by Kira Nyte
An arm came around her and the sleepy rumble that filled her ear from Taryn’s chest instantly relaxed her. Clothing remained in place, even if at some point during the night her subconscious mind must have nudged her closer to Taryn. His arousal was obvious, but he hadn’t acted upon it.
It was a start. A promising start. No disgust. No resentment. No fear.
Simple contentment.
The sensation of being in the right place, with the right person.
Her sleep had been dreamless, and as it shed her mind, she was intrigued by how alive she felt.
Lifting her head, she stared up into the intensely beautiful face of the man she was meant for. A dragon from another world who promised her safety and security while he gently but steadily pulled her back from the brink of Hell. So relaxed in sleep, even if occasional curls of smoke escaped his nostrils. She couldn’t hold back a smile.
A dragon.
Her dragon.
So warm and strong and gorgeous.
Gabby moved slowly in an attempt to climb over him without waking him. As she braced her body over his, straddling his waist and his chest, an urge to lean over and kiss him took her by surprise. That was one nudge she ignored, at least until she made a quick bathroom trip.
Spread wide to span is body, she tried to rock onto her hand and knee. Of course, her attempt at stealth was useless. She lost her balance and landed on top of Taryn.
His hands clasped her waist on the way down. She gasped, catching the sleepy glow of his warm eyes and the grin on his kissable mouth.
“Dragons are light sleepers, too, angel.”
Gabby melted against him. He slipped his hands from her waist to her back in a comfortable hug. His voice couldn’t be more sexy if he tried.
“Were you awake the whole time?”
“Mm-hmm. Just enjoying the feel of you curling up against me.”
And, right now, straddling him in a provocative manner.
“Did you sleep well, Gabriella?”
She whimpered quietly at the sound of her name on the thick tone of his voice. Placing her cheek against his chest seared her skin very pleasantly.
“One of the best nights I’ve had,” she said against his shirt. His hand skated up her spine until his fingers wove through her tousled hair.
“Glad to hear it.”
She closed her eyes as he played with her hair and ran the tips of his fingers up and down her back. God, the way he made her feel, like her past was a bad dream and she was just now waking up to a reality that was the sweetest treat. Anything and everything that should have triggered an attack calmed her, reassured her, and she was eager to push the boundaries.
Taryn made her body ache in ways she couldn’t imagine it was capable of. Tingle with pleasure instead of fear. Heat with healthy lust and not with shame.
She craved the feel of his hand on her skin, and the pleasure his touch gifted. Her intense response to his exploration.
“Did you need to get up?” he asked, sounding like he was falling back asleep.
“Bathroom. Can I walk?” She wiggled her feet. “I feel nothing. No pain at all.”
Taryn craned his neck to look at the bedside clock. “Damn. We slept the morning away. It’s almost noon.”
Reality must have smacked him because the sleeping god beneath her became a wide-awake and alert Taryn. He guided her as she climbed off him and sat up.
“Let me have a look at your feet. Unless you want me to carry you to the bathroom and deposit you on the toilet?”
She laughed and lifted one foot into his waiting hands. “I’ll pass.” He removed the sock and scrutinized the sole of her foot. The humor died inside her and she leaned forward. “Is it okay?”
“Hmm.” A single finger ran down the center of her sole. She jerked at the tickling sensation, stifling a laugh. When he glanced up to look at her through his bed-mussed hair, she caught the playful edge in his expression.
“Don’t!”
“What?” He deliberately stroked the sole of her foot again. Gabby smacked a hand over her mouth and laughed as she tried to tug her leg back. “Making sure it’s good as new. Ticklish, angel?”
“Bastard! Stop before I pee myself!”
Gabby curled up on her side, tears burning her eyes as she made choking sounds of mirth. Taryn finally stopped and braced himself over her. She shoved his shoulder as he smiled down at her.
“Now, now. Name calling isn’t nice, Gabriella.”
