She tried to laugh. It came out husky and breathless. “What—what kind of discipline?”
“The kind that comes with restraint,” he said, his voice deepening.
Oh yay, he was going to tie her up? She loved that game. She almost clapped her hands, but then he stripped off his shirt and jacket, and the sight of his immense, muscled chest stole all of her IQ points again. Greedily she stroked her fingers over his hair-sprinkled skin, reveling in the taut, velvet-soft skin over iron muscles. They were so different from each other, so different, yet he pulled the deepest kind of responses out of her, and she wanted him all the time, so much so that it turned her inside out.
He eased her back down on the bed and came down beside her, his long, large body infinitely stronger than hers, a steady haven from all the ills that existed in the world.
His shadowed gold gaze flashed as he brought his mouth down to hers, touching her lips lightly. “I saw you standing in the middle of that forest fire with blood all over you, and the sight damn near pulled my heart out of my chest,” he said roughly against her lips. “And when you were talking to Gaeleval in a fucking dream, the top of my head damn near came off. Pia, you might just make me one of the happiest men alive, if you don’t kill me first.”
There were times when it just wasn’t possible to have a logical conversation. So instead of pointing out that none of those things were her fault, she said gently, “I’m sorry.” She fingered his silken short hair and stroked his face. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You always scare me, goddammit,” he growled. “I’ve faced monsters and demons and nightmares that most people have never even heard of, but you have always scared me the most. We might make a list of pretty words that we can call each other or use for our relationship, but I don’t feel pretty things for you. I feel things for you that are volcanic and dangerous, and I’m not safe at the best of times.”
She nestled her cheek against his bicep, watching his face as she listened. “What makes you think any of that might be bad?” she asked. “I didn’t fall in love or mate with a safe man, because I didn’t want to.”
He fell silent and looked at her with narrowed eyes. “What are you talking about?”
She stroked his face. “Living this lifestyle with you goes against everything I have ever been taught. I had to fight my instincts every step of the way to get here, and the only way I had the courage to do that was because of you. Because you’re the meanest, strongest, toughest son of a bitch I know, and if you decide to go after someone you are not going to stop until he’s both sorry and dead, and I mean all of that as a total heartfelt compliment.”
“I’ll be sure to take it that way.” He gave her a wry, sidelong look, but she could tell he was really listening.
She told him softly, “Sometimes the world is uncertain and it can be downright nasty, but I feel safe with you, and I trust you. And I do feel prettier things for you too—I love you, and I like you, and you make me laugh, and my God, the two of us generate so much heat together, somebody should slap a hazard warning on us.”
His chest moved in a silent laugh. “Truth.”
“But I think none of that would matter, if I couldn’t feel safe.” She tapped his nose until he lifted his head, and she could look deeply into his eyes. “That’s my bedrock and my bottom line. I know that you will protect me and the peanut. I don’t just have faith, and I don’t hope that you will. I know it. Dragos, I don’t think I knew what it felt like to be safe before I got together with you.” She smiled sadly as she thought of Calondir and Beluviel’s exquisite, soul-killing politeness toward each other then she eased them gently from her mind. “So all those volcanic and dangerous things you feel when you’re around me? Bring ’em on, buddy. The absolute worst thing you could do is feel indifferent to me.”
“That isn’t ever going to happen,” he whispered, circling her throat with one hand. “What I feel for you approaches the maniacal. There isn’t a single shred of indifference in any part of what I feel for you.”
“See why I’m such a happy girl?” she murmured. She wriggled against him, luxuriating in the sensation of his warm, bare chest. “Do we get to work on the discipline and restraint stuff now?”
“Absolutely,” he whispered. “My discipline, my self-restraint.”
Wait a minute. That wasn’t how she thought this was going to go. She tried to sit up, but he wouldn’t let her. Ooh, that was more like it.
He held her down by the neck, gently, gently, as he ran his hand along the sensitive curves and hollows of her body. Then he took her nipples in his mouth, one at a time, suckling at the plump, distended flesh, until flickers of invisible lightning danced across her body. Afterward, he nibbled his way all over her, biting at the tender flesh at the back of her knees, licking the base of her spine.
She couldn’t lie still. Her legs shifted restlessly, as an urgent, empty pulse started between her legs. But he wouldn’t touch her clitoris or come anywhere near the moist, fluted flesh of her sex. He touched her everywhere else instead, until she lost all self-control.
“Stop it,” she panted. “Stop teasing me.”
“No,” he told her with a cruel smile, until she screamed in his face.
“Just fuck me, dammit!”
Then it was as if she had laid a whip across him, he reacted so violently. He reared back and yanked her up and around, until she was on her hands and knees, and she was there ahead of him, as she reached one hand between her legs and ripped her own panties off.
He froze for a moment, then muttered, “That’s got to be one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen you do.”
“Shut up,” she sobbed, groping for his penis.
“Ease up, sugar,” he whispered. “Let me do it.”
