She sighed and stretched. She turned onto her back as she arced toward that roaming, pleasurable touch. Lips brushed against her bare shoulder, caressed up the graceful curve to her neck. Teeth scraped against sensitive skin and nipped at her earlobe.
Bare shoulder? She opened her eyes. It was shocking all over again to lie naked with him. She rubbed a foot on his leg, crisp hairs tickling her toes. Predawn bloomed outside and brought the room to a light gray. Dragos rested his weight on one arm as he leaned over her. His severe face was intent as he studied her with a heavy-lidded gaze. The etched line of his mouth was curved in a lazy, sensual smile.
He was so gorgeous her whole body throbbed. His fine-cut nostrils flared and she knew he had sensed it.
She licked her lips. His gaze dropped and he watched the movement. “I’m quite sure I went to bed with clothes on,” she murmured.
“So you did,” he said, his tone languorous. He circled the areola of one breast. She watched him swallow as her nipple puckered. “I found them in the way.”
“You undressed me while I was sleeping?” She shivered as he circled the areola of her other breast. “I must have been pretty out of it.”
“I might have helped you along.” She arched a brow at him. He told her, “It was just a little beguilement. You needed to rest.”
“Without my clothes.” There he went, messing with her head again. Making note to self: they’ve got to discuss how she was not his personal Barbie doll to dress and undress whenever he felt like it.
“I needed to rest too,” he said in a bland voice. “And they were bothering me.”
She snorted out a laugh. Who knew this exotic, terrifying male would be so funny? She loved it, loved the surprise of him.
He traced her lips next. She got the feeling she was being stalked without ever having left the bed.
She took his finger in her mouth and sucked it, and set him on fire.
He pulled his finger out. Shadowed gold eyes flashed with ravenous heat. His head came down hard. He drove her into the pillow as he plunged into her mouth with a hard, hungry tongue. At the same time he cupped her between the legs, probed her damp sex and pushed two fingers deep inside her.
She groaned and clutched at his arm. His aggression pulled a helpless response out of her. She grew liquid and swollen, drenching his fingers. He growled and pushed his tongue and fingers into her in a simultaneous penetration. Her hips bucked against his hand.
She dragged her mouth away from his and gasped. “Wait . . . I don’t want . . .”
He hovered inches above her, the raptor waiting to plummet, while his thumb found and rubbed her clitoris. She moaned and pulled his hand harder against her. “You don’t want?” he murmured, giving her a ruthless smile.
She found his hard penis and grasped it. He hissed and pushed into her hand, pulsing against her palm. “I want to explore you too before you wreck me again.” She looked into his eyes, uncertain. He was so dominant. She didn’t have a clue what he might like. “Would you enjoy that?”
He paused and she watched him struggle with contrasting impulses. Then he pulled her hand off him and pinned it over her head. “I’d love it,” he whispered in her ear. “After we get you to just a little climax first.”
He pushed in deep with those long clever fingers and rubbed the heel of his palm against her, finding just the right spot. She jerked and struggled against his hold, pushing against the pressure, straining to find release. “Come inside me,” she coaxed.
“No,” he purred against her ear, drinking down every response. “Not yet. You come just like this, lover.”
“Damn it!” He was diabolical. The pressure built, and his fingers felt so fine as they stroked inside—God!—but she wanted him thick and hard and buried inside of her. She turned and bit his shoulder.
He laughed, a sexy, husky sound. He bent down to suck one of her nipples into his mouth, drawing on it and flicking it with his tongue while he worked her.
There it was, a climax burgeoning inside like a match flaring alight. She arched and gave him her sounds of pleasure. He left her nipple to brush his mouth over hers as she moaned, her inner muscles contracting. “That’s it, there it is,” he whispered against her lips. He eased rubbing the heel of his palm against her, bringing her down again with care. “Beautiful.”
They lay quiet a moment, breathing together.
Then she stirred and gave him a wicked smile. “You wanted to know why I said I wasn’t right in the head.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
She walked her fingers across his chest. “I kept having sexual fantasies of you at very inappropriate times.”
“Like when?” he asked, stroking her hip and down her thigh. He ran his fingers through the tangle of white-gold curls between her thighs, his touch delicate and light. He looked very interested.
She sighed in pleasure. How did he get so wise in all the ways to arouse her? “Like when you dropped out of the sky and sat on me. You looked like the wrath of God, and it scared me half to death. Then all I could think about was that blasted dream and how hot you were. It’s just not right to be scared and turned on all at the same time.”
“That’s all I could think about as well.” He lifted her hand and kissed the scab on her palm. “I meant to lay a trap for you with that dream. I trapped myself instead.”
“And then,” she whispered, eyes sparkling, “remember when you were chained up in the Goblin stronghold?”
“Not a memory that will soon fade,” he replied in a dry tone.
“It was terrible,” she said. “I felt awful, the cell was filthy and I was scared again. And there you were chained and spread out like a gourmet feast. In spite of everything, for a moment there the sight of you made my mouth water.”
His interest sharpened, became electric. “I’ve got to remember to add shackles to all the bedrooms.”
