.

  He swallowed, trying to read her face as he continued, sensing all of her body flush. He could only hope that that was a good thing. In fiction, in the Realms, announcing you were mates was always a happy occasion, met with a squeal of delight and affection instantly returned, but he was on Earth now, and Andi was so beautifully human. He took her hands in his, brushing a thumb over her wrist, feeling the beating of her pulse. “Every time I see you, princess, I feel something shift and break in me. I keep changing to be a better man for you, and hell, a better dragon. I am yours. I belong to you. Say you belong to me, too.”

  “Damian,” she whispered.

  “Annnnd it continues to be clear. I feel like a weatherman,” Jamison said inside Damian’s ear. “Sorry, hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  Damian fought down a growl and concentrated on Andi. “If you look inside yourself and know you feel that way about me too, princess…I need you to tell me.”

  Andi sat on the countertop, hiding inside her coat, her hands in his, looking at Damian’s beautiful face. The scent of sex was heavy in the air, and he smelled lightly of sweat, like he’d been working out before he’d met her. In the half-light of the kitchen—it was dawn outside, leaking in around closed blinds—his golden eyes looked like tarnished coins. She felt all of his concentration upon her, waiting for her to say that she felt things too.

  She did. She had. This whole time. She’d been feeling things ever since she’d met him, since he’d picked her up at that first bus stop, when she’d known he’d been trouble. It’d been so easy to read the signs, even if she never could’ve predicted this.

  “How long have you known?” she asked him.

  He sat up straighter, pulling slightly back. “When we were together in the car beneath the overpass. I was with you and…my dragon told me.” She could watch him structuring his breathing, holding onto each inhale half a second longer than was natural, trying to brace himself for a possible impact.

  “He doesn’t lie, does he?”

  Damian closed his eyes and snorted. “He is many things, but not a liar, no.”

  She freed her hands from his, scooting closer to the counter’s edge to look down at him. “If you’ve known for so long, why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “To tell you that night would’ve sounded insane.”

  “And all the nights since then?”

  “There was never a good time. Perhaps because of all the fighting or fucking, as you said, take your pick.” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, arching his back against the chair. “And I know you’re human, Andi. I had to consider that you didn’t feel the way I do.” He rebounded to his former position, his gaze searching hers as he put a hand on either side of her hips on the counter. “But I can’t risk you not knowing anymore. If you’re going to choose a destiny, choose ours.”

  Andi leaned forward to cup her hands beneath his strong jaw. “You impossibly hot draconic idiot. I’ve
been trying to.” His eyes widened in surprise as she went on. “Do you think I’ve enjoyed this time alone? Swallowing down panic every night, waiting for just one word?”

  “But you said you didn’t want to be in a relationship—”

  “How am I supposed to make good decisions when I don’t have all the information?” She let go of his face to run her hands over her own. “What the fuck, Damian!”

  “That’s not an answer,” he said, his voice low.

  “I don’t know what mates is!” She shook her head, raising her gaze to the ceiling of the bakery before lowering it again to his, finding him still intent on her. “All I do know is that when I’m not with you, I want to die,” she whispered and swallowed. “And not in a casual, ‘oh, work sucks and I spilled coffee on my best scrubs’ way, but more in a visceral, ‘I wish I could stop breathing now because it would be easier than being away from him.’”

  The intensity in his brow softened. “Don’t stop breathing. Ever.”

  She hugged herself and looked down. “I had no idea how hard it was going to be to be without you until I was. I could’ve used a warning.”

  He pushed the chair he’d sat in back and stood, wrapping his arms around her. “Would it have changed anything?” he asked, his question a soft rumble.

  “I don’t know. Does it change anything? Does being mates make you invincible or keep you safe?” she murmured into his chest.

  He took one of her hands, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. “No, princess.”

  Andi’s stomach sank. “Then we’ll have to stay apart.”

  “Until this is through, most likely.” He tucked her head beneath his chin.

  Her emotions raced in different directions, like unruly horses tearing apart a chariot. She was angry that there wasn’t an easy solution and that their time together still had a timer, afraid of how right everything he’d told her felt, and on fire with how badly she wanted him. Now that he was near her…now that she could hear his heart…now that she knew it beat only for her….

  She flashed back to the prior night and the accident’s only survivor and looked up. “Will there be more helicopters?”

  His golden eyes stared down at her and she felt herself drawn even closer to him. “Not right now,” he promised.

  She leaned up, yearning, desperate for a kiss now that she knew they were all counted, and his mouth met hers, tasting her gently, kissing the edges of her lips before teasing her mouth with his tongue pressing in. She ran her hands up into his hair to hold his mouth to hers so she could drink him. Her coat fell off her shoulders as he ran his hands beneath it and she remembered their first kiss on his bed when she’d been wearing a fur, when it seemed incredibly crazy to want him. But this time, she knew exactly what she was getting into—and what she wanted. Him. Damian. Her dragon. She pulled her head back from his, and he pressed his forehead to hers, and they were both breathing hard. “Princess,” he whispered. “Never leave me again. Not like that.”

  “I won’t,” she swore.

  His hands ran up her sides and down her back and he bent over to kiss her neck. She ran her hands down his shoulders as he pulled her forward to the counter’s edge and she kicked her legs so that she was straddling him, her legs around his hips, asking him for more.

