Toeing out of his boots, he shoved his leathers off and away as he kneed the bed and begin to crawl up the body which’d teased his fantasies for more than a decade. Her flesh was warm, silky as he glided up and over her until he was raised up on his elbows, his cock brushing against the moist core he’d imagined sliding into again and again.
“Take me, Eron.”
And, god help him, he did exactly as she asked, finding entrance before he sank himself, sliding into the moist cavern of her being and shivering at the feel of her walls as they tightly gripped him.
“Oh, fuck,” he mumbled not caring about his words only the sensations of having the very core of the woman of his dreams and fantasies surround him.
He pulled out and delved in again on a heartfelt groan. She fit him perfectly, her depths clutching against his mushroomed helmet as he invaded her.
“So good,” she moaned and at her words Ti’eron decided to get down to business. Pulling out and pressing in with ever faster strokes, he plunged, slewing in and out of her hot body. The firm tips of her breasts rubbing against the highest portions of his stomach only added to the physical cacophony, providing a pleasurable counter-rhythm to his thrusts.
He snagged one of her thighs, lifting it up and out, so she had no choice but to cant her hips allowing him deeper access.
“Oh god,” she breathed on a plea as her fingernails dug into his ass. He dropped his mouth to the fragrance of her neck. “Claim me, Eron.”
Pushing up onto straightened arms, Ti’eron studied her face while his hips continued to pump and grind. Her chin tipped towards the ceiling, her closed-eye expression holding more of a frown than the pleasure bubbling in his balls, the luscious tension coiling in his lower spine. “Look at me, Adri.”
She brought her chin back to center and blinked up at him though the hunching of her hips, the movement of her pussy on his cock never stopped, the pulses of her walls signaling her bliss, hovering before she claimed it.
“Look at me and know,” he couldn’t continue as the rockets of his pleasure shook him, spurting into her, one hard, long slow stream at a time. Taking in an audible breath, he groaned on every syllable, determined to get the words out. “You. Are. Ours.”
*.*.*.*.*
Oh wow. Oh wow, oh wow, oh freaking wow.
God.
That was…what? I couldn’t come up with words to describe how Ti’eron had rocked my world.
Two orgasms? Two?
And in the space of what? Fifteen minutes?
Typically, I was lucky to squeeze off one and that was only if my partner expended thirty minutes of effort in getting my body interested.
In my opinion, what had just gone down was nothing short of a miracle.
Ti’eron shifted to his elbows, his unbound hair falling on either side of my face before he twisted us to our sides. I didn’t want to look at him yet couldn’t stop myself. I needed to see if I was alone in thinking that’d been the absolute best sex in the history of the world. Shyly gazing at his chest, I lifted my chin slowly taking in the sight of his strong neck, his sharp jaw before I chanced a peek upward only to find he was already watching me.
Neither of us spoke and as the seconds stretched out, I struggled to find something to say before our moment of afterglow became uncomfortable. But just as I parted my lips, without a clue of what was going to come out, a long, deep purr filled my head.
You complete us, our Annie. On every level.
Okay, getting props from Ti’eron’s beast was a good thing and, even though I didn’t really understand what he meant, the tone itself spoke of a bone-deep satisfaction that only rivaled my own. Making me consider what Ti’eron uttered there at the last, when I’d been in the throes of a shattering so deep I could barely make out his harshly whispered words.
But guys said stuff in bed all the time that, in reason’s light, weren’t true.
I mean, Paul used to beg for me to tell him I was his ‘slut princess’ and that I was his ‘tight, little fuck-toy’, things he’d never say except when he was about to come. Words that totally took the wind out of my sails, but by the time he moaned them, he was too far gone to notice my lack of response.
Ti’eron’s words though, geesh! Given at the most perfect moment, at just the right time and in the manliest of growls, forced me to listen, pay attention, as he told me I was his. They were the kind of words a heart didn’t ever, ever forget no matter what was going on at the moment.