“I could say tickling isn’t nice, either.” She brushed aside the satiny waves of his hair to better see his face, a heady desire rearing up inside her. She licked her lips, drawing his attention to her mouth. “May I go to the bathroom?”
Without a word, he sat up, letting her go physically, but his gaze tracked her across the room until she closed the bathroom door. She fell back against the wall and pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart pounded under her palm. That look he gave her, the one she despised seeing from any other man, pulled at her like a lifeline to a home she desperately sought. It spurred fierce arousal, leaving her nerves humming.
“Not now,” she whispered, trying to calm the storm churning up desire.
She finished in the bathroom and returned to the bedroom. Taryn glanced back at her from his walk-in closet as he rummaged through more shirts than she had owned in her lifetime.
The blasted man was shirtless, those pants riding low on his hips, showing off his sculpted muscles. The tattoo on his back shifted and moved with him, wings appearing to flap or spread.
“I didn’t realize you’d be out so soon.” He tugged a shirt from a hanger. Gabby hugged her belly, the fierce want growing inside her unforgiving. Is this what he fought when she was near? How did he do it? “Should’ve waited to change.”
“Taryn?”
He paused, shirt bunched in his hand. Her gaze dropped to the prominent bulge in his pants.
“Gabriella. Careful.”
The force that drew her closer instead of pushing her away was too strong to ignore. She couldn’t explain it, it was so completely different from what she had ever felt before, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to. The magic that swept into her life in the last few days was a blessing in her cursed existence. The man, this man, was her angel, regardless of his endearment for her.
She came up behind him and softly outlined one wing of his tattoo. “How were you able to get this if nothing can penetrate your skin?”
“Things can penetrate my skin if I hold back the dragon.” He twisted his head and looked back at her. She met his gaze for a second before dipping her head and placing a kiss on the dragon tattoo’s head. “A feat I’m finding most difficult at this moment.”
As if to prove his point, a spattering of scale tips appeared along his shoulders and down his spine. They vanished as quick as they came. Gabby traced the line of his spine and sighed.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she murmured, splaying her palms over his back and absorbing the heat, the cuts of muscle as she smoothed her palms up to his shoulders. Taryn’s head fell back and he groaned. She never imagined she’d have control over any man after a lifetime of being controlled. But Taryn both gave her that lead and maintained his composure, if barely. As her hands curved over his shoulders and slid around to his chest, she detected a faint tremor in his muscles. She pressed up on her toes and nuzzled her nose against his hair, drinking in the scent she had come to know as his and only his. “Whatever this is I feel, it makes me embrace what you do to me. How my body reacts to you.”
“And how, Gabriella, do you react to me?” Taryn lowered his head, his hair falling over his cheeks and hiding his eyes. He tossed the shirt over the rail in the closet. She was about to rest her chin on his shoulder when he turned into her, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her flush against his body. So close she felt everything, from his arousal to the hardening of his stomach muscles to the rise and fall of his chest. Catching her chin, he tipped her face to his, and she happily let h
im. “What is it I make you feel?”
Oh, sweet God, the carnal flames in his eyes plucked one thread at a time until she felt an eternity’s worth of untouched sensations and reactions unravel. Her vision focused on Taryn, and only Taryn, everything beyond his eyes and his face blurred. The pulse between her legs intensified, and the wetness that followed drew a silent gasp from her throat.
“Things. Things I never wanted to feel.” Her voice was as unsteady as her legs. “Things I suppose people who enjoy sex feel.”
A sound, something like a growl and a hmm, rumbled through his chest. He held her against his body, backing her up until her butt hit the corner of his dresser.
She never once broke eye contact.
She never once felt the familiar fear that rushed her when a man made his intentions known.
He dropped his hands to her waist and lifted her onto the dresser. She locked her legs around his as he drew the backs of his fingers over the tops of her thighs. The simple touch burned her skin in a decadent way.
“Pleasure, angel.” He retraced his path to the juncture of her hips and teased the waistline of the mini shorts Briella had lent her. “Pleasure, hunger, need. Desire so strong it can make you crazy if you don’t sate it.”
