by E A Price
He couldn’t deny a slight lift in his mood either. But only slight. Bedding her would improve anyone’s mood
She pushed a bowl of ice cream toward him. He took hold of it, raising it to his face, giving it an experimental sniff. It smelled sugary and decadent and sweet.
His mouth made a moue of distaste, and she giggled. She raised her spoon to her lips, eagerly devouring the confection. She closed her eyes and let out a delicious little moan the like of which he had not heard in oh, about an hour. Finally swallowing, she removed the spoon and proceeded to lick it.
Drago stared, enraptured by the sights and sounds she let out. Her eyes flickered open, and she froze in his gaze, her cheeks blossoming bright pink as he scented her growing arousal. His own desire was full-blown and damn near painful.
He shouldn’t be doing this… again, but in that moment, all the objections he had flew out the window. Her chest heaved, and he couldn’t fail to notice the way her nipples pebbled against her shirt. His wings twitched as the tension mounted.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she murmured at last.
He was already hauling her over his shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The bed rocked, and Martha opened her bleary eyes. She was naked, her body happily tired from Drago’s attentions and tangled in the sheets. She glanced out the window to find it still dark, but the sun was creeping over the horizon.
The bed rocked again, and this time it was followed by a growl. She turned to find Drago sitting on the edge of the bed. The rocking was caused by the violent thrashes of his tail, but his whole body was trembling fiercely.
“Drago?”
He tensed at his name before quickly rising from the bed and turning to stare at her. His eyes weren’t focused, and his lip curled into an angry snarl. His wings flared, and he destroyed a bookcase.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Drago,” she repeated in a softer tone. “It’s me – Martha.”
She slipped out of bed and pulled a robe on. He watched her every move, not as he had before – with interest – but watching her almost out of fear.
Slowly, as if she were approaching a skittish horse, she walked around the bed to him. His fists clenched, and his chest rose and fell rapidly while the thumping of his tail grew erratic against the floor.
“Drago.”
She came to stand in front of him and tentatively placed a hand on his chest. His skin, always so hot, was scorching, and she could feel the almost out of control heartbeat under her touch.
“Where… where am I?” he rasped.
“My house,” she replied.
His eyes flicked around the room before coming to focus on her again. “The dungeon?”
“I don’t know anything about a dungeon.” She forced herself to maintain eye contact, even though she felt an urge to look down at his scars. Was this dungeon where he had obtained them?
He seemed to be relaxing marginally until he looked out the window and his breathing hastened again.
“Can’t see the stars. Can never see the stars,” he growled in an almost panicky voice.
“It’s a cloudy night, but let’s, ah, let’s go outside.”
Martha lowered her hand and placed it over one of his closed fists. He looked at her hand wonderingly for a few seconds before slowly unclenching and allowing her to place her palm over his.
“Come with me.”
She entreated him to go downstairs with her and pulled on a pair of boots and a huge coat while he watched her, seeing her but not seeing her. She led him outside into the cold, her boots crunching on the snow, though he didn’t make a sound.
“Look,” she cooed, pointing into the sky.
He looked up, and sure enough, he could see little but clouds, but it didn’t seem to matter to him. Just being out in the open, seeing the sky helped him.
He didn’t say another word, simply looked up into the sky. Martha waited patiently with him, standing next to him, holding his hand. She’d have been cold were it not for his furnace-like heat.
Twenty minutes later, the sun started rising. He didn’t look down from the sky but with a reluctant growl, he let go of her hand, and he turned to stone.
Martha pressed a hand to his stone cheek, sadness washing through her for whatever haunted him.
“Sweet dreams, Drago.”
*
“What are you doing?”
Martha started as she looked up to find Drago watching her. She had half-expected him – she had left the back door unlocked specifically so he could let himself in, but he moved more silently than a ninja in slippers.
He regarded her with his usual intense stare.
“Knitting,” she replied.
“Hmmm.” He watched her hands move for a few moments. “What for?
“It’s going to be a scarf.”
She smiled at him, waiting to see if he would mention what happened earlier. He didn’t, but she thought she detected a little embarrassment as he lingered in the doorway.
Martha moved, unfolding her legs from beneath her, sending the ball of yarn tumbling across the floor. It landed at Drago’s feet, and he grasped it, moving slowly and offering it to her. He was reluctant to meet her eyes, and she thought he might be a little uncertain after what happened earlier.
She pondered whether she should bring it up, but decided against it. She would not push.
“Maybe you can help me,” she said, taking the ball.
He looked doubtful, but he placed a large footstool in front of her and lowered himself onto it, folding his wings behind him and curling his tail around the coffee table. She took his hands, and he allowed her to place them where she wanted them and started twining her yarn around them.
He allowed her to do so and then watched as she resumed her knitting.
“This is tedious,” he said after a few minutes of diligently watching her needles bob up and down.
“I find it soothing.”
“Hmmm, you enjoy this?”
She smiled at the skepticism in his voice. “I do, my mom taught me when I was a kid. I remember when I made my first scarf.”
