“I think that’s the sweetest thing you’ve said to me yet,” I said, smiling. His shoulders twitched. “And here I was worried that you were freaking out because I mentioned marriage.”
Kostya didn’t touch me as we reached the end of the alley, but he gestured for me to stay back while he peered up and down the street, obviously looking for signs of danger. With a short nod at me, we continued down the street.
“You expect to marry me?” he asked conversationally. Or as conversationally as you could while keeping a vigilant eye on everything and everyone surrounding you.
“Am I your mate?” I asked.
“Tch.”
“Uh-huh. Well, if you expect me to spend the rest of my life with you, then yes, we’re going to get married. I was brought up to believe that people who spend their lives together should be married, if only because it makes things nicer, legally.”
“It is a mortal convention. I am a dragon.”
“You look human, and I am human, so guess what? We’re getting married. I’m not saying we’ll have a big ceremony or anything, just—”
He held up a hand as we rounded a corner onto a busy street.
“Red dragons?” I whispered.
“No. Mimes.” We hurried onward, pausing only when Jim came barreling down the street, slobber flying.
He skidded to a stop in front of me, and said sotto voce, “Called Rene. He’ll meet us in the Tuileries. Gotta go walkies anyway.” He dashed off again, but not before confusing a little old lady in black with a tiny pug who stared first at Jim, then at me, and finally fainted dead away.
By the time we entered Aisling and Drake’s house, some half an hour later, I was just about done with the lecture. “And if you ever do that to me again—”
“I had to go! I can’t help it if you didn’t have any bags with you. I told you I was about to explode earlier, and I never did get to go because the red dragons dragged us to Abaddon and you wouldn’t let me go in the cell.”
“I’m not talking about the pooping incident, although goodness knows you didn’t have to do it right where everyone walks. I’m referring to you speaking where innocent old ladies hear you and almost keel over because they’re so freaked out at a talking dog. Hi, Suzanne. Rene, can you tell her hi for us? Oh, and Aisling, too.”
I waved as Aisling emerged from one of the downstairs rooms and was about to give Rene a message of thanks to pass along to her when Kostya suddenly scooped me up in his arms and, without a glance at anyone, stalked off to the door leading to the kitchen.
I looked at Kostya. His eyes were glittering with what I was coming to recognize as sexual interest, his jaw tight and his scowl firmly fixed in place. In other words, he looked like the Kostya version of a man who badly wanted to get it on with me.
“I guess your control isn’t going to stand a few minutes more while we make some plans with the ring?”
“No. I told you this is the way of dragons. I must claim you now.”
He nudged open the door to Suzanne’s bedroom, set me down, and closed the door, taking care to lock it before turning toward me and pulling off his shirt. “Undress.”
“Just like that? No foreplay? Not even a kiss and a quick fondle? Just take off your—Oooh.”
He dropped his pants and kicked them off, standing naked before me. I let my eyes do a little enjoyable wandering, my fingers already working on the buttons of my shirt.
“Do you need assistance?” he inquired politely, his fingers spasming slightly.
I was about to say no, when it occurred to me that there could be much fun in having him help me. I gave up on my buttons halfway down my shirt and fluttered my hands at the same time I offered a coy smile. “Why, yes, I think I do need some help. How very generous of you to offer. There are so many buttons on this shirt—”
The ripping noise that followed took me by surprise, but not as much as the fact that Kostya could get me out of my shirt and jeans and onto the bed without so much as ruffling my hair.
“Hey! That was one of my favorite shirts.” I eyed the remains of it as it fluttered to the floor. At least my jeans hadn’t been shredded off of me. “You could have simply unbuttoned it, you know.”
“No time,” he said, moving over me on the bed, the urgency in his eyes confirming his words. His hands and mouth seemed to be everywhere at once, little fires starting at the slightest touch—literal fires, ones that danced merrily along my skin until Kostya kissed his way past them. “I must claim you now.”
