Day Care Dragon (Bodyguard Shifters Book 4)

by Zoe Chant

  He kept himself firmly in hand and took his time. He would only ever have one opportunity to make love to his mate for the first time. He was going to tease her until she was mad for it. He was going to make this a night she would never forget.

  But he couldn't hold himself back from her parted lips, and he sipped of them as he reached behind her head and lightly teased the strands of beads free from the heavy tresses. Her hair fell down across her creamy shoulders, curling over her breasts and cascading down her back. It was a crown of fire, a treasure befitting a dragon's mate.

  The dress suited her well, but she was even more beautiful dressed in nothing but the glory of her hair.

  He unhooked the dress across the lush swell of her hip, and finally it fell to pool in a beaded heap around her feet, leaving her in the tan bra and a matching tan slip cut high up the side. Darius reached down to wrap his hand around the back of her thigh, and she lifted her leg and hooked it around his, as he drank deeper of her mouth, kissed the honey from her lips.

  She made a small sound in the back of her throat. Darius pulled her closer, knowing she could feel the hardness of his arousal against her thigh. She ground herself against him, shuddering, and when he slid his hand higher up her thigh, under the slip, he felt her dampness through the cotton fabric of her panties.

  "You're just tryin' to drive me nuts, aren't you?" she husked out against his lips.

  He wondered if she knew that her slight drawl became stronger in moments of emotional intensity. Right now it was the sexiest thing he'd ever heard.

  He cupped his hands under her generous buttocks and picked her up. She let out a startled cry and threw her arms around his neck.

  "It's all right, my mate," he murmured into her hair. "As I told you before, I will never let you fall."

  "I know," she murmured back, her voice husky. "I trust you."

  Those words sent a jolt of warmth straight down to his core. Was there anyone else in his life, anyone at all, who had that kind of unconditional faith in him?

  Darius had gone through his life believing respect was a substitute for companionship, fear for family, wealth for love. With his own children, he had squandered the unconditional love and respect that children have for their parents, only to realize later in his life that he needed to win it back again. But Loretta ...

  Loretta not only made him want to be a better person—she made him believe that he could be.

  But right now all he wanted to do was tear her clothes off and make her scream his name.

  No ... that wasn't quite right. What he really wanted was to delight her and please her and make her come as many times as possible before morning.

  And scream his name.

  Grinning, he pressed her to the wall. Loretta's eyes opened wide in surprise when she realized what he was doing. "I won't let you fall, remember?" he growled, nipping at her neck, and held her effortlessly with one arm while with the other, he tugged down the top of her slip and her underwear.

  She helped eagerly, unwrapping first one leg and then the other from his waist to let her underwear slip to the floor. Naked from the waist down, wearing only her bra, she thrust her hips against him in wanton need.

  Darius unbuckled his belt one-handed and shoved his slacks and boxers over his hips.

  She was wet and open when he thrust into her, already slick enough to take him to his full length. So wet, so good—and the look on her face, head thrown back in abandon, lush lips parted in ecstasy.

  Thrusting into her, feeling her around him, seeing that expression of total bliss, almost brought him over the edge. He clamped down his iron self-control. He wasn't going to go until she'd had her fill. Only then would he find release, and not before.

  Instead he read her small gasps and the reactions of her body, adjusting his depth and speed to keep stringing her along the edge. She cried out and tightened her legs around his waist. "Darius—" Her eyes snapped open, with sweat-damp hair straggling down from her crown of blazing curls to frame them. "Darius, now!" It was both plea and order, as she thrust her hips against him with such force that he had to brace a hand against the wall to stop himself from stumbling backward.

  "My lady's wish is my command," he murmured, and sped up the thrusts, pushing her against the wall. In her state of arousal, it only took a couple of thrusts before she came with a convulsive squeeze of her legs and a throaty cry. Darius steeled himself and kept thrusting until she stopped him with a hand pressed to the back of his neck; then he bowed his head against her shoulder and took a couple of deep breaths to hang onto his self-control while she waited out the aftershocks.

