How to Love Your Dragon

by Lexxie Couper

  She swiped a shaky hand over her lips. She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t shift. Which meant she had to find Rick Hayes and fuck him.

  After that, she need never see him again.

  Sucking in another harsh breath, she began walking to her car. She hoped the vet was still at his practice, otherwise she was about to break her professional code of conduct and the first rule she’d learned after joining the police force in Sydney—never, ever use your position of authority for personal reasons.

  Kenna clenched her jaw. Surely fucking someone to save their life didn’t count as personal reasons? Right?

  Chapter 5

  Masturbating didn’t work. In fact, despite his cock being as rigid as a bloody axe handle, Rick only had to think about wrapping his hand around it and an onslaught of memories crashed into him. Memories that made his stomach churn, his head woozy and his heart race.

  Blood-coated-hand memories. Deep-mellifluous-chanting memories. Knife-wielding memories.

  Dragon-stroking memories.

  None of them made any sense. They were a vivid assault on his mind, a kaleidoscope of disconnected images and scenes. Unlike the earlier memories, which had at least seemed to follow some sort of rational, narrative order, the latest memories attacking him whenever he tried to wank his hyper hunger for Kenna out of his system were nauseating in the extreme. Which was a tad inconvenient, seeing as he was on the verge of complete scrotum detonation.

  He paced his living room, watched silently by Hannibal. His ever-stoic Irish Wolfhound-Mastiff mix didn’t seem the least bit fazed by Rick’s current state. In fact, if Rick had been less fucked-up, he would have thought the dog knew something he didn’t.

  “Yeah, of course. That’s it. It’s not enough I’m perpetually horny and confused as all hell, now I’m paranoid.” He threw Hannibal a sideward glance, pulling at the crotch of his running shorts. They were the loosest item of clothing he owned and every time they grazed the rigid length of his dick, hot shards of painful desire streaked through him. At this rate, he’d be storming about his home naked.

  Hannibal’s tongue lolled out of his mouth in the closest thing Rick had seen to a doggy smile. Hannibal normally existed in three states—pestering for a play, licking his balls, or bored indifference. This constant scrutiny of Rick’s feverish pacing was unsettling. Of course, Rick wasn’t in any real condition to give a flying fuck. Not when he wanted to come and wanted to shoot himself at the same time. Hell, was this what an animal felt like when in heat?

  Apart from the messed-up past-life memories, most likely.

  He stopped, adjusted his shorts again and shot Hannibal another look. “So do you believe in reincarnation, mutt?”

  Hannibal barked out a happy woof, folded himself into a U shape and started licking his balls.

  Rick scowled. “Perfect. I’m being mocked by my dog.”

  Said dog lifted his massive head, woofed again and went back to his balls. All in all, it was enough to make Rick consider neutering him.

  Thank Christ for Hannibal’s sake, the doorbell rang. Not so good for Rick.

  He dropped his head, casting his insistent erection a glare as disdainful as the one cast upon him by dear, sweet Mrs. Beaumont three hours ago. “I’ve had a boner forever,” he grumbled.

  And now you’re going to answer the door with it. This day just keeps getting weirder.

  With one final tug at his shorts, he walked through his house to his front door. Two steps from the foyer, he stopped, scooped up his emergency medical kit from where he’d dumped it upon arriving home and held it before his groin, hiding his hard-on. He checked out his slightly hunched reflection in the front door’s polished wood surface.

  “Christ, I look like I’m doing a really bad little old lady impersonation. All I need now is lilac hair and a permanent wave.”

  The doorbell rang again, an insistent shrill that didn’t stop. Whoever was on the other side wasn’t lifting their finger from the button. Rick bit back a growl. If they weren’t careful, he’d whack them with his handbag née emergency medical kit.

  Wrapping his fingers around the cool stainless steel of the door handle—at least you get to wrap your fingers around something, Yorick—he gave it a savage twist and an equally savage pull.

  And found himself staring square into the face of Officer Kenna Mackay.

  His handbag dropped to the floor. Her stare dropped to his unmistakable erection.

