by Amelia Jade
“And you’re sure you want me?” she asked, a sudden moment of self-doubt entering her mind. She was comparing her body to his, looking at his trim lines and her numerous curves, wondering just what it was the insanely fit Vanek saw in her.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he assured her firmly, leaning over her until he could kiss her, letting the desire in his mouth do the rest of his talking.
Harlow tried to argue some more, but the words trailed off as he left a trail of fire with his lips from her jaw down to her waist and then moved between her thighs. He was soft and warm, taking his time to explore her body thoroughly. She bit her lip as massive hands wrapped around the outside of her legs and held her close.
The cool metal of the hood of the float was suddenly a godsend as her entire body filled with warmth, the stark contrast making Vanek’s touch even hotter. Time lost all sense of meaning as she lay back and allowed herself to enjoy the moment. He was groaning and making aroused noises as he pleased her, that alone bringing Harlow to a new level of heat.
Her hands spread wide, grasping onto the nearby metal bars as Vanek slipped a finger inside of her. The combination of that and his tongue as it played across her clit was too much. Knuckles turned white as muscles across her body locked up, unwilling to respond, every nerve on fire.
A cry ripped from her throat as the pressure in between her thighs became unbearable, and a heartbeat later it exploded outward, crashing over her body like waves pounding the surf. Her body twitched and jerked as muscles acted out of concert with each other, everything in her body overwhelmed by the sensations filling it. The warehouse walls echoed her cries back to them as she writhed for several seconds until she finally collapsed back onto the float, eyes wide.
Words failed her for seconds to come, but Vanek didn’t give her the chance to recover. He stood up, one hand firmly grasped around the firm shaft of his manhood, rubbing it slowly over her opening. Unable to speak, she looked up at him wide-eyed and nodded. She was ready.
He pushed inside of her, releasing himself and sliding both hands up the inside of her legs, drawing her attention elsewhere for a brief second until more of him filled her.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Please. I want it. Need it.”
Vanek’s body seemed to swell with her words, his muscles gorging themselves on blood, though it did nothing to diminish his size she noted, feeling the girth slowly spread his walls. Harlow wanted it all, wanted to feel him pushed deep inside of her, but she knew they had to move slow. It had been too long and he was…too long.
It caught her by surprise when it all fit.
He thrust against her, provoking a gasp as powerful strokes brought her to new heights. Harlow tried desperately to keep her eyes open, but she couldn’t deny the sensations filling her body. Back arched and head thrown back, she cried out for Vanek.
They pushed against each other, alternating staring into one another’s eyes and watching as he slid in and out of her. The scene was passionate and erotic all spiraled together as her thoughts fragmented and broke apart, the pleasure of his sex overwhelming her senses.
Lifting her at the waist until only her shoulders rested on the float, he sped up, his hips moving faster and harder all at once, the need for release consuming both of them as they rushed toward it like an out-of-control locomotive. Harlow knew neither of them would be able to last for much longer.
Without warning Vanek lifted her entirely from the float, spun her around as if she were some sort of gymnast, and slowly lowered her onto her hands and knees, never once withdrawing from her. She wanted to ask him how the hell he’d done that, but as his hands grasped her hips and pulled them back against him she could no longer speak.
It was this way that they were going to climax she knew, and reaching one hand between her legs she started to touch herself while looking back, seeing the pleasure and strain of his effort on his face as he struggled not to let go.
“Do it,” she moaned. “I’m so close.”
He groaned loudly and she felt him swell inside of her, the moment taking on a new level of heat as her fingers moved back and forth swiftly, driving her over the edge moments later. She tightened around him, draining his cock of everything as he pumped in and out of her without slowing, holding her own bucking hips firm in his grasp as her cries noisily echoed off the walls.
All at once he was spent and Vanek’s giant form draped over her, gasping for breath as he struggled to stay upright without pressing down on her too much. Harlow went limp, the uncomfortableness of the side of the float she was kneeling on forgotten in the moment as the warm glow of his body and the post-climax settled over her.
“We’re so not getting any work done today,” she told him after catching her breath.
Vanek laughed, the joyous sound setting her off, and they spent a solid minute laughing over everything that had happened up to this point between them.
He really was something else, she was forced to admit. The coming days and weeks were going to be lots of fun as she got to know him better.
It didn’t occur to her until later that she’d thought about sticking around with Vanek and not leaving town like normal.
Chapter Fifteen
Vanek
“Vanek, listen to me. There are three days left.”
“I’m aware of that, Colonel Mara,” he hissed formally, pulling the phone from his ear and glaring at it, as if she could see that. “It’s not like I haven’t been counting down the time or anything. After all, it’s not you who’s going to be put back to sleep and tossed into some deep dark hole. It’s not you who’s going to be responsible for the damage done to your friends and their mates. It’s not you who everyone will blame. Who everyone will hate.”