“I’m sorry that was so fast, baby.”
“It was perfect.”
His eyes probed my own as if searching for a lie. “I promise I’ll do better next time.”
“Just as you promised never to leave me?” Now where the eff did that come from? It wasn’t the time to rehash our past, not when we were naked and replete after we’d finally been able to act on the desire ignited in our long-ago, teen years. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
He released my waist and ran a hand over his face. “No, you’re right. I should’ve never given you such a frivolous promise when I didn’t have a clue about what was to come or how to keep it.”
“You were fifteen, Eron. You couldn’t know what was going to happen.” God, the look on his face destroyed me, one so filled with regret, a self-loathing so sincere it couldn’t be denied. I caressed his face, using my thumb to rub away the lines between his eyes. “I just wished I’d known you were alive.”
Using a finger, he brushed a strand of hair off my forehead. “I wish I’d known how to contact you, but it must’ve been my handlers who told Mrs. Anderson I died.”
“Your handlers?”
He swallowed and looked at some distant place over my shoulder, his softly swirling eyes going unfocused. “That’s what I called them anyway. The men who came to the hospital and took me away.”
“Away to where?”
He sighed. “New Mexico, although it took me a year to figure it out and only then by sneaking a look at the address on the facility’s letterhead.”
His eyes came back to mine and I noted the swirls were coming faster. “I was sick, baby, but not with any human kind of disease. It was my body reacting to Ver’gren coming out of hibernation, pairing with me that caused the fever.”
“Did it hurt when he…woke up?”
I liked the grin that split his face. “Like a motherfucker, but it was and still is the best thing that ever happened to me.” There was a pause, but I got the feeling he wanted to say more. I just didn’t know his next words were gonna figuratively knock me on my ass.
“Outside of you, Adri.”
Maybe if any other man had used those words, it would’ve sounded cheesy, contrived. But not when Eron said them and especially not when I felt his softening manhood slide out of me on a gush of wetness.
Which, in retrospect, was an icky reminder we hadn’t used protection. That it hadn’t even crossed our minds in our frenzy to be together.
“Uhm…” Eron breathed, shifting his hips away from me.
“Ah…” I countered, disconnecting my arms and rolling onto my back. I stared at the ceiling as the silent seconds ticked by.
He coughed. “You’re on the pill, right?”
It took two tries before I was able to swallow the ball of hurt lodged in my throat before I could answer. “Yep, but what about diseases? I mean, I can pretty much figure by your bedroom skills, you haven’t lived the life of a monk.”
I felt him move next to me but was unwilling to look his way since I was just as guilty as he was. What kind of boneheads didn’t think of condoms before doing the nasty with a new someone, especially in this day and age?
“The docs say we can’t get ‘em.” I didn’t even want to know the tests performed to glean that particular bit of information.
You would look beautiful, swollen with our child.
At that moment, I didn’t welcome hearing from the beastie living inside my bed partner, nor the dragon’s words. And at the way Ti’eron’d tensed as
the voice rolled through me, I knew he didn’t either.
The only silver-lining in our post-coital scenario? We were both on the same page and equally uncomfortable.
*.*.*.*.*
She was right, he hadn’t been a monk in their years apart, but each and every one of the women he’d taken to bed knew the score before either party shed their clothes. Either by the way he’d pre-paid for the anticipated services-to-be-rendered or with few terse sentences of warning not to expect a phone call from him after the fact.
This was his Adrienne though.
Not some hooker who’d captured his passing fancy when he’d had a need. Or some drunken girl with little clothes and less morals making silent promises with her body on a nameless club’s dance floor.
Annie is our future.
Goddamn! Ti’eron knifed up to sitting and propped his elbows on his knees, shoving his fingers into his scalp.
Since the moment Ver’gren had announced his presence inside him, Ti’eron had welcomed their connection. Had known at a cellular level he would never be alone again. But in that moment, after what he and Adri had shared…
Do you wish me to remain silent?
