by Mandy Rosko
Hargreave hissed and jumped a little, his entire body tensing.
“Sorry! I’m sorry!”
Hargreave relaxed, blowing out a deep breath from his mouth. “Gods. I would rather the fire.”
Amanda was as gentle as she could be when she wiped away the blood and peroxide, showing off how deep his wound really was.
“I think you need stitches, but…I’m not sure. I don’t think anything important was hit.”
“I will live.”
Amanda clenched her fists and shook her head. “Much as I like the tough guy approach, now is really not the time for you to be acting all macho about this.”
“I’m not trying to impress you. I’m stating the fact that I will be all right. I will be healed well enough that I can go back and kill those idiots in two days.”
Amanda knew the dragon people had healing powers. She had to believe him.
She shook her head. “I’ve going to give you stitches anyway. I don’t know if your healing will work here.”
“Why wouldn’t it? You just watched me summon fire.”
That was true, and Amanda so didn’t care. She wasn’t about to take the risk and watch his guts spill out when he decided to get up.
Good thing she’d taken those first aid classes. Research for some of the books she’d written.
But that didn’t make threading a needle through skin any less disturbing and gross.
Amanda had to laugh a little at the entire situation. “It’s kind of funny, actually.”
Hargreave blinked. “What is?”
Amanda couldn’t stop smiling, even when she finished with the stitches and wiped the blood away. “You were complaining so much when I used the peroxide on you, but stitches are apparently a breeze.”
Hargreave didn’t smile with her. His face stayed solemn as he reached his hand out and cupped her cheek.
Amanda blinked, only then feeling the wetness in her eyes and lashes. She crumpled.
Hargreave pulled her close, and Amanda had to touch him, had to be comforted by him—even though he was injured, she needed it. She did her best to keep herself off his wound, but if he was in pain, or even in any discomfort, he didn’t point it out. He just held her and shushed her as she cried.
It was kind of embarrassing. Hargreave was the one who was hurt, but he was also the one comforting her when Amanda had her meltdown.
She couldn’t help it. She needed to get it out. Luckily, when she did, she was fine.
Hargreave also passed out, for all his talk of healing quickly. He was out like a light.
Amanda rushed around her apartment while he slept. She brought Hargreave a clean blanket even though it wasn’t cold, and then set about having a quick shower before getting her computer and opening it up.
She couldn’t believe it. According to the date, she hadn’t been gone more than a day. That explained why no one was shocked to suddenly hear from her, and why the super wasn’t asking about her late rent check.
This was insane. She’d been gone for weeks. How the hell could time not have been moving while she was here?
Amanda glanced at Hargreave, making sure he was real before she checked all the news sites, and even Googled the date just to make sure she wasn’t missing something.
It was the same no matter where she went. According to the Internet, Amanda might as well have not left at all.
She checked her book files after that, just to make sure they were all there. Then she went to her shelves. All the books in her dragon series were still there. Amanda flipped through the pages, making sure nothing had changed, and nothing had. Eldric had married Jane, and Hargreave remained the evil lord hell bent on destroying Eldric’s happiness out of revenge for something she hadn’t written in yet.
Amanda left the books on the coffee table. She was going to have to show them to Hargreave. Right now, the stupid skeleton key was staring at her intently from the desk where she’d tossed it.
Amanda had kind of hoped it would vanish, but it stayed put. It wasn’t leaving this time. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but got the feeling it involved going back to that world.
Or sending Hargreave back.
She didn’t want him to go back.
Amanda ordered Chinese. She needed something normal after all the not normal shit she’d gone through. It came quickly. She gave a hefty tip to the delivery guy just because she was so happy to be back. Bringing any amount of good Karma seemed kind of important.
Amanda brought the food back to Hargreave. He was still out on the couch. She shook his shoulder a little, even putting the sweet and sour chicken close to his nose, hoping to wake him, but there was nothing.
Amanda checked his bandage, shocked to see just how much he really was healing, and then ate alone, less terrified for him now that she’d checked on him. Amanda turned on the TV and ate in her pajamas, sitting on the floor with her back to the couch, listening to his soft snoring while she binged on Outlander.
She didn’t feel lonely while he was back there, even if he was sleeping and missing out on all the neat things the modern world offered. Maybe she could convince him to stay here with her? Why wouldn’t Hargreave want to stay in her world? It was a pretty amazing world. Peaceful, at least in her part of it. Hargreave wouldn’t have to worry about going to war with Eldric anymore, about his men dying or fighting. He really could stay here.
Amanda didn’t go to bed that night. She grabbed a spare blanket and some pillows, making herself a nice little nest on the carpet next to Hargreave. She ate more rice, pulled some frozen yogurt out of her freezer and polished it off before falling asleep well before midnight, something she almost never did as a writer who worked late hours.
She barely dreamed at all, and was shocked when she woke up to the light of dawn, and Hargreave sitting up on the couch, brow furrowed as he read one of Amanda’s books.
He was clearly deep in thought, and Amanda tensed when she remembered which books she’d left on the coffee table. She’d left them there to show him, but she’d wanted to tell him about them, not let him read them before she had the chance to explain.
