by Alice Brown
“Natasha,” he acknowledged her for a moment, his head bowed, not moving the first muscle in his body.
And then he looked up. He stood up straight, his gloriously naked body on full view, just for her.
She had actually forgotten about Jade standing over by the door, but Blain had not. “Thank you, Jade, for your help and assistance, but I need a few moments alone with my mate.”
Jade quietly slipped out the door, making sure to lock the door behind her. Blain walked around to the side of the bed and sat down, snatching Natasha up and placing her on his lap. With only a long nightshirt on, she could feel his erection poking her in the ass.
He cupped her face in his hands. “First of all, don’t you ever think you are not good enough, bloody hell, Natasha, I have been trying to figure out what in the hell I ever did to deserve such a beautiful, kind, and smart mate.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, willing her emotions not to take over. Opening her eyes, she pierced him with a look. “Why didn’t I know?”
“I think maybe you did, your mind just hadn’t completely caught up with what your body and conscience have been trying to tell it. You can’t act fully normal around me. You’re more open to me, you take what people say to me to your own heart, you yearn to take care of me, and it pains you to see me with someone else.”
“Is it really that noticeable?!” she mumbled, embarrassed that she had been that easy to see through.
“It is to me, but then again, I already knew we were meant to be together. But what bothers me is how much you doubt that it’s real.”
She turned her head back to the side, casting her gaze down. “There are many reasons to that,” she stated quietly.
His gaze stayed steady, silently locked on her, urging her to continue.
“You’re the cousin of King Thoran of Dragonose are you not? You’re a royal. Why would you settle for someone like me? A non-magical nobody? For God's sake, even the High Council thinks I am a ticking time bomb and wants to either lock me up or kill me. They just don’t understand,” she finished in a low voice, wrapping her arms around herself for comfort.
Seeing her like this broke his heart. Blain reached up and cupped her face in his hands, leaning forward, he kissed the tip of her nose. “In case you didn’t know, love, we don’t choose our mates, their chosen for us by a much higher power. And I couldn’t be more pleased with whom they’ve chosen,” he stated quietly, trailing light kisses all over her cheeks, nose, eyes, and lips.
She closed her eyes and fell into his touch. Could the gods really be this kind? To land something this good and special in her lap just when she was about to hit a dead end?
She opened her eyes and found Blain’s lips a mere inch away from hers. “I want to kiss you,” he whispered. “Besides, you’re thinking too hard about this.” He moaned against her neck.
“And for the first time in my life, I’m going to stop thinking and enjoy what has been given to me before it disappears,” she said, sinking her fingers deep into his hair as she tilted his head back and pressed her lips to his.
No more thinking, no more analyzing, just let this bloom into the beautiful thing that it’s meant to be, she promised herself, kissing him even deeper. He seemed to pick up on her change of mind with ease, wrapping her legs around his torso, his tongue licking at her lips, begging for entrance. And who was she to deny a dying man a taste of the land of milk and honey?
And in that one kiss she knew exactly what kind of a lover he would be. He would be generous, she knew that from the way he ran his hand through her silky hair while he sipped at her lips. He would dominate. She knew that from the way he was now possessing her lips. The longer they kissed, the more possessive he became. He was slow about it though, she gave him credit there. It was like he was allowing her the time to realize that he would dominate her in the bedroom. He may let her have her way outside the bedroom, but inside would be a different story. He nipped her bottom lip, making her gasp, taking advantage of it as he plunged his tongue into her hot cavern. She dueled her tongue with his for long moments before finally pulling back for some much needed air.
When she glanced up at his face, it was to see him smiling. It struck her that was the first time she could remember seeing him smile a real smile. The smile on his face now told her he was relaxed and happy.
His erection poked even harder against her stomach, and she adjusted herself until she straddled him. This put his hard-as-steel erection up against her open pussy lips. “You are playing with fire, baby,” he warned.