“It was undoubtedly perfect,” he muttered.
Martha stopped and giggled. “Lord no, it was awful. The yarn I used was really scratchy, and I made tons of mistakes – it looked terrible, but my dad dutifully wore it every day that winter.”
She closed her eyes as a wave of sadness assailed her.
“Where is your father now?”
“He died.” She swallowed and peered into his red eyes. They weren’t pitying, and somehow they encouraged her to talk to him, inspired confidence in him. “He was sick, and he killed someone. Because he was sick he wasn’t arrested, he was put in a hospital, and while he was there, he killed himself.”
Her hands started shaking, and Drago placed his over them, holding them still lest she impale herself on her needles.
She gave him a watery smile and said, “Thank you.”
“What have I done?”
“Thank you for listening, thank you for not telling me that I’ll get over it.” She’d heard that a million times before. Maybe the pain was duller than it had been, but she didn’t seem to be able to get past it. Particularly with her new dreams of her father popping up to bite her in the ass.
He shrugged, and sniffling, she traced her fingers over his hand. “Do you have family?”
“My blood relatives died many years ago.”
Her mouth fell in sadness. “Oh.”
“Though I lost them a long time before that,” he added unemotionally.
Martha disentangled the wool and pulled his huge hands to her lips, kissing them.
He stared at her wonderingly. “What was that for?” he asked, in a throaty voice.
“I thought you might need it.”
His gaze quickly became heated, and Martha realized he was gripping her hands with an urgency.
“Maybe you need something else,” she breathed bef
ore throwing herself at him, squeaking and then tossing her knitting to the side as his hands roamed over her body and her lips found his.
*
Drago watched as Martha licked her spoon with gusto. An unexpected trill of jealousy assailed him. He snorted. Being jealous of a spoon was ridiculous, or perhaps he just did not like that mere ice cream could elicit such exquisite little moans from her.
After they made love, rather than being completely sated and content to lie with him, she had hopped downstairs and returned moments later with a carton of her beloved ice cream. She was now behaving as if it was the most delightful thing on earth. Drago eyed the carton with loathing.
She was sitting peaceably beside him. Her long legs crossed and wearing nothing more than a pink shirt that barely covered her. He was surprised she was there at all. After his episode, he half expected her to flee. But he supposed at least he had not been violent. He had felt the violence of his memories. He had wanted to lash out and hurt someone, but even when not fully in charge of his own faculties; he had not wanted to hurt her. Unconsciously, he knew he could never hurt her, knew he had to protect her.
He had noted her curiosity, but she did not try to probe him about what happened. He did not think it was because she did not care, but rather that she was being patient with him. She was not like the other humans he had met, she was so much easier, so much… more than them.
“How much ice cream do you possess?” he groused, wishing that the sight of her pink tongue darting out of her mouth was not so wholly tantalizing.
“Not enough – it’s a total essential.” She grinned. “But I admit I did run out, so I had to go to the store to get some more today.”
“You went to town?”
Anxiety and anger welled within him, not that she noticed.
“Sure.”
“Hmmm.”
Martha looked up, wrinkling her pretty nose. “What? It was like a half hour drive – it was nothing.”
“It might have been dangerous.” Every muscle in his body tensed as he tried not to snarl at her, to harangue her that she could easily have been hurt.
Anything could have happened to her. While he despised watching television, he had seen enough of it to see the dangers. Though, he had to admit he doubted that Martha would not notice a man hiding in her back seat, waiting to leap out at her. He gave her more credit than that. He truly doubted the factual authenticity of that Urban Legends documentary Twenty-Six had insisted on watching.
“I’ve driven that road loads of times,” she said dismissively.
“Your proficiency with a motor vehicle is hardly…” He paused on seeing the flash of her eyes.
“Are you calling me a bad driver?”
“No,” he replied, automatically knowing this to be the only correct answer. His experience with females – especially human females – was limited, but even he knew the correct answer was no.
“Yes, you are!” she exclaimed, disbelief all over her face.
His tail tapped against the side of the bed as his chest rippled, wanting to calm her yet feeling like he should at least put forward his reasons for thinking that.
In the end, his argumentative side won out. “Well, the first time we met was when you had rammed your vehicle into a tree.”
“To avoid killing a deer.”
“Humph. If you say so.”
“I do say so!” She slapped his chest and then shook her hand at the slight pain to her palm.
Drago let out a small noise at the back of his throat. This conversation was going down a bad road. “Perhaps you ought to have killed the deer.”
“If it had hit my car, I still would have technically crashed; my car would still be damaged.”
A thought that made his heart stutter. He had not considered that. She might have been hurt worse. Hadn’t Kylie mentioned something about a man local to her town hitting a stag, and the antlers smashed through the window impaling him? Martha had generally been undamaged by the crash. The thought of her bleeding to death in the cold made him shiver.
“Besides,” she continued, undeterred and in what was surely a hectoring tone. “I’m not sure I could forgive myself if I hurt it.”