She yanked a pillow to her and buried her face in it, trembling, as she felt his long, hard fingers probe at her tender, swollen flesh gently. He drew out more of her natural moisture, and there, there, she rocked against him as he rubbed the head of his cock against her, preparing her. Then he pressed into her, slick, hot and hard, hissing as she tightened her inner muscles around him. One final push and he was all the way home.
Her skin was damp, and she shivered all over. “You make me crazy,” she whimpered, rocking back against him as she rubbed her teary face in the linen. She didn’t know why making love often made her so weepy these days, unless it was her damn pregnancy hormones running amuck.
“Shh,” he whispered. He lowered himself down so that he covered her as completely as possible as he rocked inside of her. He rubbed his whiskery cheek against her back and pressed his lips against her shoulder blade. “I love you.”
She stilled and her head lifted. That was the second time he had said it, and instinctively, she knew that it wasn’t going to be something he said very often. She tried to look at him over her shoulder, but her damn hair was everywhere, and she could only see when he brushed the mass of it to one side for her.
And there he was, looking into her eyes with a completely wide-open, unbarriered gaze as he moved inside of her. He was one of the hardest creatures she had ever met, and yet for her, he set all of his hardness aside. When her climax came, it didn’t even feel physical it was so full of emotion.
I love you.
I love you, I love you.
After making love, they napped until the last of the afternoon melted away into evening.
When she woke up, she smiled as she curled her body along Dragos’s warm body and remembered the details of the day.
And that strange, wonderful dream with the peanut!
Liam. She loved that name.
Her stomach growled. Maybe she would sneak out and raid the fridge after all. At nine months, she was nowhere near the size of full-term, human pregnancies, but she was definitely beginning to feel ungainly. She rocked a little to get
some momentum going then rolled off the edge of the bed and onto her feet. She wanted another piece of that nomilicious lemon sponge cake.
Cake. Birthday.
She frowned.
Bam! The baby kicked again, harder than he had ever kicked before, and she doubled over as warm liquid gushed between her legs.
Bracing herself with one hand on the edge of the bed, she stared down at herself in bewilderment. Her legs, feet and the rug she was standing on were all soaked, and strangest of all, she felt more hugely swollen than she had ever felt before.
What had just happened?
She said, “Dragos?”
He took a deep breath and stretched. In a lazy, sleep gravelly voice, he asked, “What are you doing out of bed?”
She told him in a small voice, “I think I’m having the baby.”
No matter how diffidently she said the words, they still rocketed through the room like a thunderclap. For one split second Dragos remained unmoving. Then he surged off the bed and stared at her, gold eyes blazing.
She stared back. She had never seen such a wild expression on his hard-edged face before.
“What did you just say?” he asked.
“My water just broke,” she said.
“It can’t do that,” he told her. He sounded completely calm and looked entirely insane. “The baby isn’t supposed to come for at least another year. He’s too premature.”
“Apparently he disagrees.” A squeezing pain gripped her, along with panic, and she sank to her knees. Oh God, oh God. She sobbed, “He told me his name is Liam.”
Dragos crouched, and with an immense spring, he cleared the bed to land right beside her. Carefully he gathered her up in his arms and strode out of the room. “What do you mean, he told you his name was Liam?” he said. “He can’t talk. He’s a fetus. And there’s no one around for fucking miles. No Wyr doctor, no nurse. No neighbors. There’s nobody here, Pia.”
She breathed through the vise that gripped her around the middle and said between her teeth, “Yeah, I got that.”
He carried her to another bedroom, flipped the light on with his elbow and eased her gently down onto the bed. Then he leaned over her, stroking her hair back from her face. His hands were shaking. “I could call people and have them fly in,” he said roughly. “But you need a hospital. I’ll get you wrapped up and fly you out.”
Finally the viselike grip in her abdomen eased and she sucked in a deep breath. “Wait a minute,” she said, gripping him by the wrist. “We’re panicking. We need to calm down and think about this.” She looked down at herself and whimpered. “Why am I so big?”
He stared down at her, breathing heavily. Then he placed both his hands on her swollen belly and she gasped as he sent a spear of Power piercing into her. His gaze turned inward for a moment, and he said, “The baby’s shapeshifted. He’s in his human form now. I’m guessing he’s around seven pounds.”
She sagged back down against the pillows. “Oh, thank God.”
“He feels strong and healthy.” Dragos’s gold eyes were red rimmed and worried. “Is that all right?”
Her mind whirled from one thought to the next. Since she had never expected to be able to come into her full Wyr form, she knew rather more about human babies than most Wyr did.
The baby was now in his human form, and she was nine months pregnant. Liam was much too small to be born as a dragon baby, but in his human form, he appeared to be just right. And if she could give birth to him in his human form, it meant she didn’t need to have a C-section. As long as he stayed in his human form he would be fine, until his dragon form had matured enough for him to maintain it independently.
Don’t worry, Mom. Everything is going to be fine. I’ll make sure of it.
“Seven pounds is a little on the small size, but for a human baby, it’s good.” Her own gaze dampened. “It’s a really good size. It’s normal. I think everything’s going to be all right.”