  “Err—”

  Before he could finish what was becoming a rather pathetic and habitual form of communication with the woman, she threw herself at him.

  Her lips found his mouth, her hand found his dick and in five seconds flat she had his shorts shoved down over his hips. She palmed his cock with far-from-gentle strokes. He almost shot his load then and there.

  When she tore her mouth from his, spun to the open door and slammed it shut, his balls throbbed. When she dropped to her knees, closing her lips around his dick and sucking with plunging force, he all but exploded.

  Holy fuck.

  His head lolled back. His eyes rolled. He fisted his hands in her hair, making groaning sounds deep in his throat only ever heard on cheesy skin flicks. This wasn’t a cheesy skin flick, however. It was real. He was getting head from the woman he ached, lusted and craved after more than air, and he still knew jack shit about her.

  A shard of something speared through him, something so close to morality he almost missed it. “Wait,” he groaned, tugging at Kenna’s hair. “Wait wait wait!”

  Her mouth didn’t stop fucking his cock. In fact, she seemed to suck with greedier pressure. Her hands found his balls, his arse. She massaged both, all the while feasting on his engorged length.

  Another one of those cheesy groans vibrated low in Rick’s throat, and for a split second his knees wobbled. “Stop,” he moaned, pulling at her hair as he tried to withdraw his dick from her mouth. “This…I can’t…” She slid her tongue over the root of his erection and his plea turned into yet another groan. It felt so good. So fucking good. So right, so perfect, so…so…

  Oh Christ, he was one suck away from coming. Two at best.

  He snared his hands in her hair and threw his hips backward.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he ground out, “but you have to stop.”

  With a groan closer to a whimper, he staggered back a step. His dick popped free of Kenna’s tightly sealed lips and whacked against his belly. If he weren’t about to lose his mind, Rick would have laughed. Instead, he fell back another step as Kenna scurried forward on her knees, reaching for his cock again, her eyes glazed. Wild.

  “Kenna, stop!” He fumbled with his shorts, trying to grab the waistband currently stretched around his ankles even as he stumbled backward.

  His head spun at the lunacy of the situation. Who the hell would have thought Rick Hayes would stop a beautiful, sexy woman from trying to give him head? But he was. He had to. He had to know what was going on before he—

  Claim her mate with her join with your Fire Mate and—

  “Kenna!” Her name burst from him in a shout. “I need you to stop.” He yanked his shorts up his legs one-handed, the other held out like a shield.

  Kenna growled at him. A serious-as-shit growl. “Wanna fuck you.”

  He swallowed, his throat tight, his mouth dry. “The feeling’s mutual, honey. Fuck, is it mutual, but this isn’t right. You’ll hate yourself afterward if we just go at it like—”

  “Fire Mates,” she interjected.

  Rick shook his head, shoving his rigid dick back into his shorts. Jolts of scalding pleasure soared through him at the touch of his hand on his flesh, but it was nothing compared to the concentrated rapture Kenna’s mouth had delivered. “I need more, Kenna.” His voice left him on a strangled croak. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I need more. Give me something, anything about yourself. Christ, even a middle name would—”

  “Nicole. Kenna Nicole Mackay.”


  The name fell from Kenna’s lips in a pant, and with it, some of the wild fire in her eyes faded. She blinked, dropping onto her heels in a slump, gazing at Rick with what he could only describe as stunned disbelief before turning her head away.

  “Oh God, what am I doing?”

  The raw pain in her voice twisted Rick’s heart. He stepped closer, lowering to a crouch before her, pressing his fingers to her chin with gentle insistence. For a second she fought against them and then gave in, slowly turning her face back to his, her eyes wide.

  “You were supposed to make this easy,” she whispered.

  Rick stroked the pad of his thumb across the velvety softness of her cheek. “Make what easy, honey?”

  “The mating. The joining. I just wanted to fuck and leave.”

  The confession was uttered with wretched grief. Rick could hear it in every word. Hell, he could feel it as well, like a knife in his chest. Whatever was going on between them, Kenna was just as shocked by it as he was, and obviously displeased. Something told him, however, when it came to anything sexual, the woman before him didn’t share his level of experience. Which would make the whole thing so much more…what? Scary? Intense?

