He pulled away, her eyes dark with passion, she watched as he shed his jeans. His cock stood, ramrod straight, and that look in her eyes. Widening. Innocent. Nearly made him explode.
He eased off her panties. Kneeling between them, he primed her with his finger. Softly, he circled her clit, thrusting his finger in and out of her. Her hips rocked with each slow retreat of his finger.
“Damn, you’re so hot,” he groaned, sliding up the length of her body. He palmed her breast. She reached up, tugging him by the shoulders, burying her hands in his hair. So close, she bucked against his hand.
It was difficult keeping his own desires at bay while trying to prepare her to receive him.
Breathing heavily, he pulled back his hand, laying his hand on her hip. His forehead touching hers. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He hadn’t prepared for Cassandra’s unpredictable eagerness. “I’m a big girl. I can take it.”
That, and her rising hips pressing his cock into her wet folds was all the convincing he needed.
“Claim me. Make me yours.”
“Ah Cassandra…” he breathed, as he slid his aching cock inside her.
His tip pressed against her maidenhead. He was so large inside her, stretching to accommodate him. She gasped. He kissed her nose, her lips, her neck. “Forgive me, but to gain pleasure there is always a moment of pain.”
Edmund bit down on her shoulder. She impaled herself on him with a sharp cry, taking in the full length of him. He kissed the bite on her shoulder. Nuzzling her neck, kissing her lips until he heard her sigh.
He gathered her against him. Trying to hold her, give her time, but then she wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him closer insider her body. Drawing their souls together as one.
“Cassandra... I can’t… I need to,” Edmund gasped. She moved beneath him, rocking him back and forth inside her hot sleeve, seeking her own pleasure. A roar of pure dragon need inflamed his blood and charged his senses, intensifying the sensation as he lunged forward feeding his hunger for her.
He buried his face in her hair, while reaching down between those soft curls between her legs to find her sensitive nub. She met him thrust after thrust.
She clawed at him, digging her fingers into his shoulders and back, no longer in control of where she touched him.
And then, like a star shooting across the velvet sky, they spiraled down from the heavens together. Bodies entwined, breathing ragged, their hearts pounding in unison, they lay nestled on the soft earth.
Edmund rolled her over, so she lay on his chest. Clinging to the humid air was the musky scent of their mating.
“Cassandra.” He pushed her dark hair away from her face.
“Edmund,” Cassandra sighed in reply.
“I will love you for centuries.”
Her head jerked up. Her gaze met his. “Centuries?”
He kissed her. “You are a part of me now. Can you not feel it?”
Her soft gasp, made him chuckle as he grew hard inside her.
Chapter Ten
The cold morning breeze chilled Cassandra through her thin robe. Edmund prepared breakfast, yogurt and granola with a cup of tea on the patio table. She could get used to this, if their time hadn’t dwindled so fast.
From the breeze rustling the trees and the gloom spreading across the sky she knew they were in for a storm. She wrapped her robe more tightly around her. Awakening this morning, chilled without Edmund’s radiating heat against her.
She loved summers in the woods. It was so much cooler under the umbrella of trees and living amongst the wildlife. She cherished the time she came up here. One of the reasons her dad loved this place so much, like her.
Another cold breeze blasted up under her robe and prickled her skin.
“If you’re cold, you can come join me.” Edmund sat in the hot tub, steam rose up from the water, creating a mystical cloud around him.
“Oh no. I’ve got things to do today,” she said, spying his hard, naked chest in the water.
“It’s hot.” He tempted her in more ways than one. For the past several days they’d explored their new union together. Planning, plotting, and arguing about their future.
“Says the hot-blooded dragon.” She wasn’t about to retreat to some island in God-knows-where to hide away from Margaret. Not when she had a sanctuary right here. Her life was here. Her mother was here.
How could she feel so attached to someone, yearn to get closer, and leave everything she’d worked so hard to accomplish?
“What are you thinking?”
She took her cup of tea and went and sat near the hot tub. The warm mist warding off the morning chill. “How do you know I’m thinking?”
There it was, that slow, hot, sexy grin. “Your forehead gets that little crease. Besides, my beautiful mate.” He took her hand and kissed the promenade mark on her wrist. “I thought I told you to stop worrying about the meeting tomorrow night. I’ve already made arrangements to ensure your mother is safe.”
“By sending her to a remote island that Margaret has already breached?”
Edmund grabbed her ankles, turning her about and lowering her feet down into the hot water. She jerked back, crying out. “Hot!”
“I thought you liked it hot.” His voice grumbled, low husky, and with that accent of his, her insides quivered.
“You like it hot.”
“Join me,” He rubbed hot water up her bare legs causing her to shiver.
“Stop. It’s a three-hour drive to Vancouver. I don’t even have my passport. It’s back in Seattle. We’ll need to get it. And, I’m assuming you have one since you came here from that island place of yours.”
Edmund gave her a swift tug pulling her into the hot water, robe and all. She screamed as her head rose above the surface of the water and he steadied her on her feet against him. “Are you crazy?” she sputtered. Her flesh on fire from the scolding water.
“Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she said, splashing him in the face.
