“Do you mean it?” She cocked her head to the side. He could stand it no longer. He raised his hand, and summoned his magic. The barrette in her hair snapped. Her glorious red waves cascaded around her skin, haloing her milky white complexion in a glorious flame.
“That sight takes my breath away,” he murmured huskily. She unconsciously touched her hair.
“I never knew that you had such an affinity for it,” she murmured, sighing.
“I want to run my hands through those glorious tresses of yours I want to kiss you from your head to your toes. Grania, I just want you.”
“You want me only because of the mating fire.”
She held her hand up. The ice cube she’d been holding fizzed out into a streak of water. The mark on her palm blazed bright red.
“I don’t want you just because of the burgeoning bond between us. Granted, that does add to my extreme discomfort at the moment, but it’s not just the only thing propelling me into your arms. We would have arrived at this destination either way. Let’s just say that from the first moment we met, I knew I had to claim you as my own.”
“I am not a woman to be claimed.” Righteous indignation welled in her voice.
“You misunderstand,” he sighed. “This isn’t going to be a one way street. As much as I’d like to, I’m not going to go all Neanderthal on you and make you my own. Well, I will claim you as my own, but that is beside the point. What I want is for us to each claim the other. I am yours, and you are mine.”
Her eyes flashed with uncertainty. “You are quite sure that you want me? I’m never going to change my ways. We must be sure before we take the plunge into madness. Once we join bodies, our fates will be inescapably linked. They will be linked forever. Do you understand the full implications of that act?”
“We are husband and wife. Aye, I understand the full implications.”
“We will truly be as one, William. Life as you know it will be forever altered. I will always be in your psyche, and you will always be in mine.”
“Hey, I thought we were pretty much telepathically linked now…”
“We are. But after we make love that link will only intensify. It drove O’Malley mad…”
“Watch it. Don’t go and compare me to that nutter. By the sounds of it, he was always a few bricks short of the full load. The lift obviously never went right to the top. He was damaged from the get go, we aren’t. We are both well-adjusted adults. Sharing a bond with you isn’t going to turn me into a raving psychopath.”
“Don’t ever say that I didn’t warn you.” Sadness flashed in her eyes. It was brief, but nonetheless, a stab of pain seared into his heart. She must have felt it because regret now glimmered in her eyes.
“Warn me? Hah! I laugh at that. We’ve just returned from a harrowing battle. I never need to be on my guard around you.” Slowly, he closed the small distance between them, while her guard was relaxed. He touched her gently. She shivered beneath the contact of their skin.
Her sigh made him harden. She was working her seductive charms on him without even meaning to. He needed her. He wanted her so badly. He could feel his magic starting to awaken within him. He kissed her softly, gently. Gradually, she started to respond to him. Her fervor for him built inside of her. Soon, neither one of them would be able to hold back anything. Their time was coming, and he would make it the best night of their lives. Tomorrow, danger awaited both of them. When he walked onto the next battlefield he wanted to know that it was with a full heart, and a strong unbreakable bond between him and Grania.
Her hands tangled in his wavy hair. “I think I like your hair just as much as you seem to like mine.”
He thrilled at the seductive, sexy tone of her voice. Her eyes, so green and so pure, now overflowed with a passion that made his blood boil.
“I’ve fallen in love with you, Grania.”
Something danced in her eyes. Was it joy? He could only hope as much.
“From the first moment I set eyes on you in that little dusty shop of yours, I knew there was something frightfully yet, exquisitely different about you. I knew you would become an intricate part of my life. I couldn’t imagine my life without you now. Even when you make me feel like pulling out my hair I still feel tender toward you. You are my perfect partner.”
“And you are mine. You are my darling Grania, full of fire and grace. It is a glorious feeling just looking at you. I can take all night just soaking up your stunning beauty.”
“While your poetic words make me feel as if I am the most loved woman in the world, I have to tell you that we don’t have time. We have each other, but time is slipping past on us. Tomorrow, we have no idea what sort of a changed world we will wake up to. I can only imagine how the mortals of the Earth are viewing what happened in Cheltenham and Tewkesbury yesterday.”
“I think they will report it with gratitude in their voices and hearts.”
“Perhaps. Let’s return to hearing those silken words come out of that luscious mouth of yours.”
“Your beauty quite simply takes my breath away,” he proclaimed
“I like that.” She pressed her lips against his, molding her body against his. He wanted to tear off her clothing, or better yet use his magic to simply make it fade away.
“The bedroom…this kitchen is far too cramped for what I have in mind.”
“Why, you read my mind.” He snapped his fingers.
In an instant, they were in her bedroom. He lit the room in the soft glow of candlelight. Darkness loomed outside. With his magic, he pulled the curtains across.
She caressed the side of his face gently with her hand. He reached up and caught her hand gently. “You are such a formidable woman, but you have such fragile looking hands.”
“These fragile looking hands of mine can do quite a lot of damage to the enemy when they are so inclined. Even as a dragon shifter, I am on the small side in my dragon form. I used to be revered for my beauty. My kind saw me as a celebrity of sorts. They all bowed to my beauty. I was like a rare jewel. They thought I was a gift from the Gods.”