  She knew he was hard; she could feel him grind against her, and her hands raced for the waistband of his jeans, undoing the buttons that he’d just redone to reach inside, hearing his sharp intake of breath at her touch on his hot, smooth, skin. “Help me?” she whispered, and he went for his jeans, shoving them down quickly, reaching between them to hold his heavy cock steady. He angled himself down and leaned forward as she arched her hips to let him in, her hand curling in the shorter hair at the nape of his neck as he started to push his way inside.

  “Andi,” he groaned, grabbing her hips and holding her steady for a thrust.

  “Go slow…it’s been so long,” she begged, and felt him shudder with restraint.

  “I’ll take my time,” he said, kissing down her shoulder. “I’d take forever, if I could.”

  She heard the sincerity in his voice, and for the first time in her life, Andi felt like forever could be an actual thing. Like there was someone on this planet who would always watch out for her, care for her, cherish her. And she enjoyed it for half a second before rocking back onto her elbows with a giggle. “Oh my God, Damian, I really am stuck with you.”

  He flashed her a look, and then, he laughed, too. He stood and encircled both of her thighs with his strong hands, rocking himself deeper inside her with a satisfied grunt. “Is that what it’s like?”

  “Kind of…right?”

  “I guess,” he said, and laughed again. “I’ve never done this before either, princess.” He gave her the kind of look then that made her want to melt and hide, instead of being so ridiculously naked and exposed. She bit her lips and fought not to look away. He leaned over her, pushing himself deeper, as he placed a hand beside her head. “All I know is that we’re meant to be. I have faith in our fate, Andi. Every time I see you, I feel it. Don’t you?”

  She knew what he wanted to hear: yes, of course!—but that’d have been a lie. “No.”

  He froze, holding himself over her. “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to believe in fate, Damian. I don’t want to trust that shit with you any more than I want to trust it with my brother. I want to be my own goddamned person, not a puppet.” She reached for his face again as she went on. “I know I love you and only you, and if you want to think that that makes us mates, then that’s fine, but the only thing I want to have faith in from here on out is you.” She was breathing roughly and he was still rock hard inside her and all she wanted was all of him. “Isn’t that enough?”

  His thoughts flashed across his face, too quickly for her to read. “It is,” he agreed, kissing her, and thrust anew.

  The first few strokes were slow just like she’d asked for, letting her feel all of him, both of them relishing the friction as he pulled out of her, the tension of her tight around his cock’s thick head, and then the sensation of him pushing into her again, stretching her wide as she sleeved him. His cock rubbed inside at her spot, as he reached around to play her clit with his thumb. Her breath hitched and she looked up at him. “You can go faster now.”

  “Can I?” he teased. His hands found her waist, thudding into her once, hard, in demonstration. “Are you sure you can take it, princess?” Andi licked her lips and nodded, as he growled, “We’ll see.”

  He lowered himself on top of her, crushing her just the right amount, making her feel pinned in place, trapped in a good way, filling her and taking her, again and again, and she realized everything she’d missed when she’d been alone. Feeling full, feeling whole, feeling wanted—feeling alive.

  “Oh, fuck, princess,” Damian groaned into her neck, seating himself inside her. “I don’t know how I lived without this.”

  “I don’t know how I did, either,” she said honestly.

  He lifted up his head to loom over her, smoothing her hair back off her face. “You don’t have to. Not ever again,” he said.

  He didn’t speed up all at once. He kept her on the edge of begging him, and she knew he was doing it on purpose, because surely he could feel her shifting beneath him, heels kicking helplessly, her fingers clawing against his back to urge him and then…and then…he started fucking her like he wanted his cock to move in, and it was all she could do to hold on.

  “Damian,” she gasped, throwing her arms around his head and neck, her legs laced around his back, his hips stretching her thighs wide.

  It was like he wanted to demolish anything that’d ever held them back, and she was all right with that, because after this, she didn’t even want to be the same person. She wanted him to fuck her until she became someone new—someone so undeniably his that there could never be any question.

  “Goddamn, princess,” he breathed harshly in her ear as he kept mounting her. �
��This is where I belong. In you. You’re my everything.”

  Andi moaned and writhed. “Damian…I,” she began, feeling all the orgasms she’d denied herself in his absence rushing up. “Damian…oh God, oh God, oh God,” she whined. Her hands ran over his shoulders, her short nails ripping at his back.

  “Fucking come for me, princess,” he hissed, and she had to, it was his, just like she was.

  She screamed, then realized how loud she was being, and bit his bicep hard to muffle herself, as the sensation ripped through her, head to toe, all of her clenching and opening, clenching and opening, trying to take him deeper and then hold him tight inside. When she was through, she fell back with a final shudder, exhausted.

  “I’m yours, dragon,” she whispered, willing it to be so.

  “Forever, princess,” he told her, holding himself up over her, breathing hard. “Always.”

  Chapter 10

  “Damian, you really need to leave.”

  Jamison’s voice had become insistent, and Andi moaned as he pulled out of her. She pouted and grabbed his head, bringing his face to hers. “Why the fuck are you still hard?”

  He hadn’t come because he hadn’t wanted to be distracted…more distracted. He hadn’t really thought about the demoralizing consequence it’d have on her.

  “The first time we get to have sex in weeks, I wanted to feel you lose yourself in me.” She pressed a fist against her stomach, above where he’d just been. “I like it,” she said and frowned.

  His mate begging him to come inside her was, and would remain, up at the top of his long list of Things that Made Andi Perfect for Him.

  “I know you do, but….” he said, turning his head.

  He didn’t want to leave her.

  He definitely had to.