She leaned forward and nipped his chin. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” she replied innocently.
Blain grabbed her hips and jerked her downward at the same time he lifted upwards, sending a delicious frisson down her spine.
“Damn, baby, you feel so good!” Blain exclaimed as he fell back on the bed, bringing her down with him.
He craned his neck up to catch her lips in a much more demanding kiss than last time. And while his mouth was busy feasting on hers, his hands caressed her backside, gathering her sleep shirt as he went, until he was touching flesh. With barely-there strokes, he skimmed his fingertips across her smooth, satiny skin. Inside his head, his dragon was almost purring with delight. Blain continued to work the material of her nightshirt upwards until he had it as far as it would go without breaking the kiss.
As soon as their lips separated, he whisked the nightshirt off her body and sent it sailing through the air to the other side of the room. He took a moment to savor her body. She was perfect. He’d seen her earlier when she undressed for Sapphamire, but now he was getting to see her for himself. He was able to enjoy her womanhood. He dragged her upper body up his torso just a bit and then bent to catch a perfectly erect nipple with his mouth. He rolled his tongue across her nipple a few times and then engulfed as much of her breast as he could in his mouth. Pulling hard, he mashed the nipple between the roof of his mouth and his tongue, enjoying her nails raking down his scalp. He wanted inside her. He wanted to shove his engorged dick so far up inside her that neither would know where one began and the other ended. But he needed her to understand what it meant to be a dragon shifter’s mate first.
He quickly flipped them over as he released her breast from his mouth. Trailing kisses up her jawline, he murmured in her ear, “Baby, I want to make love to you so badly, but you need to understand a few things beforehand.”
Lines developed across her forehead as she gave him a questioning look. “Okay, I’m listening,” she replied a bit breathlessly. She had stilled her hands in his hair, and he moved his head just a bit to see if he could coax her to continue.
Arms braced on both sides of her head, he began. “You are my mate. I should have told you this the first day you showed up in my office, but I wanted to wait until you felt a bit more comfortable around here and around me.”
So far, Natasha had not heard anything life altering. Why was he hesitating? He quickly continued on.
“Baby, when we make love, I am probably going to mark you. It is the way of the dragon. You need to understand what that involves. I will release Sapphamire partially, enough for him to give me the breath of fire. When I bite down on you, please don’t fight me. Your skin on your shoulder, from what I have been told, will feel like it is on fire for a moment, and then the tattoo of my dragon will appear.”
She cocked her head and looked at him for a long moment. “Is that it? Did you think that was going to make me run away screaming?”
Blain chuckled. He should have known she would look at it as she had everything else thrown her way, like it was no big deal. Except, for him, it was a big deal. Mating meant forever. There were no do-overs in the “other” world. There was no divorce, no separation, once joined. And the term “death-till-you-part” took on a whole new meaning within the “other” world.
He leaned down and claimed her lips, pouring every ounce of emotion into that kiss. Breaking off a moment later, Blain glanced
down at her kiss-swollen lips, lightly running the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip. “I just don’t want any regrets, baby. You know as well as I do that mating is forever.”
“And I have been taught since a very early age to trust in a true mating, that Mother Nature never steers us wrong.”
Wrapping his massive arms around her, Blain asked, “Oh, baby, where have you been all of my life?” He leaned down and nipped her chin, then trailed his tongue down her throat and allowed it to skate between her breasts. He stopped there and turned his head, first licking and lightly nipping at one budded nipple, and then the other. From there, he moved downward, down to that sweet spot of hers that had smelled like pure ambrosia for days. He scooted down in the bed, spreading her legs further apart to accommodate his wide shoulders as he went.
“Ah, you smell divine, sweetheart.” He took a long leisurely lick up her pussy, coating his tongue in her juices as he went. And that was the last coherent thought he had.
