by Meg Ripley
“You’ll catch a chill like that, Love,” Dylan said from the couch, extending one arm invitingly towards her. Rachel reluctantly left the window, walking across the living room to where Dylan sprawled. She sank down onto her knees next to the couch, looking at him intently. Dylan coiled his arm around her, drawing her closer, his hand sliding up along her back to cup the base of her skull.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Rachel murmured, though she didn’t resist his move to kiss her.
“Not if you’re careful,” Dylan countered, claiming her lips. He lifted her carefully and Rachel found herself standing, climbing onto the couch, straddling his hips slowly and carefully as the kiss deepened, Dylan’s hands wandering over her half-clothed body.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a one-track mind?” Rachel asked, barely breaking away from the kiss. Dylan chuckled lowly, his hands sliding up underneath the loose sweatshirt she was wearing to cup her bare breasts, giving them a lingering squeeze. Rachel’s nipples began to harden to his touch, a rush of heat flowing through her in automatic reaction to the caress.
“A few busted ribs… are not going to stop me,” Dylan murmured, his fingertips wrapping around her nipples, teasing and rolling them slowly. Jolts of hot-and-cold pleasure crackled through Rachel’s body and she felt herself heating up from within, her pussy starting to feel slick. “I need to make up for lost time.” He pulled the sweatshirt up, over her head, and tossed it across the room, his hands falling to her hips.
“You’re insane,” Rachel told Dylan, kissing him on the lips lightly. He shifted underneath her, groaning slightly; his ribs were healing, but slowly. Rachel squirmed against Dylan’s hips as she felt the blanket that separated them slipping out from underneath her.
“You love it, really,” Dylan countered, and Rachel felt the heat of his erection pressing against her slick folds as he moved her body on top of his. She moaned as his cock slid and slipped along her labia, tantalizingly close but not exactly where she wanted it. “Let’s just take it slow,” Dylan suggested, rocking his hips up against hers. Rachel nodded, for the moment too turned on to speak; she caressed him carefully, holding herself up on her knees, balancing her weight on her hands above his shoulders. Dylan’s fingers slipped down between their bodies and Rachel moaned out again as he found her clit by touch, stroking her teasingly.
“Slow is good,” Rachel managed to say, shivering as Dylan rubbed the bead of nerves, rocking his hips steadily to rub his cock along her slick labia. “But if you don’t—if you keep teasing me like this—it’s not slow, it’s just mean.”
“Can’t have you thinking I’m mean…can we?” Dylan’s fingers retreated from her pleasure center and Rachel gasped as she felt him guide his cock up against her, as he thrust his hips upward, sliding inside of her inch by inch. She pushed down to take him in deeper, opening her eyes to look down at his face. Dylan’s dark eyes were nearly black with desire, staring up at her with undisguised need as they began to move together, friction building up between their bodies enough to make Rachel sweat in moments.
She rocked and twisted her hips, rising and falling, as Dylan’s hands danced all over her body, caressing and teasing her. He cupped her breasts, bringing them up to his mouth to claim each of her nipples in turn with his lips and tongue. Rachel felt the tension mounting in her moment by moment, felt her body heating up, her muscles flexing in spasms around Dylan’s cock as she became more and more turned on. Dylan’s hand slipped between their bodies once more and as he thrust deeper and deeper inside of her, Rachel cried out at the feeling of his fingers playing against her clit, sending jolts of pleasure shooting through her body in crackles that lit up her nervous system.
She struggled to hold back, wanting to savor the closeness of their bodies, wanting the moment to go on forever; but as Dylan pulled her face down to kiss her hungrily, his tongue probing her mouth as he thrust harder and faster inside of her, Rachel felt her self-control breaking. She held herself up off of his injured body with an effort, shifting her knees up to take him deeper, pushing herself down onto him harder as she moaned against his lips. In a matter of moments, it was nearly impossible for her to hold back her climax anymore, and Rachel grabbed at the pillow underneath Dylan’s head, every muscle in her body clamping down as the first wave of her orgasm jolted through her.
Dylan kept himself under control, holding back, and Rachel’s climax deepened, pleasure rippling through her as he slowed down and then sped up once more, his hands wandering over her with possessive lust. Her spasms began to abate and Dylan continued to touch her, working her out of satisfaction and into renewed need. He groaned as her body heated up again, hands tightening on her, and Rachel found herself moving to his rhythm, falling into his movements as readily as a dance, as aftershocks crackled through her nerves and she felt the tension mounting once more.
Her second orgasm crashed through her as abruptly as the first, and Rachel fought to keep from collapsing onto Dylan’s body, supporting her weight on arms that felt like jelly and legs that seemed more and more unreal with every driving thrust of Dylan’s cock inside of her. This time, they reached their orgasms together—and Rachel swallowed down Dylan’s moans hungrily as she felt his warm gush flooding into her once, twice, a third time.
She carefully picked herself up off of Dylan’s body, and he shifted on the couch lazily, pulling her around and cradling her next to him. Their bodies were slick with sweat, and Rachel thought hazily that they’d both want a shower in a matter of minutes, but she was too satisfied to move.
