Stroke of Fire

by Kira Nyte

  “Since when have you taken up sex therapy?”

  “Since I’ve had to deal with my friend walking around with a hard-on while waiting for his period to arrive.”

  “Aren’t you the comedian of the hour,” Syn groused, snatching up the remaining buckets with his transformed dragon paw. The water weighed next to nothing to the dragon. “Let’s get going.”

  The trip back to his home was blessedly silent of further criticism. They unloaded the water into the bathtub and Taryn took his leave, giving Briella a hug and Syn a glower.

  “What was that about?” Briella asked, following Syn to the bathroom.

  “Thinks he’s funny, is all.” Syn stepped aside when they reached the doorway and motioned to the tub. Briella paused beside him. “Something wrong?”

  “This place keeps surprising me. I expected more”—she made a circular motion with her hand—“I don’t know. Rock?”

  “Not enough rock for your taste? And here I thought you’d appreciate marble.” Syn smiled when she cast him a glance. “Let me know if the water is warm enough. It cooled a bit on the way back.”

  Briella drank in the dark marble floor and walls until she reached the ornate copper tub. “I’ll give you points for design. This tub is amazing.” She dragged her hand through the water. “It’s a bit cool.”

  Syn figured as much. He crossed the room and stood beside her, submerging a hand into the lukewarm water. The dragon poured heat through his fingers, warming the water until Briella was pleased.

  “Perfect.”

  Thin curls of steam rose from the surface of the water as Syn straightened up. In a matter of minutes, Briella would slip into the tub with not a shred of clothing on. He shook his head and turned away, fetching a towel from the cabinet beneath the sink.

  “How long should I soak?”

  Syn forced himself to swallow when he faced Briella. Damn the woman for tearing off her shirt, not that he hadn’t received a very similar view earlier. The shocking reminder of how creamy pale her skin was and how much his mouth watered to taste every inch of that skin almost knocked him off balance. Her lacy red bra created a perfect ridge of cleavage, too. Taryn’s house provided the reassurance of interruption. Here? That wasn’t going to happen.

  “At the least, thirty minutes. I’d suggest closer to an hour.” He kept a small distance between them as he returned to the tub and hung the towel on the hook close to the tub’s wall. She started to unfasten her jeans. “If you need anything, I’ll be in my room a few doorways down.”

  Syn barely escaped the bathroom with his sanity intact. Goddess help Briella when she was through.

  The gentleman was about to lose his battle with the beast.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The hot water soaked into her skin as she sank deeper into the tub. A constant flow of relaxing energy poured into her wherever the water touched. The aches and pains from her abusive day slowly drained away, leaving her rejuvenated, revived, and feeling utterly turned on.

  That, she knew, was only one person’s fault. Said person continued to remain absent from her mind. Their strengthening connection hummed with the essence of Syn’s thoughts, but nothing clear and certainly nothing that made sense to her.

  An hour must have passed. Her fingertips and toes were well on their way to becoming waterlogged prunes. The water’s temperature had cooled, but not enough to make her want to get out. Regardless, she stood up, trickles of water falling from her skin to plink into the pool around her legs, the sound echoing through the marble-tiled bathroom. She towel-dried her hair before tucking the towel around her chest and stepped out onto the soft fiber area rug. She wiggled her toes, luxuriating in the threads.

  In fact, while she waited for Syn to return from the springs, she had luxuriated in his home. She hadn’t expected a mountainous cavern to possess such warmth and coziness. Most of the floors were covered with marble, similar to the gold-veined black in the bathroom. The walls and hallways were archaic, carved without much consistency. Some areas of the ceiling hung lower than others, like filed-back stalagmites. The walls weren’t smooth and flat, but rather kept as rough as natural rock, giving her the feel of wandering in the mazes of the cave. Fireplaces dotted the living space, each carved into the walls.

