city of dragons 02 - fire storm

by Val St. Crowe

I gazed back, breathless, coming alive.

  He reached back and yanked his shirt over his head in one swift movement. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured, brushing my cheekbone with his thumb.

  I gazed at his bare chest. He was compact and lithe, and he rippled in the scant light. He had a little bit of hair that started just above his belly button and traveled down into his pants. I put my forefinger on it, traced it. “You’re…” I felt suddenly shy. “Beautiful. Too.”

  He laughed a little.

  I blushed.

  He kissed me.

  I felt the bare skin of his hard stomach against my softer one. It made me feel lightheaded.

  He kissed the tip of my nose. My chin. My shoulder. He pushed the strap of my bra out of the way. “Penny Caspian,” he whispered. “Do you have any idea how badly I want you?”

  I bit down on my bottom lip. “So… take me, then,” I whispered.

  And he did.

  * * *

  My ceiling fan was making a noisy circuit over us.

  We lay sweaty and sated in tangled sheets, side by side, both of us staring at the fan.

  It was sometime after midnight, but I still felt awake and alive, as if some part of me that had lain dormant for a long time had been breathed to life again. I hadn’t been sure that I could do it, that I still functioned. I’d been worried that I couldn’t get wet for a man that wasn’t Alastair, that I wouldn’t be able to have an orgasm with someone who wasn’t my destined mate.

  For so long, it had been dead between my legs, and I had missed it… but I had also been somewhat glad to see it go, because all my sexual desires had been twisted up in pain and shame and associations with a man who beat me. I didn’t know if I’d be able to separate it.

  But my body worked fine.

  And Lachlan surprised me. Out of bed, he was often very staid and reserved and serious, and I didn’t expect him to be a playful lover, enthusiastic and warm-blooded and athletic and just… refreshing.

  It was easy, like getting it on in the back seat of a car in high school—not that I had ever done that, since I’d been rich and we’d had a pool house. But the way I imagined that kind of lovemaking would be.

  Fresh. Youthful. Good.

  I sighed. I closed my eyes. “Well. This is really the opposite of taking it slow,” I said in a soft voice.

  “I said it was a bad idea.” He was grinning. I could hear it in his voice.

  “Do you regret it?”

  “Not even a little bit,” he drawled. His Texan accent was thicker, and his voice was loose and full of sex, and I liked it.

  I opened my eyes. I giggled. I peeked at him.

  Felt shy.

  Looked up at the ceiling fan again. Was it crazy that I was comparing him to Alastair? I mean, did it mean anything? Would the specter of Alastair hang over me forever, or was it simply that I hadn’t been with anyone but Alastair in so long that comparisons were inevitable?

  I had to admit that it wasn’t like having dragon-mated-bonded sex, which was always ridiculously intense and imperative and impossible to say no to. This was lighter and more free. Springtime as opposed to summer heat. I could handle that. I liked that.

  But then I wondered if Lachlan was doing it too. Comparing me to his past lovers, measuring where I stacked up? Was he thinking about his ex-wife now?

  Or maybe he’d had sex with lots of women since his divorce, and I was just the latest in a sea of conquests.

  I turned to look at him again, and was surprised to find that he wasn’t watching the fan at all, but was lying on his side, staring at me and grinning.

  “What are you thinking about right now?” he asked.

  “How many women you’ve been sleeping with recently,” I said.

  His eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  I cringed. “Oh, should I have lied? That was probably a time when I should have lied.”

  He chuckled, a deep, rich sound. “I haven’t slept with anyone in a very long time. Not since I was married.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Me either. Nothing since Alastair.”

  “You’re already jealous of my past? We really aren’t moving slow.”

  “I’m not jealous.”

  “You sound jealous.” He could not stop grinning, could he?

  I grinned too. “I’m not.”

  He pulled me close, tucking me into the crook of his shoulder and arm.

  I fit there. I laid my hand on his chest. “It’s just that maybe I forgot what this was like, doing this. How the first time, it’s like peeling back all the layers, like an onion, and how underneath, we’re different.”

  He kissed my forehead. “You think I’m different?”

  “You don’t think I am?”

  He considered. “Nah. I’ve seen you naked like a zillion times already.”

  I pushed myself up to glare at him. “I knew you were checking me out when I was hit by that tranquilizer dart.”

  “Whatever, I saw it all way before that,” he said. “That time with the Brotherhood, you just chucked off everything in front of me and dove into the water.”

  “I was far away from you.”

  “Not that far,” he said. “I could see everything. Not that I minded or anyth—”

  “You should have been a gentleman and turned around or closed your eyes or something.”

  He laughed. “I’m not that much of a gentleman.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You’re awful.”

  He kissed my nose. “You’re incredibly nice to look at naked.”

  I settled back down and laid my head on his shoulder again. “I don’t know if I forgive you for that.”

  “Forgive me? What? You’re the one who keeps stripping in front of me. I don’t see how this is my fault.”

  “Anyway, being naked isn’t what I meant,” I said.

