“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take such liberties before we are wed,” he told her, pulling away. He was ashamed that he had let his urges take hold.
“Don’t be,” she told him softly, surprising him by slowly undressing, offering herself to him.
The moonlight caressed her wonderful figure. He admired her fragile beauty before joining her in undressing. Stripping away his clothing, he stood naked in front of her for a moment, letting her gaze upon him. Even in the darkness, he could see that her cheeks were flushed. He could hear her breathing as it became shallower. Reaching for the discarded clothing on the floor, he spread it on the bed, laying her across his shirt and her slip.
His mouth grazed across her abdomen as she cooed beneath him. He felt her in a way that he had not previously done in his mind when it had been conjured up his lucid dreams. His hands gripped her hips firmly as he nestled himself between her legs, lapping at her sweet center with his hungry tongue.
Shockwaves scattered visibly throughout her body as he touched her ever so intimately, quickly escalating his fluid strokes and driving her into a frenzy of heated passion that caused her to cry out in ecstasy. Her cries of delight grew louder, filling the large bedroom with their passion as he eagerly brought her pleasure after pleasure. She let out a loud cry as her body jerked forward and suddenly broke free into pure delight.
Her body convulsed with the force of multiple orgasms as he continued to probe her with his tongue and fingers. Just when he thought she might pass out from the sheer intensity of her own climaxes, he pulled away, positioning himself above her as he looked down into her eyes. Then, he was inside of her, filling her with his girth as their bodies rocked back and forth in perfect unison creating the most delicious friction imaginable. He couldn’t believe that she had given in to him. At last, he would know true satisfaction from being with her.
His muscular frame pressed against her as he continued to thrust into her in a perfect rhythm that once again sent her over the edge and left her legs quivering with yet another release. It was as if every orgasm that he brought her to made her weaker, leaving her gasping for breath from the power of their lovemaking. He looked down into her eyes as he ground his hips forward in a slow-motion arc, filling her with his own passion as she finally gave in to the sheer force of their lovemaking.
“That was amazing,” she breathed against his ear. “Let’s do it again!”
“I think that we best not. Your father is going to be looking for us if I don’t get you home soon, and I don’t know what will happen to either of us if he finds us like this,” he replied.
“I can’t wait until we get married so that we can do this all the time! Who knew how wonderful it felt!” she said excitedly.
Her enthusiasm for intimacy with him was a relief. He had heard the men in the fields complaining about their wives, how they didn’t want to be with them and made excuses. Some of them had mistresses, but that was something Tio would never do. They told him that he would see, but if she loved being with him this much, he believed they were wrong. His love for her was greater than any physical need, but he wanted both and was glad to find out that she did, as well.
“It won’t be too much longer now,” he told her.
“I know. It just can’t get here soon enough. I want to spend every night with you, here, in our own house. It’s going to be so wonderful.”
She pulled away to look at him for a moment, and their eyes met, each filled with the intense passion for one another that had existed since he had first seen her across the field. Despite his concern for the possibility of her father’s discovery of them, he found that he couldn’t resist the urge to have her again. Instead of getting dressed, he began to explore her skin with deft hands, taking his time and slowly tracing every angle of her tingling body with his fingers.
His kisses rained across her body as she quickly became putty in his manly hands, unable to deny him anything. Now that he had finally given in to his desires and knew how truly wonderful the passion between them could be, there was no doubt that they would be together forever.
His lips drifted softly across her breasts and found their way to her mouth, engaging her in a deep kiss that he felt in every fiber of his being, the electric sensation humming through his body. It no longer mattered to him who he was or how he had gotten here; all he cared about was that he was here now, and he was with her. One hand fell upon her narrow waist as he shifted his weight to one side and entered her forcefully, watching her face as he thrust into her. She bit her lip and moaned loudly as he pumped into her soft folds heavily, taking what he needed from her and giving her what she wanted in return.
They became impassioned and bold with their lovemaking, arching their hips forward to collide with one another in a primal dance as old as time itself. The room filled with the sounds of her coos and moans, mingling in perfect harmony with his grunts and sighs. It felt as if they were levitating above the bed. They climaxed almost simultaneously as he buried himself deep inside of her and hit the button to a thousand flood gates that sent her careening off the precipice of her desires.
Afterward, they lay in the dark. Maggie twirled her fingers playfully in his dark chest hair, placing her head on her shoulder and drifting off to sleep. He soon followed her, sated and sleepy. It was the first dreamless sleep he had experienced in a long time, and he needed it. He awoke with a start when he heard the sound of a door creaking below. Jumping up out of the bed, he woke her.
“Maggie, get up. We fell asleep, and I think someone is downstairs,” he said in a hushed tone just as her father’s voice sounded up the stairs.
“Tio? Maggie?” her father called out from below.
“Get dressed. Fast!” he told her quietly, snatching on his own clothes and running for the door to buy some time.
