“I like you right here,” he said, his tone dropping a notch. A shiver skipped its way down her spine. “Cold?” he asked.
She couldn’t say no. He’d know he was getting to her and that absolutely could not happen.
“Freezing,” she lied.
“Then it’s a good thing we’re bunking together. I’ll keep you warm.” His palm drifted down the length of her side until it was perched on her hip. Heat blossomed under her skin wherever he touched her and she shivered again.
Feeling her small body tremble just about did Maxum in. He knew she wasn’t cold. Knew she was responding to his touch…though she’d rather die than admit it. Well, he would just have to make her admit it. Make her realize they could provide more than a little comfort to each other while they had nothing better to do. And the truth was, he’d been hard for her ever since she’d sat in his lap back at that tavern. He was hard for her now, feeling her compact, lithe little body tucked against him. He could feel the steel stays of the corset and the rigid line of it against his chest. Her breasts, swelling above the top of it, glowed pale in the wan candlelight.
“Come and be comfortable. It’s a long night of voyaging before we reach Thiss.” He reached to trace a lone finger along the top edge of her corset, through the ruffle of the shirt beneath it. “It may be practical, but it isn’t comfortable to sleep in.”
“I am not getting undressed with you. Now let me go!”
“You’re being stubborn,” he said, reaching to twirl a finger around the bow of the laces that keep the corset tightly in place. “Just take the corset off. Leave the shirt on.”
She was still for a long moment then with a sigh she pushed herself out of his arms and sat up on the edge of the bunk. She pulled the laces and slowly put slack into them, finally making it possible to pull the corset off over her head. She dropped it to the floor and he heard her exhale with relief.
“That’s tighter than I realized,” she said.
“No different than binding.”
“A little different. Bindings are softer.”
“True.”
“But I wouldn’t trade back,” she said almost shyly.
“Good. I’m glad you like my gift.”
“It’s not a gift,” she said sternly. “I’m going to pay you back for it as soon as I am able.”
“It’s a gift,” he said firmly. “It wasn’t anything you thought you needed and you wouldn’t have chosen to spend your money that way. So a gift. One I was very happy to give.”
“Well…then I guess I should thank you.”
“I guess you should,” he said with a low chuckle.
“Well…thank you.”
“You are welcome. Now come into bed.”
“Just so we are clear,” she said, her tone going stern again, “this is just for sleeping. I am not going to make love with you.”
“Oh, it would be far too hot and dirty to be called making love,” he said wickedly. She stiffened and he laughed at her. “Come and lay down. Nothing will happen that you don’t want to happen.”
She eyed him warily for a good long minute, then she turned her back to him and stiffly lay down in the bed beside him. He chuckled.
“You need to relax,” he said, his hand drifting whispery fingers down her neck and the yoke of her shoulder.
“Stop touching me,” she said, shooing him away with a flutter of her hand.
“It’s a small bunk. We’re going to have to touch.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist and jerked her body back against his. His chest was to her back and her bottom was pressed against his erection. She squeaked when she felt it and realized what it was. He was unapologetic about it too, pressing his hips against her in a slow roll of movement.
“Stop! I’m going to sleep on deck!” She tried to leave the bed but he jerked her right back down.
“You heard the captain. I’m to keep an eye on you. And a woman alone on a ship full of coarse men is a recipe for disaster. You’re safer with me.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” she said, squirming around until they were facing each other, her backside no longer intimately settled.
There. That was better, she thought.
Until she looked up into his shadowy green eyes and saw the blatant hunger there. His eyes roamed her face and form slowly, almost to the point that it felt like an actual physical caress. It was dangerous, the heat she saw there.
“Maybe I could sleep on the floor,” she whispered.
“You could. But why do that when the bed is right here?”
“Because it would be safer.”
“Safer?”
“The way you’re looking at me isn’t safe. Not for me, anyway.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like you want to eat me alive,” she said softly.
“Oh, I do. I want to dine on every single inch of you,” he said huskily a second before he caught up her mouth with his.
She meant to resist him. She really did. She meant to reject him and push him away and sleep on the floor in safety.
But the moment his mouth touched hers she melted into a puddle of compliancy. She let him draw her back up against his body, her breasts pillowing against his hard, broad chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt at his back. When had she put her arm around him? She didn’t know and, for a moment, she didn’t care. All she could feel was the muscular warmth of him connecting with her from head to toe…and the strong voyage of his lips against hers as he explored her suddenly willing mouth.
He tasted incredibly good…like anise, a darkly sinister sweetness. His tongue delved and dipped into her mouth and she helplessly dueled with it, loving the decadent feel of it filling her taste buds and senses with masculine confidence. He knew how to kiss a woman until she shimmered like jelly in his hands, turning sweet and sticky and easily devoured. She should be wary of the practiced ease he used, but she couldn’t seem to remember why.
His hand crept up her rib cage, leaving a trail of heat in its wake, and then suddenly closed over the weight of her breast. He shaped her lovingly, his thumb coasting ever so lightly across her nipple until it hardened and poked out eagerly for his next caress. She burned for his next caress. Yearned to feel his lips on her. Her back arched up in invitation as she broke from his mouth and gasped for breath. Keenly understanding her need, his fingers curled into the ruffled edge of her shirt and pulled it down until the whole of her left breast was exposed to the cool air. She felt the abrasion of his whiskery face as he nuzzled her. He had shaved that morning, but already his whiskers were growing in enough to be felt.
