Releasing a heavy breath, he pushed away from the wall and headed downstairs. And like he hadn’t just been told he was going to become a father, he strolled into the living room and plopped down on the couch to resume the movie.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” Megan replied. The blonde passed him a cold beer. “Um, so is your friend okay?”
“Yeah, she had to lay down for a bit. She wasn’t feeling well.”
While Jared and Natalie cuddled on the other end of the sofa, Megan inched closer to him under the guise of sharing the second popcorn bowl.
“We still on for studying together tomorrow during lunch?” Megan asked.
He knew what she wanted, and he’d known the moment they arrived with her in tow. Originally, five other freshmen from his algebra class were supposed to show up. Then Jared had caught him by the fridge when they were getting beers and whispered that Megan would let him hit it if he was interested. She wasn’t even afraid of him being a dragon because she’d dated a werewolf once before and thought it was cool. He didn’t move, but he didn't do anything to reciprocate the interest, instead surrendering the popcorn bowl to her.
“Sure. I—shit, wait. I can’t. I have to meet with this guy visiting from Quickdraw tomorrow. I’m taking off after lunch.” For once, his nightmarish busy schedule had gotten him out of a jam.
Megan’s face fell. “Oh.” When she perked up again, she nudged his shoulder, a coquettish smile on her face. “You’ll owe me then. The serial killer elective is going to kick my ass. I keep getting the names and M.O.’s mixed up.”
“Heh. Yeah.” Damn. It went against his code to lead a girl on, so he’d have to let her down once Jared and Natalie weren’t within earshot. Focused on the movie and their cheesy bounty of pepperoni pizza, he claimed another slice from the box and let the CG effects distract him.
For all of five minutes. His mind returned to Yasmin and the little life growing inside her, a life she’d expected him to deny and walk away from.
How could she?
The longer he focused on the movie, the more it disturbed him, and the more he marveled over the news and waited for the cold panic to set in.
Upstairs, Yasmin slept in his bed while he was stuck in an increasingly cramped living room with a girl who smelled ready to straddle him at the slightest provocation. Just his luck. Jared looked over in the exact moment Javier was glancing at Megan and winked.
“You two should come downtown with us this weekend for drinks,” Jared said. “Triple date with us. Frank and Sydney already agreed to come. It’ll be fun.”
“If I can find the time,” Javier replied, grinning.
“That’s right. Overachiever doesn’t like to leave a lot of free time for himself. You doing this again next semester?”
“Probably. I’m taking two summer courses, too. My guidance counselor thinks I’ll be homicidal by December, but we’ll see.” He tried to relax with Megan beside him, wiggling in close, pressing her bosom against his arm on occasion. He shifted uncomfortably and distanced himself.
“Don’t forget you’re supposed to game with us Friday night.”
Shit. “Um, yeah, I should be able to be there. The Internet is a great thing.” He grinned over at Jared then looked up at the ceiling. “Anyway, I should go on up and check on her. See you three tomorrow?”
“Oh.” Megan frowned and glanced at her friend. The two girls exchanged curious looks and Natalie mouthed, “I dunno.” He barely caught it out of the corner of his eye.
Jared remained oblivious. “Yeah, man. See you in class.” When he rose and stretched, his girlfriend yanked the keys from his pocket.
“I’m driving,” she said. “You had way too many beers.”
After what seemed like endless minutes saying goodbye and seeing them to the front door, his friends left in their two separate vehicles, allowing him to return upstairs and check on Yasmin.
“Yaz?” he whispered from the door. “You okay?”
Soft snores and a surprisingly adorable snort answered him.
He moved inside and stood by the bed, looking down at her curled up in his blankets. While she slumbered, he tried to follow the outline of her body and imagine the curve of a belly rounded by their child.
As far as he could see, Yasmin hadn’t gained any weight yet, though she’d always had a pleasing figure with full proportions, wide hips, and plump thighs. It didn’t yet seem real, but the animalistic side of him celebrated the developing life within her.
