Reaching out, she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt to push it aside, only to have him swing off her.
Standing by the bed, Aaron pulled off his shirt and then his pants, and the breath caught in her threat.
He was so beautiful, her immortal.
All hard planes and muscles. His chest sculpted like an impossible dream, tapering down to a stomach so flat she knew if she touched it, her hand would slide down toward the proud hardness that thrust up toward her.
"You are so big." Her cheeks flushed with warmth as she heard her own words.
Hope was no prude. Yet even as her dragon rose inside and spread its wings and wanted him, the woman in her worried she wouldn't be able to take all of him in.
Reaching down, he held himself, running his hand over the length of his hardness, and a thrum of desire sparked inside. The jolt was so fierce she felt herself go wet.
Wordless, unable to articulate the anticipation and the excitement of finally being with him, the slight hesitation only making the wanting more powerful, she opened her arms to him.
Aaron dropped to his knees in front of the bed. Holding her hands, he kissed each palm in turn, the sweetness of his gesture intensifying that liquid want inside. She simply had to have him.
"Trust me." Letting go of her hands, he hooked his fingers on the waistband of her pants and then drew them off, along with her panties.
The air against her naked flesh had goose bumps rising. Or maybe it was the intensity of his gaze which raked over her skin as she lay there.
Dropping between her legs, he clasped his fingers around her ankles, pulling her close, before hooking one leg and then the other over his shoulders.
Leaning in, he blew gently over her melting core.
The surge of liquid heat that rushed from her womb crashed over her in a storm of yearning so fierce, every part of her skin seems to shiver with pain.
She arched her back off the bed, plunging her fingers into his hair.
"Please," she gasped. Another shudder of heat coursed through her, the sweat trickling down her back.
He trailed his lips over her stomach and up the hollow valley between her breasts. Kissing the hollow at the base of her throat, he placed his elbows on either side of her body.
His biceps bulged with the weight of holding himself up.
The emptiness inside her churned, gathering into a storm that threatened to overcome.
She wanted to close her thighs, wanted him inside her, just wanted… "Aaron."
Her voice seemed to get through him. Parting her thighs further, he plunged.
One moment she was empty. The next, he was there, filling her.
His hard length slid down the most erogenous part of her, igniting a fire that coursed through her veins to surge over her dragon. Her beast reveled in it. Her dragon only seemed to absorb the impact and grow impossibly bigger, pushing through every pore of her. The gold and green flames poured through her, and she let them take over.
Hope threw her head back and went up in flames.
53
Aaron
Aaron pulled back from her, almost all the way back so his hardness teased her sensitive entrance. The spicy taste of her in his mouth, his fingers clasped around flesh so creamy, so silky, he was in danger of never letting go.
The scent of her, that vanilla and hot spice was laced with wildfire. It warned him she was close to coming and drove him out of his head with wanting.
He wasn't even aware he was moving, not until he thrust into her to the hilt again, reaching out to her with all his senses.
She opened herself on the psychic plane. Her dragon vibrated and then poured itself down the psychic bond, into his mind, his body; and just like that, it felt like his skin was on fire.
His looked up, to find flames enclosing their joined bodies. It was the most sensuous image he'd ever seen.
Hands clenching the sheets, her head was flung back. His mark was on her throat. Her nipples pebbled with desire as her waist arched off the bed, before curving down to hips that flared in voluptuous contrast.
All around them, the flames burned gold and green, tinged with a blue. A blue that was his mark on her.
"Open your eyes, baby. See what we are." Leaning in, still inside her, he braced his arms on either side of her head.
Her eyelids fluttered open, the gold flecks swirling in green pupils with vertical slits. She'd gone dragon on him.
"You are beautiful, Hope." He felt his desire intensify, and then he was moving again.
Desire and love and tenderness burst out of him as Aaron fitted his lips to hers, absorbing the scream of her climax even as he felt himself shatter.
Epilogue
Hope flew over Bombay city, her wings bathing in the sunshine that beat down on her. The heat sank into her blood, zinging through her veins as she rode an air current that blew in from the Arabian sea.
Eve was no longer in a coma, but she was still not awake.