Then his mouth opened against her and he sucked her nipple strongly into it. He groaned low in his chest and she gasped aloud. She arched against him, pressing herself into the biting caresses he offered. He sucked and nibbled, drew and toyed, all the while sending heat plummeting down through her body again and again until she was soft and wet and wanting.
Her right hand found its way into his hair, holding him to herself even as her left hung on to his shirt for dear life…as if she would let go and suddenly lose anchor on the whole of the world.
Maxum growled low in his throat as he tasted her, as the hardness of her nipple rolled against the play of his tongue. She was beyond sweet. A sultry combination of sweet and erotic and he was burning with the need for more. More than just a taste of her. He wanted it all. Wanted every flavor she had to offer him. He filled his hands with her, stroking her everywhere he could reach, feeling the wantonness of her surrender to him and feeling the sudden weight of the responsibility to her. He had to make her feel pleasure. Whatever he did, he had to see to that most of all. He would not cheat her with a hurried, cheap coupling. She was worth far more than that. She was worth more than a tumble in the cramped bunk of a cramped cabin.
He lifted his mouth from her skin, groaning at the loss of her flavor on his tongue.
What are you doing? he asked himself a moment before words left
his mouth.
“Not here. Not like this,” he said hoarsely.
“Wh-what?” Her voice trembled.
“When I have you—and I will have you—I want it to be in a bed big enough to move in. Big enough to roll you this way and that way and any way I want to have you.” He paused to give her nipple a longing lick. “And I want you to come to me willingly and knowingly. Fully aware and not just lost in the moment. Do you understand?”
“N-no,” she said with clear confusion.
“You will,” he said, pulling up her shirt and covering her breast. “Now turn over and go to sleep.”
He helped her to do just that, knowing her movements were automatic, that it hadn’t quite sunk in what he was saying and doing. He knew the moment that it did because she went suddenly stiff in his arms.
“I won’t,” she said.
“You will,” he countered. “And you will enjoy every minute of it.”
She didn’t have a reply so he closed his eyes and tried to calm his overheated body enough to go to sleep. It was a very long time coming, and she fell asleep long before he did. But at last he relaxed and let the dreams take him. Dreams of earth swallowing him and suffocating him were abandoned and in their stead were dreams of a soft, willing woman.
By midmorning the Isle of Thiss was looming off the side of the ship. In the air they could see mist-shrouded buttes and the occasional large body flying through that mist.
Dragons.
Airi felt anxiety, a cross of fear and excitement, clenching in her belly. It was strong enough to quell her confused feelings about what had happened the night before in the cabin bunk.
She was grateful, of course, that it hadn’t gone any further than it had. She would have regretted it come the morning.
Or at least she thought she would have. She should have. She should be regretting what had happened, but every time she tried she remembered the fiery feel of his mouth on her skin and she flushed with heat anew. She feared that now all he had to do was ask and she would willingly give herself to him in the way he had said he wanted her. At his leisure. At her free will.
She put aside those thoughts and concentrated on the ship as it came up to the dock. The dock was abandoned it seemed, but there was what appeared to be a small village nearby.
As soon as the plank was lowered to the dock, the group was leading their horses off the ship.
“We leave at dawn,” the captain warned them.
“You’ll leave an hour past juquil’s hour tomorrow night,” Maxum said.
“You said one day,” the captain reminded him.
“Very well…an hour past juquil’s hour tonight and then straight on to Calandria as fast as your sails can take us. We’ll need to land there by sunset tomorrow.”
“We should make that easy, provided you are on time.”
“We will be. You had better be here and ready to go.”
“I’m a man of my word,” the captain said, looking affronted.
“So you weren’t about to leave me behind last night?” Maxum countered.
The captain just grunted in response. “Be sure you’re here!” he barked.
Maxum simply nodded and kneed his horse down the dock. The group followed him and as soon as they were on land he headed for the village.
Once there, Maxum pulled up to a young boy. Airi wondered if these people were weredragons. They looked normal enough to her. Did weredragons live in villages like this?
“I am looking for Lujo,” Maxum said. “Do you know where his lair is?”
“Everyone knows that. He’s the king of the weres. His lair is up there.” The boy pointed to the nearest butte. “It’s the only lair on the butte. But he doesn’t like visitors.”
“He’ll like us,” Maxum said assuredly. The boy just shrugged and went on his way. Maxum went straight for the road that appeared to lead to the butte he wanted. They all followed him. The going was easy and fast, the butte not very steep nor very high. The road ended, however, at the base of it, leaving them to pick their way up the rocky shale, which slowed them down considerably.
But Maxum pushed them hard.
“Daylight’s wasting and we have to be down off this butte by sunset.”
“Why sunset? I thought we had until juquil’s hour at least,” Airi said.
“Those are my orders,” he said shortly.
