by Piper Scott
“Are you there, Finch?” he asked in a near whisper as he ran the pearl over the curve of Finch’s hip. “Have you come back to me?”
Finch’s mouth was dry, and an aching need seized him that ran bone deep. “Yes.”
“I made you a bed from my hoard. Is it to your liking? I couldn’t get an answer out of you before. You were, well, preoccupied.”
Finch looked down his body and discovered that riches weren’t the only thing he was covered in—stripes of cum glistened on his stomach. By the looks of it, it was his own. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to.”
“I’m fairly sure you did, but it’s of no consequence.” Hugh swept forward and climbed over Finch on his hands and knees, at which point Finch realized he was still entirely naked. Up close like this, there was no missing the trail of dark hair that ran from Hugh’s chest all the way to his groin, or the pronounced muscles of his arms. When clothed, Hugh was blundering at best, but when stripped down to nothing, he was all raw sexual prowess and unrelenting confidence. “I like you this way, Finch. I love to see you come undone. If I had it my way, I’d watch you touch yourself all day, but I can think of other ways to put our time together to use. Can’t you?”
Hugh’s lips brushed Finch’s, stirring Finch’s cock back to life. “I can, sir.”
“Would you like it to happen here, swimming in our hoard, or in our bed? I had the sheets made to match your eyes, you know.”
It was the most ridiculous thing Finch had ever heard, but it was also the most romantic, and he kissed Hugh hard as his heart sang. When he was finally able to look in the direction of the bed, he noticed the sheets had, indeed, been changed. They were a brilliant cobalt blue now, with their stitching done in gold. The bed itself seemed to float in a sea of treasure that hadn’t been there the last time Finch had been in Hugh’s hoard. It looked too good to resist. “Yes. Bed. Now.”
Hugh scooped Finch up into his arms. “That sounded practically draconic, Finch. How very curious. Although Harrison does assure me that every omega, no matter how many generations away they are from their dragon sire, retains a bit of magic. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be omegas in the first place. It sounds like utter rot to me, but maybe the boy is onto something.”
Finch didn’t care for science. Not now. Right now, the only thing he cared for was Hugh, their bed, and the thickness between Hugh’s legs. He clung to Hugh as he was lifted from his bed of gold and carried down the mountain. It all seemed so surreal, yet there was no denying it. Hugh had chosen him over a potential mate and even over the clutch he’d yearned for, and now Hugh was going to take his virginity.
Not even dreams were this sweet.
Hugh tossed Finch onto the bed, then climbed on after him, his enormous erection bobbing between his legs. It would be going inside of him, Finch realized with a start that warmed his stomach. Hugh would be going inside of him, shoving that thing that looked like it could tear him in half into Finch’s tight little hole until they were one. Finch almost came from the thought alone. He needed it in the worst way.
But Hugh had other plans. “Hands and knees, Finch. Now.”
Finch did as he was told.
“Beautiful. Now spread your legs. Yes. Just like that.”
To Finch’s shock and disbelief, Hugh licked him there. The flat of his tongue was wet and warm and surprisingly thick, and the pleasure it brought was shocking. While Hugh lapped and probed and kissed, Finch dropped his head and gasped for breath. “Oh, god.”
Hugh kissed the base of Finch’s spine tenderly. “Would you like more, my darling?”
“Please,” Finch begged. “Please.”
“Tell me what you want, sweet. Use your words.” Hugh kissed up Finch’s vertebrae.
“Fuck me.” It was crude, but Finch didn’t care. No one from the Pedigree was here to reprimand him. He was at the mercy of a dragon, and he needed that dragon to know exactly what he wanted before he went insane from need. “Knot me and fuck me and knot me again. Breed me. Take me. Oh, sir, I need you. I need to feel you inside me.”
“Hugh,” Hugh growled in Finch’s ear as the head of his cock probed Finch’s hole. “Call me by my name, Finch. When we’re in bed, I’m not ‘sir,’ I’m ‘Hugh.’”
