The Man with the Dragon Tattoo

CAI lowered Ember and settled her on the bedsheets.

She caught herself with her hands and glanced around the bedroom of the penthouse. A half-open duffel bag rested on the luggage rack, one white shirt sleeve hanging out of it.

Cai unclipped his watch and tossed into the duffel bag while he pried his shoes off with his toes. He unbuttoned the next button of his dress shirt, exposing more of his tanned throat and the neckline of a white tee shirt.

Gauzy curtains wavered like pale fog over the walls and wide windows, and a giant bed took up most of the room. Four thick columns held a dark red canopy fringed with gold suspended above the bed, and in the center of the canopy—

Oh, Mistresses of Magic, was he serious?

—an enormous mirror was stuck to the canopy above her and reflected Ember sprawled on the bed, her dark blue business skirt suit and hourglass shape stark against the white sheets.

Ember raised her finger to point upward and asked Cai, “Is that—”

But he was already clambering onto the bed, bending the mattress as he crawled, his green eyes bright with laughter.

Ember lay back, giggling, as Cai scrambled, his hands and knees slipping on the sheets.

“You are so beautiful, Ember.” He kissed her, and she melted through her giggles. “From the moment I saw you in the HR office, I thought you were beautiful.” He kissed her again, his lips sucking at hers. “I am certain that I have never met another woman as wonderful as you.” He ducked his head and kissed her jaw below her ear. “I am going to make you scream my name.” He gently nibbled along her jaw, “I am going to make sure you never forget this afternoon,” kissed under her chin, “or this evening,” parted her blouse and teased his lips over the hollow of her throat and down her breastbone, “or this whole night until dawn tomorrow morning.”

She got to laughing at him because he was so earnest and yet he grinned up at her when he spoke. The green in his eyes glowed as he glanced up, his chin almost resting on her bosom.

She teased him, “All night, huh?”

“Oh, yes,” he assured her, his eyes still laughing. “And tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow, too. And maybe we’ll go shopping tomorrow afternoon and inspect the jewelry stores that should be running during the casino’s soft open. They need inspection. We’ll inspect them.” He paused, his eyebrows dipping, but he shook his head like he was shaking an odd thought out from between his ears. “But definitely tomorrow, too.”

“When am I supposed to take care of the sea serpents?”

“Who cares?” He ran his hand over the swell of her breasts and down her side where her waist nipped in. “They’ll survive. Dragons can go for days without food.”

“Can you?” She was still giggling at him.

“Yes, but we’ll order room service in an hour or so. We missed lunch, and I’m hungry.”

“Are you?” she asked.

“Oh, yes.” This time when he glanced up at her, he wasn’t laughing, but his eyes were twinkling, and the devilishness of his expression had rocketed off the charts. He slowly dropped a kiss on her blouse right over her belly button. “I am absolutely famished.”

“Oh!”

He tugged her blouse out of her waistband and shoved it up, planting his lips on her stomach. Ember arched at the contact of his lips on the flesh of her tummy, and she forgot to be self-conscious as his long fingers spread over her ribs. His warm breath puffed over her skin as he lipped her navel, and she smelled smoke.

Cai hurriedly patted the bed beside her and then rolled her hips away slightly, peering at her side. “You okay?”

“Oh, Goddesses, yes,” Ember said. “I’m fine. I’m okay. Yes.”

He continued patting the mattress beside her. “Sorry. I never do that. Premature conflagration, ha-ha-ha. I guess you can tell people we set the bed on fire. I’ll have to tell housekeeping to put the flame-retardant sheets on the bed. Jeez, it’s like I’m a randy teenager or something. I promise it won’t happen again. In the meantime, however—”

Cai dipped his head, and his amber and sunlit hair brushed her stomach as he tongued her belly again. His hands slipped up her sides and caressed her breasts, his thumbs slipping over her nips, first over the white lace of her bra, and then inside.

Ember stared at herself in the mirror above the bed. Her black hair splayed over the white pillow, and Cai lay halfway down her body. His white shirt on his broad back blazed as white as the sheets. Her legs were twisted together as if she didn’t want to open them, but she would have to get over that.

Cai looked over her tummy at her, catching her looking, and grinned.