They would stay in Ireland for a while; James was still working to regain full control of his company, and to clear up her precarious legal situation. But upon their arrival in Ireland, Rachel had not been at all surprised to find that her bank account showed a balance of nearly ten million dollars, with a note on the bank transfer that brought her to that balance telling her to enjoy herself. “We could just stay here, you know,” she said to Dylan, reaching up to swipe a lock of his hair away from his face.
“We could do that. Or we could go back to Rouen and work on your French some more.” Rachel rolled her eyes, swatting at him playfully, careful not to hit him where he was injured.
“As long as I’m with you, I don’t care where we are,” Rachel said quietly.
“I told you: you’re not getting rid of me. I’ll follow you anywhere, Rachel,” he said, tucking a wisp of her hair behind her ear. “I love you.”
THE END
Sneak Peek of Playing With Fire: Dragons Of The Darkblood Secret Society, Book 1
I've always done my best to work hard and stand apart from my father's shadow, but it seemed like he was setting me up to fail. When he assigned me a new client, Adventure Isle—a run-down amusement park in the middle of nowhere—I knew I'd have to find the investor of a lifetime to succeed.
I was looking for a man with more money than sense. What I found was a man who had no money at all, but he did have a beautiful daughter, Shayne. A beautiful, ball-busting daughter that I wanted from the second I laid eyes on her.
She controls his money, but she controlled my heart from just about the moment we met. She called herself Mary and I never had a chance.
But just when I find myself in her bed, exactly where I want to be, she gets the call. Her father is dead; killed by a dragon.
And things are about to get a whole lot more complicated when the woman of my dreams learns that I'm a dragon, too.
CHAPTER ONE
With a long sigh, Jason Cross dropped into the brown leather chair at the furthest end of the lounge, loosening his tie with one hand and tossing a folder aside with the other. Before the next breath, a waitress appeared at his side with a drink in hand.
"Thank you, Mia." He gulped it down with a single swallow and signaled his need for another.
Mia’s sharp eyes flickered over his strained face and she nodded, sauntering back to the bar at the same deliberate pace she always used. She did not work for
tips and she couldn’t be fired, so she moved through life at her own speed. But she knew everybody’s drink, knew when to change it up, and knew when to lend a sympathetic ear.
"Hard day?"
Vincent Ryder helped himself to the seat across from Jason. Artist, speculator, investor, inventor, and general man about town, Vincent was a renaissance man who didn’t wait, or ask for, invitations. The constant smirk on his lips gave him an air of arrogance, but Jason wouldn’t call Vincent an arrogant man. He always backed up his big talk and he was a good man to have in your corner, so Jason was one of the few who didn’t find his smirk intolerable.
"Yeah, you could say that," Jason said.
Vincent reached for the discarded folder. "You have a new project." It wasn’t a question and he didn’t wait for Jason to invite him to have a look. He flipped through the first few pages, went back to the beginning, read them again, and then blinked at Jason.
"Exactly," Jason said.
"Why am I looking at a Ferris wheel and three children eating cotton candy?" He tilted his head. "This photo is at least twenty years old. Is that Ferris wheel still standing?"
"It’s twenty-five years old, and apparently, yes, it is."
Vincent frowned. "You couldn’t pay me to get on a Ferris wheel that old."
"Of course not. No one wants to ride anything that old. Keep looking. It gets better."
Vincent returned his attention to the folder, his frown becoming so deep it was almost comical as he studied the accompanying glossy photos. "Has your father gone crazy? This place should have been closed a decade ago."
At least a decade ago. Most of the rides were dilapidated; most of the booths had been boarded up. The remaining booths held "treasures" from a previous generation—knock-off toys and cheap stuffed animals that were losing the war with time. Frankly, the place looked more like a set from a horror movie about a theme park than a place anyone would want to take their family to.
"I don’t know. Maybe. This is apparently a completely legitimate account. What he was thinking when he took on the client, I can’t tell you."
"Maybe it’s some sort of hazing ritual?"
"After over a year in the company? It feels more like he’s setting me up for failure."
"Why would Damian want you to fail?"
The question brought him up short. Growing up in his family, the choice to become an investment banker really wasn't a choice at all. His great-grandfather had started the firm and the males of every generation to follow had just been funneled directly into the company. His cousins and brother took positions with perfunctory titles and almost no actual obligations, but generous compensation packages.
Jason chose a different route. Instead of going directly to his father after graduation, he took a job at a rival, albeit much smaller, firm. He took his mother’s maiden name and found a tiny apartment on the West Side, determined to rise through the ranks on his own. He imagined himself building an empire to rival his father’s and then his old man would finally be forced to respect him—to regard him as an equal.
Reality was a cold slap in the face six months later when his father’s firm bought his employer. The message was clear and rather than pushing back, Jason settled into his new job, did his work, and kept his head down.
His hard work paid off, and three years after his forced employment with the firm, he was on the cusp of a huge promotion—one he was certain he earned. The only person who knew his true identity was his father, and his father’s input was not necessary for this next step. The only thing that could thwart his aspirations was a giant, Ferris-wheel shaped blot on his record. A failure at this pivotal time could change the committee’s mind, delaying the promotion, or worse, tabling it indefinitely.