He snarled audibly as she started to speak again. “Every day, Colonel Mara. Every damn day. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Five. Four. Every morning I wake up and remember that means one less day that I have to make this all right. I feel guilty for sleeping, Colonel Mara. For taking those few hours that I actually do manage to sleep to myself. Because I shouldn’t be doing that. I should be out there, searching, trying to kill something that only I and my kind have a hope of defeating without massive casualties.”
Long legs started pacing him around the upstairs of his penthouse suite. Even the setting sun outside was no calming influence on him this time. His blood was up and he was having a hard time keeping the fire within him contained, not allowing it to burst free in a demonstration of his anger.
“Vanek—”
But he wasn’t done. “So don’t remind me how long I have. I’m well aware of those facts. They stare me in the face every morning when I open my eyes. They’re written on my arms, emblazoned upon my eyes. I can’t go anywhere without seeing the numbers in everything. Street signs. License plates. Fingers on a person’s hand. Everything reminds me of this stupid deadline your military has given me.
“As if life works on a clock. Besides, it’s not like your vaunted intelligence operations have even found so much as a hint of where these creatures are. Don’t you find it a little hypocritical that I’m now not only required to kill one, but also find one, since you can’t? How much more apparent is your government going to make it that they don’t actually want us around?”
His words were filled with all the vitriol and hatred that he held for the others making the decisions in the background, without real knowledge of the situation.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be rejected by your own, Colonel Mara? To be banished for hundreds of years because you screwed up? Because I do. And now thanks to you and your military, I’m about to experience it again, all with the added guilt that I tore apart the lives of two men and their mates that I have come to call my friends? So can we dispense with the reminders of just how little time I have left to make everything right on my own?”
The silence on the other end was deafening.
“As a matter of fa
ct, Vanek, I do know exactly what it’s like to be rejected by my own. To be trampled on and pushed to the side simply because I tried to do what’s right.”
Colonel Mara audibly clacked her teeth together, cutting off whatever else she was going to say.
Vanek was abruptly reminded of all the years of harassment she’d had to suffer at the hands of her male coworkers, treated like shit because she was a woman and had said no to sexual advances by a superior officer.
“I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly deflated and feeling ashamed of himself for his outburst.
“It’s okay,” she said stiffly. “I didn’t have to remind you. That was tactless on my part. I could have handled it better.”
He slumped down onto a couch. “Dragons are the answer, Elin. You know that. I know that. We can beat these things, and we can do a better job of it than your men. Certainly with less casualties than humans.”
“I know. I’m working hard over here to convince them of that, even though it doesn’t seem like it. But they don’t want to listen. Most of them still can’t accept that you’re even real, despite the various video footage we have to prove it. They’re stubborn old men who refuse to change.”
“I’m old and stubborn too,” he reminded her. “I can change. So can they. It will just take time.”
“Time we might not have, much as I hate to say it.”
“We’ll have to have it. Three days. We can do this. I just need something, Elin. Anything, really, to track these blasted things down so that I can take the head from its ugly body,” he growled. “My fire will burn it to a crisp, if I can only find it. My claws will rend its body asunder, you have my word. But I need to find it.”
“I’m going to get back to work. I’ll try to have something for you.”
“Thank you, Colonel. I’ll show you that we dragons can save us all. Mark my words.”
They hung up and he slumped onto the couch, not feeling the same level of confidence that he was projecting. All his earlier words rang true. He was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of depression. Even the past three days with Harlow hadn’t pulled him out of it. It had resulted in the opposite, actually, as the misery of knowing he had just won his mate over and was about to lose her sank in.
“Again with the dragon thing.”
Vanek shot to his feet, turning to find Harlow standing at the top of the stairs.
“Harlow,” he said, wondering just how much of everything she’d heard.
Did she have any idea of the vast morass that yawned before him, waiting to suck him down into its depths? He worried that their relationship was still too tenuous for her to know the pressures under which he operated. She had enough going on within herself, and he’d already potentially lied to her once, in a major way. Harlow didn’t need any more weight on her shoulders. His were broader and stronger; it should be up to him to carry this burden. Not her.
“I need to know something,” she said slowly, pacing across the open upper floor to the kitchen and grabbing a beer from the fridge. “And I need to know it now, in case I’ve made a critical mistake.”
“Which is?”
“Well, before things get too serious between us, I have to ask. Are you insane? I’d like to know now if you think you can turn yourself into a thirty-foot-long creature with wings who can spit fire.”
Vanek stared for a moment as she took a sip of her beer, eyed it appreciatively, and took another. Then he began to laugh. “No, that’s ridiculous,” he said.
“Oh thank goodness,” she sighed.
“I’m over fifty feet long in dragon form.”
Harlow’s beer spewed outward from her in a cone and she hacked and coughed to rid herself of it.
“What a waste,” he said, tsking quietly.
“You waited to deliver that line on purpose, didn’t you?”
He smiled, giving her a wink but refusing to answer.
“Fine, have it your way, comedian.”
“Come on,” he said, sticking out a hand. “There’s something I want to show you.”