She held onto his shoulders and explored the strong cords of his neck, her fingers slipping up through his silky hair as his hands and mouth sent delicious shivers over her skin. When she couldn’t handle the gasping anymore, and to her chagrin, she moaned, Cai glanced up from her tummy and over her bosom and then, with a wicked smile, crawled up to take her breasts in his mouth, sucking on the full peaks.

She did arch her back off the bed and closed her eyes to hide in darkness as the sensation of his mouth pulled pleasure from her. Ember clawed at his shirt, pulling it up. He helped her shuck it off over his head.

A dark tattoo of a dragon was emblazoned on his left side over his ribs as he stretched, tossing his shirts over the side of the bed. She’d gotten a peek at it when he’d been naked earlier, but it was absolutely glorious, dark and tribal and deeply inked into his skin.

It was true. Tattooed people look better naked.

Cai stood over her on his knees, grinning as he looked at her.

She spread her hands over his shoulders, feeling his smooth skin and sliding her palms over his round, hard muscles. Wow, flying did amazing things to musculature.

“This is beautiful,” he said, rubbing her lace bra strap between his fingers and taking her boob in his mouth again. “It looks so good on you, so sweet against your skin.”

She’d necked with guys who had gotten handsy, but those adolescent investigations hadn’t felt like this, not like his suction that drew tremors through her flesh and the sting of his teeth that coiled her so tightly inside that she cried out.

Cai whispered against her skin, “If you like that, you’re going to love this.”

Yes, finding a hot guy who knew what he was doing had been absolutely the right decision. That untutored fumbling by guys she’d been dating had been nothing compared to Cai Wyvern. If she hadn’t purposely separated love and sex in her head so that she could finally lose it, she might have thought she was in love with Cai Wyvern.

Or at least with his tongue.

His tongue wrapped around her nipples, curling and curving, stroking and pulling on them. When she slitted her eyes open and peeked just a little when he was moving from one to the other, his tongue seemed a little longer, a little pointier than the usual male tongue.

Maybe a little more—

—reptilian.

When he saw her peeking and his eyes met hers, his black pupils had become taller, more elongated, in his glorious, magical, fiery green eyes, almost pointed at the top and bottom like a cat, but she couldn’t see any more because he closed his eyes and dived to take her other breast into his mouth and suck on it until she was writhing under him.

Her hands curved without her meaning them to, and her fingers clutched his shoulders.

Cai bit the side of her neck a little harder, a spike of pain that made her roll toward him and wrap one of her legs around his while his heavy body pressed hers into the sheet, but he backed off and licked the side of her neck. The pain from the bite receded, even though she’d liked it a lot. He whispered, “Oops, we didn’t talk about that yet, so I can’t do that. I just nipped you a bit much, but it’s all healed up now. No venom. Not until we’ve talked about it.” He bit her again, a frisson of pain that would probably leave a mark but not as much as the last one. “But we will talk about it. I can hardly wait to watch you lose your mind when I do that.”

Her body longed for his. Her mind was reeling from his heady scent of smoke and spice and maleness that was making the deeply feminine part of her body crazy for him. When she opened her lips on the side of his neck, the rich taste of him filled her mouth—like the smoky sizzle of steak, the decadent richness of chocolate, and faint bits of salt—and she wound her body around his.

“Not quite yet, my sexy little witch. This first,” he whispered.

Ember really wanted to know what was first. “Please.”

“I like it when you say that,” he whispered as he slithered down her body, his hands on her thighs, and then her bare knees.

Maybe Ember should have worn pantyhose to her job interview, but she hadn’t. She was really glad she’d shaved her legs instead of wearing pants, though.

Cai’s hands brushed up her legs, sliding her skirt up her thighs. She twisted, trying to help where it was under her legs, and her skirt bunched around her hips.

Through the darkness of her closed eyelids, Ember heard Cai groan.

She peeked again.

He was examining her panties and running his finger over the silky edge and her thigh. He said, “White lace. I love white lace. I can’t tell you how much I love sweet, innocent, white lace.”

She stifled a worried eyebrow twitch. Did he know?

He looked up at her, his mouth still grinning but his green eyes sparkling and laser-sharp. “I cannot believe you were wearing these when you climbed over me. I wish I’d known, but I might have done something terribly naughty.”

“Like what?” she asked, her voice trembly.

“Touched you,” he said, his voice a throaty whisper. “Slipped my fingers under your skirt and inside these innocent little panties and stroked you.”