She chuckled and nestled closer. “It was just a fantasy. The real thing was pretty disturbing.”
“So, we’ll pretend.” He rolled onto his back and took hold of the bed rails above his head. The posture stretched the muscles of his arms and chest, accentuated his rib cage and hollowed his abdomen.
She stared at him heavy-lidded, her body tingling. Banked sensuality smoked in his gaze. His aroused body and his face were the sexiest things she had ever seen. It was even more arousing that he volunteered to lay supplicant before her, this big dangerous male.
She slid over him until they lay torso to torso, her breasts pressed against his chest. She bent her head and rubbed her open lips along his. She licked and kissed and nibbled. His breathing roughened. He nipped at her, trying to coax her down for a harder kiss, but she pulled away and slid down him.
She slid her open mouth along the bulges and hollows of his chest, kissing his breastbone and rubbing her nose in the sprinkle of dark crisp hair that arrowed down his long body to his groin. He shifted underneath her, stretching like a cat. She played with his dark, flat nipples, making them harden.
She was arousing herself as much as him. She reached down and took hold of his penis. He hissed and pushed his hips up. She looked down at her pale, glowing hand gripping him, her breathing erratic. He was beautifully contoured, his erection big and thick, the skin of the shaft and bulb of the head velvet soft. His testicles were drawn up tight underneath. She massaged them. They were heavy, voluptuous round globes.
He lifted his head to watch her fondle him, eyes glittering. He was all hard angles and edges. The muscles in his arms shook. She glanced at his hands fisted at the bed rails. They were white-knuckled.
“This is my game now. Don’t let go,” she warned him. She held his fierce gaze as she slid down his body. Whatever major issues or questions that lay unresolved between them, when it came to this they generated combustible magic together.
She crouched over him, lifted his erection, took the head in her mouth and suckled at him. He gave a short, sharp shout, his head
slamming back on the pillows. His hips left the bed as he pushed at her mouth.
She gripped his penis at the root with one hand, cupped his sac with the other and feasted. The taste and feel of him was intoxicating. She crooned as she worked to get him deeper, opening her throat muscles as wide as she could, pulling back slow and tight and then pushing to take him in deep again. Hunger spiraled out of control, wild and hot.
Their game forgotten, he gathered her hair in one fist and pumped in her mouth. He put the other hand between her legs and probed and fondled the wet, silken folds.
Then he pulled her hair, forcing her head away. She made a noise of complaint as his cock left her mouth. He yanked her up for a devouring, openmouthed kiss. He was shaking all over, and it made her crazy. He pulled her on top of him and she parted her legs to sit astride, curling over him and rubbing her sex on his erection as he continued to hold her by the hair, imprisoned for his assault.
Overcome with greed, she lifted up and positioned him so that his thick broad head breached her entrance. Then he took over, grabbed her by the hips and thrust all the way in to the root. His whole body clenched and he gave a shout.
She was making noise too, urgent animal sounds, shivering all over as her body adjusted to the heavy invading length. He found a rhythm, pistoning into her with escalating urgency, fingers digging into her soft white flesh.
She tried to brace herself any way that she could, elbows propped on his chest. His head was lifted so that he was nose to nose with her, face etched with sexual aggression, fierce lambent gaze fixed on hers. He bared his teeth at her.
His feral beauty sent her into a liquid meltdown. She stretched out her arms and pushed openhanded at the pillows, lips parted, reaching, reaching, and then she was overwhelmed with a shock of pleasure so intense as he impaled her, she writhed in orgasm.
He joined her with a harsh groan, pushing up and up as his climax spurted into her. They held tense for long moments. Her lungs worked as she tried to suck in some air. Her damn hair was all over the place. She pushed it out of her eyes in time to catch a glimpse of his face. He looked desperate, out of control.
He shook his head, muttering, “Not enough.” Holding her low at the hips with one arm to keep them joined, he flipped them so that she landed on her back on the mattress with him on top. He was still hard. He began to move again, sliding in and out of her juicy, tight sheath.
“Oh God, you’re going to kill me,” she groaned. He paused and searched her eyes. She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “You better not stop until you’re done. Remember, I can take any pace you can set, big guy.”
His face lit with a savage smile. Then he lost the smile, lost the words, lost everything to uncontrollable passion that swept her right along with him. He didn’t stop until he had spent all that he had.
Wrecked. He had wrecked her again. He took her so far and deep outside of herself, she came back changed in fundamental ways she didn’t understand. She made noises with him and did things she never had before, things she had never conceived of doing. She had never realized how the act of sex could be a total loss of all civilized behavior. He brought her face-to-face with the animal that lived inside her. She had nothing left to cling to, either inside of herself or outside in the rapid changes that had overcome her life. There was only him, the destroyer of her world, and she hung on to him with everything she had.
They lay together in a tangle of limbs, his head on her shoulder, as the morning light advanced across the ceiling. She might have dozed. She had lost count of her orgasms, let alone his. He pressed a kiss to her breast. He said, “I marked you up again.”
She yawned and tried to figure out how he sounded. Complex, that was the word, his voice filled with both regret and satisfaction. “You’ve got a few bite and scratch marks you didn’t have before too, big guy.”