“Does it drive you crazy?” Silly question, she knew, even as it spilled from her tongue.
Taryn’s grin was both humored and laced with dark hunger. He lowered his head with a quiet chuckle to watch as he lifted his fingers to the top button on her shirt. Her heart picked up its pace and she sucked in a shaky breath of anxiety and anticipation.
“I’m beyond crazy.” He slowly unfastened the button and turned his gaze up to her. The dragon consumed his eyes, down to the vertical slits of his pupils. “I’m fucking ravenous.”
That look should have terrified her. His confession should have made her panic until she couldn’t breathe. The lack of breath was due to something else entirely. Something that hummed through her nerves, heated her blood, and left her craving Taryn.
He opened another button, keeping his gaze on hers. A third button. A fourth.
Gabby didn’t stop him. He paused on the last button, one brow lifting.
“Do you want to learn what kind of beast I am in the bedroom, Gabriella?”
She tightened her legs around him and nodded. Taryn tsked before he leaned over to feather a line of kisses along the racing pulse in her throat. Gabby moaned, tipping her head to the side to give him better access because whatever he was doing poured fuel onto her fire by the bucket.
Taryn nipped her neck below the ear. She gasped at the surge of pleasure that crashed down to her toes.
“I won’t accept a nod, angel. Tell me what you want,” he whispered in that sexy rasp. Gabby wrapped her arms around his neck, sinking her fingers into his hair. He was making her drown in heady desire.
Taryn nipped her again, then swirled his tongue over the stinging skin.
Gabby whimpered, sure she was dying from delight.
“I want to know the beast.”
Taryn caught her earlobe between his teeth and nibbled the flesh. “Mmm. Good.”
Gabby swallowed another gasp when Taryn’s mouth crushed hers in a kiss he must have been holding back all this time. She tasted the hunger, the desperate need, the potent and intoxicating desire that called to her own. He possessed her with his kiss, his tongue filling her mouth, claiming her as his, and she loved it.
Taryn swept her off the dresser without warning, his arms tight around her waist. She clung to him as he moved, seeking ragged breaths through his kiss. Oh, the guttural groans and tiny moans that tangled between their mouths was a song meant for them alone.
She half expected Taryn to toss her on the bed, not gently lay her back and fluidly crawl over her.
He growled when he tore his mouth from hers, but those wicked lips and that sinful tongue danced raw pleasure down her neck. He swept the shirt aside as he reached the hollow of her neck, licking the indentation before continuing lower.
“At any time, you can tell me to stop.”
“No,” she breathed, fingers tangling in his hair as he reached her breast. No prelude preceded his feverish mouth taking her nipple and sucking hard.
She hissed in a sharp breath, bowing off the mattress.
Fire, wild like the man soothing that sharp ache with lazy strokes of his tongue, raged inside her. When his fingers pinched her other nipple and teased her with a mixture of pinches and lashes, she was certain she would snap. Not with pleasure, but with an infuriating need for Taryn to do…something. Something more.
He took his sweet time licking his way down her belly. His teeth, the hint of fangs in the scrape along her skin, caused her to tremble. The ends of his hair tickled her belly, another level of stimulation for her overwhelmed body.
The mattress shifted beneath her hips. Before she could lift her head to see why, Taryn nuzzled his mouth against her throbbing clit. Through her shorts.
He watched her with glowing eyes from between her legs. His upper lip pulled back to show her the tips of two thick fangs. Ripples of scales crested along his brows and forehead in waves.
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he teased the hem of her shorts with two fingers, caressing her upper thigh until he reached her panties.
When his thumb slipped beneath the wet fabric and traced her seam, she whimpered and dropped her head back, knees falling open.
Taryn sat back, his rough palms drawing down her inner thighs to her knees, then running up to her hips.
“Yes or no, angel?” he asked, fingers hooking the waistband of her shorts.
Holy hell, how could she say no? To that voice? That look?
