The Dragon's Gold (Exiled Dragons Book 12)

by Sarah J. Stone

  “I love you, Claire.” His face was still very close to hers as he whispered the words, letting them vibrate across her lips and sending warmth throughout her entire body. she felt alive again.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered back.

  She found herself being hauled up from the sofa, tossed roughly over his shoulder with her ass up in the air as she giggled and got carted off to the bedroom like a cavewoman being taken home by some Neanderthal brute. She had to admit that she liked it more than a little. Then, she was falling backwards, being tossed on the bed as he climbed across her and kissed her lips again.

  “You have too many clothes on.”

  He reached forward and ripped open the buttons on her blouse to expose her less than sexy bra beneath.

  “Hey, I liked that blouse,” she protested half-heartedly.

  “I’ll buy you another,” he told her as he broke the straps of her boring gray cotton bra and pushed it downward to expose her breasts. Her nipples were hardening rapidly in the cool air-conditioned bedroom. “Bra, too.”

  His mouth covered her hardened nubs, sucking and licking enthusiastically as she let loose with multiple low moans of pleasure. His hand found its way downward, pushing up her skirt and sliding his fingers inside the rim of her panties.

  “God, you’re already so wet. I love how moist you get,” he moaned as he moved from her breasts upward toward her neck and back to her lips, kissing her passionately as he manipulated her clit with his deft fingers. Their rough pads felt delicious against her most sensitive body part and she squirmed to try to relieve the intensity he was creating between her legs.

  “You’re driving me insane,” she panted.

  “Good. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, baby. We’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.” His words were punctuated with a thrust of two large fingers deep inside of her as his thumb took over the friction on her clit, causing her to mumble incoherently about how much she liked it. “That’s my girl. Just lay back and enjoy,” he coaxed.

  “Yesssss,” she cried as his kisses moved downward, back across her breasts and across the center of her stomach to the edge of her skirt.

  “Yeah, this is way too good not too taste.”

  Claire gasped as his fingers slid out from inside her and she watched him lick them clean. “You taste just as good as you look.”

  Then both of his hands were on her skirt, ripping the delicate fabric away to expose her hideously functional cotton panties beneath it.

  “I have to admit that these felt much sexier than they look. Say goodbye.” Before she had a chance to respond, she felt them being ripped free.

  “You realize that you now owe me an entire outfit, right?” She laughed as he stood and began to undress, looking down at her body, now nude save her shoes.

  “Well, good news. I’ll let you keep the shoes. As a matter of fact, why don’t you just keep those on? You may need the heels for traction before we are done.”

  He fumbled out of his own shoes as he spoke and then he was on her again, skin against skin. His powerful body pressed into hers with all its hard-muscular angles.

  “Thanks. I do appreciate that.”

  He cut her words off with his kiss…searching, hungry. His mouth was hot with desire and it quickly flowed through her, causing a familiar warm tingle throughout her body.

  “Now, where was I?”

  His fingers found their way down her side and he leaned sideways a bit, slipping them inside of her once more while his eager thumb resumed its intoxicating massage on the throbbing nub just above them. She bowed her hips upward as his fingers curved into the spot he knew so well, bringing her to an orgasm that caught her completely off guard.

  “Oh, God…I’m coming. Jesus…” she wailed as her body lost complete control and embraced the release it had longed for during the weeks she had been alone. She shuddered as it shattered through every limb and spiraled down into her fingers and toes.

  “We’re just getting warmed up, gorgeous.”

  His fingers pushed inward and resumed their motion. She didn’t think she had anything left to give, but found herself responding to him again, the pressure building inside of her as he brought her to one orgasm after another until she was squirting from the force of her own climax. She was soaked and it seemed the more she gave up, the more he wanted her to give.

  “Please, I don’t think I can take anymore,” she begged.

  “Yes, you can. I’m not stopping until you say the secret codeword.”

  The statement threw her off. Secret codeword? They didn’t have a secret code word. What was it? The friction from his fingers was both exciting her and making her a bit sore, at the same time. It still felt incredible what he was doing as he bent down to take a nipple between his teeth, pulling at it as he gently bit softly down.

  Shockwaves seemed to explode and replicate themselves throughout her body as her hips jolted forward in yet another insane orgasm and in that moment of pure, unadulterated ecstasy, it came to her.

  When thet were together at Taylor’s farm, she had playfully uttered a loud cry while riding him as if he were a cowboy. He had laughed and told her that it would be their little secret that she had a dark desire to be a cowgirl. She had forgotten all about it, but it was the only “secret” she could think of. A smile crossed her face as she smiled up at him and repeated her sexual battle cry.

  “Yeeeee Hawwww!”

  The words seemed to come from outside of herself as she was caught up in the spiraling climax and collapsed, his fingers pulling free of her, replaced by his throbbing cock. He felt amazing as he pushed into her, filling her already aching walls with his girth. Her nails dug into his back as their hips met again and again, reminding her of how much she loved how he felt.