Hope knew that was just the way of dragon shifters. She'd awake when her body was healed. Her sister was out of danger, and Hope was content with that.
Below her, she could make out the broken bridge that stretched between two islands of the city.
Aaron had told her that before the tsunami of 2014, the seven islands that made up the city had been joined together.
The ruins of the bridge had been left to remind people that they didn't want the city to go back to the crowded, polluted metropolis it had once been. That the species of the city should find a way to live together, to preserve its status as the “Rising Hope of the East.”
Another gust of wind struck her, for the air currents here were choppier than Mauritania.
The skies weren't as blue either, and yet there was a wild beauty to these surroundings, the feel of urban landscape and nature clashing, each winning in parts. Much like the dragon and woman inside her.
Perhaps her adopted home suited her better than she realized, Hope thought as she came in to land on the beach.
The air shimmered green and gold around her.
Pain and fear, joy and ecstasy… the conflicting emotions lanced through her as she transformed back into the woman. Threaded through it all was love and an instinct that pulled at her through the mating bond.
The wind tugged her hair, shivering over her skin as she walked toward the man who waited for her on the beach.
Arms at his side, his chest was broad enough to stretch the cloth of the black T-shirt. He'd cut his hair, and Hope was still getting used to seeing Aaron's hair short enough to brush his shoulders. It only enhanced those high cheekbones and highlighted those cobalt-blue eyes that mirrored the rising tide.
Walking to him, she wound her arms around his shoulders. "Storm's coming." She raised her lips to his for a kiss.
Her Ascendant clasped her around her waist, raising her to tiptoes before swooping down to brush his lips over hers.
The first drop of rain splashed down on her nose.
Sliding his lips over her cheek, Aaron licked the drop of water.
A sizzle of heat vibrated straight to her core.
"Have you ever made love in the first rain of the monsoon?" He trailed kisses down her neck. "When the parched earth drinks in the water and the air is filled with the smell of—"
"Petrichor."
"The scent of mud after the first rain." Blue clashed with green and gold as she gazed into his eyes. "Will we always be in sync like this?"
"Always," he promised. "And after. I'm never letting you go." Sliding his arm down her waist, Aaron swept her up in his arms.
Laughter bubbled up and then a squeal as he ran with her toward the waves. The clouds opened up, and the first rains poured over them.
Don’t miss out. Get the exclusive Valentine’s Day scene between Hope and Aaron, here. You’re going to love it!
Next up, read a short excerpt from Obsession—Cain and Eve's story
Eve tried to crack her eyelids open, but the light
was so bright she scrunched them shut.
As voices drifted past, she strained to hear what they were saying, but they faded.
She tried to move and found she couldn't, and that sent a pulse of panic through her.
When she opened her mouth to speak, nothing emerged, sending a wave of fear through her. Darkness crawled at the edge of her consciousness. No, she wasn't going to black out, not again.
Reaching inside, she brushed against her dragon, feeling for its strength. The violet flame was pale, just a flicker, but it was there. Her dragon was alive. It gave her the strength to remember.
The telekinetic energy from the Elysian had smashed through her. Pain burned through her in its wake, and her body folded in on itself. She couldn't stay afloat in the air anymore. The rush of wind squealed past as her dragon fought to right itself and failed.
Gravity pulled at her, sucking her body down.
The ground rushed up to meet her.
Her dragon crashed into the tower of the oil rig on Reunion Island, from where the Elysian had attacked her.
The impact broke the structure before her body sloughed onto the platform, her body coming to a rest at the very edge. The bones of her wings snapped, her rib cage shattered.
White hot pain slammed through her.
The trauma was so extreme that it squeezed her dragon out of its ability to breathe, smothering its life force.
With the last ounce of consciousness, she changed into her female form. The agony of the transformation crashed over her, shrinking her cells, forcing both dragon and woman to scream out. The woman's body lay on the dusty floor, leg bent at an awkward angle, blood pouring out a gash on her side.
Eve saw Hope's face come into view, and next to her, Aaron. Perhaps it was the deliriousness of the pain that cleared her psychic senses, for she sensed the connection that trembled between the two.