A father. He was going to be a father. The idea terrified him.
Three months ago, the greatest achievement of his life had been rolling out of bed on time to eat breakfast and greet new arrivals on the ferry.
Now he’d moved hundreds of miles from home and undertaken a near-impossible school schedule. The addition of a child was the last thing he needed, but everything he wanted. No matter what Yasmin thought of him, he didn’t plan to abandon her or their little one.
Although she’d already fallen asleep, he’d promised her cuddles. Eager to get the scent of Megan’s perfume off him, he enjoyed a brief shower under scalding water. Afterward, he crawled into bed in fresh shorts. Yasmin melded against him as he remembered from countless nights in his bungalow, letting him spoon her into a puzzle-pieced fit.
She mumbled something unintelligible in her sleep and shifted slightly, settling back against him. The new position made her snore disappear. Javier burrowed his face against her hair and breathed her in, while his hand settled against her abdomen.
He sighed, hating that it took something as serious as pregnancy for Yasmin to come over and talk to him.
After all, he’d only wanted to give her a little time to come around herself. But then he’d decided to hell with waiting—once the midterm rush to cram was over, he’d do it himself. Fate had another plan for them instead.
His old bite ached, no longer the pleasant and warm tingle of familiarity he’d felt before whenever she came near. It had faded since she’d left the island, only a few tooth-shaped discolorations remaining instead of an actual scar. Gone. Even his mother and father had scars from their brands, but he had nothing.
“I missed you,” he finally whispered before burying his face in her dark hair. Now, all he had to do was tell her the absolute truth when she awakened.
Yasmin hadn’t slept so well in days, not since discovering the pregnancy and worrying about what to do. She roused to a state of semi consciousness, wrapped in a warm cocoon of black silk. The comforting weight around her middle took a moment to sort out in her fuzzy brain. An arm. Javier. The memory of the previous night flooded back and she groaned, turning her face into the pillow. She still couldn’t believe she’d puked on his floor.
Javier mumbled her name and shifted against her, pushing in against her bottom with his hips. He smelled like soap and mint instead of beer and pizza, his presence warm behind her.
“Morning, beautiful,” he murmured against her hair.
Blinking a few times cleared her vision enough to read the digital clock on his bedside table. “It’s three,” she grumbled.
“Which is morning,” he quipped, earning an elbow in his side. “How you feeling? Comfortable?”
“Your bed isn’t in any danger from my stomach, if that’s what you’re worried about. So, is sleeping on silk sheets a dragon thing or a Javier thing? You had similar on the island, too.” Unsure whether to stay or go, she settled for conversation instead, neither distancing nor wriggling closer.
“Probably a person with too much money thing,” he replied honestly. “I didn’t do the decorating. I swear, I came back from picking up my textbooks, and both our moms were here. They have expensive tastes.”
Silence fell between them again. Javier’s arm tightened around her in a brief squeeze, and his breath stirred her hair. Yasmin closed her eyes, relieved he couldn’t see her face. That she couldn’t see his. Laying here, it was easy to think they’d never left the island and that ever
ything since then had been a dream.
Except it wasn’t.
Javier spoke first, his words almost too low for her to hear. “I missed you.”
Tension snaked through her body. If he missed her so much, he had an odd way of showing it.
“You don’t have to say that. Why did you really come to Texas? You could have studied Criminal Justice anywhere. Why UTSA?”
“After what I just told you, do you really have to ask?”
“You’re saying you came here and loaded yourself down with a crap ton of classes because you missed me?” Her voice squeaked up an octave at the end. “Seems counterproductive, don’t you think?”
“Would you have taken me seriously if I came to Texas and bummed on your couch?”
“Well, no.”
“Besides, I do want to get my degree and a job. That meant school and a place to stay.” He paused a second. “By the way, this living arrangement wasn’t my idea. Our moms hashed it all out and decided I couldn’t survive away from home without a mother next door.”