It had taken the better part of an hour just to get to the foot of the butte. He would need that time after his curse was over to make it back to the ship at least. That left no time for bathing and he didn’t care. Let them see him covered in dirt. All he cared about was getting what he needed to defeat Sabo. If it meant revealing his curse he would do so but not unless it was absolutely necessary.
They reached an impasse about an hour later. The angle was too steep for horses and they would need to climb the rest of the way up on foot. It was slow going and the blue sun burned in the sky, beating down on them, heating the rock beneath their hands. They were almost to the top when she took a moment to look around herself. The view was dizzying and breathtaking. Airianne could see the whole of the island. It was a contrast between the white beach, the forest treetops that skirted it to the base of the buttes and then the red and gray stone of the buttes themselves. From her perch she could see those large bodies circling the buttes better.
Dragons! Enormous dragons! She had never seen anything like it. They were still a good distance away, but she could tell just how large they were. And unless her eyes were deceiving her, they were glittering in the afternoon sunlight.
She suddenly felt very exposed on that cliff face. What if one of them should see them and decide to investigate? Didn’t dragons eat people?
No. If that were true then there wouldn’t be a colony of people on the island. Would there? Then again, it was a beautiful island, full of trees lush with fruits—it would make for a perfect paradise and easy living. But was it worth having dragons in your backyard?
“We should hurry,” she said nervously. She didn’t want to find out the answer to her question the hard way. “What’s the plan once we find this Lujo?”
“Actually, the idea is not to find him,” Maxum said as he hoisted himself up onto a ledge. He reached down a hand to her and pulled her up beside himself. “Trust me, you don’t want to meet a dragon face-to-face. And weredragons are the worst. They live in the world of men part of the time so they know just how untrustworthy we are.”
“Not all men are untrustworthy,” she said.
“So says the thief,” he quipped.
She flushed. He had a point.
“If you don’t want to see this dragon, why are we heading right into his lair?”
“Because in his lair is something I want very badly and I’m going to get it.”
“You’re going to steal from a dragon?”
“Not me. Us.” He turned to the other men once they had reached the ledge as well. Doisy dusted off his hands and Kilon looked out of breath. So it seemed the only thing he exercised regularly was his bow arm and his bad temper. Airi chuckled to herself at her own wit. But her amusement didn’t last long because the import of Maxum’s plan was settling in cold and hard.
The man was absolutely insane.
“And what are we supposed to do if he’s there?” she asked heatedly.
“We wait and hope he leaves with enough time to get us to the foot of this mountain by sunset.”
“You’re out of your mind,” she whispered harshly, afraid to raise her voice.
“Come on. We’ll skirt around to the mouth of his lair from this side,” Maxum said to the men who looked very ready to follow him anywhere.
“Doesn’t this bother any of you?” she asked.
“There’s no reward without great risk,” Doisy said philosophically.
“Just shut your hole and get with the fucking game. Or go back to the ship and do your whining there,” Kilon snapped.
She bristled and would have set him down, but it was
neither the time nor place. So, unfortunately, she had to do as he said. Shut up and go with them. Leaving wasn’t an option for her. She needed to get some money so she could support herself again, and she wasn’t going to get it by playing it safe. And remaining dependent on Maxum just wasn’t an option. He’d already given her far too much, far more than she deserved. She needed the means to leave as soon as possible. Last night had been too close. Much too close. If she stayed with him too much longer she might find herself doing something really foolish. Even now, as she watched him pick his way along the ledge, she found it hard to take her eyes off his tall and powerful body. He moved with a certain amount of grace, surprising for a man of his size. And confidence. He was walking into the danger of the situation as if he wasn’t afraid at all. She had to admit, there was something very stimulating about that.
And stimulating was bad. Very bad. She needed to keep her head on straight and her pants on if she was going to make her way safely through the world.
Maxum suddenly stopped, flattened himself to the cliff side, and waved to the others to do the same. Then he looked around the corner of stone he was pressed up against. He pulled back then gestured for Airi to come forward. The ledge was a bit narrow, so it was a balancing act to get past Kilon and Doisy. Rubbing up against Kilon and getting a full-fledged breath of his poor bathing habits was something she could have done without.
When she reached Maxum, he took her hand and stepped forward around the corner, signaling the others to stay behind. As they rounded the corner they stepped into the mouth of a huge cave. It was enormous, towering above and around her like a great citadel. Only the cave wasn’t open as she might expect. It was closed off by a wooden wall. The wall nearly ran the entire mouth of the cave from all corners, and the cave’s mouth had been clawed out to fit the square of it perfectly. The only gap was at the very top of the wall…it didn’t quite meet the top of the opening. She could see a series of pulleys and metal tracks. Her keen eyes took in every detail and she began to understand what she was seeing.
The door was weighted so that someone could pull on the bottom of it and it would lift easily and glide back into the roof of the cave beyond. It was a clever series of mechanisms that allowed for the mouth of the cave to be fully open when the dragon was in residence or closed and locked when he was away. And that was exactly what it was…closed and locked. And the lock was an iron inset lock with what promised to be a tricky set of tumblers and probably a surprise or two along the way. Oh, this dragon was smart—and very intent on keeping others out of his cave.
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