Ember was terrified and wished that he’d done it. That was why she’d climbed all over him, to try to get him interested in her. “Right there, in the ballroom?”

“Absolutely. I’ll do that anywhere, any time that I want to, or anything else that I want to do to you. I have certain rules when I’m with a woman. I think you’ll like them.”

Cai settled his hand on her knee. The weight of his hand pressed her leg to the side.

She almost didn’t move, but she slowly let her thighs part.

This was all uncharted territory.

He tilted his head, looking at her face. Afternoon sunlight played over his strong cheekbones. “Do you want to—resist?”

“No,” she said, though she kind of wondered what he meant. “I’m okay with this. I’m good.”

“Well, some other time. But our first time, I want to hear you say yes.” He lifted her heels, slipping her favorite black witch boots off her feet and tossing them over the side of the bed. “I want to hear you cry out my name.” He slid her panties down her legs, the white lace dragging over her skin, and watched the scrap of lace journey all the way to her toes before he tossed them aside. “I want to hear you scream, but the good way, this first time.”

He bent and kissed her stomach above her bunched-up skirt, then crawled backward. 

Okay, that seemed a little freaky, but he was talking about later.

And yet, she reconsidered a few things.

Maybe this encounter should be more than just one time, if he was up for it. Maybe she should spend a week or two with a man who knew what he was doing, not just one time.

Maybe she needed more than an initiation.

Maybe she needed an introduction into everything she’d been missing.

As she was monologuing all that in her head, Cai ducked, and his tongue swiped a long, slow, wet stroke over her bare folds.

Oh, wow.

His hands pressed her knees apart.

His tongue slipped deeper, opening her and exploring the sensitive, inner parts of her.

Nerves that she hadn’t known existed sang through her body. A deep thing right above her opening bloomed, and at the very top when he licked her there, slowly curling his tongue in sinuous spirals, that was new.

Ember arched her back and let Cai do anything he wanted because he obviously had skills that she hadn’t known were real. She threaded her fingers through the spider-silk strands of his hair while the pure pleasure shivered through her.

His tongue feathered over her, and she had the distinct image of a snake flicking its tongue before every thought in her head evaporated.

His huge hands held her hips as he kissed and sucked on her. Ember grabbed his shoulders, arching and stretching her neck as he took her with his mouth. He locked his lips over her and drove his tongue inside her and swirled it through her folds, sucking and mouthing her, until her body clamped down from the inside and then blasted apart, her mind careening on the blast front as wave after wave racked her body. He kept licking, holding her down and sucking on her, until he had rung every last bit of response from her.

Ember stared at her face in the mirror overhead, still stunned. Her mascara was running, and her eyes were bloodshot like she’d nearly had a stroke. Her body heaved as she gasped for air, and her hands flapped uselessly near his bare shoulders. “Cai.”

“Oh, I like it when you say my name like that.” He crawled up her body, trailing kisses up her belly and chest where her shirt was parted. “It sounds like you’re begging. I want to make you do that some more.”

“I can’t think.” She pressed her fist to her temple, and the crazy, exhausted lady in the mirror did the same thing. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to think again.”

Cai grabbed her and tumbled to the side, ending up on his back with her straddling him. “Sounds like I did my job right. If I keep doing it right, you might not be able to think for a few days.”

Yes, Ember was definitely staying with Cai for a proper introduction to this next phase of her life. This was going to be awesome. “I can hardly wait.”

“We should discuss birth control, but I am a dragon shifter.”

“Obviously.”

“Right, turning into a dragon was probably a dead giveaway, there. The important part is that dragon shifters are immune to most natural diseases, including all the venereal ones. We run too hot.”

“Yeah, I’d say you’re hot.” Ember would say that Cai Wyvern was damn scorching. She wanted to lick every square inch of his skin.

“And I can’t get you pregnant. We can only have a dragonling with a bound mate.”

“So, you have to tie somebody up?”

“No, I mean, if you wanted to. I’m certainly up for that. But as far as pregnancy goes, dragon shifters can only make baby dragons with a dragonmate, a person with whom they’ve mated and formed a mating bond. The out-of-wedlock pregnancy rate in the New Wales Dragon Den is exactly zero.”

Ember said, “I do not know what all this means, and I don’t know why you’re talking so much.”

“My point is that there are condoms in the drawer. I can’t get you pregnant, and I can’t give you anything that itches. Do you want me to use a condom or not?”

