Chapter Nine

There was such a thing as too quiet.

Levi stared hard at the head of lettuce in the shopping cart. It was his turn to get the groceries for the mountain, even though he’d been gone for several days. Really, he’d come because hanging around in the mountain felt…loaded. Heavy. Because he couldn’t look at it like home anymore.

Even so, the kind of quiet where nothing happened wasn’t an easy quiet. It was more like seeing a massive tidal wave come at you long before you could hear it or see it.

Days lost. He could have been making a dent in that wall of dragonsteel Lyndi had built up around her heart. His mission had been a colossal waste of time. He’d never even picked up the trail of Shula’s mate. Tineen was a black dragon, which made that extra difficult. Best guess, they’d killed her.

Levi picked up a pineapple. Early in the season, but his nose told him the thing was ripe.

“You know what they say about men who buy a whole pineapple?”

He turned his head to find a human woman, a lovely blonde with legs worth a second glance, eyeing him with an amused smile and a bucket of innuendo.

“Can’t say that I have.”

“That they’re…available.”

“Is that what that means?” Levi held the pineapple out, cocking his head to stare at it. What new odd human ritual was this?

“Mm-hmm,” the blonde murmured. “Interested?”

In the last twenty years, human women had become much more aggressive. Not that he had a problem with it. Just interesting to see the changes over time.

With a reluctant grin, he put the pineapple back. She was lovely but did nothing for him. “Sorry,” he said.

She shrugged, not even a tiny bit embarrassed and good for her. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

He forgot her as soon as she scooted away, eyeing the other fruit on offer. What signal did a bunch of bananas send?

“If you’d taken her up on the offer, I would’ve walked out and never let you touch me again.”

Levi stilled at the sound of Lyndi’s voice directly behind him. Was he hearing things now? Wishful thinking. Or…

Slowly he turned to find her watching with her dark eyes and serious little face. She wore her usual jeans and tank top. Flip-flops on her feet. And she’d never looked so damn beautiful.

“Gods know I could have used the release,” he said slowly. Then grinned. “But only one woman does it for me and she keeps insisting that there’s no future for us.”

She canted her head, lips still flatly serious but twitching. “I wonder why?”

He stepped closer, inhaling her. How had she got so near him without his knowing, anyway? “I think she’s scared.”

She paused, her gaze sliding away from his, then shrugged, neither a yes nor a no. “What would you do if she said she needed to scratch an itch?”

So he wasn’t the only one whose body was clamoring for another go. Good. Except he wanted more from Lyndi than to be her temporary fuck buddy. He grappled with an urge to take her by the arms and give her a shake.

“I’d say I want more,” he murmured, low enough that even with her enhanced hearing she had to step closer to catch the words.

She blinked. A flicker of vulnerability that normally she wouldn’t allow him to see, which told him a lot. “More than one night?”

“More than just the nights.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “As in afternoon delight?”

“As in not just sex.”

She swallowed. “Sex is all I have to offer. Until you’re gone. We already talked about this.”

That urge to shake her had him clenching his hands. Didn’t she know she was everything he wanted, exactly as she was?

“My leaving is just an excuse. With technology these days, long distance isn’t impossible.” Dammit, why couldn’t she see it? “This could be…” Special. Amazing. Earth-shattering. “Good between us. How about we see where it goes. No pressure. No plans. But also no excuses to say no.”

Mate, his dragon rumbled in his head.

The animal side of him had been getting louder and grumpier with each passing day. Patience, Levi thought back.

He got a growl in return, but the dragon backed off.

“Temporary sex is all that’s on the table.” Lyndi’s chin tipped up, so independent, so damn familiar. What would she do if he kissed her every time she did that?

Worth a try. He leaned forward, watching her eyes widen until he placed a sweet kiss just at the edge of her jaw, inhaling her springtime scent—fresh grass and sun—and enjoying the small hitch in her breathing, puffing against his neck.

