But the emotion from him was short-lived. He shook it off like a dog shaking water from its fur, and the expressionless warrior stood there once again. “I don’t care about you, not in any way that matters. Do you understand that?”
Sophie stepped back like he slapped her. “That’s not true.”
“You were a good fuck,” he pressed on, every line of his body looming over her, but for the first time she didn’t feel protected – she felt stifled. She felt used, and manipulated. “I wasn’t lying when I said you were the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together as well. But I need to leave and I don’t want you around anymore.”
With that, he turned and walked away, and her world crumbled around her.
Chapter Eight
“Okay, we have chocolate, vanilla, or my personal favorite – fudge ripple. What flavor you want? And before you make any comments about eating junk food, let’s be real clear here – no one should be eating junk food. There’s no purpose to junk food. It’s empty filled calorie deliciousness. It’s the way all heartbreak is taken care of, so please don’t start about your weight.” Damn Jo for being so matter-of-fact while Sophie was laying there, greasy hair and misery stamped hard over her, with her metaphorical heart torn out.
Jo was standing above her, hands on hips and mouth in a firm line. This was Jo in her general mode, brooking no argument and expecting no talk back. Sophie threw her comforter over her head. “Leave me alone.”
She hadn’t seen or heard from Mica in a week. His phone was disconnected, and after she came home from the shop the first day, where she saw the result of the destruction but thankfully no dragon body or blood in sight, she had found the picture of her, the one he once had displayed beside his bed, laying in the middle of her coffee table, out of its frame and crumpled in a ball.
That sort of made his position crystal clear.
“I can’t do this, Jo. I’ve lost him.” The picture had sent her under the cover, where she’d stayed ever since. She’d been numb, not moving, watching whatever on the television with empty eyes, only getting up for necessities. Now, her dear friend watching her with unpitying eyes, her own began to tear, little hitching breaths hitting her chest and sobs escaping no matter how she tried to hold them back.
“Oh honey.” And now Jo had her wrapped in a tight hug, and at the familiar warmth, the cries came hard and fast, the tears now unstoppable, the fight lost.
She’d loved him, with everything in her. She adored him. He was her sweet, sexy, lumberjack, perhaps the only one who loved every single facet of her. He hadn’t wanted her to change anything. Her own parents couldn’t even claim that.
Between choke-filled sobs, Sophie said, “He’s stupid. He’s a heavy-handed jerk to make me fall in love with him, and then pull away. Who the hell does he think he is? He’s not God. He’s not even the leader of his…group.”
Jo either didn’t pick up or decided not to question what Sophie meant. Instead, she rocked Sophie like she was a child, quietly murmuring it’s okay, it’s okay, let it out.
The cries died down, and Jo went from rocking her to merely holding on, but Sophie stayed there, bringing in the warmth from her friend, warmth she’d been missing since Mica left.
There came a knock at the door, and Sophie’s heart picked up while across her mind, the word Mica…?
It wasn’t Mica shown when Jo opened the door, though it was a man. He also had a dark hair and a beard, though his hair was more styled than Mica’s ever was, and the beard was short and groomed compared to Mica’s full lumberjack. He wore a white button down shirt, which was gorgeous against the deep tan of his skin, and like Mica, it was evident he had some serious musculature under that shirt and pants, though he was trimmer and more streamlined than Mica’s overall bigness.
More importantly, he projected that thing Sophie now realized meant he was also a creature other than human, that big presence which caused a shiver of unease, the reminder to the prey that they were in the presence of a predator.
He didn’t step through the door, but he did look around until he found Sophie on the couch. “I’m a friend of Mica’s. The name’s Granite.”
“What’s up with you guys and the names? They’re interesting and all, but they’re also kind of crazy.”
“Jo,” Sophie admonished, though, she couldn’t deny the point. Still, she loved Mica’s name. It would be impossible now to think of him in any other way.
Granite only smiled at Jo’s observance, which earned him a point in Sophie’s book. Anyone who could put up with Jo deserved an initial good-guy impression. “Sophie, Mica didn’t send me, but I would like to talk to you for a moment about him. May I?”
She was weak, because even after he hurt her, right now, she’d give anything to hear about Mica, anything that could feed her craving about him.
She turned to Jo, who shrugged and said, “Yeah, got it. You better torture that idiot before you take him back and make sure he doesn’t do anything like this again. Deny him an orgasm for a few hours. That will set him straight.” With a flippant salute, Jo headed out the door…though not without one backwards glance at Granite’s ass, at which she gave Sophie a thumbs-up.
Granite walked in, closing the door behind him. “Your friend is wise.”
“She has her moments.” Sophie sat up, gathering the quilt closer around her to camouflage the pajamas and very conscious of her unwashed hair. “You’re…like Mica?”
The corner of his mouth curled up. “If you mean dragon, yes. If you mean idiot, I try not to be.”
It was official, Granite had her stamp of approval. Her smile in answer to his words was quick, almost unnatural after a week of nothing but crying, but she was grateful for it. “Is he acting like an idiot?”
