by Donna Grant
She paused, worry flickering over her face. “Privacy?”
“Well, besides the many Dark Fae eyes scrutinizing me.”
“How long have you known?”
“That they’ve been watching? Since the first moment I stepped onto this isle.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “Then why have you stayed? Do you want to be caught?”
Kiril walked past her into the house. He knew she would follow. It was her curiosity that would drive her inside. When he heard the door close softly, he smiled inwardly. But was it because he knew what her actions would be? Or was it because he now had her all to himself?
“I thought the Dragon Kings were smarter than this.”
Kiril tossed the keys to the Mercedes on the entry table against the wall and laughed. He braced his hands on the table. “Do I look as if I’d make a stupid decision?”
“You look like you’re holding back a tide of rage.”
Rage. Aye, that’s exactly what flowed through him. Rage and … desire. He briefly squeezed his eyes closed and tried to shove back the need clawing through him. Tried and failed. “Two of my fellow Kings were taken recently.”
“They escaped,” she said softly.
“A friend was taken. I have to find her.”
“Her?”
Was that a hint of jealousy he heard in her voice? Kiril straightened and walked into the front room without looking at Shara. He stopped at the sideboard with various crystal decanters filled with liquor. He poured two glasses of whisky and turned around.
Shara stood in the doorway, her expression closed and her body rigid. Good. He wanted her off kilter. He wanted the Dark to wonder what he was up to. He held out the whisky.
She didn’t move from her spot. “Aren’t you going to turn on the lights?”
“Why? You’ve already walked through my house last night.”
Her eyes flared. “How did you know? There are no cameras. I used my magic to search.”
“Your scent was everywhere.” Kiril inhaled, pulling her smell deep within him. His cock swelled, need heating his blood.
Shara regarded him a moment longer before she walked to him and accepted the proffered glass of whisky. “You said you were looking for someone. Is she … is she your lover?” she asked and quickly lifted the glass to her lips.
“Would it matter if she was?”
“If the Dark have her, you should just forget her. Humans never last long.”
“I never said she was human.”
Shara took a hasty step back. “Fae? You’re looking for a Fae? But Dragon Kings hate all Fae.”
“Who told you that? Your family? We despise the Dark. The Light … we’ve come to work with on occasion.” She didn’t need to know it was a very rare occasion and only with Rhi.
“It doesn’t matter. Whoever the Dark takes is never the same, even if you do find her.”
Kiril glanced around the darkened room. He walked to a leather chair and sat, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his ankles. “Did you know that during the Fae Wars the Dark took two Dragon Kings? At different times, of course.”
“I suppose they escaped as well? Are you telling me we don’t know how to hold a Dragon King?”
“The Dark did … things to my brethren. One completely lost his mind and attacked us, which is what the Dark wanted. He had to be killed. The other King knew what was happening to him, but he couldna stop it. He came to us and begged to be killed before he could harm one of us.”
Shara sipped her whisky before she said, “You lost two Kings and I lost seven siblings.”
“And the Light the Dark took?”
“The Dark take the Light and the Light take the Dark.”
Kiril let his gaze drift down her body. How he itched to have her long legs wrapped around him. Things would be so much easier if he didn’t desire her as he did, but there wasn’t a switch he could flip to turn off his body’s reaction. The more he tried to ignore the growing desire, the more it raged uncontrollably within him.
He gave himself a mental shake and returned to their conversation. “What’s the plan, then? Will the Dark storm in here and try to capture me?”
Shara walked around the room, her hand skimming along the backs of the chairs. “No.”
“No?” Kiril set aside his glass on the table next to him and silently rose to his feet. He followed her as if a string tied them together. “What then?”
“You don’t really want to know.”
Kiril spun her around so hard that her glass flew from her hand and landed upon a rug, spilling the whisky but not breaking the crystal. “Tell me,” he demanded in a soft, deadly voice.
“My job is to seduce you.” She held her stance for a heartbeat before she retreated, taking two steps back.
He tracked her until she was once more in the entryway. The shadows darkened everything, and yet the smallest sliver of moonlight found her, illuminating her in a pale blue glow.
No longer could he deny what he wanted. Perhaps it was her confession. Maybe it was because he hadn’t taken to the skies in weeks. Whatever it was, all he knew was that he had to have her or go up in flames.
“Then seduce me.”
That halted her. She held her ground as he drew closer. He bit back a smile when he saw the pulse at her throat beat erratically. She wasn’t immune to him. It was a victory, though a small one. She was as dangerous as her mission, perhaps more so. And yet it didn’t matter. There was no turning back for him. He knew it with a calmness that he had only felt once before—when he had taken over as King to his dragons.
He looked into her eyes, hating that her glamour prevented him from seeing her as he wanted because of the faint but unmistakable flicker of her magic. “First, drop the glamour.”
Her lips lifted slightly in the corners. The shimmer he had seen around her, indicating the glamour, vanished.
“Better,” he stated.
His cock swelled. Her beauty was so astonishing that it held him dumbstruck, immobile to do anything but drink in her splendor.