  "Mmm," she breathed, "Darius ..."

  "Need to stop?" he asked, and sampled the salt tang of her sweaty neck. "I can wait ..."

  Her answer was a thrust of her hips, and a gasped, "More!"

  Darius laughed softly, got a better grip on her, and let her down to the floor. "Perhaps someplace with a little more back support this time. Does the bed please my lady?"

  "Right now your lady would be pleased with a quick fuck in the back of a Chevy as long as it gets your cock in me again." For some reason the casual profanity from her usually polite lips made his hips jerk in reaction. She grinned, seeing his reaction, and laced her arms around his neck and caught his lips with her own.

  Kissing, they stumbled toward the bed, shedding additional clothing; he kicked off his pants and she discarded her bra. They were naked by the time they got there, and fell tangled together into the sheets.

  "So you like it when I talk dirty," she panted, coming up for air between frantic kisses.

  "I love everything about you." He rolled her over, buttocks in the air, and caught the wicked grin on her lips, over her shoulder, before she pushed her hips eagerly against him and he thrust into her from behind. "I love your mind, I love your sense of humor, I love your gorgeous body—" It was hard to keep his train of thought when that gorgeous body was currently pressing against him, moving with him, her lovely round hips pressing against his groin with every thrust. He wrapped his arm around her, running a thumb across her nipples and then dipping his hand down to stroke a finger between her exposed folds. "I love you, Loretta."

  She gave a shuddering gasp. He curled himself around her as her body jerked in the throes of a second orgasm, vibrating her clit and pounding into her from behind as she came.

  "Oh, okay, wow," she gasped, collapsing face-first to the bed. "It really is better the second time ... okay, Darius—" She wriggled until she twisted around, having to pull him out to do it. "I feel like I'm coming out on top here," she panted, looking up at him with flushed delight.

  "On top, did you say?" He dropped beside her on the bed and they rolled over together; he ended up flat on his back with Loretta straddling his hips.

  "I never had a boyfriend that would let me do this before," she marveled as she slid down onto him. They slotted together like a key into a lock.

  "They were fools, then." He hadn't appreciated just how hard it would be to continue maintaining control now that he had a glorious view of her breasts and her expression of bliss. Supporting her weight on her knees, she was able to control her speed and angle, and from the glazed look on her face, it was having entirely the desired effect.

  "Darius," she breathed between strokes, "... I gotta tell you, I don't know if I'm going to be able to come again. I never even did it twice in a row before—oh—"

  "I will have your pleasure again before I take mine, my love," he managed. "Though I can only say that controlling myself while looking at your body is ... a trial ..."

  "Like this, you mean?" She tossed her head back and took a breath, inflating her chest.

  "Tease," he gritted, clasping her waist with both hands to pull her more solidly onto him. Waves of heat washed through his hips and belly; the sense of fullness and pressure was almost unbearable. He wasn't going to be able to hold out much longer. But, looking at her face, he sensed he didn't have to.

  And then
she flung her head back and her lips parted in a cry, and he finally let go, releasing his seed into her. She rode him through it, her spasms matching his own, until she shuddered to a rest and drooped onto him.

  They lay there like that for awhile, Loretta draped limply over him while he slowly softened inside her.

  "Am I too heavy?" she whispered after awhile.

  "Not at all." He stroked the back of her neck and ran his hand down her bare back. "Never."

  He could never remember being this contented, this fulfilled. He inhaled the sweet scent of her hair and knew, then and there, that he was never, ever letting her go.

  He finally had a chance at true happiness, and nothing—not his past, not Rodan Sharpe's inexplicable vendetta against him—would be allowed to take that away.