A warm hand met his lower back, stroking upward, offering soundless comfort when he most needed it as he ignored the dragon inside. The covers shifted as she moved closer, her caresses hitting his shoulders before moving back down. Soon her knees bracketed his hips and he felt her breath on his shoulder blades as her palms slid over his skin, easing the pressure he hadn’t been aware he’d held.
Lips met his spine in the briefest of kisses before sinuous arms slid around his belly. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He couldn’t think of a single thing Adri had to apologize for, not in light of all that she’d given as he’d sweetly ridden between her thighs. What he’d shared with her had been the best sex of his life.
There was a pause, a heartbeat of silence as both her cheek and her breasts pressed against his back hard enough to feel her shrug. “I don’t know. But I can tell you’re upset.”
Christ! Could she be any more perfect?
He had to get out there, though. As quickly as possible before he got down on his knees and did the unthinkable. “Listen, Adri. This was great, phenomenal even and one of the best experiences of my life, but I don’t have any time for a steady girl in my life right now.”
There was a half-beat of stillness before her arms released his ribs as she pulled away.
“I mean, with the Berstats and what the government is trying to pull, not to mention my new command, I’ve got a lot going on, you know?”
When she didn’t respond, Ti’eron reached for his leather pants on the floor where he’d flung them. He had no memory of taking them off. From her reaction, or lack thereof, he knew he needed to say something nice, but didn’t know what. “I’ll call you when things aren’t so chaotic, okay?”
He stood and searched around for his vest and boots not sparing her a glance in his embarrassment at how badly he was handling his exit. As soon as he dressed, he moved quickly in order to get out and away from the pull of her heart Ti’eron somehow knew he’d broken even without Ver’gren’s input.
The hand flick he used as he strode determinedly from the bedroom felt harsher than the simple good-bye he’d intended.
*.*.*.*.*
I blinked at the empty doorway, the vision of his half-hearted wave imprinted on my soul as I heard the sliding glass door open and then close.
It was then, and only then, I realized it wasn’t only my body that’d been shattered by Ti’eron that night.
It was my heart too.
Chapter Eight
“Well, well,” General Brecon preened, his gimlet eyes moving around the table at the four dragon commanders, his elbow nudging the gold-braided cap he’d laid on the table. “At last, we all meet in person.”
Ti’eron bit his tongue to prevent the sneer threatening to escape as well as Ver’gren’s chuffs of anger, even though flames of dragon-fire skimmed his lips.
His dragon had not spoken directly to him in the few days after Ti’eron beat a hasty exit from Adri’s bed except during the battles with the Berstat bugs. But he’d still felt his beast’s emotions along their connection. Ones that both blamed and shamed him by turns.
The shared feelings he experienced in that moment, the meeting with his co-commanders and the general, were different though, signaling Ver’gren’s hatred of the bureaucrat who’d forced his way into the Montana compound. Insisting, absolutely demanding on a meeting when the Dragon Warriors sent back their rejection the Global Militia’s adamant assertion Ti’eron and his kind were under government control and citing all the legalese to support it.
“Since you’re here without an invitation and without our prior approval, why don’t you start?” M’dobe, dressed in his bright green leathers, was the calmest in the room. Hu’ang’s gaze remained on the table and Re’nal had turned away from the supercilious human and the bright, shiny icons of his position adorning both his shoulders and chest.
The older man opened and closed his mouth before sliding a hand over his thinning hair. “While all of us who control the armaments of Earth’s security appreciate the help the dragons have provided in dealing with the Berstat, even you must realize there is no hope in hell you can handle all of what’s going to happen when the full of their armada hits.”
“He sure do talk pretty for being such an asshole, don’t you think?” Re’nal’s snickers expressed the derision every warrior in the room held back. “You want to talk to us, military douche? Then speak plainly so we can understand you.”