Her gaze locked with Aaron. "Take care of her."
Eve felt her lips tremble, the aftermath of shock rippling through her, and then she was falling. She welcomed the darkness with relief, sinking into it, letting the warmth of numbness push aside the pain. Deeper she sank, happy she no longer had to feel, happy to float in the space of nothingness.
It was almost like flying, except here she didn't need wings. It was her human form suspended somewhere between the sky and the blue sea. She looked down and saw her body on the bed, saw her sister holding her hand and then being led away by Aaron.
Another couple she didn't recognize came in and sat with her. The love between them was a tangible feeling that floated over to her.
She was content to stay where she was, watching as the woman reached for the man’s hand and held it.
Her other hand gripped Eve’s. The reassurance poured from the man into his mate, seeping into Eve. But that only made her sad.
She'd never have what they did. She'd never find a mate. She was a dominant dragon shifter, the alpha of her clan. She'd never find a dragon who could rival her strength of will on the psychic plane. Her dragon would never accept a subservient mate.
No other shifter species could withhold the psychic impact of mating with a dragon. She was destined to walk alone.
The couple left.
A male walked in to sit with her.
He was tall and broad, with shoulders that were the biggest she had seen on anyone. His very presence in the room was big enough to draw in all the oxygen in the space. He filled the space with his presence, and not only in the physical plane.
Her senses tingled with awareness.
This man was strong and so vital. On the psychic plane, his flame burned with a golden-orange radiance that was irresistible. His psychic scent rushed over her.
He smelt of the sun, of heat, of dusty plains, and an animal magnetism that was so free.
A pulse of curiosity jolted through her. She leaned in closer to the man for a sniff.
There was something about him that drew her to him, that told her he was important to her.
If she lingered any more, she wouldn't be able to leave. Desperation gripped her, and she tried to turn away from him.
Eve didn't want to live. The woman in her wanted to be free and never return to this plane where her physical body constricted her.
On the psychic plane, her dragon’s violet flame flickered and lightened further, a pale shadow of what the beast had once been.
White desperation poured through her.
She wanted to flee, to turn toward the nothingness that she sensed was within reach, but she couldn't.
He was calling to her, pulling her back on the psychic plane. He was as lonely as her.
Did he sense it too?
Leaning forward, the man took her hand, and the shock of his touch reverberated through her.
A pulse of energy jolted her.
It yanked her right back into her body, into her soul. Her psychic senses sank back, melding into her cells, rushing through her blood stream and setting her nerves tingling.
Silver energy flashed through her. It zoomed through her, linking her pale lavender flame to the vivid amber of the man’s psychic presence, before fading out.
Had she imagined it?
On the physical plane, her heartbeat accelerated. She felt heavy, weighed down by her muscles that trapped her within.
She couldn't leave him. Not when she'd just found him.
Cold rushed through her, and pain wracked her body. She shivered and tried to moan, only to find the sound trapped in her throat.
The woman in her resented that this man had called her back.
Her psychic senses insisted she stay. She had found him. She couldn’t lose him.
Warmth bled into her from his fingers. All her awareness was concentrated on where he held her hand. The heat dripped through her, chasing away the crystals of cold that slid through her blood.
On the psychic plane, the violet flame of her dragon flickered to life, a pale lavender instead of the fiery violet she knew it to be.
Heat from him radiated toward her, pulling her to him. He was her anchor. He was life itself.
Don't let go.
"I won't."
To find out what happens next, get Obsession, Cain and Eve’s story.
About the Author
Hey there, I am Laxmi. Read my books because you love characters who’ll stay with you long after you’ve finished the story.
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Also by Laxmi Hariharan
Pick up the Many Lives Series because you're ready to discover sexy shifters, immortal warriors and vampires who'll steal your heart.
Order of reading
Awakened (Ruby and Vik)
Feral (Maya and Luke)
Taken (Jai and Ariana)
Redemption (Mikhail and Leana)
Claimed (Kris and Tara)
Inception (Hope and Aaron)
Obsession (Eve and Cain)
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Copyright Laxmi Hariharan 2018. All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Laxmi Hariharan, Inception
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