“I appreciate the fact that you’re so driven to sexual madness by my allure, but—just a little to left, please. Oh, yes, that’s it right there—but honestly, I think you could have let me have Rene thank Aisling first.”
He lifted his head from where he was kissing a fiery path across my belly. “Too much talking and not enough writhing in ecstasy. You will commence writhing now.”
“I don’t really like being commanded to—”
His fingers pulled aside my underwear and dove inside me.
I writhed in ecstasy.
“Holy cats in pajamas, Kostya!” Stars seemed to explode behind my eyes when he dipped his head down and breathed fire on all those sensitive, tingly parts of me that were even now clamoring for him. My underwear went flying, along with my bra, and as his fire twined around us, I gave myself up to the pleasure that I was ready to swear only he could bring.
He stopped just short of sending me over the edge, moving up my body, but gave way when I pushed on his shoulders until he yielded. The expression of surprise almost made me laugh when I quickly took advantage of the situation and straddled his hips.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, his eyes straying to my breasts. Both of his hands immediately took possession of them, an act that my breasts and I both commended.
“Being on top. I thought it would make a nice change.”
“I am wyvern!”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be on the bottom once in a while. Besides, it’s your turn to writhe in ecstasy.”
His expression turned smug. “It is unnatural for a wyvern to give up control like this. You may wish to please me, but you will not be success—”
I slid back to his knees and bent down to that part of him that had been poking me in the thigh.
“I feel obligated to point out,” I said after two minutes of laving him with my tongue, “that you are not only writhing in ecstasy, but you’re also moaning and you’ve shredded Suzanne’s sheets.”
He looked up, his eyes uncrossing. “You’re stopping? Now? Why are you stopping? You should continue.”
“Really?” I traced the long length of his penis, gently drawing my fingernails up the length of it. He bucked beneath me. “It seems to me that you’re pretty close to losing control, Mr. Wyvern. For one, your claws are out.”
He lifted a hand and looked at it. Sure enough, his fingers were black, with long, ivory claws. “That happens sometimes.”
“That’s why I asked if you really want me to continue—you seem perilously close to losing control. You sure you want me to go on?”
“Yes,” he said without thinking, then made an annoyed sound. “No. Perhaps. No, it is best if you do not use your mouth anymore. If you insist on being on top, then impale yourself on me. Then I will maintain control and can give you pleasure.”
“Bossy, bossy, bossy,” I said, moving up, making sure to rub his hard length between my breasts as I did so. “And for the record, you always give me pleasure.”
He moaned again, and he tried to pull me where he wanted me, which luckily was exactly where I wanted to be as well.
“How about you just lie back and let me set the pace?” I murmured, biting gently on one of his nipples.
“Wyverns do not give up control. It is in our natures to dominate. To the left just a little, Aoife.”
I shifted to the side, and bit his hip, licking away the sting. “Tell me what you like, Kostya.”
His eyes, which had been close
d while he writhed around beneath me, opened to show irritated arousal. “You’re questioning me? Now? When you insist on pleasuring me with your hands and your mouth and those breasts that should, by right, be in my mouth and hands? Now you insist on asking questions?”
“It’s called sharing, and yes, I’m asking you what you are thinking and feeling and what you enjoy me doing to your delicious body. Before you tell me that wyverns never answer questions, let me point out that you’ve driven me to this. Most men are quite happy to vocalize what they like and dislike, but I have to pry every feeling out of you. I blame PTSD.”
He stopped in mid-reach for my breasts. “What is that?”
“Post-traumatic stress disorder.”
His face went all outraged on me. “You think I have a disorder?”
“Calm down, it’s not like I’m calling you mental or anything. It just means that you suffered a lot at some traumatic event, and it’s shaped who you are today. Now, getting back to what you like, does this do anything for you?”
I swirled my tongue around his other nipple at the same time I reached down and fondled his noogies.