He flicked that little bundle of nerves a few times before sliding his tongue down to her hole. Allowing a minimal shift, he wiggled his now-forked and very long tongue into her hole, slurping up all of her juices as he went. He continued to work his tongue in and out of her little hole, gaining more ground each time he went. His tongue along with the end of his nose was covered in her juices.
He shifted his tongue back to human form and headed up to her clit. Flicking it quickly back and forth, he waited for just a moment, knowing she was getting close.
“Blain, oh, Blain…” she panted out, feeling her orgasm build from somewhere deep inside her, building as it went, until it was all-consuming. Then Blain stuck two fingers deep inside her, and she saw stars dancing before her eyes. She clamped down on his two fingers, riding them continuously as her orgasm ripped through her.
He brought her down slowly, slowly lapping up the remainder of her juices. He then slid up her body sharing her taste with her in a deep kiss. He lined his throbbing dick up with her hole, but knowing that he was on the large side, and she was on the small side, had him trying to take it as slow for her as possible.
The further he sunk into her warm, moist heat, the tighter she squeezed his cock. It was as if his dick was wrapped in a moist, hot, tight-fitting glove that was made just for him. He began pulling out, and then slowly sinking back in, gaining ground each time. He stopped for just a moment when he was fully seated inside her. He glanced down into her eyes, wanting just a moment to savor her. He wanted a moment to savor the fact that she was going to be his for the rest of his life. Leaning down, he kissed each of her eyelids before finding her lips. Starting slow, he kissed her gently, sipping at her lips.
Finally, after a moment, she growled deep in her throat, “Blain.”
Raking his fingers through her hair, he replied, “Yes, love?”
“Move!” she ordered with another growl.
Blain chuckled as he bent down to capture her lips. This time the kiss was a claiming. In that one kiss, he was conveying to her that those lips were his from this day forward. Her body was his from this day forward, and he would treasure it for the rest of his life. He allowed just his fingertips to run down both of her sides, grinning in delight as he watched a shudder run through her.
He pulled almost all the way out of her, leaving just the very tip of his cock seated inside her, and then plunged back in mercifully quick. Natasha groaned when he became seated all the way inside of her again, feeling her inner walls start to quake and liquefy.
She ran her own fingertips down his sides, knowing she was close to another orgasm and wanting to send him over also. She grabbed both of his butt checks, digging her nails in and scoring the skin when he pulled back out and then plunged back in.
Something inside his brain snapped. It must have been her nails scoring his rear cheeks, the slight pain morphing into pleasure quickly. He couldn’t have stopped his body if he’d wanted to. When he pulled out and then plunged into her warm, wet cavern again, he followed it up with setting up a fast rhythm of pulling out and back in until he had both of them panting for breath and their knees weak.
In a matter of minutes, he was ready to explode. And judging by her soft cries, so was she. “Come for me, my mate. Come with me, so we can sail the stars together.” Where in the world that last part had come from he didn’t know, nor did he seem to care at the moment. He had never even tried to talk sexy to a woman before. Hell, most of the time it was wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, don’t let the door hit you as you leave. As a matter of fact, even though he had enjoyed a full sexual life, he had yet to ask a lover to spend the night in his bed.
He bent his head and let his dragon partially come to the surface. He moved her hair out of the way so he would have an unobstructed spot on her shoulder to leave his mark. As the changeover occurred, Blain felt his already engorged dick grow in size. Natasha felt it also, but was too far into things to stop and ask questions. Her pace picked up considerably, her walls liquefied immediately, and as her body tightened up with her orgasm, threatening to swallow him up whole, he quickly bit down on her shoulder, breathing fire into the wound. She screamed as her orgasm hit her like a tsunami, but kept up a fast pace, wanting to extend her own orgasm just as long as she could. Holding her upper body immobile, Blain grabbed her hips and took over, setting up a very fast and hard rhythm before he followed her over just a short moment later, his seed splashing against the mouth of her womb.