“Humph. I have killed dozens of deer.” They were prey - simple as that.
“What for?” she asked, her irritation drifting away.
“To eat, naturally.”
Her face made a moue of distaste. “I’d rather stick to ice cream than munch on Bambi, thank you very much.”
Her outrage gave him a small flicker of amusement, not something that he was accustomed to anymore, and he found it warmed him. He wanted to be amused more by this female.
“The deer would be better for your constitution,” he commented.
“My constitution is just fine.”
Said so primly and he was almost amused again, but as his eyes drifted down her body, and another emotion took hold of him. “Indeed,” he breathed.
“So what, you hunted them and killed them?”
“I had to if I wanted to eat.” He narrowed his eyes, staring at her pink shirt. It was hardly substantial, if he looked hard enough he could see every detail of her comely breasts, from the two small freckles to the rosy pink nipples.
“Is that how you got your scars – hunting?”
She traced a finger over his stomach, and he jerked his eyes to hers, his initial guardedness returning.
“No.”
Her finger never stopped moving, and he couldn’t help the way he quivered at her touch. “How did you?”
His eyes shuttered, and she smiled, slightly disappointed he would not confide in her, but not upset.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I do not know why you would wish to know.” He had not wanted to tell her anything when they first met because he told himself he was protecting his kind. But now, a part of him didn’t want to tell her the truth in case she didn’t believe him. What if she thought he was lying, that he had forced Muriel? Why would she believe a gargoyle over a human?
She rolled her shoulders. “They’re a part of you.”
“They are hideous and best forgotten,” he growled, his good mood evaporating completely. He was about to get up, to turn away from her, but her hand which had been idling on his stomach pushed at him, trying to keep him on the bed.
“They’re not hideous at all,” she said with a certain amount of bossy vehemence. “Besides, usually I forget they’re even there.”
“Humph.” He allowed her to push him back onto the bed.
“Plus, you don’t pay attention to my scar.”
Drago’s brow creased. “Your skin is perfect.”
Martha laughed. “Hardly, what about this sucker?”
She drew attention to a red mark on her arm. He took hold of her arm and pulled it to him, inspecting it closely. He had noticed it. He had noticed every tiny detail of her body, but it didn’t diminish her beauty. It was barely noticeable, not when her many other distracting attributes were on display.
“This is nothing,” he grumbled dismissively.
“It’s a huge red mark,” she argued.
“It is nothing.”
“You can see it from space!” she cried. Which he had to believe was an exaggeration.
“It does not detract from your perfection.”
Martha blushed and looked more than a little pleased. He was pleased that she did not seem inclined to argue further. Perhaps he had made up for the perceived insult when he said she was larger than Muriel.
“It is nothing compared to my scars.”
She bit her lip as her eyes roamed his torso. “They must have hurt.”
He grunted. Indeed they had.
“But they’re not ugly,” she said firmly.
Carefully, she removed her arm from his grip and took up her ice cream again, much to his consternation.
“Whoops!”
He flinched as she dropped a spoonful of ice cream on his stomach, covering o
ne of the more vicious scars.
“You did that on purpose,” he accused grouchily.
“Umm hmmm.”
She leaned down and swiped her tongue over the ice cream, licking it up, lapping at his skin. His big body trembled.
Martha smacked her lips together. “Delicious.”
He stared at her wonderingly for a few moments before, quick as a flash, he pushed her onto her back and dragged her shirt up. He took the tub of ice cream and dribbled some onto her stomach.
She squeaked and tried to jerk at the coldness, but he held her down firmly. He lapped at the rapidly melting confection, making sure he got every drop before kissing her belly button.
Her toes curled as he scented her sex weeping with excitement.
Drago pulled back and stared at her thoughtfully. “Perhaps I was wrong about ice cream.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Drago barked in surprise, and Martha quickly shut off the bubbles, trying not to devolve into howls of laughter.
“It is not funny,” he grumbled.
“It’s very funny,” snickered Martha.
He shifted uneasily, trying to get comfortable, his wings stirring in jerky movements. Martha placed a kiss on one of his shoulders. He stilled and looked at her in surprise.
“Relax,” she murmured and blew a bubble at him.
He looked dubious but sank a little lower in the water.
Martha still hadn’t been able to drag much out of him about his species, but little by little she was piecing it together.
In the space of such a short time, they seemed to settle into an uneasy domesticity, one she wasn’t keen to end.
He always seemed a little on edge and angry – not at her, but angry nonetheless. But she felt that part of him didn’t want to be there, yet he never made to leave her. Sometimes when he said something or looked at her, she felt like she was fighting a battle with him, and one that she could never win.
Drago slept in her garden during the day, while she slept in her room and they came together at night. They chatted – a little, anyway. He wasn’t particularly communicative, but they talked in dribs and drabs. They ate together – he seemed to have an enormous appetite both in the kitchen and in bed. Most of their time was taken up with bedroom activities.