Dragos expelled a pent-up breath and hung his head. He stroked her belly with both hands. He still had not stopped shaking. “Okay. That’s good. Do you want to get dressed before I take you to the hospital? I’ll still wrap you in plenty of blankets.”
She patted his shoulder as she calmed down. “We’re not going to the hospital.”
His head came up. “What?”
“I said we’re not going to go to the hospital,” she told him. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed herself to a sitting position. Wow, oh wow, did she feel ungainly. How did human women go through an entire month like this? “I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “And then I want to put on one of your T-shirts, and we’re going to have the baby right here.”
“Pia, no,” he said.
“Dragos, yes,” she told him. “Liam has surprised us, but he told me everything was going to be all right, and I believe him. Besides, I like it here. It’s peaceful and quiet, and I want to look out at the lake.”
“What do you mean, he told you, and you believe him?” Dragos roared, “He’s a fetus!”
She pointed to the door. “All the big voices go outside now.”
“PIA, GODDAMMIT!”
“I mean it, Dragos! It’s my pregnancy and my body, and I’m having the baby right here. Now, you can go outside and wait until it’s done, and you’ve got two hundred and fifty acres that you can rip to shreds if you have to.” She shook her finger at him. “But you do not come back inside until you can talk in a quiet voice. Do you hear me?”
He stared at her with his mouth open. Oh, she wished she had a photo of that look. Then his mouth snapped shut. “Okay,” he said, and glory be, he sounded marginally calmer and much more quiet. “It’s your pregnancy and your body, but you’re my mate—my wife—and that’s my son. I’m not going anywhere. Give me a few minutes to make a few phone calls, and then I’ll help you with the shower. I don’t want you to have one of those . . .” He rotated a hand at the wrist. “. . . One of those birthing spells . . .”
She raised her eyebrows. “Contractions?”
He snapped his fingers. “. . . Contractions, where you might run the risk of slipping and falling. You’ll wait for me to get back, do you understand?”
She smiled. “Yes, I’ll wait.”
He rushed out of the room and leaped downstairs to the ground floor, and she did wait for him, sort of. She could hear him snorting and seething on the phone as she went into the bathroom off the master bedroom, where she washed her face and brushed her teeth. She had to put down the toilet lid and sit as she waited through another contraction. Was her hair all right? Yes, it was clean enough. She had washed it just that morning.
From the doorway of the bathroom, Dragos said, “Good gods, you’re putting on makeup.”
He hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet. Even though she was in the middle of labor, his nude, muscled body was worth a moment of reverent silence.
“What?” she said, turning back to look at herself in the mirror and holding her lips stiff as she stroked on lipstick. “It’s our son’s birthday. I want to look nice.”
“Makeup.”
She noted that while he put emphasis on the word, he did not speak too loudly. She gave him a pointed look. “I could hear what you did downstairs. How many phone calls did you make? I lost track at ten.”
“Every one of those goddamn phone calls was necessary,” he growled.
They were going to have to do something about his swearing, as little pitchers grew big ears. Actually, they were going to have to do something about her swearing too.
She shrugged. “My makeup is necessary too.”
“Right.”
Despite what he said, his hands were gentle and patient as he helped her into the shower. She had been planning to sluice off quickly from the neck down and was thankful for his help whe
n another contraction hit in the middle of it. Gritting her teeth, she groaned and leaned on him, shaking, while warm water pattered against her back and swirled down her legs.
“Dr. Medina said to breathe into it,” he whispered into her hair as he held her, rubbing her back. “Are you all right? Do you need to sit down?”
She shook her head silently, pressing her cheek against his damp, bare skin. She was glad he had stopped shouting. She didn’t want to send him outside.
“Pia?” He angled his head, trying to look at her face. “Can you say something?”
“In a minute,” she muttered. “I’m a little busy.”
“Okay, darling,” he said gently. “Take your time.”
Two “I love yous” and one “darling.” She smiled and decided she would start her own collection of priceless jewels, only hers would be memories of everything he had ever said to her.
The warm water seemed to help. As soon as the contraction was over with, she washed quickly. In a few minutes she was clean and dry, and wearing one of his T-shirts that fell down to her knees. He had taken a moment to throw on clothes too, dressing in worn, soft jeans and another T-shirt.
“How do I look?” she asked, her face tilted up to him.
For some reason the silly question seemed to hit him much harder than it should have. He took his time looking at her, from her pinned-up hair and carefully made-up face to the voluminous T-shirt that gapped at the neck and arms. Then he gave her a slow smile that would never have the same kind of innocence in it that his son’s smile had in the dream.
But this one smile of Dragos’s had every bit as much of the brightness. Every bit as much, and it was all for her.
“You are the most beautiful thing in the world,” he said deeply. “How would you like to go downstairs to the family room and look out at the lake?”
“I would really love that,” she said, her face lighting up.
He carried her down the stairs and settled with her on the couch. She sat between his legs, with his arms wrapped around her. They looked out at the dark blue and silver moonlit lake.