“In my opinion, any being who lets fear run their life is an idiot.” Granite sat on the chair across from her, leaning back and making himself comfortable. “He’s been more miserable than I’ve ever seen him this last week, after being happier than I’d ever seen him, and I’ve known him almost since birth.”
“So you’re here to plead his case?”
His head tilted, and on his face was a lawyer’s deliberation, a searching for the right words. “I’m here to give you the truth, and allow you to use that truth however you see fit.”
What he left unsaid was there was more than one version of truth, and the truth most people told was the version most likely to get them to their goal. However, at this moment, Sophie didn’t care. She wanted anything she could get about Mica. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“Mica left not because he’s a casual guy, or his feelings for you are negligible. He left because you are his everything. You’re the very heart of him, and he’s a noble idiot who thinks denying your bond is the best way to take care of you.”
Noble idiot was certainly a description she could get behind. “Because he’s worried about how I’ll handle being with a dragon?”
Granite leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and he licked his lips before he continued. “We are at war. And Mica doesn’t want it to touch you. He’d rather be alone and you be safe than take you as his mate and risk you.”
“War? That night,” that damned night, the night she lost him, “He said territorial dispute. He said normal for your kind.”
“He’s lying.” Granite didn’t seem surprised at her words, at how Mica had downplayed that terrifying event. “We are at the beginning of a very dangerous time. We are going against an enemy where we’re not sure how numerous, or even who all is involved. There are even signs that some in our own Clan may have turned traitor.”
Granite stood then, beginning to move around her apartment. Motion suited him more. He didn’t seem the type to want to sit and contemplate existence or the nature of the universe.
“He doesn’t know you’re here?”
“He would have staked me by my wings if he suspected that I’d be coming to you today.” He came before her col
lection of pictures, his eyes landing on the only picture of Mica she had, the one she took while he slept after their first night together. “Our kind has what’s called an Only. You might be more familiar with the term soul mate, which is roughly the same thing. Our Only is the being who is made just for us. We can love other people, we can exist if our Only chooses not to stay with us, and being with your Only doesn’t mean there aren’t fights or misunderstandings. It doesn’t mean a pain-free life. But without our Only, life is not quite…right. No matter how good, or how happy your life is overall, there is this edge inside you that screams your loss and it aches, and though you’ll try different things to heal it, you know it’s futile. You know it’s there forever.
Mica’s eyes had been terrified after that fight as they skimmed over her. She thought, it was natural to be scared after so vicious a skirmish. What if, though, his terror had to do with her? He’d been cruel, but…wouldn’t she be cruel, if it meant the life of someone she loved? If she thought being with her would put Mica in danger, wouldn’t she push him away?
Stupid question. Of course she would.
But she wasn’t going to allow him to do that. He was a warrior, and she would stand at his side, support him in this war, and she wasn’t going to let fear turn her away from the man she loved. If he thought he was going to be a noble idiot and get away with it, she needed to explain how their life together was going to be, and she needed to do it immediately.
“Tell me Mica’s at home right now.”
Relief shown in Granite’s eyes as he turned towards her and took her in. “Mica’s at home right now.”
“Then you need to go, because I have to get ready for my own battle.”
********
Mica shot out of his bed at the opening of his front door. How the hell had someone gotten through with none of the alarms or magics activating? It should have been impossible-
His thoughts stuttered to a sudden stop when he rushed in to see Sophie standing in his living room like a waking dream. Her hair was flowing free, large loose curls framing those big green eyes and dragging attention to her fire-red mouth.
Her clothes were something he’d never seen on her. The forest green shirt made her skin luminescent, and it was tight enough to show every curve, hugging her body in a soft caress. The front was a deep v that dipped down between her luscious breasts, leaving them exposed to any male who wanted to look on her, and Mica’s claws sharpened in the desire to tear into any man who had seen her like this.
This skirt was black, lacy, and ended above her knees, exposing the line of her calf. On her feet were strappy heels, her toes painted in the same red as her mouth.
He wanted to pull that shirt down and expose her breasts. He wanted to ruck her skirt up and pull off whatever panties she was wearing underneath. He wanted her flat on her back, where he would pull her legs in the air and put those heel-clad feet on his shoulders, and then he’d fuck into her, plow her until she screamed herself raw from multiple orgasms, and only then would he come in her, fill her up until she wouldn’t remember what her body was like before it was claimed by him, and that’s when he’d leave the mating mark, binding them together and claiming her in a way that no one in either her world or his could ever ignore.
Mica swallowed and beat back those thoughts. He was weaker than he thought, if it only took one look at his woman to have him near begging her to come back to him.
She was safer without him, and he needed her safe. Whatever his future, it was worth taking any pain as long as she remained happy. She couldn’t be happy with him. It had only taken a week for her dream to go up in flame. What else would happen if she stayed?
“You need to leave.” His voice was harsh, and he hated speaking like that to her, but she needed to go, before his weakness returned, before he would forget what was right in his selfishness in desiring her.
“Why would I go when I had to ask your friend so nicely to let me in?”