  She loved it all, the simplistic and rustic feel that Syn softened with thick area rugs, sofas and chairs that swallowed her up, and mattresses that felt like clouds. She checked all three of the guest rooms out, as he had suggested, to choose which she preferred. None of the rooms had doors, or even curtains to act as doors. Then again, who needed doors when living solo?

  Briella hadn’t been above snooping. She found Syn’s room, and instantly fell in love with his quarters. His bed was huge, larger than any she’d seen, and covered with the softest of blankets and furs. Two massive fireplaces flanked the foot of the bed, both burning bright. There was no defined shape to his room, and it possessed alcoves and nooks that he had turned into small sitting areas lined with books or closets filled with clothes. One of the alcoves served as a bathroom of sorts, fitted with a stone-based sink and a shower with an ever-flowing cascade of water from an unseen source in the ceiling. She had been tempted to try it out until she felt the cool temperature of the water.

  The air kissed her damp skin with a chill as she quietly moved down a corridor to the room she had chosen. It was one of the smaller rooms, but it was closest to Syn’s. The closer to him, the better.

  You’re here now. Why don’t you just take what you want?

  Take. She knew all about taking. Take the reins of life. Take ownership of her successes and failures. Take pride in her work. Take responsibility for her decisions.

  But take a man?

  Relationships were beyond her scope of knowledge. A few passing flings here and there before the guy ran off with someone else. Sex? Once. She brought almost zero experience to the table when it came to that department. She had no idea what came over her earlier at Taryn’s when she pressed Syn to bring her up to her borrowed room, but she wanted whatever would have happened in that bed.

  She wanted it now. More than ever.

  “You’ve never backed down before. Not when you want something,” she told herself as she dropped her dirty clothes on a chair and eyed the oversized button-down shirt she had snatched from Syn’s closet. She hadn’t considered bringing anything to wear when she chased after Syn.

  The upside of wearing his shirt? It smelled like him. It wrapped her in that exotic warmth of fire and spice the minute she slipped it on. She almost moaned, but swallowed it past the lump growing in her throat. The persistent throb between her legs intensified as she buttoned the shirt up her chest. Each caress of fabric sent a faint flutter of anticipation through her.

  She went in search of a brush. None of the bedrooms had one, and neither did the bathroom. With an uptick of her heartbeat, she headed down the hallway and paused outside the arch to Syn’s room.

  Immediately, she shuffled backward and pressed her back to the wall. She choked on the breath that tried hard to escape her lungs. Her entire body throbbed, one violent pulse that shed any chill and left only a stream of hot desire raking through her veins.

  Syn, every godforsaken inch of him. Naked. Water cutting over the hard, defined lines of muscle and sinew and everything that made him the living, breathing meaning of his namesake. The smallest movement created a god-worthy canvas out of the tanned skin along his back and the flexing of his arms. The wad of towel he was wrapping around his narrow waist hadn’t been placed fast enough to hide the sumptuous curve of his butt or the thick muscles of his thighs.

  Briella rubbed her face, the heat in her cheeks overwhelming. God, everything in this place was overwhelming. Her own body was overwhelming right now.

  For a few minutes, she concentrated on getting oxygen back to her brain. Each breath cooled her a little, but she was far from tempered.

  Okay, Brie. Okay. All you need is a damn brush.

  One fi
nal breath.

  “Knock knock.” She waited outside the door for him to answer her mental summons, fingers squeezing the hem of the shirt as she willed the rapid thump of her heart to ease. And the ache in her core. And the heat that licked at the pit of her gut.

  “Everything all right?” Syn asked from inside the room. “You don’t have to stand out there, sweet.”

  Briella sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, pushed off the wall, and stepped into the archway. Her gaze immediately latched onto the cut planes of his chest and abdomen. Her fingers tingled with the urge to touch him and learn him.

  “Briella.”

  She shot her gaze up to his face. Those eyes glowed with a simmering fire that burned straight through to her marrow.

  “I should let you dress.”

  Her voice shook.