He pulled back, smiling at the wary glance she cast about her. “What do you want, Lyndi?”

“I don’t know.” The words were almost wrung from her, such a cloud of confusion in her eyes, he ached for her.

“Then we take it slow.”

She huffed, hunching over crossed arms. “I was trying to do that with just the fucking.”

An outraged gasp had them both looking over at a human woman with a toddler in her cart. She covered the child’s ears, and, with a glare for both of them, strolled quickly away.

“Oops,” Lyndi snickered as she shifted her gaze dancing with humor back to him, daring him to join in on her irreverent fun. “Humans. So easily offended, you’d think they were dragon shifters.”

All he’d heard was just the fucking. He didn’t want to start there, but it seemed to be the only place she could, and he was running out of time. He left in two days.

Two damn days.

“Come on.” Leaving his half-full cart in the middle of the produce section, he grabbed her by the wrist and came damn close to dragging her out of the store, her shorter legs moving at almost a run to keep up.

But she didn’t pull away or try to stop. “Where are we going?”

He opened the passenger side door of the truck and settled her inside in grim silence. Still not saying a word, he got in the driver’s side, started the truck with a low rumble of the engine, and put it into gear.

“Where are we—”

“My cabin,” he said without turning his head to look at her.

Lyndi said nothing to that. But she didn’t protest, either.

“Just fucking…” He reached across the console between them and took her hand in his, needing the contact more than he was willing to admit. Almost like trying to ensure she didn’t disappear. “Tell me no now if you’re not sure.”

She tipped up her chin again, lips buttoned tight, and he gave her a slow smile, satisfaction washing through him, laying him bare to sheer, building need.

He hit the gas.

Some cabins, like Finn’s, could only be reached from the air. Levi’s had a private road because he’d bought it from a human family who didn’t want to deal with the regular upkeep. Each roll of the tires down the bumpy gravel only jarred his heavy erection, growing harder and thicker with each passing second. He and Lyndi didn’t tend to be the silent types, and, not for the first time, he wondered what the hell she was thinking.

Most likely, she was overthinking her way out of this.

He pulled up behind the cabin, the front door facing away from the drive, out into the woods and a gorgeous view of a small pond and the rolling Sierra Nevada mountains. Still in silence, he helped Lyndi out and took her by the hand again, not only because he needed to touch her, but also because this moment felt bigger than what it appeared to be. Like the day he’d been given his commission as an enforcer.

He hadn’t expected that then, either.

Lyndi had been here before, of course. All the team had. For fun, grilling out, smores around a campfire on chilly autumn nights, that kind of thing. So he didn’t think much of it as he pulled her inside the unlocked cabin.

Only she paused at the threshold.

“I always did love this place,” she murmured. “Something about it reminds me of an oasis.” She turned to him, a blush rising in her cheeks.

Levi brushed his thumb over the fluttering pulse point at her wrist. “I bought it with that in mind.”

The natural pine siding, trimmed in green that almost looked like peat moss, blended the house in with the surrounding trees. The same natural shiplap covered the walls and ceilings, along with stonework around the fireplace and a wall in the kitchen. Smaller than most of the other houses the guys owned, it only had one bedroom taking up the entire upstairs loft area, but also a porch with a creaky swing that faced the pond, and comfy second-hand furniture you could put your feet up on, and no technology. Silence and peace in a perfect escape.

Levi took one step up the steep and narrow stairs to the bedroom, tugging her up with him, but he paused and turned. “Tell me you want this.”

She stared at his face for a long, long second, then twisted her hand to lace their fingers together, skin soft against his, hand delicate in his larger one, and raised dark eyes flickering with red sparks. “I want this.”

A start. He’d take every inch she was willing to give him.

…

Given the way last time had gone down, Lyndi expected to be hustled up the stairs, stripped, and fucked, in short glorious order.