  Chapter Twelve: Loretta

  She woke lazily, sprawled out in a bed bigger and softer than any she'd ever slept in. It was like clouds, like silk on her skin—

  With a start, she came fully awake. She was spread out across the giant bed in the Daffodil Room. The room was still light and airy, though not bathed in sunshine this morning; rain streaked the windows.

  Under the sheets, she was completely naked, which brought back delicious memories of last night. Loretta smiled sleepily. She'd always loved to sleep while the rain fell. Darius ... she wasn't sure where Darius was, but somehow she knew, even if he wasn't in the bed with her, that he hadn't gone far. She just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, drifting back into pleasant half-memories, half-dreams ...

  Wait.

  Work.

  Loretta sat bolt upright. Work. What time was it? Outside the window, despite heavy gray clouds and fog, it seemed to be broad daylight. She couldn't already be late, could she?

  She groped through her discarded clothes until she found her phone. She wasn't late yet ... but she would be, if she didn't get there soon. And she knew from last night that they were hours from the city, on winding mountain roads ...

  "Darius!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

  There was no answer. She raced through a lightning-fast shower, twisting her hair into a hasty knot so she didn't have to wash it. She was throwing clothes out of her hastily packed suitcases (where was her underwear? She couldn't have forgotten it!) when the door opened.

  Loretta seized a handful of clothing and held it up in front of her naked body, then lowered it when she saw it was only Darius, carrying a tray.

  His face lit up in an appreciative smile, and despite her panic at missing work again, she couldn't suppress a brief, warm thought of how much more expressive he was already than he had been when she'd first met him. It was as if she could see him thawing before her eyes, moment by moment.

  "Good morning, beautiful. I thought you might like breakfast in bed." He set the tray on the table beside the bed. Loretta's eyes followed it wistfully. Two cups of coffee, two small white plates with neatly rolled omelets garnished with sprigs of parsley, a parfait glass of fruit and a flaky pastry on another little white plate ... it looked like Elvie had outdone herself.

  And she didn't have time to eat any of it. "Darius," she said, hastily putting on her bra from yesterday, "I have an emergency."

  Darius bristled, and for a moment she could almost see flames flaring in his gray eyes. "At your command, my love, I will lay waste to entire cities—"

  "Not that kind of emergency! I'm going to be late for work."

  "Oh." He deflated, probably disappointed at having the opportunity to lay waste to something snatched out of his grasp. "Well, that's not a problem. I'll simply send one of my assistants to—"

  "Darius. No. I don't need your assistants to do my work for me. I need to go there." Aha! Underwear! Excellent, this day was looking better already. She took the time to cram half a pastry into her mouth before pulling her sunflower blouse over her head.

  "I'll have Maddox bring the car around," Darius said.

  "I don't know if that's going to be fast enough." It emerged as an indistinct mumble, between the sunflower fabric swathing her head and the buttery pastry crust stuffing her cheeks like a squirrel's. She swallowed and managed to find the head-hole of the blouse. "Darius, I hate to ask you to fly in this weather, but ... I need a lift. Your kind of lift."

  He brightened immediately. "The weather is no obstacle. Actually, this is excellent flying weather. Not only is flight very comfortable when it's cool out, but I can fly you all the way to the city, because prying human eyes won't be able to see us."

  "Um, Darius—that's good for you, and great to hear about the prying human eyes, but it's going to be fairly uncomfortable for the human on your back." She found her stretch pants tangled up in a wad of cord belonging to a hair dryer, stuffed all of that back into the suitcase, and got out a warmer-looking pair of jeans. "I don't suppose you have any ideas about that, do you?"

  "Hmm. I expect something could be arranged."

  Ten minutes later, she was bundled in not just one but two rain slickers—wearing one, the other covering her legs—and parked on Darius's broad back just inside the wide-open doors of the mansion's enormous garage, stuffing another pastry into her mouth. Maddox, expressionless, had met them in the garage with the slickers and had helped her get arranged on Darius's back. Now he stepped back to give them room, looking noncommittal in a studied kind of way.