She tugged at the silver lock of her hair. “This? And these?” she asked as she pointed to her red eyes. “This is better?”
“Aye, lass.” For once, he wasn’t going to lie to himself or to her.
Her gaze lowered for a moment, and the next second she closed the small space between them and laid her hands upon his chest.
Kiril had to stop himself from grabbing her. His breath came faster, his blood pounding in his ears. Saying he wanted her didn’t come close to describing the utter craving, the absolute necessity that hounded him, drove him to claim her. There was no running away from it or denying it. She had gotten into his blood, and he would have a taste of her if it were the last thing he did.
Shara knew she was walking on dangerous ground. It wasn’t Kiril she feared, but her own reaction to him. He sent her careening toward desire and passion at a speed that was bound to destroy one of them.
And he would be the one left standing when it was all over.
Not even that knowledge could make her leave. She didn’t remain because it was her duty to her family or her mission. She remained because of him—the Dragon King who had seen through her glamour and still wanted her.
She slipped her hands under the edge of his navy jacket. Even through his shirt she could feel the heat of him. It made her stomach flutter in anticipation. With her palms flat against his taut stomach, she slid her hands upward over hard sinew. Her mouth went dry as she imagined what he would look like naked. Her hands were shaking by the time she reached his thick shoulders and pushed the jacket off. He loosened his arms and let it fall unheeded to the floor.
Her gaze snagged on something on the left side of his neck just peeking past the collar of his light blue shirt. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before, but then again, her eyes had been on that incredible face of his.
His green eyes were hooded as he watched her, and yet he let desire flare in his d
epths for her to see. It made chills rush over her. Chills and … longing.
Moving slowly, Shara undid the buttons of his shirt one by one until she reached the waist of his slacks. She was breathless by the time she slid her hand inside his shirt and rested her palms against his warm flesh. His stomach clenched and she felt all the hard muscles move beneath her hand.
Shara could no longer wait to see his body. She pulled his shirt out of his pants and jerked it open, the last two buttons flying to bounce along the wood floor. Her lips parted as she took in the spectacular display of hard sinew and the dragon tattoo. Unable to help herself, she traced the tat, startled by the black and red ink mixed together.
But it was the dragon design itself that made her skin prickle with awareness, appreciation.
Soul-sucking desire.
The dragon took up most of Kiril’s impressive chest. It looked as if it were climbing his chest with its wings half-spread and the tip of his long tail curling to the left side and disappearing into his slacks. The head of the dragon, inked on his right shoulder and neck, was lifted toward Kiril, as if seeking him.
She raised her eyes to Kiril and sucked in a breath when the heat, the hunger of his gaze slammed into her. It was scorching, searing. Sizzling.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t experienced desire before, but whatever was happening between them was on another level completely. The intensity of it frightened her. Yet she couldn’t leave no matter what her mind cautioned her to do. Because she wanted him with a desperation that bordered on insanity.
Shara couldn’t draw enough breath into her lungs. She ached, she burned.
She yearned.
His heat only fueled her growing passion to new heights. As dangerous as it was, she grasped it with both hands and held on.
Shara gradually caressed her hand up his washboard stomach, over his hard chest to his thick shoulders just as she had done to remove his jacket. Except this time there was nothing between her and his skin. She wanted to see more of that sun-bronzed skin and feast her eyes on his virile form.
She pushed his shirt over his shoulders and down his arms to join his jacket on the floor. He wore the suit like a man born to it. It had hinted at the physique beneath, but nothing could portray his incredible form like the man himself bare of everything.
What madness it was for her to think she could seduce a man like Kiril. He exuded sex and sensuality as if he created them for his arsenal alone. He was the one who had seduced her—with a single look.
Why it had taken her until that moment to realize, she wasn’t sure. In the confines of his house, in the heat of his nearness, her worries and concerns about her family and future crumbled away. She looked into his eyes and became powerless, impotent to think of anything other than him.
Finally he touched her. Shara couldn’t stop the shiver of anticipation that ran through her nor the sigh that escaped past her lips. His smug smile only made the desire burn brighter.
His hand slid around her neck to the back of her head where his fingers closed in her hair. He tugged her head back at the same time he pulled her forward so that her breasts scraped against his chest.
Shara was breathless, panting as she anxiously waited for what he would do next. All the while she lowered her hands to the waist of his slacks. The feel of his thick arousal against her stomach had her reaching for his cock. She wrapped her fingers around his rod through his pants and squeezed.
He yanked her head back farther, causing her back to arch and her breasts to push against his chest. Shara watched the desire darken his features, watched the passion take him in its grip.
She ran her hand up and down his length twice before she unfastened his trousers. His pants hung precariously on his trim hips as she slipped her hand down the front to once more wrap her fingers around him.
He was velvet and steel, fire and fervor.
With one hand on his cock, she reached around and rested her other hand in the middle of his back. She held there for a moment before she leisurely stroked downward until she reached his rock-hard ass.
He lowered his head, his gaze locked with hers. Their breaths mingled, their bodies touching from thigh to chest. Shara tried to raise her head to his lips, but he wouldn’t release his hold.