  She was on the verge of hyperventilating. The pull to Syn was all-consuming, right down to her own brain bypassing her conscious instructions for control.

  Syn’s chin tilted ever so slightly up, and his eyes narrowed.

  Briella caught the fierce tent of his towel before her gaze scattered around the room to land on a brush and comb. She pointed to the dresser. “I was hoping to borrow a brush. May I?”

  She was halfway to the dresser before she finished speaking. She snatched up the brush, then spun on her heel and practically ran toward the hallway.

  “I can let you run, precious, but I’ll catch you in the end.”

  Oh. My. God.

  That deep, husky sound that spilled from Syn’s lips made her trip over the air tangling around her feet. She steadied herself with a hand on the wall and stilled. She felt his gaze burn a path along her back, slowly and leisurely, from the top of her head to the base of her heels. She thought she heard him growl, but the furious beating of her heart drowned it out.

  “You came here with a purpose and I allowed it…for a purpose.”

  Her fingers tightened around the handle of the brush until her knuckles ached. This was the side of Syn she’d prodded to come out. The dangerous, devilish, unyielding and ungentlemanly man. The other side of him that she craved to experience. His voice was raw with sexual desire. His gaze merciless on her simmering body.

  “But…”

  Briella swallowed. Hard. She clenched the brush to her chest. The wall in front of her faded and returned as the pull of want and need flooded her.

  And Syn. His voice lowered still more, and his accent thickened. The air at her back grew heavy with heated tension. “But I will offer you one chance to walk away tonight. I will offer you the final decision. You know what it is you want, after all.”

  She lowered her head. Yes. She did. She knew exactly what she wanted. So why did she want to run?

  “I will give you until the count of five. Should you walk from this room, I will let you go. If you remain, well…”

  A whoosh sounded. Briella jerked her head toward the fireplace. Flames shot up and out, then shrank to their previous size. She’d do best to remember that Syn possessed magic in this realm.

  “By the way,” he purred, “you look damn good in my shirt.”

  Briella cautiously shifted her head to meet Syn’s glowing eyes. Oh boy. The man was more than delectable and hypnotic. He dripped with the promise of sexual prowess. Oozed sensuality from every unseen pore of his skin.

  “I’m sure you’d look much better without it.” A dark, carnal grin curled his not-so-innocent lips. “One.”

  Briella didn’t move and his expression turned to one of pure challenge.

  “Two.”

  He took a step closer to her. The air thickened between them, electric with unspent energy.

  “Three.”

  She turned away from the archway and straightened her shoulders. Syn continued his slow, predatory advance.

  “Four.”

  “Five,” Briella said, dropping the brush to the floor. She closed the last few feet of space in a heartbeat and splayed her hands over his abdomen. Her fingers traced and molded the curves of muscles. “I made up my mind this afternoon.”

  “You weren’t in a dragon’s den this afternoon.”

  “No, but I was in my dragon’s arms.” She closed her eyes and lifted her head, the tip of her nose brushing the valley between his pecs. Her lips grazed across his warm skin and she flicked out her tongue for a small taste. Clean like spring water. Sultry like spiced smoke. Utterly addictive. “The only place I care to be.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The weak, uncertain woman from moments ago fled, leaving the confident, anticipating lifemate in her stead. She chalked it up to intimidation. Syn was every inch intimidating. Every inch. Her lack of experience when it came to anything sexual didn’t help.

  His seething gaze, however, gifted her with a sense of empowerment that she gladly devoured. It thrummed along her skin, so scalding hot and intense it should have burned the shirt to cinders. It burned everything else in its path.

  Syn touched a thick lock of damp hair at her temple and slowly followed the wave down to her shoulder. His fingertips brushed over her collarbone, tracing the bone to the small dip at the hollow of her neck. His gaze flickered, dropping from her face to follow the path of his finger’s light, taunting trek to the first engaged button on the shirt.