Although somewhat reluctant and still coated in sticky beer, she took his hand and followed as he led them to the elevator and then up to the roof.
“Oh this is fun,” she said as they emerged, the wind whipping his hair wildly, while hers stayed mostly in place, the short strands not nearly the problem his were up here. He quickly tied it back and then guided her up onto the helipad on top of the building.
“Awww, I thought we were maybe going for a helicopter ride,” she said sadly.
“No. Now, stay there.” He put his hands out to keep her still while he moved to the center of the platform, but her attention was already riveted elsewhere.
“Oh wow, you were right, Vanek,” she said softly. “It’s far more beautiful up here.”
He followed her gaze. She was watching the sunset. The sunset! He was about to change into a dragon over here and she was watching the sun?
She doesn’t believe you’re a dragon, and thinks you brought her up here to show her that, you oaf!
Vanek sighed and walked back over to her, standing behind Harlow and draping his arms over her shoulders. She crossed them in front of her and leaned into his right arm, holding tightly to his forearms.
“Thank you. This is so peaceful. I needed this after today.”
As Vanek stood there he realized something. It was what he needed too. After his conversation with Colonel Mara, he’d been far too strung out to go about changing. But now, up here in the harmony of nature with his mate, he could relax. Tension fled from his shoulders, and a renewed sense of confidence that he would be able to work things out in time came over him.
“Thank you for coming after me,” she said at last, as the first edges of the sun disappeared into the mountains. “For not letting me run.”
“Does this mean you’re not planning on running anymore?”
Harlow glanced back at the sun. “I don’t think so. The sunsets are quite stunning from up here, and I don’t think I’ve seen quite enough of the view yet.”
“I agree,” he said whisper-quiet, his eyes focused on her. “It is stunning.”
They stood that way for several moments, until only the top of the sun remained. Then, with his heart nearly full to bursting, Vanek tilted his mate’s head back and kissed her, their lips touching as the last of the sun disappeared from view.
“Can I take you somewhere tomorrow?” he asked when they broke for air.
“You can take me anywhere,” she said dreamily, resting her head on his chest and looking back out to the mountains, admiring the way they reflected the sun’s light, the peaks looking various shades of orange and red. “Anywhere at all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Vanek
Two days.
He tried to ignore the mental reminder of his countdown clock, but it was impossible. Things were ticking down at a phenomenal pace, and Vanek wasn’t sure he could keep up. With his stand against Harlow leaving he’d managed to not only save their relationship, such as it was, but actually progress it further, something he’d not expected.
Now tonight he was going to do his best to show her the truth about himself, what he was up against, and also tell her how they were connected. It was a tall order, and though he knew Harlow could be a calm, collected person, he wondered if this would be too much. His plan was to do it slowly over the course of the evening, in hopes that spreading it all out might make it more believable.
Even just thinking about showing his true nature left his stomach in knots. Every time he’d brought up the possibility or idea that he was a dragon, she’d rejected it, thinking him to be joking. Which was better than becoming convinced he was insane, but it left him no closer to his goal of claiming her as his mate.
Fingers drummed incessantly on the thick padded black leather of the interior of the SUV as the driver guided him through the city toward their destination. Although he’d tried to convince Harlow to stay the night, she’d insisted, cit
ing a lack of clothing at his place. Apparently his thoughts on that being perfectly all right were not acceptable to her. She’d driven home when she’d asked if that meant she was supposed to strut around the penthouse for everyone to see, something he’d deemed unacceptable.
Gods he was crazy about her. His mate was absolutely perfect for him, the complete balance to his everything. Vanek couldn’t wait for the day that they were able to have the sort of communication and love that he saw between Kallore and Elin, or Corde and Kylie. Although he liked both of his friends’ mates, in his eyes Harlow stood heads and tails above them. It was incomparable in his mind, though he was sure the others felt the same about their mates. Such was love.
Love.
It was a term he’d been thinking about a lot lately. The time had not yet come to say it to Harlow; she wasn’t ready to hear it. Soon though, he would be able to reveal to her the truth of his feelings. Vanek suspected that Harlow was beginning to understand that he hadn’t been as good at concealing it as he might have hoped. Whether that had contributed to her earlier desire to flee the city he didn’t know, but it seemed likely. It pained him that she didn’t feel herself worthy of his love, when in reality she deserved that and more. So much more.
His phone buzzed indicating an incoming phone call, and he snatched it up without looking at who it was.
“Harlow?”
“What? No, it’s not Harlow, Vanek. Have you forgotten how to read your caller ID?”
Growling at Colonel Mara, he ignored the jibe. “What do you want?”
“You asked me to do whatever it took to find the Outsiders. Well, I think I have a lead for you. There have been several reports of strange goings-on in a graveyard. People have been posting online about seeing a black shape moving around at night, and the elderly caretaker of the place was found dead yesterday morning. It’s been ruled natural causes, but looking over the document, I think it could be the work of an Outsider.”
“Why do you think that? Old people die all the time.” He really wasn’t interested right now. His mate was waiting for him.