Garrett gave Grigor one last narrowed-eyed warning glance before releasing him and stepping away. “What do you suggest?” he prompted his computer-geek brother.
“I could bring up the paperwork that would have Billie’s father transferred to another prison.” Aeran frowned. “I’ll also change the infirmary records so that he stays there until he can be moved. But neither of those things mean Fescaru won’t track him down and try again. Maybe I could—”
“Easier to cut the head off the snake,” Grigor bit out. “Fescaru has to die if you and your father are ever to be safe again,” he clarified as Billie gave him a startled glance.
She winced. “A minute ago, you wanted me dead.”
He gave an abrupt nod. “And Garrett, quite rightly, reminded me that we’re a family. That, as his mate, you are now a part of this family. Your situation is…an unpleasant one. I accept that now.” He turned to his brothers. “I would like to be the one to eliminate Fescaru.”
“You and Gayle have only just mated,” Nathaniel reminded. “In fact, since you’ve been gone for some time, Gayle is probably feeling pretty uncomfortable right now.”
“As am I,” Grigor acknowledged. “But my mate’s protection is more important than her physical discomfort or my own.”
“I’ll do it,” Garrett stated. “Billie will be safe enough here with all of you while I’m away.”
“You’ve only just found your mate,” Deryk dismissed. “Bryn is shortly to be a father, Nathaniel already is a father, Dylan has only just returned from mating with Holly, Rhys has disappeared again, Aeran’s skills are needed here, so I’ll be the one—”
“Why don’t we just stop all the arguments and agree that I’ll do it?”
Everyone turned to where Nikolai Volkov stood in the doorway.
Chloe gave a shrug from the hallway behind him, obviously the one to have answered the door and admitted the Russian.
Billie restlessly paced the sitting room of Garrett’s suite, resenting the fact Chloe had been asked to bring her up here and stay with her so that the Pendragon brothers and Volkov could continue their conversation without any of the women present.
This was her problem, damn it.
Although, Billie had to admit she was more than a little relieved to have learned from Aeran that her father was still alive.
But this was still her problem, created initially by her father, but now passed on to her. Not that she thought herself capable of killing Cezar Fescaru, but that wasn’t the point. It was infuriating to be excluded from the discussion in this high-handed way.
Macho bastards, the lot of them.
“You’ll wear a hole in the carpet,” Chloe mocked, completely relaxed as she sat in an armchair feeding her baby daughter. Amelia drank greedily while clutching onto a well-worn bear.
Billie glared. “Do they do this a lot? Exclude the defenseless little women from their oh so important and manly conversations?” she asked at Chloe’s questioning expression.
The other woman chuckled. “Don’t let Tegan hear you call us that,” she advised ruefully. “Or any of the other mates, for that matter.” She sobered before chiding, “You aren’t thinking about this logically, Billie.”
“There’s nothing logical about killing a man!” She started pacing again.
“Being the mate of a dragon shifter isn’t just having a man who is completely devoted to us and our happiness and protection. It’s also a privilege. In return, we choose to give them that same love and devotion. And let’s not forget the amazing sex,” Chloe added dryly. “Our mates aren’t excluding us, Billie, they’re protecting us.”
“I don’t see—”
“What we don’t know, we can’t be accountable for. We have deniability. Are the Pendragon brothers arrogance personified? Yes, of course they are. Would they kill if they had to? Of course they would. But they were born into a time when that was the norm. Are all their mates, including you, strong enough to stand up for themselves? Yes, of course we are. Do we really want to know the details of the ‘missions’ they all go on occasionally under the aegis of Pendragon Security? Speaking for myself—hell, no.” She grimaced.
Billie felt more than a little ashamed of her earlier rant and insults, to both the Pendragon brothers and their mates. These people were trying to help her.
Admittedly, it had been a little unnerving to have Nikolai arrive back in Wales so unexpectedly, but she now couldn’t help hoping that he would persuade the Pendragon brothers to let him handle the situation with the Romanian. She couldn’t bear the possibility of Garrett being hurt.
What the fu…?
She couldn’t bear the thought of Garrett being hurt? What about his brothers? Well, of course she didn’t want any of them to be hurt either, but it was definitely Garrett she was most concerned about.
Was she starting to fall in love with the dominant dragon shifter?
“What?” Chloe probed gently. “You looked as if you just had some sort of epiphany,” she explained at Billie’s puzzled frown.
She moistened her lips before speaking. “I was just wondering…well, if love featured as one of those pluses to being a dragon shifter’s mate?”
“Are you kidding me?” Chloe chuckled. “Those men love so hard and so deeply, it’s something you will never ever have reason to doubt. I can assure you, as their mates and wives, we all feel totally adored and cherished.” She glanced down at her now-sleeping daughter. “And they love and cherish their children in exactly the same way, as a father and as uncles.”
After a lifetime of having only her father to love, and receiving his slightly haphazard love in return, the thought of the sort of single-minded love and devotion Chloe was describing sounded so good to Billie.
Would Garrett grow to love her like that one day?
Did she deserve to be loved like that?