She could have meant either Obsidian or Granite – they were the only two who could have gotten her past many of the alarms. Well, most of them. Some of the magics attuned to him would have recognized her as his Only and let her in. He hadn’t considered that, but he hadn’t factored in her coming here. “They shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, I really think they should have, because we need to talk.” She began to walk towards him, and there was a surety there, a swing in her steps he’d never seen before. It was the walk of a woman who owned her body, who was aware of her place within it and within the world around her. It was confident, and sure, and the sheer seductive power she was projecting made him want to whimper and beg her to allow him to serve her however she wished, and to allow him to live and breathe for her pleasure alone. “You seem to believe that you get to hand down a mandate and all I’m allowed to do is hang my head and meekly agree. We need to rectify that thought process.”
Mica struggled to get his thoughts in order. He couldn’t be so weak as to harm her now, to allow her back into his life and become a casualty in their war. “I told you-”
“You told me nothing.” He had heard her happy, and joyful, and full of self-loathing. He had heard her scared, and angry, and frustrated, and humiliated. But he had never heard the bone-deep rage that rang through her voice right now, never saw the lines of fierce determination that lined her face now. “You never told me of war, or of Only’s, or of how you were nothing but a coward who was going to let me live in pain so you didn’t have to face your own weakness!”
“Coward?” Her rage ignited his own, the unfairness of her words tearing through him. “Did you think it was easy to walk away from you? Do you think I’ve had one second of peace since I said those words to you?”
“Exactly! You said to me, without giving me a choice or a voice!” Abruptly, she came back to herself, pulling her body back from the advancing attack and straightening away from him. Her tone was calmer, but the words were no less on the offensive. “I acknowledge your motives were noble and pure. It doesn’t change the fact you were wrong. You don’t get to speak for me, or decide for me. You don’t get to choose my path. All you’re allowed to do is give me the facts and respect my decision.”
“It would be a false decision.” She was too loyal. Too caring. She’d dismiss the risk to herself. She’d count it as negligible, when to him, she was above everything. If it came to making the choice between the Clan and her…
It would be her.
It would always be her.
He flung his hand towards the door. “Leaving you is my choice. You don’t have the right to demand someone stay with you when they don’t wish to. Isn’t that right? I’m not staying with you, so leave.”
Mica waited for the explosion of words, followed by the slamming of the door, but instead, her body relaxed, her face calm and almost pleasant.
Every instinct screamed at him to beware, and a cold sweat broke out along his forehead.
She walked around his couch; unconcerned, unruffled, at ease and in control again. “So…I’m not your Only? You didn’t leave me because you are terrified of me being hurt in this war and decided to do what was right and noble by leaving me to keep me safe? You’re saying instead, you left me because your only goal was to have some fun with a girl you found attractive, and after you did, you were bored and done with me?”
Danger, danger, but…he didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t know the path to take, the words to use, with her in this mood. All he could do was keep playing his part. “That’s right.”
“I understand. I still have a problem though.” And holy fuck, her gaze ran over him like she was using them to strip him bare before her, like she could already feel his cock inside her and liked how he was using it.
He cleared his throat, demanding his nerves settle. “What problem?”
She brought her first two fingers and slipped the tips into her mouth, that pink poking out to wet them, before she slowly took them out of her mouth, dragging her red bottom l
ip down as she did so. “The problem is you got me addicted to your cock, and you didn’t give me the heads-up of what was happening. I’m aching,” and she used the same hand so recently in her mouth to press against her crotch, the skirt indenting with the action and showcasing the curves of her inner thigh. “I think you owe me one last night. Let me use you to get off one last time. Think of it as being a gentleman and giving me a proper goodbye.”
No. Absolutely not. If he was inside her again, he’d claim her. His dragon had been fighting from the beginning about claiming his mate, and this week it had been near mad with grief and rage. If it got the chance now, it would be impossible to hold back.
“You need to leave.” But he couldn’t force her to go. He couldn’t touch her. Putting his hands on her would lead to claiming. Doing anything to her would lead to claiming. He had to somehow get her away.
And she seemed to realize his problem, if the self-satisfied smile on her face was any indication. “You know how much I love that beard.” Had she ever sounded like that before, low and practically purring. “You promised you’d let me feel it against my pussy. You’re not going to break a promise to me, are you?”
His mouth watered at the thought of getting his tongue deep inside her. It had been in his dreams constantly this last week, the fact he never got to taste his mate tormenting him. Not having his hands on those curves. Not having her moans echoing through his ear. Not having her smiles or giggles or making him food or looking after him or being allowed the privilege of looking after her.
Just fucking being without his mate had been nothing but torture and torment, and he hated every damned second of it.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
And then…oh fuck…and then Sophie turned so her back was to him, and bent forward so now her arms were resting over the back of the couch, her back arched and her ass sticking out towards him. With one hand still supporting her upper body, she used the other to pull up skirt, and all the while she was looking over her shoulder at him, her eyes daring him to turn away.
Mica Page 5