  “Yes, baby. Yes,” he groaned as he made love to her, taking his time. Their bodies moved together slowly at first, but picked up tempo as they grew more aggressive.

  “Fuck me harder, Harper. I want you to fuck her so hard that I scream,” she moaned loudly. It felt good just to let loose and go with things. She had never wanted him so much in her life.

  “Yeah? Whatever you want, baby.”

  He pulled free of her and flipped her over, slapping her on the ass as he positioned her on all fours and stood up by the bed. His hands found her hips as he centered himself and thrust his hard cock into her with one swift move, fucking her hard and fast as she screamed into the surrounding room. Hopefully, the neighbors wouldn’t call the cops.

  “Oh, yeah, harder. Fuck me, Harper. Give her every hard inch,” she wailed as he did exactly as she asked, ramming her so hard that it hurt in the most incredible way. They had never been so rough in their lovemaking and she loved it. Not only did it feel amazing, but she knew that it was a sign that she felt truly free with him.

  “I’m coming. I’m coming…. ooohhhh,” Harper moaned.

  He shoved deep inside of her and let loose with an orgasm so intense that he dug his fingers into her hips, no doubt leaving bruises that she would smile at later. They collapsed on the bed, him still inside of her as he lay against her back. After a moment, he rolled onto one side and lay beside her, stroking her hair with his hand.

  “You are so beautiful. I’m a lucky man to have you in my life, Claire. I can’t believe she came so close to losing you.” His smile and the familiar twinkle in his eyes said far more than his actual words. He was happy here and it showed.

  “I think we might just be okay,” she told him with a little laugh. “Now, I have to go find some non-ripped clothing because it’s a bit chilly in here. You want to take a shower with me?”

  “I can’t think of anything that she would love more,” he replied.

  By the next morning, it was as if the two of them had ever spent a day apart. After a long weekend of making love and talking, they were stronger than ever. For the first time in a long while, she felt like things might just be looking up again. Glancing at herself in th
e bathroom mirror, she saw the face of a woman who was on the verge of having it all. There were no traces of the naïve girl that had come to the city only months ago. Claire was a woman, a woman in love.

  Chapter 34

  Though Harper and Claire had agreed that she would stay at her current company for now, he hadn’t replaced her position and was back to having to borrow the graphic artists of other ad executives. He had not given up on trying to convince her that she should come back, but she was resisting, for now.

  Today, however, she had second thoughts and had decided to come to his office and get a notion for what it might feel like to be here. However, she was stopped dead in her tracks as the situation before her began to unfold without anyone realizing she had arrived.

  “Harper, your wife is here.”

  He looked up at his secretary and nodded, letting one last sigh escape as the woman waltzed into the room.

  “What do you want, Anka?

  “I want you to come home.”

  “I’m working. I don’t have time for your nonsense.”

  “I suggest you make time.”

  “Why? Did you chip a nail? Break a heel?”

  “Don’t be an ass.”

  “I’ll be whatever I want, Anka. Tell me what it is that you want so that I can go back to work.”

  “Word around town is that you’re fucking your graphic artist.”

  “I don’t have a graphic artist, so that would be a bit difficult.”

  “You mean you don’t have a graphic artist anymore, but you’re still carrying on with her.”

  “Anka, just stop. Tell me what you came here for and then get out of my office.”

  “I just told you. I want you to come home.”

  “Not happening. Are we done now?”

  “You really don’t learn your lesson at all do you? I would think that after you bedded that batshit crazy bimbo from the temp agency and she tried to kill you, you’d have learned to keep it in your pants and just come home to your wife instead. Why must you continue to humiliate me like this all the time?”

  “Humiliate you? Are you forgetting that I caught you in bed with our gardener? I mean, come on. It’s the biggest cliché in the world. You couldn’t even be original with your infidelity.”

  “I told you that was a mistake and I wouldn’t do it again.”

  “Yes, you did. I suppose I should have asked you to be more specific. You certainly didn’t do the gardener again. You moved on to the neighbor, the contractor doing our new wing addition and the thug that damn near killed me when I mistook him for a rapist and tried to pull him off you.”

  “Perhaps if you were ever at home, I wouldn’t have to get my thrills from others.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Anka. Get out.”

  “Fine, but I need money.”

  “Ah, now we get to the real reason for your visit. For what?”

  “I need a new car.”

  “You don’t drive.”

  “I need to hire a driver.”

  “You want me to buy you a new car and employ a driver to sport you around to your sordid affairs in it?”

  “If that is how you want to view it, yes.”

  “No.”

  “Let me remind you that I leave you alone for the most part because you give me what I want. If you are going to start being petty about money, then we’ll have to find some other way to manage this sham of a marriage we have.”

  “We don’t have a marriage. We never did.”

  “That simply isn’t true.”

  “You fucked the minister that performed Molly’s christening.”

  “Don’t you dare bring Molly into this.”

  “I will bring whoever I damned well please into this. You certainly brought enough people into our marriage. Why shouldn’t I be afforded the same luxury?”

  “You know it only brings me pain to think of her.”