He smiled against her skin. Regret fled and left pure male satisfaction the victor on the field. “That I do.”
A knock sounded on the door, and it opened to a faerie pushing a food cart into the room. “Good morning,” she piped.
Quicker than thought, Dragos yanked up the sheet and threw himself to cover her. He roared over his shoulder, “What are you doing!”
She threw the dampening spell on herself as fast as she could. Dragos looked murderous. She put a hand against his cheek, kissed him and peered over his shoulder.
The poor faerie turned dead white and looked like she was about to faint. She stammered, “I always—it never mattered—”
Pia said in a gentle voice, “What he means to say is, ‘Thank you very much for breakfast.’ And you didn’t do anything wrong. He’s not really mad at you. He just got surprised.” Underneath the covers, she pinched him hard. He grabbed her hand but didn’t contradict her. “Things are a little different right now, so maybe it’s a good idea to knock and wait next time until someone says you can come in.”
The faerie bobbed several times in frantic curtsies. “Of course! Of course! Thank you, my lady. I’ll—” She pointed at the door and bolted.
The door settled back into place. Pia looked at Dragos in bemusement. There were so many things that had just happened. She didn’t know what to make of it all or what to say. She stroked his face and waited until he calmed.
“She called me ‘my lady,’ ” she told him in a plaintive voice. “I don’t know who that is. I’m no lady.”
The last of his fury faded away to be replaced with a quick gleam. He peered under the sheet. “I can attest to that.”
“Ooh!” She smacked his shoulder.
They looked at each other, then burst out laughing.
He piled the pillows up, settled back against them and pulled her against his side. She put her head on his shoulder and tried to reach for her earlier drifting sense of peace. It proved to be a fugitive feeling and began to slip away.
He stroked his fingers through her hair. “You owe me a lock of hair,” he said.
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the realities of the morning. She asked, “How much do you want?”
“A lot,” he said, holding up a few strands so that they glinted in the light. Then he frowned. “Not too much.”
She started to smile. “Make up your mind. I can cut it short and you can have all of it, if you want.”
“Don’t you dare. I want just enough.”
“Oh, like that makes any sense.” She raised her head to give him a quizzical glance. He was scowling. She sighed. “Hold on.”
She padded naked into the dressing room, pulled her thigh-length pink robe from a hanger and belted it on. She dug through the dresser drawers that held her things, found her portable sewing kit and walked back into the bedroom. She sat cross-legged facing Dragos on the bed. He laced his hands behind his head, regarding her with interest.
She took the scissors from the kit, isolated some hair close to the scalp at the back of her head where the cut would be hidden and snipped it off. She held the lock up for his inspection. It was a good-sized piece, the width of her little finger and the full length of her hair.
“Perfect,” he said, eyes gleaming in satisfaction.
“Debt paid?” she asked.
“Debt paid.” He rubbed the ends between his fingers.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.
He frowned again. “I don’t know.”
“Here, I’ll braid it for you. Otherwise you’ll have it all over the place.”
He watched in fascination as she cut two lengths of gold thread almost the exact same color as her hair. Almost but not quite. It was the closest she could find in her sewing kit and wouldn’t be noticed at any distance, but the thread lacked the lustrous quality of her hair.
She put one piece of thread between her teeth. She wound the other thread several times around one end of the hair and tied it. She used a safety pin to pin that end to a pillow and with swift competence braided the lock. She said between her teeth, “You’re not going to
do some kind of black magic hoo-doo on me with this, are you?”
“Oh no,” he said, gaze on her fingers. “I just like the color.”
She smiled to herself, both warmed and weirded out by how they were acting with each other. It felt so natural, so right. There were so many reasons why it shouldn’t. She took the second length of thread to tie off the end of the braid.
Some foolish impulse made her offer, “I could tie it around your wrist if you like.”
She waited for him to tell her not to be stupid. Instead, to her surprise, he raised his eyebrows and said, “I would like that.”
He held out his right wrist. She wound the braid around it. Despite how thick his wrist was, the braid was long enough to go around it almost twice. She took more thread and worked on sewing the braid together. After she was sure she had it on secure, she tied it off and snipped the ends of the thread.
He held up his wrist and admired the pale gold gleam. He ran a finger around his wrist, feeling the soft bumps of the braid. The dark bronze of his skin seemed to make her hair gleam brighter.
“Dragos, am I a prisoner?” she asked. After weighing on her since last night, the question slipped out easily enough after all.
His eyes narrowed as he looked up. She kept her attention on putting things back in her sewing kit and willed her fingers not to shake. “No,” he said after a thoughtful moment. “Why do you ask?”
“The guards last night.” Relief had her offering him an unsteady smile.
“The guards are for your safety. When I’m not with you, they will be.” As she opened her mouth, he said, “That’s nonnegotiable.”
“But—”
His face hardened. “No arguing, Pia,” he said. “I am at war now. Until I bury Urien, he’s going to continue to be a serious danger. Whether he knew about you before or not is a moot point. After what happened on the plain, you have just become a major target.”