“I admit, I was annoyed at first. A little.” She sighed and shifted, twisting around until she faced him. “But I’m not talking about you choosing to live next to me. If you missed me so damn much, why’d you make it near impossible to see you? And why, on your one evening off, did you have some blonde bimbo panting all over you?” She groaned and added quickly, “Sorry, that was mean of me. She’s probably not a bimbo.”
“She’s a nice girl,” he said carefully. “I was already trying to figure out a polite way to let her down before you showed up at my door. Jared and Natalie apparently plotted to hook us up, but that’s not what I wanted. There was supposed to be a group of people here this evening.”
“So the others ditched?”
“My guess is Jared might have told them it was cancelled.”
When she grunted, Javier kissed her nose. “He meant well, okay? Being a dragon means, most students and professors are intimidated by me or eager to see what they can get out of an association. It’s tough to meet people who actually wanna get to know me.”
“They only know you’re a dragon if you tell them,” she pointed out. “You know, that whole privacy thing.”
His brows rose and he gave her a pointed look. “Really? Arcillanegro doesn’t just scream dragon?”
“Okay, fine, you have a point. Lucky for me, Silva is a commonish name, so people don’t automatically assume I’m the girl with the awesome gamer dad. Yours is a little more, uh, unique.”
“Yeah, and it doesn’t help that I look so much like my dad or that my folks don’t know how to do anything cheaply. I didn’t ask for a Porsche either.” He grimaced. “Despite all that, I made friends, Yaz. Friends of my own, and I wanted to give you space. You made it clear you didn’t want me, so I made a life of my own while figuring out my next move.”
“I never said that.” She frowned at him. “I said I wasn’t interested in a long-distance relationship. I said I wasn’t going to give up my life here to stay on the island doing, well, nothing.”
He squeezed her tighter, holding her closer than before. “You never suggested anything else.”
Yasmin tried to wet her lips, but her mouth had become dry as sand. “You didn’t seem interested in anything else.”
“Your first suggestion was to let the mark fade,” he growled, leaning up finally on one arm.
Deep down, she’d blamed her reckless behavior for influencing their attraction. By losing control and biting him, she’d muddied their emotions and complicated everything. She’d been positive the sexual attraction would dim as soon as they were apart again.
On top of that, Javier hadn’t marked her or shown any indication of ever wanting it. Yasmin had thought he was glad to let everything fade.
“Look, I meant what I said. I don’t want a baby to be the reason you’re interested in a relationship with me. It’s not fair to any of us. But I’m not going to block you out of our child’s life either.”
“I swear, woman, you’re a bundle of contradictions. I hope all of this is because I’ve knocked you up and there’s a storm of dragon and witchy hormones brewing inside you. Do you want me or not?”
“Javier—”
“I say I came to San Antonio for you, having no damned reason to be here otherwise, and you still try to find any excuse you can to push me off.”
What did she want? Him. If she was honest with herself, she’d always wanted him, even if he had been a lazy beach bum. Having him close was as electrifying as it had been the first time, stirring needs she hadn’t realized before.
What she wanted was to mark him again, to show that cheerleader and everyone else that Javier was hers.
She kissed him, shifting at the same time so that she pushed him down and rolled atop him. Straddling the shifter’s hips cradled his partial erection against the junction of her thighs, which meant only her leggings and his boxers separated them. He ground up against her, and a quiet moan of appreciation escaped him.
“That’s not an answer. Technically,” he murmured against her lips. If anything, it was more of a distraction from the weight of their conversation.
“I think it’s a perfectly good one.” She wiggled down as he bucked up. The friction caused a pleasurable chill to run down her spine. Fuck. She was so sensitive she was ready to orgasm right then. “You never answered my question.”
“I took this large class load for a reason, Yaz. I needed to prove to you and my dad that I’m not a lazy beach bum.”