  “Perhaps you should have considered her a little more instead of having your ankles draped over our neighbor’s shoulders when you should have been watching her. If you had, she would still be here.”

  He apparently didn’t even see it coming as she raised her hand and slapped him across one cheek, leaving an angry red handprint behind.

  “You are solely responsible for our loss of Molly. I had forgiven you for multiple affairs and other transgressions, but I will never forgive you for that. Now, get out of my office.”

  Tears were falling down his face even as he glared at her angrily.

  “Give me what I want and I will.”

  “Fuck off, Anka. I’ll give you nothing.”

  “Then, you will regret that decision.”

  “I regret a lot of decisions regarding you. I’ll add it to the list.”

  “You have no idea what you are setting yourself up for, Harper. I’ll ruin you and take every cent you have in the process.”

  “Yeah? Good luck with that. I’ll bury you so deep that you’ll never crawl out of the team of lawyers on top of you. Then again, that sounds like something you might just enjoy being the whore that you are.”

  “Bastard!”

  Claire stood numbly by Harper’s stricken looking secretary. The look on either of their faces was one of pure shock as she heard what another employee, a pock marked ginger named Thomas, was saying without realizing he shouldn’t.

  “I don’t know how in the world he hooked up with that she devil, but I feel for him.”

  “Who is she?” Claire replied.

  “His wife, Anka. She comes in here and acts like she owns the place. You can just look at her and tell she is a gold digger. How someone like Harper can’t see that, I’ll never know.”

  Claire looked toward the open doorway just as Harper began walking toward her. Rather than giving him the opportunity to explain, she dropped the takeout she had been going to surprise him with on the desk beside her and bolted for the stairwell.

  “Claire, wait!”

  He ran after her, but it was too late. Now, she knew how she felt when he ran from her apartment the night he had found Samuel there, except she had done nothing wrong. He had done everything wrong.

  Chapter 35

  “Monica, he’s married!”

  “What do you mean he is married?”

  Claire was on her way back to her office from her impromptu visit to take Harper lunch and check things out regarding her possible return to his employ. She had lost any appetite she had now. Needing to talk to someone, she had called Monica in desperation.

  “I went to his office to surprise him and have lunch together and overheard a rather heated discussion between him and a woman. One of my former coworkers that had stopped by to talk to her told me it was his wife.”

  “Oh, my God! You have got to be kidding me! After how he acted about Samuel? What an ass! What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing. I was speechless. I watched her walk to the elevator and then made a run for the stairs when he saw me and tried to talk to me.”

  “I don’t blame you. I would have hit him. I’d have just walked up to him and slapped him as hard as I could.”

  “I was too bewildered to even think of doing anything like that. It felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.”

  “I imagine so. What are you doing now?”

  “I am on my way back to my office. I’ve missed so much work with Samuel. I can’t afford to blow off the afternoon over a personal problem. I’ll get sacked for sure.”

  “Well, hang in there the best you can. I have some meetings this afternoon, but I’ll be around tonight if you want to get out or if you just want her to come over and veg out on the sofa.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that, but I think I just need to vent for a moment. I will probably just hole up with a quart of ice cream and a fuzzy blanket and try to process all this.”

  “I can’t blame you. Just keep your chin up and let me know if you need me. I’ll be around.”

  “Thanks, Monica. I’ll talk to yo
u soon.”

  “Yep.”

  The afternoon crawled by as she tried her best to focus on the work in front of her. She spent hours just trying to create a simple logo for a client and finally gave up, letting the clock dictate that it was time to go home. Avoiding any of her coworkers that might want to drag her into conversation, she made a hasty exit for home.

  Claire sat in her apartment, still stunned by what she had witnessed at Harper’s office. Married. How could he be married? How could he treat her like he had over a misunderstanding about whether she was seeing her former fiancé when he was hiding the fact that he had a wife from her? A part of her felt near tears, but it was overruled by the anger rapidly rising to the surface. How could she have been so stupid? Glancing at her phone, she saw multiple missed calls. She turned it off and went to bed, crying herself to sleep.

  Chapter 36

  “Good morning, Claire.”

  “Good morning, Lacey,” she said to the receptionist that spent her days at a large glass desk in the center of the lobby.

  Claire often wondered how boring it must be to sit perched there answering phones and greeting people as they made their way across the lobby every single day.

  Claire walked up the stairs to her office. Shesighed as she sat down at her desk. It was going to be a dreadfully long day. she was surprised when, only a brief time later, she heard a knock on the side of the open door frame and looked up to find herself staring at a rather large vase of roses.

  “Just put them on the desk over there,” she mumbled, pointing to a work desk near the side window before leaning back over the drawing she had been working on. No doubt they were from Harper, a pathetic attempt at soothing her.

  “I’d like to talk to you while I am here.”

  Her head jerked back up at the sound of Harper’s voice. She hadn’t been able to see him past the ridiculous display of flowers he had held in front of him.

  “How dare you come to where I work with some overblown display of flowers and think I’d have anything at all to say to you, Harper?”