Gabby began to nod when his eyes narrowed. She remembered his demand for verbal agreement, and managed a weak, “Yes.”
The man looked downright predatory as he tugged her shorts and panties off her waist and down her legs. A new warmth flooded her face as his gaze lowered to her exposed sex. Instinctively, she started to close her knees as he pulled the clothing from her feet and tossed it aside.
Taryn caught one knee with his hand, met her eyes, and shook his head. “No. No shame.”
He moved closer, spreading her feet with his knees. Those hands of his could knock her into another universe, his touch erotic and taming, soothing and seductive. Her mind couldn’t decide if she wanted to cry out in frustration from nervous system overload or scream beneath the infuriating burn of need.
“Easy, Gabriella,” he murmured, dipping his head to her knee. He kissed the inside of her knee as his hands crept closer to her core. Kiss after kiss, he followed the path of his fingers.
Gabby’s chest grew tight with anticipation. She couldn’t take her eyes off the sight of Taryn’s head moving lower and lower, closer to her throbbing clit and thrumming sex. She tried to regain control over her breathing, but she couldn’t manage anything more than shallow gasps.
Fingers brushed through her seam, unleashing a fierce shudder of pleasure. Taryn chuckled, lifting his glistening fingertips.
His gaze met hers. “Beautiful, my darling lifemate.” He sucked his fingertips into his mouth. The feral growl that followed sparked deep red flames in his eyes as she soaked in an alien satisfaction and sense of awkwardness. How the hell did he make something so appalling look so damn erotic? “Goddess help me.”
Gabby opened her mouth to ask him why—
“Holy hell,” she gasped as his mouth closed around her clit. She threw her arms up and fisted the blanket at her head as Taryn sucked at her nub. His tongue rubbed and lashed, making her body jerk and writhe. “Taryn.”
“Yes, little lifemate?”
He eased a single finger inside her body.
What was she going to say?
She arched off the bed until Taryn pressed a hand to her lower belly and pinned her hips to the mattress. She didn’t give a thought to fear or anxiety, because she knew without a doubt he’d free her the instant she asked him to. He work
ed her mercilessly, finger pumping into her at a lazy pace to match the magic his tongue and mouth conjured.
It took a nudging reminder not to fight the coiling of pleasure. Not to suppress it. With Taryn, to feel wasn’t bad, and what he was doing felt oh so fantastic!
Until she reached that brink, that teetering peak where she couldn’t figure out if she was in pain, on fire, or preparing to plummet to her doom.
He sucked on her clit.
“Taryn!” she choked out.
Blinding bliss tore up from the center of her body, ripping through every limb like a bolt of lightning, delivering potent exhilaration. He sent her body soaring so high she couldn’t feel anything but the hard pulsing pleasure that flashed against the backs of her eyelids and followed the heavy thud of her heart.
“Stunning. I want to see that again, angel.”
His voice filtered through the fog as her orgasm began to subside on waves that left her legs trembling and her body melting into the mattress.
Taryn didn’t stop. Didn’t pause.
His mouth performed delicious torture on her sensitive nub, his fingers stroking her deeply. Gabby tried to catch her breath and recover, but her devious dragon had another plan.
One that taunted and took up the slack in the cords of her nerves. One that continued his hungry feast until she had barely reached a plateau before he launched her back into the embrace of another soul-shattering orgasm.
Gabby clawed at the blanket, writhing beneath Taryn’s single-handed hold on her until she swore she would explode.
The pressure released around her clit and eased from her body as she floated down from the intense high. The fog that settled over her left her feeling leaden and exhausted and quite…amazing. She was vaguely aware of lazy kisses following a path up her belly and the shocking warmth of the man rising over her.
Taryn lifted his head after he placed his last kiss at the base of her neck. He poised over her with a wicked grin of satisfaction on his moist lips. “That rose in your cheeks looks beautiful.”
Gabby slipped one hand over his shoulder and cupped the back of his neck. God, her arm shook. “It’s your turn.”