Edmund shook the water from his face. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. “You’re afraid. Margaret scares you this much?”
She relaxed and allowed him to sink them lower into the water, pulling her onto his lap. Her tea cup somewhere at the bottom swirling near their feet. She forgot he shared her thoughts. This dragon bond thing would take some getting used to. And everything she feared, all the anxiety she felt, she could see in those magnetic platinum eyes of his.
She sighed. “It’s more than Margret. You know it is.”
“Once this is all over, we will return to your place here and in the city. But from time to time, we will need to visit my home as well.”
She rested her forehead on his slick shoulder. His wet chest pressed up against her body heating her feminine spot. She pulled herself closer, so every possible inch of his wet skin pressed against her. “I don’t know what I was thinking. When I’m so close to you, I don’t think. Then I…”
His lips met hers, and whatever she was about to say was forgotten. Cassandra allowed him to peel away the clinging wet robe. She untied the knot for him.
With her arms and breasts bare against him, another sigh escaped her lips. He moved from her mouth, trailing kisses down her neck. Her body responded to his touch, with vivid sensation. He turned her to straddle him. Cupping her ass, he continued his trail of kisses down her neck, to her shoulder.
“I was thinking we’d take a vacation after this. A proper wedding on the island. I’ve got one gig left in Stonehenge, then perhaps a few weeks in London. Maybe Paris.”
He reached the swell of her breast and her breath hitched. “But my art gallery?”
“Will still be there when we get back, luv. Minus the vermin.”
Cassandra arched her back, steam-filled bubbles floating around her, his touch releasing the tension inside her. “I hadn’t…”
“I know.” Edmund’s mou
th locked on hers, and for the first time in days thoughts of her impending meeting with Margaret melted away. He tasted of dark brew coffee, and she wanted more.
It didn’t surprise her to find him naked beneath the water. Commando as always, one of the many things she loved about this dragon. Hers.
She moaned, feeling his hard shaft against the inside of her thigh cause a molten pressure of heat to build in her core. “We have a lot of hours on the road if we’re going to get going where we’re going.”
“Not when you ride the St. George express.” He moved his mouth to the top of her breast that peeked out of the water. She moaned again, tipping her head back. Edmund lifted her, exposing more of her body from the water. With one hand still holding her bottom, his other hand positioned his shaft.
The cool morning air kissed her hot skin, causing her nipples to harden. While Edmund’s mouth explored her, the tip of his shaft teased her. Those two sensations built up in her until she thought she would scream. That and she felt this swift hot desire flood her that could have only come from him.
About to scream out in pleasure, he brought his lips back to hers. Kissing her deep, she wrapped her arms around his neck and into his wet hair.
Then he brought her down on top of him. One hand held her firmly in place, while the other sought her sensitive nub between her feminine folds.
“Oh, yes…” she breathed into his hear. She would ride him. Long and hard. Her hands took grip on his shoulders, she squeezed him, holding him tighter inside her. If even that were possible.
Edmund moaned as she moved up and down his length. “Ride. Me. Luv.”
He watched her with such intensity. And something else…
It came so quickly, like the climax building inside her, that it didn’t take long for her to drown in its pleasure. Wave after wave, she rode it. Neither of them bothering to muffle their sounds of ecstasy. He clamped onto her hips holding her as his hot seed spewed up inside her.
His eyes flashed from their sultry brown to platinum of his dragon. He held her as her body shuddered in the aftermath of their lovemaking.
She fell against him, breathing as hard as he. “Tell me you felt it, too?”
“That and more,” he said, kissing her forehead.
Chapter Eleven
They’d made the drive from their wooded get-a-way back to the city.
“Are you sure we need to come here?” It was late by the time they reached Seattle. Walking down the sidewalk toward the gallery, the hairs on the back of Edmund’s neck rose. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“I just need to check on one thing before we go to my apartment.” Cassandra raised on her tiptoes and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Alin probably cut out early. Anyway, it won’t take long.”
All his dragon senses went off at the same time.
You felt it too?
It was that moment, when a dragon and his mate became one. There was no other way to explain it. Even now, his body quaked in the aftermath of their joining. He could feel all the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Not his, but Cassandra’s. And as every breath he breathed, he shared with her.
This is what her mother had been talking about. A bond so deep, that even their hearts beat in perfect rhythm together. He had no idea it could be this profound. Her love would fulfill him to this depth.
While his mate had not spoken her true feelings aloud, he did not need to hear the words because they embedded inside him along with the rest of their connection.
But it wasn’t their deep bond causing the unease now filling him.
As Cassandra reached for the door, she frowned. A “Closed” sign swung from the glass door. “See, I told you Alin wouldn’t be here.”
Before she unlocked it, he caught the scent of sulfuric hibiscus wafting with Cassandra’s musky sex and vanilla scent.
“Wait.” He stopped her from going inside first.
“Edmund. No one is here.”
Despite her annoyance, he stepped in before her. Lights out, his eyes shifted, and his dragon scanned inside. The streetlights through the windows didn’t make the gallery look any more prestigious than the trashed studio it had become. Egg shell fragments crunched under his feet. Several large paintings of dragons that once hung on the walls lay ripped and discarded.