  With a skilled snap, Syn had the first button undone. Briella’s breath hitched. Could he feel how fast her heart pattered in her chest? Did he know how aroused she was, standing there like an offering for him to feast upon?

  The second button popped open, swiftly followed by the third.

  She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed.

  “That”—he lifted his hand, pressed his thumb to her chin, and gently tugged her lip free—“is mine.”

  His nostrils flared as his thumb traced along her moist lip. She could practically taste his mouth on hers and tipped her head up in silent want.

  Instead of indulging her, he resumed his chore of unfastening the buttons on the shirt. With each button undone, a breath of cool air caressed another inch of her skin. Her breasts ached. She squeezed her thighs together to contain the furious throb in her groin only to have it return with a vengeance, wrenching a fleeting moan from her throat.

  “Easy,” he soothed, though his voice was far from calming. It launched her into a new level of turned on. One that left her shameless as she wrapped her fingers around the top of his towel and drew his narrow hips close.

  The moment the last button fell open, Briella pressed herself flush to Syn, tugging the towel from his waist. Oh, sweet heavens. The skin-to-skin contact was enough to rip any last logical thought from her mind. The press of his cock against her belly flushed her body from head to toe in molten arousal. Curls of smoke fluttered up from his nostrils as his hands slid along her torso to rest on her shoulders.

  She dropped her arms and Syn slipped the shirt off. It pooled around her feet.

  “Where to start,” he murmured, drawing his knuckles up the center of her belly. He dipped his head and breathed heat along her neck. “What to indulge first.”

  “Everything.” The word escaped on a breath as his lips brushed her pulse. She felt his deep chuckle in her marrow as it sent a bolt of tremors along her muscles.

  His answer came with the rough flick of his thumb over her hard nipple, plucking nerves she had no idea existed. At least, not with the degree of pleasure that shocked her now. She clenched her teeth as he rolled her nipple between his fingers, then tugged gently.

  “Syn,” she hissed.

  She’d lost track of his other hand until his fingers sank into the damp hair at her nape, tugged her head back, and forced her to look into his feral eyes. Eyes that flickered with embers of fire and pupils that stretched into slits.

  “You think you can handle everything?” he challenged.

  Briella gasped when he tugged her nipple again. She had to fight the urge to let her eyes roll back and close as she died with pleasure beneath his touch.

&nbs
p; Instead, she coasted her fingertips along his hip and wrapped her hand around the hilt of his cock.

  Fire exploded in his eyes.

  His upper lip pulled back in a fierce curl.

  Burnished red scales rippled over his face and disappeared, but the prick of his talons against her scalp and the scrape of them over the sensitive flesh of her breast remained.

  And it drove her crazy with desire.

  She pumped his cock once, taking her sweet time running her hand to the tip of his thick erection and back. “Can you?”

  He twisted around, pressing her toward the bed until her legs hit the mattress. “Guess we’ll find out.”

  She was less than graceful falling into the bed as he climbed over her, his mouth crushing down on hers with no mercy. He wrapped an arm around her lower back, even in passion careful of the injuries she barely felt, and lifted her deeper into the bed. The powerful drive behind their crushing kiss, the desperation to be closer and closer, made her blind to any doubt and inhibitions that may have plagued her.

  Syn slid his cock through her seam. She moaned as he teased all the pleasure points craving his attention. Wet, throbbing, needy. She needed and he found pleasure in taunting her with each slide against her clit or tug of her nipples. He wound her up like a toy until she could barely breathe with the dire craving for release.

  Briella shoved at his shoulder, breaking their kiss and forcing him onto his back. The grin that followed her climb over him was anything but innocent.

  Syn caught her hips before she had a chance to scoot lower along his body, and gave a tug. She gasped, almost falling forward at the sudden jerk.

  “Even better, love.” Another tug, and a little shift from Syn, and she found out exactly what he meant when his tongue licked her throbbing core and began to suck on her clit.