“I think you overachieved a bit. Dropping from exhaustion doesn’t help anyone. Then again, I know you have great… stamina.” She kissed her way up to his ear.
“I think it’s safe to say overachieving is what I do. After all, I did pick a demigoddess to be my mate.”
Mate. The word brought a surge of satisfaction along with the driving need. She sat up and tugged off her shirt, then unsnapped her bra. She tossed her hair back over her shoulder and arched her neck, baring her throat and breasts to him.
Satisfaction coursed through her as Javier slid both palms over her breasts and kneaded. His thumbs circled her nipples until both were hard and aching, stiff as glass beads. Then he worshipped her upper body with delicious kisses, his warm breath a whisper over both tender peaks.
Yasmin moaned and rocked against him again. His cock had been trapped directly beneath her, its presence hard than steel with layers of fabric between them. The pressure alone felt amazing against her clit.
“How attached are you to these leggings?” Javier asked.
“Losing them is a worthy sacrifice if it means having you inside me right now.”
“I love when you talk like that.”
The leggings didn’t survive. Her panties, a thin wisp of a black lace thong, tore away with a single tug after he freed his cock. Javier filled her in a thrust.
Yasmin tossed her head back and gasped. “Oh fuck, yes,” she moaned, curling her fingers into his chest. She sagged down and claimed his mouth in a starved kiss, desperate to taste him, to enjoy everything she’d missed for so long.
“That’s never going to get old.”
“I missed you so much,” she admitted on her next breath. Anything more than that could wait. Sitting up again, she tossed her hair back over her shoulder and bared her throat. “Do it. Make me yours. Give it to me.”
“Not yet.” Everything shifted, and then her back was against the sheet as Javier’s strong body stretched over her. “Tell me how much you want it.”
“I want you,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you at the beachside bar.”
His next thrust stroked in exactly the right spot, causing her to clench around him and squeal his name. The slow and deep rhythm wasn’t enough, not when it seemed a lifetime had passed since Javier last held her in his arms.
Yasmin rolled him beneath her again, and the next five or ten minutes passed in playful fighting for dominance. Their hands wandered with mutual
interest, caressing curves and gliding over flawless muscles. She melted into the mattress beneath him, blown away by sensual kisses she didn’t want to end.
What they’d done before on the island had been fucking.
This was Javier making love to her, unrushed. Without a hurry. Savoring every exquisite second.
With each kiss, she succumbed more to her addiction for him, but she couldn’t ignore the restless, wild craving for his brand. Her soul screamed a demand to take what she wanted—to mark him again—but this time she wanted him to move first.
“I won’t let you get away again, Yasmine. You’re mine.” His teeth closed above her left collarbone, and the shock of his brand scorched through her down every nerve ending. Her toes curled, and her hips arched from the bed while the moment held her in its thrall.
The second Javier released her, she turned her head and seized the faint marks from her previous bite. Her magic seared him as she released an uncontrollable charge of power.
With her face turned into his throat, she clung to him as they moved in a frantic, ecstasy-driven tempo. And when she couldn’t bear anymore, the building tension erupted. She thrashed within the throes of the hardest orgasm she’d ever experienced, pleasure rippling through her in pulsing waves of increasing intensity.
When it finally ended and they were both limp and exhausted against the sheets, he maneuvered onto his back and tugged Yasmin partially atop him with an arm curved around her back.
“Way better than arguing over who cares,” he muttered.
She agreed with a quiet murmur. Once her heart settled into a sedate pace and her breath slowed, she nuzzled his chest and started a line of gentle kisses over his pecs.
His pecs were truly glorious. They deserved a shrine.
“You know what I just realized?”
Javier lazily stroked her spine. “Hm?”
“We can do this over and over and over as much as we want now. Nothing more can happen than what already has. And we have a few weeks to make up for.”
Bitten by Magic: Agents of SAINT: Book 1 Page 13