“You are.”
“You don’t understand, I was literally seen as a Goddess in dragon shifting form. Why do you think Denys and I never became mates?”
“I didn’t think you could mate with someone that wasn’t meant for you. If I’m your destined mate, I don’t have to be a dragon shifter to know how wrong it would have been for you to link yourself to Denys.”
“Indeed, but therein is the crux of the matter. I could have just lain with Denys and bore his children. My father kept telling me that I was keeping myself from recognizing the mating fire and giving myself to it. Now that I think of it, I think he knew all along. He knew it and he used me. He used me to gain the allegiance of most of his followers. They worshiped me thinking I was a divine entity in a physical shell, but they were deceived. My father had the seers come to him when I was but a babe in arms. They must have told him my future, our future.”
“He wanted to deliberately keep us apart by setting me up with Denys, and it almost worked, except, I betrayed him by listening to my dragon’s heart.”
He nodded his head. “I always thought you had a human heart…”
“I do. But our hearts are different from mortals, and even your kind. We love so deeply and hate so deeply—it can be our undoing.”
“Hesitating in loving me isn’t your undoing,” William argued.
“I know that. You don’t understand. You don’t understand how precious you are to me. My father tried to keep us apart, he tried and he failed. That means we are the hope for both of our peoples. We are most certainly stronger together than apart. As long as we love each other and revel in that love, our world as we know and love it can never be lost.”
“Your father was right in wanting his followers to worship you. I can’t disagree with him on that point. You are a rare jewel, and I’m happy to say that I am the heart destined to love yours.”
“From now on, we will alw
ays be linked.” She placed her hand over his heart and took his hand to rest on her breast. “From this night until the end of time itself we will always be connected.”
“That’s the greatest gift I could ever hope to be given. You are the greatest gift. Fate certainly has smiled upon me.”
They kissed again. It was a scorcher. Their tongues met and started their own ancient duel. Heat flared between them. He looked at the walls. They glowed.
“Uh… I don’t want to ruin the moment or anything, but why are the walls glowing?”
Drawing away from him, she looked at the walls. Her eyes widened. “That’s me. I’m sorry. I’ll try to pull back on my emotions. If it makes you feel any better this cottage can’t burn down. It’s been enchanted to withstand any kind of heat.”
“I wish I could say the same thing about myself. What if you accidentally made me go poof?”
“I wouldn’t…that’s never happened during dragon shifting sex.”
“Oh really and your basing this on what? Aren’t we setting a new standard here?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Dragon shifters have copulated with humans and magic kind before, they’ve just made sure they never had any issue with those they slept with. That isn’t a new thing, that’s for certain.”
“They hate us and yet they use us for sexual gratification, how unnerving.”
“I guess if you put it that way.” Her eyes grew distant. “Come to think of it, you do have a point. There has been no human or magic kin that I know of that’s actually slept with a dragon shifter that was in the thrall of the mating fire. Maybe I will scorch you to bits.”
He eased away from her. His heart hammered in his chest, his palms were sweaty and his skin tingled. He couldn’t stay this near to her forever. It was going to start to get painful.
“I am a wizard.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Not like I didn’t know that, William.” She, too, looked all hot and bothered, and about ready to pop from the exertion of holding herself back. “I think my passions are starting to back up on me. I’ve never felt this hot in all of my life. Not even when I’m breathing flame.”
He rolled his eyes at that unneeded mental picture. “On that note, let’s get back to what I was trying to say. I know you know I’m a wizard, but we are impervious to certain physical things, maybe you won’t end up burning me up after all. How do you think so many of my kind escaped the stake?”
“They transported themselves out magically before the flames could touch them?”
He sighed. His heart was going to explode if he didn’t do something soon. He grunted and pulled her close.
“I’ll take my bloody chances. At least I’ll go out a happy man.”
“You’ll go out with your ass on fire.”
“Stop it.” He closed his mouth over hers to keep her from saying anything else. Her enlightening commentary wasn’t as enlightening as she thought.
The next few seconds sped by for the both of them. Something inside of him snapped. He felt his magic rushing out of him and surrounding her.
He helped her out of the fire resistant jackets they’d been given by Aurora. He kissed her earlobe, and she drew away from him shivering when his lips touched the nape of her neck. She smiled at him. “That is a most sensitive area for dragon shifters.”
“It is? I didn’t realize.” He kissed the exact same spot again, anticipating the exact same response from her. She let out a moan that made his skin tingle. It was music to his ears.
“You still have on your jacket.” She moved to reach her arms around him to take off his coat. Her eyes leveled on him locking gazes. “You look different.”
He shook his head. “Nothing has changed.”
“No. The battle earlier, you look different from it. It has wrought a most indescribable alteration in you. You have a haunted glint in your eyes now.”