“Oh! I get it.” She nodded her head, her hair ruffling around her eyes as if she were totally an experienced woman who had the condom conversation all the time. “I’m on the Pill anyway, so no, you don’t need to use one.”

“Excellent.” He slid his hands up her arms, his sparkling green eyes practically glowing more brightly than the sun. “We should order lunch, but I can’t wait. Are you okay for another hour, say?”

“Yes. Let’s wait on lunch.” Her voice was breathy and stupid and she didn’t care. Her skin tingled where his hands were sliding on her upper arms and down her sides to her hips.

“I was hoping you’d—” Cai glanced above them at the mirror on the canopy of the bed, and his body stilled.

“Cai?” she asked.

His eyes widened, and the dragonish, glittering green fire of his irises flowed faster.

Ember touched his shoulder. “You okay?”

His lips parted, and he whispered, “No.”

He looked at her, staring with his eyes wide, as if he was seeing her for the first time.

She hadn’t worn a glamor. Had he been bespelled? Had she essentially raped a guy because he had thought she was someone else, or he had been muddled somehow? “Cai, are you all right?”

He opened his hands, releasing her arms, and pulled away.

She scrambled backward. “Did something happen? Is something different?”

He rolled off the bed and stumbled a few steps away, not looking back at her.

She grabbed the sheets and pulled them up to her chest where her blouse was gaping open. “What’s going on?”

Cai swiped his shirts off the floor and tried to jam his feet into his shoes but missed as he tried to run. “Ember, you stay as long as you please. Order some lunch from the room service menu if you want. I have an appointment I forgot about. It’s an important appointment. Really important. Horrendously important. So sorry, but I’ve got to jet.”

Ember clutched the sheets to her chest. “Did I do something wrong?”

He glanced back at her, looking her right in her eyes. “No, no. It’s not you at all. You’re the most beautiful, incredible, sexy, intelligent, gorgeous—” He stopped talking, and Ember could have sworn that his hands were shaking. “—You’re amazing. It’s me. It’s totally me. And it’s my appointment, the one I have to go to.” He grabbed his shoes off the floor and spun, but his eyes caught hers again. “Ember—”

“Yes?” She knew her eyes were too big. She knew that she looked like a cartoon lamb sitting there, but she might cry. “Yes, Cai?”

He stumbled and almost dropped the white shirt he held in his clenched fist. “You’re amazing, but I’m not. I’ll call you, but I’m going to be busy for a while. But—I’ll call you. Don’t call me.”

He staggered out of the bedroom and fled.

Jeez, Ember hadn’t caused a guy to flee before. The door hadn’t even closed right. He’d jerked it, and it had bounced off the frame.

Ember dragged the sheets off the bed with her and went over to close the door.

This was ridiculous.

She dropped the sheets, yanked her skirt down over her legs, and grabbed her panties off the floor.

So this was the walk of shame. That was an important part of being an adult, although they hadn’t actually done the deed. So, maybe this wasn’t the shame walk at all.

Once again, she was too inexperienced to know.

Ember grabbed her huge purse off the couch and stalked outside, buttoning her blouse as she walked. Like heck, she was going to sit around the penthouse and pine. She was going to march straight down to HR, finish that paperwork, and get paid for taking care of some hungry sea serpents for a month.

When she walked into the vestibule, still struggling with her purse and containing her boobs in her blouse, Cai was standing there, holding his shirt clutched to his bare chest and staring at the elevator doors, his fist resting on the doors like he had punched the elevator.

He glanced up and their eyes met. “Something’s wrong with it. I swear, something’s wrong with it.”

Then he ran for the stairwell.

That door clanged shut behind him.

Ember stepped back into the living room of the penthouse and let him get a good, long head start. She didn’t particularly want to see Cai again, either. The nerve of that guy, running away from her like that rather than talk to her. She might not be very sexually experienced, but even she knew that was rude.

Well, he’d said to order what she wanted from room service.

Suddenly, she was hungry.

Really damn hungry.

She picked up the phone.

When room service answered, Ember said, “I’d like three lobsters, the same of those twice-baked potatoes, a bucket of that salad with the shaved truffles on it, an entire chocolate cake, and a bottle of your most expensive champagne.”

Ember stopped and considered what she was doing.

And then she said, “Wait, I want to order a case of your most expensive champagne, and make it all to go.”