Hugh flipped Finch over so he lay on his back, then spread his legs wide. In no time at all, Hugh folded Finch into position, and Finch felt the smooth skin of Hugh’s cockhead probe at his entrance once more. It was time. In seconds, Hugh would fill him and he’d finally lose his virginity to the dragon he’d loved for what felt like forever. Heat rose in Finch’s cheeks, and he squirmed as Hugh stroked himself back and forth, wetting his length with Finch’s slick. It felt like forever before the pressure returned and Hugh slowly pushed inside.
“Finch,” Hugh rumbled, sounding more draconic than Finch had ever heard him before. “God, Finch… the way you feel… I can’t…”
Finch didn’t know what Hugh could or could not do. In that moment, he didn’t care. Hugh was inside him, stretching him, filling him, and the pleasure of it all deprived Finch of any other thought. “Please,” Finch begged, not even sure what he was begging for, but he needed… he needed…
Hugh leaned forward, buried to the hilt in Finch’s body, and kissed his words away. From there it was all pumping hips, flowing slick, and senselessness. Finch lost himself more than once to his heat, only to regain hold of himself in the midst of Hugh fucking him to within an inch of his life. It was savage and sweet, absolutely primal in execution, but based in love. Finch could tell it from every kiss Hugh gave him and from the tenderness with which the dragon caressed his body.
Finch lost his grip on reality again. When he came to, Hugh had his hand wrapped around Finch’s own cock.
“Come for me, Finch,” Hugh urged him, his voice a low growl. “I want to feel you come before I give you your first knot.”
That alone was enough to nearly make Finch come. Hugh’s voice, deep and sexy and so self-assured, telling him to do the filthiest things, was beyond anything he’d ever imagined. With a strangled cry, he pushed himself as hard as he could against Hugh’s hand and let go. Orgasm ripped through him, tightening his body and relieving some of the effects of his heat. While it happened, Hugh groaned and moved even more violently within Finch. It was divine. Finch rode out the pleasure, floating on post-orgasmic bliss. Then Hugh shouted and stilled, and a new kind of pleasure took hold as Hugh’s knot swelled inside of him, stretching him beyond what he’d thought possible. Pain and pleasure mingled, one sweetening the other until there was no part of Finch that wasn’t under its spell.
“God, Finch,” Hugh breathed through it all. Hot cum rushed into Finch, and Hugh folded him back a little more as if to encourage it to sink deeper. “God… I’ve never, never experienced something like this with anyone else. Never. You are the one for me. The only one. And I hope that for all of time, I might be the only one for you, too. I know that we have but decades, but I swear I will be yours until the end. I promise it with every fiber of my being.”
Finch’s heart lurched and tears pricked his eyes. Hugh truly was in love with him. Deeply and irrevocably in love. No matter which angle Finch framed it from, it was a foregone conclusion. For him, Hugh had given up on his dream, and for Hugh, Finch would do anything. Even share his secret. “Hugh?”
“Yes, sweet?” Hugh kissed Finch’s shoulder.
“My name. It’s not Finch. Or, rather, it is. But it’s my first name. Not my last. I had it changed when I moved to Aurora. I petitioned to have it done through your brother, Geoffrey.”
Hugh looked puzzled. “You’re just Finch,” he said. “Last or first, you’re my Finch.”
“Yes, but…” Finch forced himself to say it. “My real surname is Drake.”
Hugh looked more puzzled. “What are you going on about, Finch? I don’t understand.”
“Your second cousin once removed, one Calvin Drake, is my sire, sir.” Scene set, the secret came rushing forth before he could
lose his nerve. “I am, and always have been, a Disgrace.”
26
Hugh
The notion was so preposterous that Hugh laughed. Finch, a Disgrace? Certainly not.
But when Finch didn’t laugh along with him, Hugh fell silent.
“Finch?” Hugh asked apprehensively. “You’re not laughing.”
“I’m not joking, sir.”
“So it’s true?” Hugh hesitated. “You’re a Disgrace?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A Drake by birth? By blood?”
“Yes.”
Hugh’s head spun. It didn’t seem real.
“I don’t understand.” He brushed sweat-dampened hair back from Finch’s forehead, searching Finch’s face for answers he wasn’t sure he’d ever find. “Your name wasn’t on the list. I devoured every word of that folder, top to bottom… you were nowhere to be found.”