"Maybe he doesn’t want me to get the promotion. Maybe he’s still mad I snubbed him five years ago. Maybe he wants to teach me a lesson."
"What lesson is that?"
Jason accepted the second shot of whiskey from Mia and gulped it down, tingling from his nose to his toes. "That I’ll never be able to escape his hold. I’ll work where he wants me to work and I’ll do it on his terms at his pace and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it."
Vincent swirled his drink over his ice cubes and took a long swallow. "Maybe you should teach him a lesson."
"What do you mean?"
"If this is about controlling you, show the old man that it’s going to take a lot more than this, frankly transparent, attempt at professional sabotage."
Vincent flipped through the images and financial statements again, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. Mia appeared at Jason's side again, this time presenting him with a slim, black folder.
"What? No more whiskey?"
"You need to keep your wits about you," she said before returning to the shadows behind the bar.
Jason looked down at the folder, his fingers gliding over the embossed image of a medieval dragon, powerful and bulky, its wings like leather-encased wrought iron cages. Depictions of dragons from other cultures always amazed him with their willowy, serpentine bodies and squared, almost dog-like heads. There were rumors that those dragons still existed, but if so, they were deep in hiding, as encased in secrecy as Jason himself.
Jason opened the folder and looked at the paper inside. He scoffed and pulled it out of the folder, tossing it onto the table in front of him.
"The old man?" Vincent asked.
"Who else?" Jason craved another drink but Mia was right. He did need to keep his wits about him. “I just got away from him two hours ago, and he can't even wait until Monday to rub this in my face."
"Maybe he’ll tell you this was just a joke and give you the real file."
"Maybe." Jason stood and reached for the folder. "I don't know, though. He might have a pretty twisted sense of humor, but he's also the consummate businessman."
"He’s also a bit of a jackass."
"You said it, not me." Jason tucked the folder under his arm and marched to the black velvet curtain, nodding at the stern men who flanked it. Others would have had to show special identification or a written invitation, but for Jason, they pulled the braided gold ropes that parted the curtain without a word.
The echo from his steps reverberated off the stone walls as he wound his way up the curved staircase. He could no longer hear the sounds from the lounge and the curtains were long and thick enough that no light filtered through or around them to illuminate the stairwell. Instead, the white marble reflected the glow from candles set on heavy iron sconces embedded in the walls.
So few were permitted to even see the private sanctuary, yet, it was kept in pristine condition—the candles burning continuously; the sconces free from dust. As a child, Jason thought it must have been elves who worked so hard to keep the stairwell so perfectly.
At the top, Jason followed a mirrored hallway with a floor of the same highly polished white marble toward a pair of massive wooden doors. An infinite number of flames danced around him, countless reflections of light bouncing off the polished marble and right into his eyes.
When he finally reached the doors, he rested his hand on the handle and waited. Despite the specific invitation, Jason would never dream of entering until the voice bid him forward. Knocking was unnecessary. Jason only had to touch the handle, and someone on the other side would call out to him; a moment later, the doors would open as if by magic.
Jason had never seen anyone open the doors. Perhaps it was another elf who disappeared in a flash once Jason stepped inside. There were many mysteries about the Club that Jason had pondered as a child; most of which he’d solved as he matured, but this was one that he didn't want to resolve.
As Jason had grown out of his young childhood and his family mourned the loss of his mother, his father had spent more and more time secluding himself away at the Club, hiding away among the other members of the Darkblood Society, trying to make it all disappear. During those difficult years, he only saw his father when he was invited to the big doubl
e doors and the unknown voice from the other side would welcome him inside. The voice was warm. Friendly. Even kind. Like his father used to be. He wanted to preserve that, to keep that feeling without knowing all of the details of it.
Even now, with the tinge of anger in his mind, Jason waited for the voice to come through the doors; he waited to see his father in a context that was so completely different from their daily, professional interactions.
"Come."
The doors opened, revealing Damian in his huge leather armchair, an ankle resting casually on his knee, a glass of sherry in his hand. Despite the warmth of the late summer evening, a fire raged in the fireplace, casting a glow over his father’s aquiline features while long shadows climbed the walls.
"Why didn’t you come downstairs and say hello to everyone?" Jason asked as the doors whispered closed behind him.
Damian chuckled softly and took a sip from his drink, amused in his way by his son’s joke. Jason took his customary place across from his father and dropped the folder on the small table between them. When Jason visited as a child, the table always held a chess board. Now they played a different game, but Jason didn’t know all the rules.
"Do you carry your work everywhere you go?" Damian asked. "This might be why you haven’t had much luck with the ladies."
Jason ignored the barb. "I was actually in the middle of some important research. I already have a lead on an investor."
"Is that right?" His eyebrows knitted together for a moment and then thinned; a gesture so small, so quick, that anyone else might have missed it. "I’m glad to hear it, son. The sooner you put this one to bed, the sooner we will be celebrating your promotion."