Her most recent behavior said no, but that wasn’t all she was. Before she became embroiled in this mess with Fescaru and Markovic, and despite what her father might have done to end up in prison, Billie had lived a completely innocent life. Just another twenty-five-year-old woman doing the best she could to live her life and support herself.
She wanted to be that woman again.
Maybe Garrett could grow to love that woman.
Chapter 10
“Where’s Chloe?” Garrett prompted when he entered the sitting room of his suite to find Billie sitting alone, staring out the window.
She stood up in one fluid movement. “Amelia had fallen asleep, and Chloe wanted to put her down for a nap. I assured her I would be fine waiting here on my own.”
Billie didn’t seem fine to Garrett. Oh, she looked beautiful, as she always did to him, but there was a tension about her eyes and mouth, and she was rubbing her hands nervously along the thighs of her jeans, as if her palms were damp.
She lifted one eyebrow. “I saw Nikolai and his men leave a while ago.”
Garrett nodded. “He’s a difficult man to argue with.”
She gave a rueful smile. “Does that mean you and your brothers lost the argument?”
Garrett shrugged. “Apparently, he and Gregori had a run-in with Fescaru a couple of years back, something to do with him intruding on Markovic territory,” he dismissed. “Nikolai said they should have killed him then.”
Billie gave a shudder. “I can’t get used to the way you all talk about killing someone as if it’s normal.”
“In their world, it is.”
“And in yours?”
Garrett eyed her guardedly. “Is this a trick question? One that I can’t win, no matter how I answer? If I say yes, does that make me a barbarian in your eyes? If I say no, does that make me appear weak instead?”
“Absolutely not. To all those questions. And I can’t deny I want the threat to my father removed. I’m just finding it difficult to come to terms with how that’s going to happen…”
“You’re sure Volkov will prevail, then?”
“If he doesn’t,
you and your brothers will.” She shrugged. “Cezar Fescaru is an evil man, and he was trying to make me do things equally as awful. I just can’t get my head around someone actually killing him as the only way of putting an end to his tyranny.”
“Sometimes eliminating the bad guy is all we can do.” There was no way for Garrett to soften the truth. He had met men like Fescaru many times before in his long life, and Grigor was right, the only way to stop them was to cut off the head of the snake. On this occasion, Fescaru was that snake.
“Where have you been since Nikolai left?”
Garrett blinked at the sudden change of topic. “Sorry?”
“Nikolai left twenty minutes ago. I wondered where you’d been since then.”
Garrett could hear Billie was trying to make light of the question, but that strained look about her eyes, along with the unease he could sense in her, said something else. It was as if she was half dreading his answer.
Why?
What did Billie think he’d been doing since Nikolai departed twenty minutes ago?
Whatever it was, he doubted it was what he had actually been doing. “Dylan wanted to take some blood from me for further tests. He’ll want some from you too later today, if you’re agreeable.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“While I was there, I had him give me the contraceptive injection.”
“Oh.”
Garrett frowned at the lack of emotion in Billie’s voice, completely at a loss to know what it meant. He’d asked for the contraceptive for Billie’s sake. They hadn’t fully discussed having children—hell, Billie hadn’t even decided if she was going to mate with him yet—but now that he’d had the injection, they could at least have sex together.
Something his blue balls demanded happen sooner rather than later.
But Billie’s lack of enthusiasm wasn’t exactly encouraging. “That isn’t meant to put pressure on you for sex,” he assured. “I just wanted to be safe when—if it ever happens.”
“Does that mean you don’t want children?”
“Do you?” Garrett came back just as cagily.
She gave a hard laugh. “Well, if they turn out like my father, then no.”
Garrett stepped closer to where she stood. “A predilection for crime isn’t genetic.”
Billie nodded. “Otherwise, I’d have it too. And despite what you and your family might think to the contrary, I’m not a criminal.”
“I’ve never thought that you’re… Not since I met you, in any case,” he added at Billie’s skeptical expression. “How are you feeling?” he prompted softly.
Billie didn’t even attempt to misunderstand him. “Aroused. Again. Horny. Ditto. You?”
“The same.”
She gave him a rueful glance. “Do you think you would even have been attracted to me, without this fated mate thing?”
“You’re beautiful!”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“I wasn’t actually referring to the way I do or don’t look.”
“What, then?”
Billie grimaced. “I’m currently unemployed. My father is in prison for armed robbery. My landlord in London will no doubt give me notice on my apartment when I can no longer afford to pay the rent. In a few weeks, I’ll be homeless as well as unemployed.” Something she hadn’t yet had a chance to think of dealing with when there was so much else going on in her life.
“Your home is with me now, and I’ve already told you there’s a job for you in Pendragon Security,” he stated arrogantly. “Aeran likes the computer and technical stuff, but not the paperwork or dealing with people.”
“What’s wrong with Rhys?”
Garrett growled. “What?”
Billie grimaced. “He barely spoke when and after he captured me. When we got to the castle and he saw Aeran, he gave this long and low growl and then left without saying a word.”