“We’re up here,” he called down from the shadows above, still getting his clothes on.
“Aye. Are you okay? I was getting worried because Maggie hasn’t returned home,” he said, thankfully not attempting to climb the stairs.
“I’m sorry. We just got caught up in looking at the place. We’ve been working on a list of what we can do here,” he told him.
It wasn’t quite a lie, but not exactly the truth.
“Well, it’s too dark for me to climb those decaying stairs. Send her down, and I’ll take her home with me so you can get back to your quarters. It’s going to be some long days for you from here on out.”
“Sure. Of course, sir,” Tio told him, calling out to Maggie, who was now standing in the bedroom door, trying not to snicker. “Maggie, your father is here to take you home.”
“Okay. Let me grab this candle,” she called back to him. She took some steps that went nowhere and then walked across the landing toward the stairs, a much-reduced candle in hand.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he told her with a little peck on the cheek.
“If you want, you can just come on back to this place tomorrow when you’re done in the fields. I’ll send Maggie over with some dinner for you before dark,” her father said as Maggie began to descend the stairs.
“That sounds good. Thank you,” Tio replied.
He waited for the two of them to leave and then went back to the bedroom. Rather than going to the workers’ quarters, he intended to stay here for the night. It was a bit damp and dusty, but the bed was still warm, and it smelled like her. Lying in the afterglow of their lovemaking, Tio felt more content than he had in years. It was finally as if he was where he belonged, here in this place, with this woman.
Despite his happiness, he had continued pangs of fear and foreboding. His mind drifted back to Maggie’s face, the way it had looked in the candlelight as he had taken her for the first time. His journey was now ending. It had felt like the longest journey of his life. He should feel content. Instead, he was woeful because he understood what it would mean for the two of them. He had a horrible secret, one he had not shared with her. What would happen if she found out,
and was there any way of preventing that from happening?
Chapter 6
Once they opened the door to their passion, it could not be closed again. Tio was exhausted, but beyond happy as he spent long days in the field, followed by working on their new home and a visit from Maggie, who would bring him food and then stay with him for as long as she could before her father might consider looking for her. Life was as beautiful as it could ever get, but he still held the secret that threatened everything they were building together. He was still a tiger shifter, and she still didn’t know.
As they made love once again that night, he struggled to find the right words to tell her what and who he was, but they did not come to him. He didn’t know when they would, but he knew that he would have to find a way before he married her. He felt bad enough that he had lied to her all this time. He had taken her virginity without telling her the truth, spoiling her for another, and that was unforgiveable. It would be even more so not to tell her the truth before they married, to give her the chance to change her mind.
In his mind, it was self-preservation. “What if she can’t forgive me for deceiving her? What if she tells my secret to others?’ He was a tiger in a sea of dragons, no match for them out in the open arena. It was only under the cover of the trees that he had any hope of overcoming or, at least, eluding them. It was doubtful that he would find acceptance among them, and even though Maggie and her family lived outside the village forming around his mother’s clan, they were still a part of that close-knit group at the end of the day.
His mind raced with thoughts like these each time they made love. Afterward, they would lie in the darkness and he would think about everything he should have done or said differently. Was it too late to come clean? He considered that perhaps he should just leave, get up one morning and leave this place behind, never revealing the truth about himself. He knew he would not, though. Leaving this place, this place that felt like home with Maggie and near his mother, was not something he was prepared to do. Eventually, he would drift off to sleep, letting his pain go for a while. Tonight would be no exception.
They fell asleep once again in each other’s arms, holding on to each other for as long as they had together until she would have to return to her father’s house. Once again, Tio spent the night in their future home, but awoke holding onto an empty pillow beside him, the early morning sun flooding the room. He was overcome by a renewed sense of devastation that he hadn’t felt since his father’s death. All the hope he had for a happy life here in the Mournes hung on such a fragile thread. Rising from his bed, the beautiful soreness still fresh from the previous night of lovemaking with Maggie only increased the anguish he felt as he made his way downstairs and sat looking out from the window at the rolling meadows beyond the house.
After a while, he dragged himself out to the field, which had begun to fill with the other workers already. The entire day, the thoughts of what he should say never left him, driving him to distraction. By the time he was done for the evening, he knew that he had to come clean.
Chapter 7
“Maggie, I have something to tell you,” he said that night, once they had finished their dinner.
“What is that?” she asked with a huge smile, the same one that melted him time and time again.
Tio hung his head for a moment, gathering his courage to say the words he knew he must say. Taking a deep breath, he began to tell her the story of how he had come to be here, still leaving out the name of his mother. It was one thing to tell her the truth about himself, but he had no right to bring his mother into the mix with him, lest it not go well.
“I don’t understand. How can you not be a dragon? You told me you couldn’t fly due to an injury,” she said, unable to comprehend what he had just relayed to her.