“I didn’t think it right to include myself.”
“That… that’s absurd. I would have chosen you then and there had I seen your name amongst the other candidates. I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.”
At that, Finch closed his eyes and mournfully tucked his head to his shoulder. “Which is why I didn’t want you to know.”
Hugh watched Finch’s expression for a moment. The pain in it was visceral, and it struck Hugh in a deep and uncomfortable place that made his stomach clench and his erection wane. Why would Finch hide from him? Hugh tried his hardest to be a good dragon—someone his staff could trust—but it seemed his best efforts hadn’t been enough. Finch had been too scared to tell him the truth. Finch, of all people. The one Hugh had cherished above all others. If he was frightening to Finch, the rest of the staff had to think he was a monster.
Emma’s wide eyes earlier that evening were starting to make sense.
“Oh,” Hugh murmured. Crestfallen, he gathered Finch in his arms—gingerly, so as not to scare him—and rolled them over so they were lying side by side. While Hugh’s erection had gone soft, his knot held firm. It would be a while before it shrank enough to let them separate.
He wished it would just go away.
If Finch was so scared of him, did that mean Hugh had pressured him into sex? Had he agreed to it out of fear? The possibility was sickening.
“Sir?” Finch asked.
Hugh didn’t have the heart to correct him. “Yes?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” Finch caressed his cheek, a sweet token of affection undeserving of someone as loathsome as himself. “I think perhaps you’ve misunderstood. I hate to see you so sad.”
“And I hate to think that I’ve made you so uncomfortable you had to hide who you are.” Hugh frowned and kept his gaze lowered. It hurt too much to look at Finch, knowing the pain he’d caused him. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Sir… Hugh.” Finch curled a finger under Hugh’s chin and lifted it, forcing Hugh to meet his gaze. “My decision to hide my ancestry was in no way intended to be a slight on you. I hid who I was out of fear that I would disappoint you.”
Hugh’s eyes widened. “Disappoint me? Finch, you could never!”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Finch kissed him sweetly, and what was left of Hugh’s foul mood lifted. He kissed Finch back. It was short but sweet, and when it was over, Finch expanded on what he’d said. “All my life, I’ve striven for perfection. It’s part of what makes me so good at what I do. But conception is messy and unpredictable. It’s not something I can control, and I’m afraid that despite research to the contrary, I won’t be successful at it. It simply seems untenable that a Disgrace could be a dragon in disguise. I’ve never had scales, never lusted after gold, never known what it’s like to take flight…” Finch frowned, and Hugh’s heart frowned along with him. “I can’t help but wonder if your brothers were simply lucky, or if the fact their mates all produced clutches was a fluke. Disgraces are a disappointment, sir. They have been for longer than any of us have been alive. Why would the ancient dragons have discarded them if they were the ones who laid their eggs? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Hugh had never thought of it like that. Harrison’s research had been the glimmer of hope he’d needed after being eggless for so long, and he’d been so excited by the prospect that he hadn’t thought to check if his reasoning was flawed. It had been enough proof for him to see so many of his brothers mated and raising whelps, but five dragons out of hundreds did not a rule make. And what of Bertram, who’d shown up one day out of the blue with a clutch of his own and no mate to speak of? His success had been the driving force behind Hugh’s own attempts to start a family. Surely his brother wouldn’t have bedded with a Disgrace.
The uncertainty gave Hugh a headache.
No wonder Finch hadn’t been so forthcoming about his identity—fastidious as always, he’d seen the faults in Harrison’s proposal while Hugh had bought it without a second thought.
“Do you see now why I couldn’t tell you?” Finch attempted a smile, but didn’t quite make it. “If you’d found out I was a Disgrace and took my heat expecting eggs, you’d be disappointed when I failed.”
Hugh laughed. “Fail? You? Finch, you could never. Even if you never bore me a single egg, I would die a happy man to have lived with you by my side. Did you honestly think I’d throw you away over something like that?”
Finch lowered his gaze. “Any dragon would.”