Both of his hands clutched at the sheets and his eyes flared with an unnatural light. I smiled to myself. “You know, it really is odd, but if you had told me that I wouldn’t be bothered at all by a man who goes all dragony when he’s sexually excited, I’d have told you that you were nutso-cuckoo. I mean, it’s just not normal, is it? And yet, it’s you, so it’s okay.”
Kostya cracked open one eye to glare at me. “Are you going to narrate this?”
“Yes, yes, I am. And you’re going to tell me what you like. It’s called sharing. Do you like it when I noogie-fondle?”
His brow wrinkled. “Noogie?”
I gave his testicles a gentle tug. “It’s my polite term. Do you find it quirky and charming?”
“No,” he said abruptly.
A little pang of pain shot through me.
He pulled me down until I lay flush on his chest, his hands warm on my butt. “I find you quirky and charming. Why are you not impaled upon me yet? You ask me what I like, and I like to be inside of you.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard to open up, was it?” I shifted, positioning him so that I could sink down and give us both the pleasure my body wept for. “All you had to do was just tell me—Oh, holy hallucinations, you’re bigger than before!”
I swear as I sank down on him that he was larger… and hotter. I did a little moaning of my own as he invaded me, pushing his way in to where my muscles could ripple around him.
“I am just the same as I have always been.” His eyes widened when I made a little swiveling move in order to accommodate his girth. “That!”
“Hmm? Seriously, did you get bigger when I wasn’t looking?”
“Do that again. You asked what I liked. I like that.” Little pricks of pain touched my hips as he urged me into repeating the movement. “Christos, yes!” I looked down. “Claws, Kostya. Oh, never mind, you can leave them out. It’s kind of arousing, to be honest.”
I sank down the last little bit until he was wholly enveloped in my heated embrace, and looked down at him. His eyes were a field of onyx with brilliant little flecks of mercury.
“Wow,” I said, my mind and body focused on his invasion. “You’re really there, aren’t you?”
“It is good,” he agreed. “You may be on top more often. But only if you begin to move. Do you need help? I will help.”
He urged me upward.
“I don’t need help, but I have to say, I like it when you do that. Oooh, and that, too.”
His hands had moved around to my back, leaving little trails of fire as he stroked a path up my spine. “I’m sorry I’m not bouncing up and down on you, but I swear you inflated. All right, I’m going to try a downward swoop. Are you ready?”
“I may well expire if you don’t, so yes,” he said, his entire body as taut as a bowstring, his eyes glittering, and his claws pricking softly on the flesh of my behind.
I sank back down on him, my back arching when he pulled me down enough that he could catch one of my breasts in his mouth.
And that was all it took. The second he blew fire on my breasts, my brain just seemed to kick into high gear, and I found myself riding him like a rented mule, his hips bucking beneath me when I found a rhythm that had us both mindless with pleasure. My muscles tightened around him when he gave a hoarse shout of purest joy. At that moment, I didn’t care that the others might hear us, didn’t care that I had bound myself to a man who carried more emotional scars than me, and wasn’t thinking at all of the wisdom of falling in love with a dragon in human form… I just knew that I was meant to be there, at that exact moment, and that Kostya was my future.
You said the L-word, my mind pointed out some time later, when Kostya had rolled us over so that I lay tucked partially beneath him, one of his legs thrown over mine, his even breath ruffling my hair. Are you so sure it’s not just an infatuation?
I smiled to myself even as those thoughts rattled around in my head. I loved the fact that Kostya was always grumpy, defensive, and had a secret vulnerable self that called to me.
I just loved him.
Fifteen
The détente, as I thought of it, was held in the hall of Aisling’s house.
“Aisling says that you have brought the payment that Drake demanded of Kostya for his help in freeing you?” Rene asked when Aisling came out of one of the ground-floor rooms. She smiled at me.
I waved and smiled back. She patted Jim on his head before he returned to my side and sat down.