Amanda sat up, rubbing her eyes. “H-hi.”
Hargreave looked at her, then held the book out. The cover showed a couple who looked enough like Eldric and Jane for it to be obvious who they were. “What is this?”
Chapter 13
“This…this is one of my books.”
Hargreave pulled the book back, looked at the cover, at the text of the title, and Amanda’s name. “I gathered that from your name, but what is it? Where did it come from? Why am I in it?”
Amanda pulled herself up, sitting beside him. She kept a distance between them that Hargreave didn’t like. He inched closer, if only to show her that he wasn’t angry. Not yet, at least.
Amanda smiled softly at him, as though thankful for the gesture.
“I’m a writer, and those are my books. You, Eldric, Alger, everyone, well, mostly everyone, I think, are all characters.”
“Characters.” Hargreave stared down at the book. He flipped through the flimsy pages. It seemed barely held together by a sort of glue that would not last. Proper books needed to be bound and sewn, but the color of the cover, the shine in the text, suggested some effort and love had been put into producing the thing.
And Amanda, his woman, had written him to be a monster of a sort.
“How is this possible?”
Amanda shook her head, scratching her hand through her hair, which was in a bad need of brushing after a night on the floor next to him. Hargreave hated that he noticed such a feature when he should have been more focused on the matter at hand.
“I don’t know. But I think it has something to do with that skeleton key.”
“The key.” Hargreave had almost forgotten about it. “Where is it?”
“On my desk, give me a sec.”
Amanda got up and rushed out of the room before Hargreave could stop her. She was back quickly with the glass key
. “Here.” She handed it to him.
Hargreave took it, felt its weight, and its heat. He looked at the key, and then at the book in his hand, before turning his gaze up at her. “I am not some fictional character you conjured. I am real.”
Amanda nodded. “I know. Trust me. You’ve kissed me enough that it’s obvious.”
She seemed to be attempting to make a joke of it, but Hargreave smiled at her. “I know exactly what my kisses did to you.”
It was hard not to laugh at his playfulness, or the way his dangerous smirk could be so sexy when he flirted. Amanda cleared her throat, fighting the urge to do something cliché and stupid, like fan herself. “Yeah, well, you definitely are real.” Amanda reached out, taking the book. She looked down at it, staring at the cover and the font her name was printed with. She’d been so proud to get these books. Now she didn’t know what to make of them. “I hope I didn’t make you up.”
“How do you mean?”
Amanda glanced up at him. Hargreave stared down at her, his brows lifted, waiting for an answer.
Amanda wet her lips. “If I… If there was something about me writing these books that had any influence on your life, then that means I’m the reason why…it’s my fault your castle is in shambles. It’s my fault your family is dead. I would’ve written that.”
Hargreave looked down at the book, and then back into Amanda’s eyes. Something glinted in the red irises. He shook his head. “No. That is not on you.”
“But what if it was?”
“I’ve read your books. Too many details are different. For one, I am not the monster you portrayed me as. That would be Eldric.”
Amanda didn’t know what to say to that. She supposed it made sense, but at the same time…
“Eldric isn’t a monster either.”
Hargreave snorted, shaking his head and clenching his teeth. “You don’t know that family like I do.”
Amanda swallowed. She hadn’t written Hargreave’s backstory yet, but it had been in her head, any kind of reason that would’ve turned him into the bloodthirsty monster she’d written him as. She’d imagined all kinds of horrible scenarios for him. Torture scenes, scenes where he found his dead parents and knew it was Eldric’s father who had killed them.
“Okay, so can you tell me? Tell me how you know him compared to how I wrote him.”
The pulsing in Hargreave’s neck was obvious. He wasn’t happy. He probably didn’t want to share these things, and Amanda didn’t want to make him.
But this needed to be fixed. “Hargreave, whatever happened to your parents, the fighting, the wars, their deaths, I’m sorry for that, I really am, but if it was Eldric’s father that was responsible, then there’s nothing you can do about it. He’s dead.”
“Eldric is his son and heir. Old enough to be part of his father’s plans. To participate.”
“Do you really know that, though?”
“I don’t need proof!” Hargreave launched to his feet. Amanda tensed as he glared down at her. “What do you know of our history? Nothing but this!” He snatched the book from her hands and threw it across the room. It hit a wall, and got stuck in the drywall. “You wrote of a romantic hero, that is not what he is! Both father and son visited me in their dungeon together. Eldric saw, he knew. And when his bastard father died, I spent another year in that prison before I could escape.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you have any idea what happens to a boy thrown into a pit with vile, disgusting creatures like the ones in Eldric’s dungeons? Do you?”
Amanda winced. She didn’t need him to tell her anymore. She did know.
Well, sort of. She had no experience with it, but she could definitely pick up on what he was getting at. The details she didn’t know made it seem all the more horrifying. Hargreave had been thrown into a dirty, medieval dungeon with monsters. Bad things happened to young boys and men in regular modern prisons, so she could only imagine what he had to go through.
It made her eyes burn and throat close as she thought of that, a younger, more innocent version of Hargreave going through that. She couldn’t handle it. She wished she’d been there for him, that she could go back in time and break him out, or somehow let him know that things would eventually be all right.