“Stay here.”
“The lights are in the back. I’m surprised Alin would turn them off. I always leave them on, so you can see inside at night.”
Edmund turned, blocking her view. “I’m sorry, luv. I don’t think he’s coming back.”
“Alin!” Cassandra’s face fell, stricken. His heart plummeted along with hers. She shoved him out of the way. She stumbled over shards of egg shells. A strangled cry, like a wounded animal escaped her lips. “My gallery! When I get my hands on him!”
“Not him. I smell a hint of Margaret in all this.” While they shared everything, she didn’t share his dragon sense of smell. He wrinkled his nose. “And a bit of axel grease with a tinge of burnt rubber.”
“I should have known. Alin wasn’t sent to watch over the gallery. Drake must have sent him to retrieve the package, so he sent me away. Stupid block-head didn’t know where I hid it.”
Cassandra rushed through the gallery to the storage room. Edmund followed behind her. “Package?”
Edmund kicked several boxes out of the way. Ripped cardboard and upside-down crates littered the floor. Several more paintings lie tossed aside, damaged and ruined.
“Margaret sent me a package the day you came into the gallery. Drake knew. Damn him! He probably thinks he can suck up to Margaret if he has the package.”
Edmund watched as she waded through packing materials and tossed boxes aside to get to the back wall. She flicked on the lights. Momentarily blinded, he heard her gasp. Dragon sized claw marks greeted her. Every wall in the studio appeared to have been attacked.
Slowly she turned, the blood draining from her face. Edmund reached for her, but she pushed him away. Her eyes widening at the massacre within her gallery space. She walked over, bent down and picked up one of the torn banners that had days before hung from the ceiling.
Edmund reached over and put his hands down on her shoulders. She hung her head. By the rumble in her chest and quick intakes of breath, he knew she fought to gain control of her emotions. Something inside him clawed at his chest, leaving a burning sensation of anger and grief.
“I think it’s time to go. We can come back and clean this up later.”
Cassandra shook her head. “No. They can’t do this to me. This was my place first. My gallery. My art.” Her breath hitched. “My dream.”
“Easy, luv. Let me take you back to the apartment. I’ll make a few calls, we’ll get this cleaned up. Right now, we need to focus on the meeting.”
“Yeah. You’re right. But first, I need to check on something in the back.”
She walked further toward the back of the studio. Edmund took the canvas she picked up. He set it against the wall. A half-torn face of a dragon, the black fury friend of Blake’s mate, Emily, Jacques, stared back.
As she opened the door between the studio and storage room, he bolted for her.
Cassandra cried out, yanked inside the darkness.
Burnt rubber singed his nostrils.
“It’s about time,” Drake’s curt voice rattled her senses. He jerked her to the side as Edmund lunged for her. He twisted her around. His arm cold, shifting to an armor of scales. Long ivory claws extended against her throat. Cassandra froze.
Edmund’s platinum eyes narrowed on Drake. He growled, his shirt buttons straining against his widening chest. His nostrils flaring as he circled her and Drake.
“Call your dragon off. I’d hate to slit this pretty throat of yours.”
Drake pressed his claw deeper against her throat. She felt the sharp edges draw blood. “Edmund… Don’t…”
Her heart slammed in her chest. Drake’s other claw curled around her waist, the tips jagging into
her.
“Let her go.” Edmund clawed off his shirt. Scales swept up his arms, and like Drake his hands sprouted claws.
“There isn’t enough room in here for one dragon, let alone two. I would hate for you to become a casualty of your mate’s recklessness,” Drake said.
“You would hide behind a woman?” Edmund’s neck cords bulged. She could feel him fighting the shift.
“Only until I get what I came for.” Drake leaned his lips close to her ear. “I’m disappointed. I thought you would have chosen better than this.”
“You mean because I didn’t choose you?”
Drake shrugged. “There will be another one like you in another century or so, that’s the thing about you humans. But we dragons, we are irreplaceable, which is why you will hand over the egg the Keeper’s Mistress sent you.”
Edmund tilted his head, he stared at her and at Drake. Tell him you’ll give him the egg, luv. Whatever he wants to let you go. I can’t get to him holding you.
“I can’t.”
“Give me the egg, or say goodbye to your mate,” Drake snarled, his body temperature raising. Sweat beaded on her forehead.
“You’ll never find it.” She’d rather die than let Drake hurt those babies. I’m sorry.
“Tell me now.” Drake’s claws bit into her flesh. Blood drizzled down her neck. Edmund winced at her pain. Then Drake’s claws of his other hand pointed to her heart. “So, your bond is deep.”
Cassandra held back her sob. Drake laughed. “Sweet. No, I can kill you both with one blow.”
Edmund shifted.
He pounded his tail against the wall between the storage room and gallery. It fell, and Drake shoved Cassandra away to protect himself. He raised his hands over his head, too late to shift, the wall collapsed atop him. Wooden crates stacked against the far wall toppled as Cassandra hit the floor. Edmund screeched, smoke pluming from his nostrils. He tilted his dragon head, holding the largest of the crate stacks from crumbling on her.
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