Instead, he pulled her past him on the stairs to situate her two steps above him, putting her lips right at his level, and proceeded to drug her mind with slow, deep kisses that lasted ages and only stoked the embers lit inside her by that silent drive. Taking his time, Levi explored her body with his hands, over her clothes, but the way he did it struck a tender chord, an answering strum from her heartstrings.

Soft brushes of touch followed by a harsher grip as though he struggled to keep his own needs under control.

He took his time, testing the weight of her breasts in the palms of his large hands, spanning the dip of her waist, the roll over her hips, helping her grind against him as he lifted one of her legs up and around his. Then dropping that leg back down so he could slowly strip off her tank top, kissing each exposed inch of skin as he went, dropping sweet kisses on her collarbone, her hips, her shoulders, stoking not only the ache at her core but the one in her heart.

Then up one step.

His shirt came off next, and he let her explore, hands fisted in her hair as she learned each groove, each flat, each spot that made him shudder. Especially when she used the tip of her tongue. With a naughty thought in her head, she circled his flat nipple with her tongue, then bit lightly and tugged, and his grip in her hair tightened painfully as he groaned.

“The things you do to me—” He bit off the rest of his words as she tugged again.

She grinned to herself. So she wasn’t the only one who liked an edge of pain with the pleasure.

One more step up and he slowly lifted her arms above her head to pin them against the wall with one hand, while the other dispensed with her bra. He paid her back for that nip with denial. Touching every part of her breasts except the sensitized tips until she was panting in little bursts. Only then did he put his mouth to her. She held her breath pushing into his tongue and waiting for the sting of—

Fuck. He bit harder than she had, but still playful. Need soaked her panties.

“Amazing,” he said between soft kisses. “Stubborn.” Another kiss. “Glorious.”

“What are you doing?” she panted.

“Cataloging my favorite qualities.”

Her heart tumbled over itself at that. He loved that she was stubborn?

Up another step, and he eased her out of her jeans so slowly, she kept plucking at his hands, urgency building in her, only to have hers lightly slapped away. Then he’d pause and nuzzle a small patch of exposed skin. Enough to have her humming with frustration.

“A fighter,” he said, continuing his list.

And damned if his words and taking their time wasn’t switching on a different light inside her. One where she felt…cherished. Not just a convenient vagina. As though getting to know each other’s bodies on a more intimate level, each nuance and detail, what made her sigh and what made him groan, was more important than the prize at the end.

By the time they reached the last two steps, he had them both naked and heaving.

But he didn’t take her up into his bedroom. Instead he sat her on the top step, hands at her hips, scooting her until she rested at the edge, then pushed her knees wide. Heat flared across her cheekbones as he took a long, lingering look.

“Your heart for your boys,” he said. “But maybe we shouldn’t bring them into this just now.”

He grinned, golden sparks shooting at her, and she’d swear absorbing into her blood, adding to the rush of heat. Gods, when he smiled at her that way, she might do anything he ever asked.

“You’d better hold on for this,” he said, voice a silken tumble of sound.

The banisters were too far apart for her. “Hold on to what?” she asked as he dipped his head between her legs.

“Me.” She heard the smile in his voice a split second before the crackling sound of fire alerted her to what was about to happen.

Then heat.

He blew a stream across her already throbbing clit, golden flames licking at her slick entrance. Her head dropped back and with one hand behind her, bracing her upright, she grabbed onto his head with her other hand, his hair soft against her fingers, the sensation only adding to the pleasure.

She expected him to stop the flames before he followed up with his mouth.

He didn’t.

Instead, fire still unfurling over her, he lashed her with his flame-heated tongue. Pressing, tugging, stroking.

Pressure at her entrance, just as hot, and two fingers slid inside her. But he didn’t just pump. He stretched her, and twisted, and while his fingers were working that magic, and his tongue devastating her, and the fire adding to the burn, she thought that was the most she could bear, mewling at the torrent of sensations.