  Lowering himself completely to the floor, he pressed his palm to her cheek, holding her gaze with his. Damn, she was beautiful. “Why leave, Kenna? Am I that repulsive?” He gave her a lopsided smile. “I’ve been told I’m actually kinda okay to look at. And apparently I make a mean cup of post-coitus coffee.”

  She laughed at his pathetic attempt at humor, a soft chuckle that filled Rick’s chest with warmth. Or was it his soul that filled with such joy?

  You falling for her, Yorick? Like, really falling for her? Or is it the funky Druid-dragon thing?

  He didn’t know. Didn’t care.

  Kenna raised her hand to his and removed it from her cheek, lowering it to her lap. “Don’t make me like you, Rick Hayes. I don’t want to like you.”

  Rick couldn’t help but notice she didn’t let his hand go, however, her fingers tracing small patterns along his as she frowned at him. He let his smile grow a little more. “I tell you what? How ’bout we start at the beginning. You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine. Once that’s done, we’ll decide whether you can like me or not. How’s that sound?”

  She shook her head. “Dangerous.”

  “The only thing dangerous about me, honey, is my killer scrambled eggs. Which I’d like to make for you for breakfast tomorrow if that’s okay?”

  The invitation was out of Rick’s mouth before he realized it. He straightened a little, staring at Kenna. He’d never offered to cook breakfast for a woman, and yet with Officer Kenna Mackay, he wanted to cook breakfast, dinner, pack her lunch, serve up dessert as they snuggled on the sofa watching television…

  He let out a ragged breath. In the space of a heartbeat, he’d seen a future with the woman before him—and loved it. Whatever Celtic Druid-dragon magic shit was going on here, it was more than just rutting like rabbits. Or should that be dragons?

  Kenna’s fingers stilled on his. She stared at him, her gaze eating up his face.

  Silence stretched for a long moment. It wasn’t until Rick heard a soft chinking sound that he realized Hannibal had followed him to the door and was now scratching at the sweet spot behind his ear, his paw disturbing his collar with each swipe.

  Holy hell, not only had Rick forgotten about his dog, his dog hadn’t given a rat’s arse about Kenna. The only people Hannibal let into the house without a kerfuffle was Rick’s cousin, Sera, and her new husband Tyson.

  That Hannibal hadn’t so much as barked once made the hair on the back of Rick’s neck prickle. And his chest grow warm again.

  He twisted his hand a little, threading his fingers through Kenna’s before giving her another smile. “Stories first. Tell me all about being a dragon.”

  *

  Kenna’s breath caught in her throat. Words pummeled her. Words like “overwhelming”, “scary”, “confusing”.

  Words like “loss”, “uncontrolled”, “anger” and “grief”.

  She thought of her murdered sister, of the love they’d had for each other until the betrayal of her Fire Mate. She thought of the decades stretching behind without connection to another dragon shifter, of the safety in her isolation, of the pain of shunning her other existence.

  Words and thoughts she hadn’t let go of for close to half a century.

  She looked at Rick, studied his handsome, roguish face, opened her mouth and said, “Lonely.”

  The truth of the word hit her. Hard. Just as hard as the fact she’d confessed it to a man who wasn’t a dragon. A Druid who may or may not have some connection to dragon shifters. Whom she’d known for little more than seven and a half hours.

  Seven and a half hours? Oh God, she was running out of time.

  Rick’s low chuckle brought her back from the jarring thought. “Okay, I gotta say, ‘lonely’ isn’t the answer I expected.”

  Kenna smiled, a slow smile, but a smile all the same. Damn, when was the last time she’d done that?

  When Rick saved Barney the beagle’s life. When Rick told you he couldn’t have saved the dog without your help. When Rick offered to make you killer scrambled eggs. Rick, Rick, Rick.

  “I had an identical twin sister,” she said, her heart thumping hard in her throat. Oh boy, was she really doing this? “At the age of one hundred and thirty-seven—which is quite young for a dragon shifter—Ciara met her Fire Mate.”