Garrett had no idea what was going on with two of his brothers either. Except they, like him until he met Billie, were unmated. The last of his unmated brothers, in fact. Rhys and Aeran were also at two ends of a spectrum. Rhys was a warrior through and through and always would be. Aeran had adapted and immersed himself into the world of technology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and was happy being there.
“They’ll sort themselves out,” Garrett dismissed, his jealousy of Billie talking about his brother along with it. “We’ve all been together too long for there to be any disagreement that can’t be talked through and resolved.”
“I thought it was a close thing between you and Grigor earlier.”
Garrett shook his head. “I wasn’t worried.”
“I was.”
“About me or Grigor?” he teased.
“I don’t want either of you to be hurt because of a disagreement over me.”
“Billie, are you talking to avoid the elephant in the room?”
A blush instantly colored her cheeks. “I’m still finding the physical attraction between the two of us a bit too intense, yes.”
His arms moved purposefully about her waist as he drew her against and into the hardness of his muscular body. “I believe earlier, I promised to kiss your clit better.”
The blush deepened. “I’m too sore.”
“Which is why I’m going to kiss you better.” Garrett lifted her into his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. “I promise I’ll be gentle.” He placed her on the bed before lying down beside her.
“What—” Billie gasped as a talon appeared at the end of Garrett’s finger and he proceeded to use it to slice down her clothing, from her neck to her thighs. Her sweater and bra fell aside, revealing her naked breasts, and her jeans and panties were cut beyond repair. “I only brought a few clothes with me,” she protested as Garrett moved up onto his knees and peeled the jeans and panties from her body, quickly followed by her sweater and bra.
His gaze was dark as he looked at her naked breasts and thighs. “You don’t need to wear clothes when you’re with me.”
“Does the same apply to you?”
“Of course.” He stood, his heavily muscled body briefly surrounded by that shimmer that denoted a shift to dragon, and the clothes disappeared from his body as if they had never existed.
“How do you do that?” Billie was too fascinated to protest as a naked Garrett rejoined her on the bed.
He shrugged. “It just happens when we shift.”
“No doubt just another plus of being the son of a goddess and Uther Pendragon, brother to King Arthur, and a dragon shifter,” she said dryly.
“Something like that.”
“What does it feel like when you shift into a dragon?” she prompted curiously.
“A more powerful but less agile part of being me,” he acknowledged.
“It must be exhilarating to actually be able to fly.”
“It is,” Garrett dismissed distractedly as he moved down the bed. “Part your legs for me,” he encouraged gutturally. He moved to lie between Billie’s separated thighs once she slowly did as he asked. His face was on a level with her mound as he parted her curls to look at her clit. “Mm, a little red and swollen.” He lowered his head to lightly stroke the moistness of his tongue over that protruding organ, hearing Billie groan as it instantly hardened and elongated. He lifted his head to watch with heated eyes as his fingers parted the soft petals of her pussy and revealed the cream coating her nether lips. “Delicious,” he groaned, moving lower so that he could greedily lap up her juices.
Any discomfort Billie might have been feeling from earlier was instantly forgotten as Garrett dedicated himself to gently pleasuring her with his tongue and fingers. With an emphasis on gently. So gently that within minutes, Billie felt as if she would go mad as the pleasure rose and was then allowed to fall again before being satisfied. Over and over again, until that gentleness became a torment she could no longer bear. “Garrett, please!”
His hands moved to rest on and hold her thighs immobile
as she would have arched up for the harder contact she so desperately needed. “I promised not to hurt you.”
Billie glared at him. “So your aim is to drive me insane instead!”
He chuckled softly, his breath brushing warmly over her sensitized flesh. “My aim is to please you.”
“Then it would please me to have you inside me!”
Garett lifted his head to look at her with glittering silver eyes. “You trust me not to mate you?”
Billie was beyond caring whether he did or not, as long as he filled the empty channel that was her aching and needy pussy. “I trust you,” she stated, and meant it. Garrett might not be the lighthearted member of the Pendragon family that he presented to his brothers and the world in general, but Billie still instinctively trusted him not to do anything to jeopardize their tenuous bond.
He moved up her body until the hardness of his cock was pressing against her mound and his face was above hers. “To answer your question of earlier,” he said gruffly, “I would still have wanted you without this fated mate thing.”
“Kiss me,” Billie invited, hungry for the taste of his lips on hers.
He tasted of her but also uniquely himself, along with a mixture of heat and desire that quickly blazed out of control as Garrett deepened the kiss. Billie’s hands moved up his chest and over his shoulders, her fingers becoming entangled in the long length of his hair as his tongue slid suggestively along the side of hers, claiming, possessing.
Billie was so lost in the pleasure of that kiss, she wasn’t even aware of him moving until she felt the mushroomed head of his cock nudging against her opening. She broke the kiss and gasped as he pushed forward and his massive cockhead breached her nether lips.
Her fingers tightened in his hair; Garrett’s cock was both long and thick, and so much bigger than any of her previous lovers’ had been. Thankfully, the slickness of her cream helped lubricate the intrusion as his thickness stretched her pussy lips wide open and he began to push his cock inside her one glorious inch at a time.
Garrett (Dragon Hearts 6) Page 8