Then he did something with his thumb, pressing up and through her folds and steady at the base of her clit, lifting that bundle of nerves so he could suck.

Once. Twice.

On the third harsh drag, he tripped an orgasm that slammed through her like wildfire, only he didn’t let up and all she could do was hold on for the ride as he milked every last shudder from her body.

With a final cry, she went limp against the floor, the hand behind her no longer holding her upright.

“I’ll add the way you come for me to the list,” he murmured in a self-satisfied voice.

If she’d had enough energy, she would’ve smacked him. Vaguely she was aware of strong arms scooping her up against a solid chest. She floated through into his bedroom. “I didn’t know we could hold a steady stream of fire and use our mouth and tongue at the same time,” she murmured drowsily against his neck.

His low chuckle reverberated against her. “I’ll show you how, and you can return the favor.”

The sudden image of doing just that had her smiling secretly. What sounds could she drag from his body? Already recovering, thanks to that accelerated healing which meant most dragon shifters could spend a lot of time getting off if they wanted to, her body thrummed with energy that image gave her. That and something more. A giddiness that she hadn’t experienced since maybe the first time she’d shifted. Needing a place to redirect it, she bit down on his bicep.

Just a playful nip.

Levi jerked with a grunt. “Don’t do that unless you want payback in kind.”

The dark slide of his voice, his dragon so near the surface, sent a shiver through her. “Oh? And where would you like to bite me?”

“Everywhere.”

Like creatures in the wild, other predatory shifters like wolves often bit when they claimed a mate, or to mark their territory. Because of their unique mating marks, dragons didn’t do that as much. But the instinct was still there. Just buried.

With a wicked wiggle, she sunk her teeth into him again, then licked the spot, liking the red welts that showed. Yeah. This marking thing was satisfying in the strangest way.

“That’s it.” He tumbled her forward.

With a squeal, she sailed through the air to bounce across the bed, still neatly made with a red and black plaid quilt. In a flash, he pinned her with the bulk of his body and bit down on her arm in the same spot she’d done to him. Only he wasn’t finished. He nuzzled his way across to her breast, stopping to suck on her nipple once, bowing her back off the bed as she chased his mouth, then released her and bit the softer underside.

A sting of pain…followed by heat…followed by a rush of need.

Lyndi moaned and felt his smile against the softer skin of her belly as he nuzzled down to the curls at the juncture of her thighs where he paused to tease with his tongue just long enough to get her hips moving before he sank his teeth into the flesh of her inner thigh.

Lyndi jackknifed with the sensation. More heat. More rush. Only to squeal again as he flipped her to her stomach. Hands explored the backs of her thighs, the globes of her ass, then, as he slipped a finger inside her, he bit again, marking her right cheek, pumping that finger that wasn’t nearly enough through the sting.

A telltale tingle started to gather, and she whimpered. And somehow he must’ve heard in the sound how close she was. Because she found her ass hitched up higher, knees spread wide and a hard cock pressing at her entrance.

She stiffened. “Not from beh—”

He wrapped a hand in her hair and tipped her head so that she had to go down on one elbow.

“Look at me.”

She obeyed, all instinct and wanton need, to encounter molten copper eyes in a beautifully harsh face. The slash of his cheekbones flushed, straight eyebrows drawn together in a fierce frown of command. His gaze ate her up, and suddenly she had an idea of what he was seeing. Her splayed for him, vulnerable and open, her hair a riot of black, spilling over her back, mouth parted and panting, eyes lit red with her fire, and staring at him as he controlled her pleasure.

“This will be anything but impersonal.” A growl had entered his voice, man and dragon claiming her as one.

Her dragon pushed forward, rippling under her skin, joining them so completely that Lyndi wasn’t even sure she wasn’t shimmering with the change.

“Do you trust me?” he asked. Demanded.

“Yes.” Her voice wasn’t her own but her dragon’s, smoky and dark.