Amanda got to her feet. She ran to him.
Hargreave tensed, as if he really thought he would have to fight her off. He stayed stiff as a stone statue when she threw her arms around him for maybe two seconds before he tried to pull away.
“I don’t want your pity.”
Amanda couldn’t let him go. “That’s not what I’m giving you.”
Hargreave’s tense muscles seemed to melt. He relaxed, seemingly against his will.
He sighed, his arms coming back around her. Amanda didn’t expect him to hold on so tight, but he did, which was good. Amanda needed to hold him, and couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she knew he needed to be held, too.
Hargreave couldn’t believe he’d said that to her. It wasn’t right. A man should not lay down his grievances at the feet of his woman. That was weakness. What woman, mate or no mate, would desire him after he revealed his failures like that?
His Amanda did not turn him away, however. She ran to him, and she embraced him. Not a parting farewell sort of thing either. She seemed intent to hold him and never let him go. Hargreave couldn’t understand that, but he didn’t question it. He held her, terrified she would disappear if he let her go.
And he needed her. He had to have her. He’d waited for her and now she was here, looking into the deepest, darkest pit of his soul, where all the ugly things slept, and she was not turning away from him.
He kissed her. As much for his own comfort as for his desire to have her. She didn’t turn away from him. She moaned softly, her small, delicate hands coming up to rest at the back of his neck. Amanda held him tightly. Her fingers threaded through his hair, gripping it tight.
There was a time when he would not have liked that. Hargreave had to specifically tell the women he’d taken to his bed over the years that he would not tolerate them grabbing his hair and yanking on it. If they did so, they were gone. Hargreave kept his hair short for a reason.
When Amanda did it, it was all right. Hargreave’s mind did not fall back into that dark pit with those monsters. He was here with his woman, and she…was pulling at him.
She brought him into another brightly lit chamber. The bed was strangely shaped, but soft and comfortable when they fell on it. It felt even better than the surface he’d slept on last night, and it had been rather comfortable to begin with.
“Wait, wait, stop,” Amanda panted.
Hargreave groaned. “Don’t say that.”
Amanda pushed at his chest, keeping her hands away from his wound. “Are you okay? Are you up for this? Wait…holy shit.”
Hargreave looked down at himself, and he smirked. “It’s healing better than I would have thought. That stinging liquid you put on it must have helped.”
Amanda traced her fingers over what would soon be his new scar. The touch tickled. Hargreave didn’t mind. He let his woman explore. She touched his chest, the spot on his face, tracing everywhere he’d been injured the night before. “That’s amazing.”
“Do I pass your test then? Am I fit to bed you?”
Amanda’s cheeks flared adorably. “Yes, I think you’re fit. If what I can feel down there is anything to go by.”
Amanda shifted her hips, her thigh grazing over the hard length of Hargreave’s cock. He growled low in his throat. “Good.”
He kissed her again. Her lips were so plump and perfectly soft without being too soft. How could a woman like this possibly exist? Of course she had to come from a strange land. That was the only explanation for it, and Hargreave would count his blessings every day that she had fallen out of the sky and into his arms.
Amanda, despite having written some erotic scenes in her books, did not seem to know what to do with her hands. She pulled at Hargrea
ve’s shoulders, trying to get him closer, pulled at his leggings, trying to remove them. There was a lot of pulling with her. It was wonderful.
Meanwhile, it was a simple enough matter for Hargreave to push her strange skirt up her thighs. There were small undergarments of a sort there. Lacy and pretty. He stared at them for a moment. “What are these?”
“Uh, panties. Do you like them?”
Hargreave leaned in, pressing his mouth to the lace, feeling Amanda’s hitch in breath when his lips made contact. “I adore them. Take them off before I ruin them.”
Chapter 14
Amanda had written her fair share of love scenes before. She’d written them with the hopes that she herself would one day find someone who would make her feel as alive and loved as the heroes made the heroines of her books.
Amanda could say with all honesty that none of those fantasies compared to how Hargreave made her feel. He explored her body with his mouth and hands, taking his time, not rushing through it, knowing all her pleasure points with expert precision like the heroes of her books.
He searched them out, and when he found them, he made them beg for mercy.
Amanda never would have guessed the back of her legs, or her feet, would be so sensitive, but every kiss, coupled with his hand stroking her sex, magnified the pleasure and sensations by a thousand. She was a gasping, heaping mess when he finally pushed inside her.
Amanda came almost immediately. That was fine. Each thrust pushed her pleasure along, drawing out the aftershocks, making her squirm and her thighs tighten around him. She liked it. She liked it even knowing she was done and he still had a ways to go. The intimacy of having him inside her, looking down at her with those eyes that spoke to how much he was loving this, and her, was enough.
Amanda scratched at the back of his neck, his shoulder blades, pinching his hard nipples just because she wanted to drive him as wild as he was making her. When he came inside her, it was such a relief that Amanda barely had time to remember he hadn’t used a condom and she wasn’t on the pill. Not after all those weeks in the dragon world.