“Payment?” I glanced back to the open door of the kitchen. Kostya lurked just inside of the door, out of the line of sight of the room where Drake likewise stood watching us through an open door. We had discovered that if the two men couldn’t see each other, they didn’t seem to mind relatively close proximity. “There is so much I could say about a brother that makes you pay for helping you… but I’ll save it for another time. I don’t have much money, Kostya. Do you have a check or something for me to give to your brother?”
An odd look passed over his face. “Oh. That. Er…”
“Why are you looking guilty? What’s happened?”
He straightened his shoulders and looked down his nose at me. “I am a wyvern. Whatever choices I make are best for my sept.”
“I’m not in your sept,” I couldn’t help but point out. Much as I wanted to force him to admit the obvious—that I was his mate and that he needed me—I knew that wasn’t going to be the way to start our life together.
He waved a dismissive hand. “That applies to all my decisions. I do whatever is for the best of all concerned.”
“Uh-huh.” I tipped my head to the side. “What did you promise Drake? My house that is no more? Jim? Me?”
He gave me a look that clearly said I should know better. “You tried to give Jim back already and cannot.”
“That’s just because I don’t know how, and Aisling couldn’t really explain what I needed to do. So if it’s not any of those, what did you off—Oh no, Kostya, you didn’t.”
He looked away, suddenly absorbed in a kitchen cabinet.
“Really? You told Drake you’d give him my magic ring?” I marched over to him and poked him twice on the chest. “It’s not yours to give away!”
“It is of great value, priceless to be exact. It would naturally appeal to Drake.”
“Whereas something trivial like me wouldn’t, you mean?” Now I was irritated with both Kostya and Drake. “Gee, talk about treating family like crap.”
The look Kostya gave me was priceless. “You are angry with me because I did not offer you to my brother?”
“Of course I’m not,” I snapped. “And stop being reasonable when I’ve got hurt feelings.”
“Aoife.” Kostya pulled me against his chest, rubbing his hips against me in an attempt to distract me that was pretty darned obvious. “That implies that you are not worthy of his high e
steem, and you are. Even if I shared women, and I do not, Drake knows I value you more than the ring, and thus when he asked for payment, he demanded only what I was willing to give up.”
I bit his chin. “All right, given that and the sentiments you expressed in the alley, I’m willing to move past hurt and into acceptance of the fact that you offered Drake something that isn’t really yours.”
“The ring is not yours either—it simply is content for you to be its caretaker for the moment,” Kostya warned.
“Right, but there’s one big problem with your plan that seems to have escaped you: Drake is just as much a cursed dragon as you are, which means that he won’t be able to use it.”
“We are both well aware of that fact.” Kostya looked up when Jim entered the room. “The possession he speaks of will occur once the ring has been used to break the curse. Until that time, it will be used for the purpose we most need it.”
“Hey, Eefs! Aisling says to ask you what’s the holdup, and if you and Slick are going to get busy, then to please take it to the bedroom, because she’s gonna be hungry and she can’t face the kitchen table if you guys are doing the nasty on it.”
“I really don’t like the idea of giving it up permanently,” I told Kostya, ignoring Jim. “Helping to end the curse is one thing, but to just hand it over to Drake… I suppose if that’s what it takes to get Jim and me out of hell—no, don’t say it, Abaddon—then I’m going to have to. But I don’t have to like it.”
“What?” Jim, sitting in the middle of the doorway, looked over his shoulder. “No, he’s got his hands on her boobs, though. I think they were playing sucky-face, but now Aoife is yammering at Slick about not sharing with others.”
“Jim, please stop—” I stopped, suddenly realizing something. “Are you talking to Aisling?”
“Yeah. She’s getting impatient with you taking so long.”
“Are you tattling to her about us?”
“Just keeping her up to date. She asked me to. She seems nice. Kinda emotional, but at least she’s not a space cadet like some people I could name.”