“We don’t have all day,” Ti’eron prompted.
“Even if we did,” Hu’ang added with a smile from no end of the humorous spectrum. “We wouldn’t willingly spend it in your company.”
Brecon’s eyes moved to the side, as if looking for the score of underlings, the ‘yes’ men who’d accompanied the general but who’d been banished the moment the Warrior Dragon commanders filed in. If their seconds couldn’t attend the meeting, then it was only fair-play Brecon’s men be remanded outside the closed doors of the conference room. “You want it plain? Okay. How about this?”
With a sharp tug at his heavily decorated military coat, Brecon leaned forward. “Too few dragons and too many bugs.” He sat back as if satisfied by his statement. But the man’s firm, small grin slid away as each and every Dragon commander began to laugh at his pronouncement.
“Seriously?” Re’nal yelled, slapping his hand on the conference room table. “He thinks we can’t handle what’s to come?”
M’dobe had his head back, his chortles rocking the air as well as the chair he sat in.
Even Ti’eron was hard pressed to prevent the tears of his hilarity at the human’s sanctimonious words. It was only Hu’ang who had the breath enough to refute them.
“You don’t get it, do you?” The Asian warrior’s unbound hair slid over his black leathered shoulders, shaking his head. “And maybe, as a human, you wouldn’t. Our dragons didn’t emerge as some sort of unnatural whim, a freak event of nature that came at some random time. No general, our dragons awoke at the perfect time and with a specific purpose.”
General Brecon looked at each Warrior Dragon commander one-by-one who had sat up straighter at Hu’ang’s words. “You’re saying you won’t need our assistance? That you cowboys can handle what’s to come on your own?” The military man’s voice had gotten louder to the point his last two words were shouted, his face bright red with emotion.
“What’s your real concern, General?” M’dobe challenged. “That we can’t get the job done or that we will—without any help from you and your playmates with all your fancy, expensive toys?”
The question seemed to push Brecon over the edge because he shot to his feet, slapping his hands on the table as he leaned forward and bellowed even louder. “If you and your rag-tag band of freaks think to get all the fame and glory for battling the Bers
tats you’ve got another thing coming! The United States military will not be pushed out of the picture as you preen and strut before the media just because you can turn into some kind of nonsensical animal who breathes fire—“
“Okay, which one of you got your strut on for the paparazzi?” Re’nal cut in, his eyes twinkling as they connected with Ti’eron’s. “None of you? Hmm. Guess it was only the big cheese in blue and gold who’s been on TV recently and I have to say, you need to work on your preening a bit, dude.”
The exasperated general took his seat and made another swipe at his hair. “Your lack of seriousness and decorum for this grave threat to our planet only exemplifies you are not the men for the job.”
Ti’eron watched the older man carefully, his mind caught on other words the General had used before. “You said ‘United States’.” He looked to his warrior brothers to see if they too had picked up the fact the man had only mentioned one country in his diatribe. “We aren’t fighting for the U.S. only. You and your minions made sure we belonged to no country, which in hindsight is a good thing because our dragons rise to protect all of Earth.”
“But surely you see the need to prioritize which nations need the most protection at the quickest possible moment?”
“From our vantage point in the sky, we don’t see countries or nations only land masses and wide-sweeping oceans. We don’t have time to shift our focus from the threat we battle to determine if we fight over Chicago or Istanbul.” Hu’ang explained patiently studying the bureaucrat as if looking for signal of comprehension. “As the head of the Global Military, don’t you believe we are all, as John Lennon so succinctly put it, ‘a brotherhood of man’?”
“There is an inner-connection between all humans, regardless of race, place of origin or even gender.” M’dobe firm voice allowed for no argument.
“And we, the Dragon Warriors of Earth, emerged at the perfect time to defend against invasion of the Berstat.” Ti’eron didn’t know where his voice began or when Ver’gren’s began.
Bound By Heat - Dragon Shifter Page 20