He rolled over, bringing her with him, so he wouldn’t crush her. Placing feather-light kisses over her brow, he grinned at the heavy-lidded temptress sprawled on top of him. He looked down at her shoulder to see a little tattoo of a bright blue dragon staring up at him. Moments later they both were sound asleep.
Chapter Seven
The days following the mating smoothed out quickly. By day, Blain deferred most things to Natasha, just enjoying sitting back and learning how her mind worked. But at night, he let her know he was in charge. And what a lover Blain Barrymire was turning out to be. He loved her and dominated her with an intensity that threatened to consume her.
Each night since their mating, Blain had insisted Natasha sleep in his bed. The only problem was that sleep was never what Blain had in mind. And if Natasha didn’t get some sleep soon, she was going to drop. She had felt like she was sleepwalking over the past week as it was.
Blain had a meeting late in the afternoon, which required him to go into the city. Natasha begged off, wanting to curl up in her pajamas with a good book, knowing he would be gone for several hours. She also needed to make an important phone call and didn’t want Blain to hear. She waited until the car had gone down the driveway and was completely out of sight. Then, she quickly changed out of her work clothes and picked up her cell phone. A few minutes, a sigh of relief escaped Natasha when the phone was picked up on the other end.
“Hey, haven’t heard from you in a few days. Is everything okay?”
“Umm, yeah, well, sort of,” her friend replied.
“Are you safe, or has your position been compromised?” Natasha asked, wanting to make sure her friend was safe, but not wanting to give any information away on the phone line.
“Well, I haven’t seen anything…but,” she stopped there, and Natasha waited patiently for her to continue. She knew how scared her friend was. She was beginning to wonder if there was a place on Earth where she would be safe.
There was an audible sigh on the other end. “It’s more of a feeling of danger lurking. I can’t seem to shake the feeling,” her friend mumbled. Natasha could just picture her twirling a piece of her long white hair between her fingers.
“Hey, it’s okay. Always listen to those feelings, don’t ever ignore them. You know, you could always come here. You’d really like Blain. And he has enough guards, you would be safe, I promise.”
“Too many large men, I don’t think I can...I can’t…”
Meldamiriel was on the run. She was wanted in the other world, but not because she had d
one anything wrong. It was because of who she was.
Natasha sat down on the bed in her old room, scooting up to brace herself against the headboard. “Well, if you have a minute, I’ve got a lot to tell you.”
A very faint sound alerted Natasha that something was not right. It took her a moment to remember where she was. She had fallen asleep in her old bed after the phone call. I wonder why Blain didn’t wake me when he came home. Once fully awake, she listened closely for any other sounds. There it was again, almost too soft to make out. Natasha realized it wasn’t the sound that awoke her, but the feeling of danger lurking nearby. She kept her body still and eyes closed in order to keep up the illusion that she was still asleep. The smell of oil and metal hit her senses, making her believe that whatever the danger was, it was human carrying guns. A slight noise directly to her left let her know someone was in the room with her. When the side of the bed dipped, Natasha knew it wasn’t Blain. She may not have any great superpowers, but simple deduction told her whoever just climbed onto her bed was there for no good reason.
At first she thought it might be Bores, and he would be one dead guard if that were so. But whoever was on her bed was smaller in size, not as heavy as Bores. She shifted at bit—as if still in sleep—and slid her hand up under her pillow, her fingers grasping hold of the hilt of her dagger.
A voice directly above her brought more information to light. “Hello, my pretty. Barrymire thinks he can kill my girl and not suffer because of it. Such a shame to kill one this pretty.” And Natasha knew immediately without seeing a face that she was dealing with Mr. Boragello. She felt a knife skim down the side of her neck. But then another familiar voice came from the doorway.
“Boragello, stop wasting time and kill her. I’ve got your men spreading out to overtake the castle, but believe me, you don’t want to fight that one once she wakes up. As a matter of fact, your chances for winning tonight will go up dramatically once that bitch dies!” Ah, yes, that would be Bores, she thought.