“I’m not any dragon, sweet.” Hugh stroked his cheek. “And you aren’t any omega. You’re mine. My treasure. My Finch. The only man in all of history special enough to make a dragon want to keep a living creature in his hoard. I didn’t offer myself to you tonight thinking you’d bear me a clutch. Whether you do or not is inconsequential. I want you for you, not for what you can give me… and if that means we’ll never have a family, so be it. You’re more important to me than that. I could never say goodbye over something you have no control over. Not to you. Not ever.”
This time the smile did make it to Finch’s face, and it was such a rare and special thing that Hugh couldn’t help but smile back. He kissed Finch soundly, wanting to feel the curve of his lips and taste how sweet his happiness could be.
“I adore you, Finch,” Hugh said as the kiss concluded. “You are all that’s right and good in my world, and I shudder to think what my life would be like without you in it.”
Finch shivered with delight and shifted closer to Hugh’s chest. In doing so, his hips rocked in such a way that stirred Hugh back to partial hardness. Unable to resist, Hugh began to pump into Finch with small, almost superficial thrusts that teased him back to full excitement.
“Oh, Hugh,” Finch moaned. “Yes.”
“You’re mine.” Hugh nipped the crook of Finch’s neck and continued to rock into him. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
The scent of Finch’s heat thickened in the air. It wouldn’t be much longer before he succumbed to another bout of primal need. In anticipation, Hugh started moving faster, teasing Finch with the girth of his knot. Finch moaned and kissed Hugh fiercely, and for a while they stayed like that, kissing and tempting each other with pleasure they couldn’t quite realize.
“What changed your mind?” Hugh asked breathlessly as his knot began to slip. “Why tell me who you really are now when you were so eager to hide before?”
“It was you.” Finch tangled his fingers in Hugh’s hair and squeezed around Hugh’s knot. The pleasure was so intense that Hugh bucked involuntarily into him, driven wild by the sudden tightness. Finch kissed him over and over, but it still wasn’t enough. Hugh needed him. Every part of him. All of him. Forever. He’d almost forgotten what they were talking about when Finch found it within himself to end the kiss and respond. “When you told me you wanted me despite all the willing Disgraces waiting at the ball, that you’d care for me all my life and cherish me until I died even if it meant you’d never have a clutch, I knew my fears were baseless. You want me for me, not for what you think I can give you.”
Hugh’s knot s
lipped free, making Finch gasp with need. Not trusting himself not to remount Finch immediately, he kissed his disheveled secretary one last time, relinquished his grip on his hair, and slipped down Finch’s body to get another taste of his slick.
“Oh, Hugh, you can’t,” Finch breathed, but Hugh had already folded back his legs and seen the mess they’d made together. He ran the flat of his tongue along the inside of Finch’s thigh and tasted the sweetness spilled there, then worked his way inward. Finch tasted delightful when freshly bred. Hugh would have to see to it that he stayed that way.
“Hugh.” Finch trembled. “Hugh, I’m coming!”
More sweet slick was Hugh’s reward. He lapped it up, then dipped his tongue inside, wanting more. Finch moaned and squirmed beneath him, but with every other breath begged Hugh to keep going. Hugh was happy to oblige.
Hugh bred Finch through the night and into the morning, filling him again and again as Finch cried out with need. They made love in Hugh’s hoard bed—which really was the perfect color to complement Finch’s eyes—and sometimes in the mountains of coin and other cooling treasures Hugh had amassed over his relatively short life. From those piles of riches, Hugh found precious things with which to adorn his omega. He slid rings with fat gemstones onto Finch’s fingers, collared his neck with Egyptian gold, and draped him in delicate chains that stood out brilliantly against Finch’s skin.
“More,” Finch moaned as Hugh worked another knot into him. “More, more, more…”
So Hugh cuffed his wrists with bangles, their diamonds winking from micro-pavé settings, and crowned his dark hair with a golden circlet heavy with huge emeralds. He scattered the sheets with handfuls of coins and decorated Finch from the inside with strands of pearly white. When Finch came, tightening around his knot like a vise, Hugh groaned and thrust a little more, working his riches deeper inside.