  "Thank you!" Loretta called down, beaming at him, and this time she got a little smile out of him before he turned away.

  Rain slapped her in the face as Darius walked out onto the lawn and spread his wings. "Are you sure you can fly in this?" she asked him, raising her voice to be heard over the drumming of the rain around them. She licked the last of the raspberry filling off her fingers.

  "It won't be a problem," his deep, reassuring voice rumbled in response. "But you'd best hold on."

  She grabbed hold, and they took off with a powerful downbeat.

  Wind buffeted them, and she caught a glimpse of the lake, draped in fog, before clouds swallowed everything. For awhile they were beating their way higher and higher through a muffled white world, and she couldn't help wondering if Darius knew the location of every mountain, trying not to think about those jagged peaks with their high, rocky slopes—

  Then they burst out of the clouds into sudden, dazzling sunshine. The abrupt contrast made her gasp. Below, the top of the cloud layer humped into blazingly white cliffs and hills. Darius soared around them, gliding with occasional beats of his great wings.

  "How are you doing back there?" he asked. His wingtip swept through the misty edge of a cloud, trailing vapor.

  "Wishing I'd packed my sunglasses." She wiped water off her face. It seemed bizarre to be wet in this high, sun-drenched world. "How long can we stay up here?"

  "All the way to the city. We're too low for jets, but you can help me keep lookout for small airplanes, though there shouldn't be any on a day like this, not with the wind so rough under the clouds. See what I mean?" He sounded smugly pleased, and for once, it made her smile. "Excellent flying weather."

  "I never doubted you for a moment."

  Darius chuckled, vibrating against her legs.

  All too soon, he dipped down, and clouds swallowed them again. "Put your hood up," he told her. "It's going to get rough in a minute."

  "How do you know where we are?" she asked, pulling the hood tight about her face and stuffing damp curls under it.

  "Good sense of direction and a lot of experience flying around here. We should be right above the city. You'll need to direct me when we come out of the clouds."

  They burst out of clouds into fog and rain—and a building, looming close in front of them. Loretta sucked in a breath as Darius tilted like a barnstormer plane doing a stunt maneuver, veering around the building before straightening out.

  "Which way?" Darius asked. Fog concealed and revealed the grid of streets below them.

  Loretta's mouth was dry. She tried not to worry too much that he was going to slam into a suddenly appeari
ng high-rise hotel, reminding herself that he'd been doing this for a long time, a good deal longer than she'd been alive, and he knew what he was doing. However, she also got the impression he was showing off a little bit for her—there had definitely been some showing off in that steep climb out of the clouds—and she hadn't grown up with male cousins without realizing how common sense could go right out the window when a boy decided to show off for a girl.

  "It's on Oak and Washington, out near the Target off the highway, do you know where that is?"

  "No clue about whatever target you're talking about, but I can find the address."

  "It's a store—no, you know, never mind." He'd probably never been inside a Target in his life. People like Darius had other people to do their shopping for them.

  They soared over the chain-store shopping district along the highway, little more than hazy gray shapes in the fog. "It's that one," Loretta said, pointing to the gaily painted yellow and purple building, standing out in a row of sedate brown and gray buildings containing dentists's offices and the like. "You can find a wooded place to put me down, I can walk—oh, Darius, there's no need ..."

  But he'd already glided down to land with a thump out back of the colorful plastic playground equipment in the enclosed yard behind the day care. It wasn't a bad place to let her off, she had to admit as she slid off his back, at least in this terrible weather. There was a high wooden fence around the day care's backyard, and the building blocked them from the street.

  ... but not, she realized a second later, from the row of amazed-looking four-year-olds staring at them out the window.

  "Darius—" she began, just as he shifted back to human. The rain picked that moment to open up in a cloudburst. Darius and his expensive-looking dark-gray suit were soaked in moments.

  "I may not have thought this through," he said grimly. "I don't think I can take off in such a confined space."