  “No? You aren’t pleasantly surprised at how incredibly buff I am underneath my suit jacket?”

  I couldn’t help but giggle again. “Now, you’re just fishing for compliments.” I snuggled close. “But if you must know, I would not mind if you never put a shirt on ever again.”

  “I won’t if you won’t.” His hands moved under the sheets.

  I squealed.

  But then he stopped, and his expression grew serious, and I saw the Lachlan that I always saw, the one with the haunted eyes. “What did you mean, then? How am I different?”

  “You’re just…” I reached up to touch his face. “You seem… lighthearted. I guess I expected you’d be really brooding and intense or something.”

  He smiled again. “How does one have brooding sex, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Never mind.”

  “No, I think I understand.” He looked up at the ceiling fan. “You make me feel that way sometimes. Like I have a second chance. Like all of the badness from my life before isn’t shackled to me, keeping me under water.”

  Oh. Wow. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I made him feel that way?

  His arm tightened around me. His voice was a low rumble. “And how are you different?”

  “I’m vulnerable, I guess. It’s scary.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “I…” I let out a little laugh. “I do. Of course I do.”

  He put his lips against my temple. “I’m going to make it easier for you to trust me. I really am, Penny. I promise.”

  I pressed my bare skin against his, the length of me against the length of him. I wanted close now. As close as I could get. I never wanted to let go.

  But at some point, in the early morning, dawn streaking the sky, I awoke to find him sitting on the bed, pulling on his clothes.

  I sat straight up. “You’re leaving?”

  “Sorry.” He leaned over and kissed me. “I got a call. Someone I owe a favor to at the station. Wants my help interrogating a suspect, and they’re running out of time to keep him in custody. They need me to come in now.”

  “Oh,” I said. I lay back.

&n
bsp; He smiled at me, but his smile wasn’t like last night—it wasn’t carefree and playful anymore. He was weary now again. My Lachlan with the world on his shoulders. “I’ll call you,” he said.

  I nodded.

  He kissed me again. “Go back to sleep.”

  And then he was gone.

  And my bed was cold without him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Watch the road,” Felicity complained. This was her new shtick, to be a really annoying backseat driver since she didn’t want to be carted around everywhere.

  “I am watching the road,” I said, turning to glare at her.

  “No, you’re not, you’re looking at me,” she said. “And you seem distracted. What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “It’s not nothing. You’ve barely said three words to me besides snapping at me whenever I point out that your driving is about to kill us.”

  “My driving is fine,” I said.

  “You always had a driver growing up,” said Felicity. “I don’t think you’re as good at it as you think you are.”

  “Oh my God, shut up,” I said. I screeched to a stop at a red light. It was another of those days in which I was getting stopped at every traffic light. The thing about Sea City was that it was a thin little strip of land, separated from the rest of Maryland by swampy marshland and the bay. So, there weren’t really alternate routes up the coast besides Atlantic Avenue. So, the road was bloated with stop-and-go traffic all the time, and it made me insane. It was getting worse every day.

  “Did you just tell me to shut up?”

  I sighed. “Look, I know that you’re pissed about the fact that Jensen and I are micromanaging you, but we’re going to figure out this magic thing soon, so stop taking it out on me.”

  “Did you figure out how to teach me magic?”

  “Not really,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Listen, I just do it. I don’t know how, and I think maybe we need to talk to Ophelia about it.”

  “Okay,” said Felicity. “That makes sense.”

  Ophelia was a mage who owned The Pink Flamingo Cafe, which was right next door to my hotel. We had an arrangement in which she offered a continental breakfast to my hotel guests and I paid her a fee monthly. I also ate breakfast there nearly every day. Sometimes lunch too.

  “Okay, good,” I said.

  “The light’s green.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Then why aren’t you moving?”

  I pushed down on the gas, and we lurched forward.

  “Seriously,” said Felicity. “What is up with you?”

  “I told you,” I said. “Nothing.”

  “Is it about Lachlan?”

  “No,” I said. I gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Maybe.”

  “What happened?”

  “We sort of… had sex,” I said.

  “No way,” said Felicity. “You didn’t tell me?”

  “Well, I was going to, but then he said he was going to call. And he didn’t.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Not last night, but the night before,” I said. “Don’t you think he should have called at least last night?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he got busy.”

  “The other day, I ignored his calls for like five hours, and he threw a fit about how he was worried I was dead and stuff,” I said. “Of course, that was right after Alastair beat the crap out of us, but still. He should have called. He said he was going to call.”

  “Was the sex… okay?”

  “It was wonderful,” I said. “I mean, it was for me. He acted like he liked it. I don’t know. He seemed so…” I shook my head, blowing out a huff of air. I was starting to get a lump in my throat, and I felt like a complete idiot—like some kind of lovesick teenager or something. “He seemed happy. And he’s never happy, not really happy. And he told me that he was going to make it easier for me to trust him, and—”

  “Why don’t you trust him?”