“Could be because I realized just how much I had to lose. I was scared to death about you when you were up in the air.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Not that I don’t think that, but your walls tumble down to a certain extent when you are around your own. I see another side of you, one that both pleases yet disturbs me.”
This time she was the one to kiss him in order to silence him.
“I’m only going to say one more thing, no more unnecessary talking. No more. I don’t want to think about our yesterdays or our tomorrows. I want us to focus on the moment and live in the moment. It’s the only thing I want to think about right now.”
She reached for his arm. Pulling his hand up, she flipped it over so she could look at his palm. Joy lit her features. She brought his hand up to her lips and kissed the glowing mating mark.
“I’ve fallen in love with you, William. It’s a bolt out of the blue I know, but we fit together perfectly.”
“No more talking, remember? I know. I can sense your thoughts.”
She grinned. “In that case, tell me what I’m thinking now.”
He snapped his fingers. Their clothing faded away from their bodies.
“Now, that’s a sight I can live with.”
She feasted her gaze hungrily on him, scanning over every single inch of his body as if she couldn’t quite get enough. Her eyes flared with more hunger when she rested them on his midsection.
“I can’t resist the old cliché, you do look very happy to see me.”
Grania could feel herself becoming aroused. He stroked her breasts, sighing at the magnificence of them.
Slowly, he trailed his fingers gently down the valley between her breasts. He lowered his mouth to her nipples gently taking each one into his mouth. She ran her hands through his dark hair. It felt like silk between her fingers.
He groaned and at the glorious sound she smiled. He diverted his attention to her to kissing a trail further down her body. She felt as if she was going to hit the roof. Pleasurable sensations flowed through her body.
He kissed her stomach slowly circling his tongue around her belly button. She gripped his hand and pulled him up to meet her gaze before he moved even lower. He grinned at her and then kissed the insides of her thighs. “You are so very beautiful. You are as red down here as you are on your head.”
She laughed, not wishing to interrupt what he was doing. Her entire body tingled with the sensations working their way through her body. He touched the damp curls at the apex of her pussy. Slowly, she felt him enter her with one finger and then two.
*****
William looked up briefly to gauge the reaction his ministrations were working on her. She was slick and wet with her desire. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be ready for him. She started moving in rhythm with his fingers. Ecstasy was written across her face as her body shuddered with her release.
“This is the sweetest honey in all of the realms.” He was about to press his mouth to her when she pulled him up to her, and reached her own hand down to rest against his hardening shaft.
“My, my, don’t you look cocky?”
“Grania, please you’re killing me, enough with the cheesy clichés.” He laughed. She stroked him gently, sighing. “I want to give you as much pleasure as you’re giving me.”
“You already are. Just one touch from you and I’ve gone more than rock solid.”
She laughed. They made their way over to the small writing desk in her bedroom. He used his magic and cleared the desk of all objects. She knew his intention and wrapped her arms around him. “It looks as if two are about to become one.”
“There you go again with your treasured clichés.”
“You are right no talking was a good thing.” Her breathing became laboured. She wanted to make this night last forever, unfortunately, she knew that wasn’t possible.
He lifted her onto the desk and then gave her a searing kiss that she felt right down to the tips of her toes. She shivered.
“Are you cold?”
“I’m a dragon shifter. I’m not cold
. I’m shivering in anticipation. Can’t you feel the mating fever propelling us on? I’m so restless I can’t wait for you any longer.”
She pulled her to him, opening her legs for him. He entered her gently, and she pulled him right into her, felt a brief flash of pain, and then allowed her muscles to relax around his cock. He thrust into her slowly at first, allowing her to set the pace. Her ragged breathing made her lungs feel like they burned.
Her heart raced in her chest. She could feel heat waves start to vibrate off the walls, casting the room in soft hue of blue, a telltale sign that their love was true. She moved against him, and he pumped into her.
Wrapping her legs around him, she pulled him into her even more fully. She wanted him to fill her as much as he could. Tension started to build inside of her, he hit that sensitive spot again, and she felt herself explode with her climax. He held her close as he too followed, pouring his cum into her. “That was simply amazing,” he sighed.
They held onto each other for a few minutes, while they slowed their breathing. At that moment, more pressure built inside of her. She pulled him to her again…
“This is it this is the result of our lovemaking.” Red light started to swirl out of her and surrounded him. He coughed.
“Is that smoke?”
“It is magical smoke. This will complete the mating fire. We are well and truly joined now. And dragon shifter mates mate for life. There’s absolutely no getting rid of me now, my love.”
He smiled down at her, pulling her close to his chest. She breathed in his distinctive magical scent. All magic kind had the strong scent of magic about them, but she couldn’t get enough of his scent. Not in a million years.
“I told you already I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
They stood naked skin to skin. He still had an insatiable lust in his eyes.
“I hope that you fully intend to keep this up all night long.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, darling Grania, but sweetheart we are drowning in clichés.”
She gave him a soft smile. “That’s just something you will learn to get used to with me as your wife and mate. I’m afraid I can’t seem to break the bad habit.” She chuckled.
Dragon's Heart Page 17