  Kenna stopped. She hadn’t spoken of her sister since Ciara’s death. It hurt too much. It still did. And yet, when she looked into Rick’s eyes, when she felt his fingers close around hers a little more firmly, that pain seemed…faceable.

  “Benjamin Steele was the dragon-shifter equivalent of a douche bag.” She shook her head, picturing the over-muscled meathead her sister had been mated to. “He thought he was the end-all-be-all of our kind, was pretentious and a show-off. He was also greedy. And by greedy, I mean always out for a buck. Especially when he was on a gambling kick.”

  One of Rick’s eyebrows lifted. “Gee, he sounds like a king among men.”

  Kenna laughed, a dry, mirthless sound. “When Ciara introduced me to him, they’d already been mated for over a month. My sister wasn’t happy.” She let out a sigh. “The thing with predestined mates is, everyone assumes the mating is the most romantic, wonderful pairing possible. All those authors out there making all that money writing about destined lovers and soul mates have no idea. It may be gloriously blissful for some—for most, from what I understand—but not everyone. My sister was one of the dragons who got screwed over by fate.”

  Rick’s face grew serious. His fingers held hers. “Was he cruel to her?”

  The last conversation Kenna’d had with her sister, via a telephone connection between Las Vegas and Columbus, played through Kenna’s head.

  Oh God, sis, he’s horrible. The sex is brutal and explosive and horrible—and I can’t say no! I want it, I beg for it, but he’s horrible. I hate him! I hate him and yet I love him. How can this be? How does that make sense?

  Two weeks later, Kenna learned of Ciara’s death at the hands of the Extraho Venator. A week after that, she’d discovered Benjamin’s hand in it.

  Her stomach rolled.

  “He killed her.”

  Rick blanched.

  “He betrayed her to an order of dragon hunters,” Kenna continued before Rick could say a word. She needed to get this out. She needed him to understand why, despite being Fire Mates, she couldn’t take more from him than just a one-time fuck.

  And you think Rick is like Benjamin? Really? Or are you using that as an excuse to do what you always do—keep everyone away?

  “He handed her over to an order of dragon hunters as ancient as dragons themselves for a grand total of two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Jesus.”

  Rick’s stunned response was barely more than a whisper.

  Kenna swallowed, her
throat so tight, drawing breath was nearly impossible. And yet, underneath it all, like an itch waiting to be scratched, was her hunger for Rick. Her need for him. It was undeniable and terrifying and it made her want to scream.

  Made her want to beg him to claim her now.

  Damn, how messed up was the life of a dragon shifter?

  “How did you find out?”

  A sliver of icy satisfaction filled Kenna at Rick’s question and, more unsettling, bleak worry. How would he respond to what she was about to say? And why did she care?

  Lifting her chin, she met his gaze with an unwavering stare. “I flew to Vegas, found him in a bar, got him drunk and asked him to take me to bed. Told him it would help me feel close to my ‘unfortunately lost’ sister. He agreed readily, gloating about the fact he was going to live every man’s fantasy—fucking twin sisters. When we were safely locked in a room in the sleaziest hotel I could find, I gave him a lap dance while pouring even more whiskey down his throat. When he was so drunk he could barely speak, I asked him what truly happened to Ciara. He told me, while trying to unbutton my shirt.”

  Rick’s Adam’s apple jerked in his throat. “What did you do?”

  “I smashed his head with the whiskey bottle until he was dead.”

  He didn’t say a word. Not one. But he didn’t pull away from her either. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, Kenna didn’t know.

  She let out a shaky sigh. “I was a cop in Columbus. I knew how to deal with the crime scene. I cleaned the room, deposited Benjamin’s body in the back of his car, drove out into the Mojave Desert, shifted into my dragon form and incinerated the lot. All that was left of Benjamin Steele when I shifted back was the shell of a burnt-out Buick and a pillar of black ash—and the ash dissipated in the wind as I stood there.”

  She stopped.

  God, she hadn’t told anyone what she’d just shared with Rick, and he wasn’t a dragon. He was human. Even with his Druid past life, he was still a human. Still bound by the laws of mankind—and she’d just confessed to murder.