  “Oh just because of the blood-drinking stuff, I guess.”

  “What?” Felicity’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t tell you about this?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Right, I guess I didn’t tell anyone about it. I was kind of embarrassed. Well, the first time it happened, we had to do it so that he had magic, because we were captured by the Brotherhood, and he bit my wrist, and it was amazing. It was like we were instantly connected, and we were really powerful too. I remember we ripped bullets out of the air. I felt as if I was almost merging with nature or something. It was really intense.”

  “Whoa,” said Felicity. “Maybe I should let Jensen bite me.”

  “No!” I said. “Because after that, then he just kept going, taking more and more and more, and I started to… fade out.” I clutched the steering wheel, shaking my head. “He thinks he could have killed me, but I don’t—”

  “Red light!” Felicity screamed.

  Damn it. I slammed on the brakes, but I could already see that it wasn’t going to be quick enough, that I was going to bash into the cars in front of me and crunch into them, metal screaming against metal.

  Felicity put up both of her hands.

  I gritted my teeth for impact.

  But we stopped right there.

  We were both flung forward into our seat belts, and I was so startled at the sudden lack of movement that I let off the brake.

  The car didn’t move.

  I turned slowly to Felicity. “Did you do that?”

  She swallowed. “My talisman is hot.”

  I let out a dumbstruck laugh. “You did it. You did magic. All on your own.”

  “Wow,” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Good thing too,” Felicity said. “Because I’m beginning to think I’m even less safe in the car with you than I am against crazed vampires.”

  * * *

  Felicity collapsed on the couch, exhausted. “Okay, you seriously didn’t tell me that magic makes you this tired.” The incident in the car seemed to have unlocked Felicity’s hidden potential. She was taking to it like a duck to water. I wondered if the fact that she was already a magical being made it easier for her to channel the magic of the talisman through her body.

  I laughed, wiping sweat away from my forehead. “I think I did. It definitely takes it out of you. You want to go to the Flamingo for some food?”

  “Definitely,” she said. “I’m starving.” She sat up. “But we smell gross.”

  “You want to take a shower?” I said. “It’s not like you didn’t used to live here, so it wouldn’t be weird.” Felicity and I had been roommates until she moved in with Jensen. I still missed having her around.

  “Are you going to take a shower too?” she said.

  “Well, I guess if you do, then I should. Because I don’t want to stink if you smell good.”

  She laughed. “Okay, but we both have to be quick, because I’m really hungry. And if you take your typical thirty-minute shower, then—”

  “I don’t shower for thirty minutes.”

  “You want to bet?”

  “Whatever, like you’re so much quicker.”

  “I’m going to be today.” She scampered up off the couch. “I can borrow something to put on besides this, right?” She plucked at her sweaty shirt.

  “Totally.”

  She paused in the doorway. “Hey, um, about what you were talking about earlier? About Lachlan almost killing you?”

  “I don’t think that would happen,” I said.

  “It makes me nervous is all,” she said. “Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t call you, you know?”

  “How could it be better?” I said.

  “Well, maybe he realizes that he could hurt you, and he’s only trying to protect you.”

  I groaned. “I can protect myself. I breathe fire for Pete’s sake.”

  She shrugged.

&
nbsp; “You know what?” I said. “I’m just going to call him. He was probably busy with work or something.”

  “That’s totally the thing to do,” she said. “Don’t torture yourself. Just call him.”

  I nodded, taking a deep breath. “I’m doing it right now.”

  “Okay, I’ll leave you to it.” She disappeared back the hallway.

  I got out my phone and dialed.

  It rang.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  Hell, it was going to go to voicemail.

  “Penny,” Lachlan answered. His voice was hoarse, and he sounded bleary.

  “Did I wake you up?” I said.

  “Um…” A long pause. “Yeah.”

  “You were asleep? It’s past noon.”

  “I was at the station for a long time helping out, and then I volunteered to do some surveillance with this task force because one of the guys was out sick, and I was just up for a long time, so I crashed. What day is it?”

  “What day is it?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Is it Tuesday?”

  “It’s Wednesday,” I said.

  He groaned. “Oh, shit. I was trying to sleep through Wednesday.”

  “Lachlan?”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I can’t really talk right now, Penny. I’m sorry.” He hung up.

  I took the phone away from my ear and stared at it. Seriously?

  When Felicity got out of the shower, I was pacing the living room.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “Oh, I don’t even want to get into that,” I seethed. “I don’t know how I ever let myself think that man was anything other than a complete screw-up.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly.

  “Look, you’re doing really well with magic,” I said. “You got plans tonight?”

  * * *

  “I don’t know, Penny, are you sure this is a good idea?” Felicity was saying. “I mean, last time, you got arrested.”

  “Well, no one’s going to get killed tonight,” I said. “We’re going to scare them, that’s all.”

  Felicity and I were sitting out behind the pool, and I was laying out a set of machetes that I’d purchased specifically for this little outing.

  “Why do we have swords, then?” she said.