“I’m sorry I lied to you, Maggie. I was frightened by what might happen, and I didn’t know what to say,” he told her.
“How could you think you have to lie to me?” she asked. “I have done nothing but love you. How could you be so dishonest?” she hissed at him, her voice a mixture of hurt and anger.
“In the beginning, I didn’t think it mattered, but as we have grown closer and I have begun to realize the full gravity of the situation, I know that it does matter. I knew I had to tell you. That is what I am doing now,” he told her.
“My clan forbids marrying anyone, who is not a dragon shifter. I can’t marry a human. I can’t marry a tiger shifter. I didn’t even know there were tiger shifters!” she said, tears already welling up in her eyes.
“You don’t have to tell them,” he replied, knowing it was pathetic to believe that.
“No? What happens when we have a son and he shifts into a tiger instead of a dragon? How do I explain that? Am I to keep him out of the training all of our young go through so that no one finds out what he truly is?” she barked at him.
“There must be a way, Maggie. If we love one another, we can find a way. We don’t have to stay here. We can go anywhere and be anything we want to be,” he told her.
“Yeah? No one is going to notice that we are tigers and dragons? We can’t hide that forever,” she said.
“We won’t shift. We can live as humans and never tell anyone we are anything but that,” he offered.
“Shifting is our nature, Tio. I don’t want to give up being a dragon – not for you, not for anyone. It was unfair of you to put me in this position without telling me. My god, what if I had already been with child as a result of our sinful actions before we are even married? Can you imagine the shame that would have brought to me, to my family? How could you do this?”
“I didn’t think about any of that, Maggie. I just fell in love with you, and I wanted nothing but to be with you. It’s all I want now. It is all I will want forever. I just want us to be together, however we can be,” he pleaded.
“No. You lied to me, Tio! It wasn’t a little lie that I can forgive. It is something that has dire consequences for everyone involved,” she said, tears beginning to fall down her face.
“Maggie, please…” he began.
“No! Enough! I want you to leave. I will keep your secret. I will not tell anyone why we must not be together, but you must leave this place and never return. Don’t ever come back here, Tio. If you do, I will tell everyone who and what you are. They will not be as kind to you,” she told him, storming out the front door.
Tio stood looking after her, his heart in his feet as he realized that she was really gone. It was a painful reality, but one he knew he had created for himself. His only choice now was to honor her wishes. He returned to the workers’ quarters and retrieved his meager belongings, taking off during the night to put as much distance between him and the pain he now felt, as possible. By morning light, he had arrived in a town that sat on the other side of his mother’s village. It was not far from Maggie, but far enough that there was little chance of running into her.
Tio spent much of the day, following Maggie’s parting, feeling heartbroken and in tears, but as the day progressed, a calm began to come over him. He realized that he could continue to live his life as if the skies were falling, or he could take the bull by the horns and reshape his destiny. Though it wasn’t easy, he began to plan a new life for himself on his own terms. The driving force behind his newfound strength lay in the knowledge that by having loved Maggie, she had set him free to move beyond the lies and seclusion. Though his father had told him that he was the last of his kind, he wondered if perhaps there might be more like him out there somewhere that his father had simply not known about.
Devastated but tired of what had seemed like years of feeling sorry for himself, he decided that he needed to get out and familiarize himself with more of his surroundings. Most of the day he spent wandering about the countryside and getting his bearings in his new location. The rolling green hillsides and old structures that littered the countryside of Ireland held a certain fascination for him as he took in the wonderful old cathedrals and bridges tha
t surrounded the town.
Marveling at the luxurious landscapes and structures, he realized what was so special about this place; it was the opportunity that it held for a man like himself, someone willing to work hard and build a life. There were plenty of humans here. He could blend in with them, away from the dragons of his mother’s village. He had been doing a fine job of that with Maggie, after all.
Traveling past a grand inn and further into the countryside, he was inspired by the old bridges and farmland. Though there wasn’t a lot of farming being done now that the year’s harvest was over, farm homes and barns were rampant in the countryside. There were some that still seemed to be producing assorted crops, but for the most part, they were merely a reminder that those who lived there, did so off of the land and sold their wares to those that did not possess the same skills at raising prime crops.
Finally, he stopped by a nearby river, making his way down the embankment. He found that he was drawn there by something inexplicable. The mist rising off the river seemed to surround him, and he could have sworn he heard Maggie calling his name. The air around him felt chilly as he stood wondering if she would somehow appear and ask him to return.
He stood there frozen for a time before shaking himself free of the momentary illusion and returning to the path he had been traversing. It was time to head back into town anyway. He wanted to look at the market there and then get home before darkness fell. The thought of the night ahead without Maggie brought a fresh sadness to his entire being, but he pressed on, willing himself to not dwell, and become immobilized by his pain.
Seeking The Dragon Page 4