Her lungs seized, her body tingled when he hovered his lips above her, just grazing her mouth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kiril was singed inside and out, and he had yet to claim Shara as he longed to do. She touched him, touched his tat, and it set him on overload. Her breathing was erratic, her skin flushed, and yet she was nowhere near as aroused as he wanted her—nay, needed her.
He gazed down at her with her head held back and her breasts pressing against him, and he knew there was no turning away from her now—if that had ever been an option. He hadn’t accepted the truth until that minute.
His hold on her kept her immobile and, to an extent, exposed. She didn’t fight it. No, she accepted it as if she yearned for it as much as he did.
Kiril felt as if a rug had been yanked from underneath him. He had been searching for something to hold onto in the dark. And found it in the most unlikely of people—a Dark Fae sent to seduce him.
Seduce him she had, with merely a smile and a look. She wrapped him around her finger with ease. Kiril just prayed she never realized it.
“Kiril.” His name was but a whisper upon the wind, a sigh upon her lips.
Her gaze silently begged him while her hands continued their magic upon his aching cock. As if he could deny her—or himself—the pleasure that awaited.
He placed his lips on hers, a moan filling his chest at the softness of them. He tilted his head and slipped his tongue past her lips.
The first taste of her was heady and intoxicating. She sent him reeling, careening down a path of longing he hadn’t realized existed. He deepened the kiss that quickly grew fiery and intense. The more he tasted of her, the more he had to have.
It was too much, too fast. Kiril had to keep his head about him—or at least attempt to. He ended the kiss and released his hold on her hair, but kept her tight against him.
Her dark red eyes blazed with passion, and her swollen lips begged for more kisses. He touched the indent of her neck. His eyes held hers, daring her to look away, as he caressed a finger down her chest between her breasts to stop at the V of her dress.
The swell of her breasts beckoned. He let that same finger glide over the portion of her breast that peeked out of the dress. His balls tightened when he saw her nipple harden.
He kissed her again, hard and punishing. She wrapped her free arm around his neck and returned his kiss with all that she had. She pumped her fist over his rod in time with their kisses, sending him spiraling out of control quickly.
Kiril reached down her leg and began to gather her skirt in his fingers until he reached the hem. Then he slid his hand beneath the dress to cup her butt. He felt only skin, and his arousal twitched as he thought about her wearing a thong.
He moved his hand to her hip waiting to feel the edge of her panties, but once again encountered only skin. To know that she was naked beneath the dress undid him.
Kiril ended the kiss long enough to yank her dress over her head and toss it away. She wrapped both arms around his neck and kissed him passionately, fervently.
There was no more waiting, no more teasing. Kiril had to be inside her, had to feel her around him. He kicked off his shoes at the same time Shara did hers. Before he could shove his pants down, she used her toes to grab the material of his pants at his knees and tug. His trousers pooled around his ankles.
She leaned forward, sending him backward and tripping over his pants. Laughter exploded from them as he fell hard on his back, still holding her. The laughter died when they looked into each other’s eyes. Kiril rolled her onto her back and leaned over her. Her wealth of midnight hair was spread around her, the moonlight hitting upon the silver strip.
His eyes, however, were on her body. Her bre
asts were full without being overly large. Her nipples, a dusky rose, puckered beneath his gaze. He trailed his hand down her side to the indent of her waist and over her flared hips to her long, lean legs. With a touch on her thigh, she opened her legs. The black curls between them were trimmed neatly and gave him a good view of her sex, which glistened with arousal.
Kiril moved so that he lay between her legs and looked up at her. Her hands roamed over his face, her nails scraping his whiskers. She sucked in a breath when he leaned forward and wrapped his lips around a nipple.
He suckled it hard before moving to the other peak. Her hips ground against him, reminding him there was another part of her he wanted to taste.
With his lips trailing kisses down her stomach, Kiril moved her thighs onto his shoulders. Her head lifted as she stared at him. The first touch of his tongue on her sex and her head dropped back, a soft moan falling from her lips.
Kiril enjoyed her reaction, but he wanted her screaming. He teased and sucked and licked until she was squirming. Her back arched, lifting her torso off the floor as her hands delved into his hair and held his head.
Her moans quickly turned into soft cries filling the still house. He lifted her hips in his hands and held her still as he tongued her clit. She put her feet upon his back as her cries turned louder.
And then she was screaming his name, her body jerking with the force of her climax. Kiril kept licking her, prolonging her orgasm until she went limp.
He rose up over her, intending to enter her when she suddenly sat up and shoved at his shoulders. He fell onto his back with a grunt. Shara was on all fours, her hair tousled, as she crawled toward him.
In all his millennia of life, he had never seen anything so sexy. His cock twitched, and her gaze lowered to his engorged arousal.
She stopped beside him and raked her gaze over him. Kiril fisted his hands by his sides so as not to touch her. She was a sexual creature, and the confident, assertive woman next to him was driving him wild with need.
Her hands roamed freely over his chest and abdomen. She spent a lot of time looking at his dragon tattoo. Her soft, gentle touch was hurtling him toward his own orgasm, and she had yet to touch his cock again.