Fierce satisfaction edged the smile that stretched his lips as he pushed into her from behind, stretching her body with that now familiar searing burn. But the angle this time…fuck.

She might just come from this one slow slide.

Pushing back into him, she shuddered as her body took every thick inch, straining around him, so full of him she felt whole. With every sensation, every movement, his gaze held hers mesmerized.

“Don’t take your gaze away, min eneste,” he said.

She didn’t want to, even if she could. Expression taut, he pulled out just as slowly, then pumped into her, hard and fast, pushing her forward on her elbow. His cock dragged along every beautiful nerve, the angle sending her into a deeper blissful state.

And again, the slow drag out, hard and fast in. He set a pace that let her glide with him, lost in the waves, giving in to his control and letting him gift her pleasure in return. He kept that up, pace increasing with the rising tide of need, cock stretching her more with each pump until he possessed her body, inside and out.

With a grunt that almost sounded like pain, he swelled inside her, turning thicker and longer with each stroke if that was possible.

“Do you feel what you’re doing to me?” he demanded.

She was too far gone to answer, just feeling.

“Do you feel how I want you?”

Every touch, every look, had worshipped her, made her feel special.

“Answer me.”

“Yes,” she groaned.

His eyes flashed dragon, slitted and gold, and so damn possessive she melted from the inside. He thickened inside her channel.

“I want you.”

Oh, gods.

He kept pumping, holding her gaze steady with his, not letting her look away.

“I want you, Lyndi,” he insisted. “I want everything about you. Even when you fight me.”

She swallowed, emotion blending with the clamoring of her body and upending her world.

“I want to make you mine in no uncertain terms,” he growled. “And I want to fill you with my seed and put a baby in your belly.”

To make a baby, both partners had to will it into existence as they coupled. Only she was sterile. It was the most painful thing about her existence, and hearing that from him should have hurt. Instead, maybe because of the way he said it, the words only ignited the same wish inside her. And, for the first time maybe ever, she let go and just let herself want.

“Yes.” The word punched from her. “Gods, yes. Fill me up.”

Without more warning than that, she bore down on him as a second orgasm ripped through her body, sending shockwaves through her so hard that her vision went black then exploded with color.

With a roar, Levi released inside her, the heat of his seed only sending more waves of pure, unadulterated pleasure through her. Together, gazes locked, bodies locked, she took him over and over as they both drained the pleasure from their bodies until finally, in sync, they slowed, calmed, and collapsed together.

Gods, if only…

A ripple of shock unsettled her. What was she thinking, even imagining a child? Of picturing her belly swollen with the baby Levi made with her. A wish that should put the fear of death into her.

Only she was too blissed out to worry right this second. She’d worry later. In a wonderful, limpid world of pure contentment, she was vaguely aware of him sliding from her body only to press a soft kiss to the bite mark on her backside. He rolled her over and placed another to the one on her thigh, then her breast, as he crawled up her body, then her arm, before he lay on his side and eased her into him, pulling the covers that he’d somehow worked out from under her over their bodies.

She opened her eyes and turned her head to him, absorbing him. “Is that something you want?” she asked quietly. “A child?”

Sadness darkened his golden eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I could just see it so…clearly.”

“But is that what you want?” she pressed, heart turning heavier by the second.

He paused, throat working as though trying to swallow back the truth. “Yes,” he said slowly. “But I want you more. Don’t run away from me again like you did at Drake’s wedding.”

Lyndi bit her lip. “I didn’t want to run away then,” she owned up. “I had to. Us being together…it’s not fair to you. I didn’t want to ruin a future you could have if I’d never come along.”

“Isn’t that my decision?”

She closed her eyes but didn’t turn away, instead burrowing into him. Because this hurt maybe more than even she’d expected it to, and he was her only refuge.

Against her, he took a big, shuddering breath.

“Rest, min eneste,” he whispered, lips at her temple.

She wanted to ask him what those words meant but couldn’t summon the energy to form the words, eyes drifting closed.