Chapter Three

She’d always thought it would be her. That she would have to leave. That she’d be “assigned” a mate and forced to go off and start a new life, back in Everest most likely, where the High King needed her to politically tie someone down or lift them up. Most likely the latter. Only another red dragon would do for the King of the Red Clan’s cousin. But never this. Never Levi going to fight.

The news had hit her with all the subtlety of an atomic bomb, and any control she’d had over her reactions to him had flown right out the damn window like shattered glass. She knew they had no time, no future. But they could have this. This one moment together.

Lyndi didn’t try to control her racing heart, didn’t want to, even though she knew Levi would be able to hear it with ease. She wanted him to. Wanted him to know that what he was doing was turning her on, because she’d never allowed herself to be that free with him. Not ever.

He wanted to be in charge?

She shouldn’t be surprised. He was always trying to boss her around. But out there, that annoyed the shit out of her. In here, damned if surrender wasn’t exactly what she wanted to give him. She spent her days proving herself, fighting to be heard, making tough decisions, guiding her boys, and generally being the adult who cleaned up the mess behind everyone.

To be able to let go and let him determine her pleasure and his…

They were still a complicated mess she didn’t want to contemplate, with a time limit now, and he tended to frustrate the hell out of her, but one thing was for certain…she knew he’d take care of her. Implicitly.

Lyndi took in his expression—intense, blazing, with an edge to it that whispered of danger and sent wet, silky heat dripping from between her legs. Like she’d unleashed the animal within him.

Holy hells. Where had this Levi come from?

Her dragon purred inside her head, a guttural sound she’d never made before.

Quivering with craving, hardly able to keep her legs under her, she stood before him, unashamedly naked, reveling in the way he watched her, the slash of color across his cheekbones telling her he liked what she was offering. With slow, deliberate moves, never taking his eyes from hers, he stripped the rest of his clothes from his body and she had to hold in a whimper.

When humans carved images of the gods into marble and bronze, this was what they’d been trying to capture. Every part of him—every ridge of muscle, every line, every hard plane—so damn flagrantly male.

Beautiful.

For once, instead of the race of challenge in her blood, Lyndi gloried in her femininity. She was designed for him. Even his size… Her gaze strayed to the jut of his cock, swollen and turgid, golden hair curling around the base. Some women might consider Levi intimidating.

Too big. Too hard. Too broad.

But she wanted to feel the burn as he stretched her. Filled her. Fuck. She might just spontaneously orgasm from a simple look if he took much longer.

Still he didn’t come to her.

“Touch yourself.”

Her eyes went wide as a knee-jerk protest at the command in his voice kicked in for a heartbeat, no doubt sending red sparks into her eyes for him to see. She opened her mouth as though to argue, then closed it again as the image of surrendering to him here had her pulsating with a different kind of need.

Wild. Untethered. Where he was the rock she could break herself over and be swept away down the river.

She swiped the tip of her tongue over her plump bottom lip. “Where?” she asked. Was that her voice? All husky, pure sex.

The way he tensed, she knew he heard it, too. Heard it and liked it, his breathing increasing.

“Your breasts.” A command. Low. Immediate. Compelling.

Without hesitation her hands slid up her body to cup petite breasts and pluck at her dusky-hued nipples which hardened more under her touch, the perfect size to suck. Gods she wanted his mouth on them. His fingers. His teeth. She plucked at the tips roughly.

Levi grunted, but still he held himself back.

He wrapped his hand around his cock, and she dropped her gaze to watch with greedy interest as he gave it a brutal squeeze, turning the head purple and swollen in his grip.

Her insides fluttered, spasming in stark reaction. Unconsciously, her lips parted as she pictured taking that thick shaft and sucking on it until he shot hot spurts down her throat.

“Fuck, Lyndi.” He released himself and strode to her, crossing the room quickly, standing close enough that his heat mingled with her own, but still he didn’t touch. “I intend to take all goddamn day, but not if you keep looking at me like you want me to—”

He cut himself off with a strangled sound and she jerked her gaze to his.

“You do want me to,” he murmured.

To fill her throat with his cock until black spots danced in front of her eyes? Hell, yes. But how could he see that in her eyes when the man had no clue why she was always angry with him otherwise?

Suddenly Levi grinned, though there was no humor in it. More like the dragon baring his teeth in anticipation of prey, tempered by a tenderness that about took her to her knees. His pupils dilated, black voids in the center of copper-colored flames so intense, they could light the room on their own.

“Show me.”

Immediately, she dropped to kneel before him, her head swimming with the heady feeling of not having to decide, just act. Rather than play it safe by wrapping her hand around the base of his cock as a buffer, she grabbed him by the hips and slid her mouth over his length, lips stretching with his girth. Determined, she pushed forward, opening her throat and letting him lodge there, cutting off her air.

His hands speared through her hair, fisting the strands, the slight sting anchoring her as he held her there, dick throbbing in her throat, the oxygen cut off making each pound of her heart feel fat and heavy. Then he pulled back, and she gasped for air, the sudden rush just as much of a turn-on, lighting up nerve endings all over her body, before he filled her up again. Three more times he did this, slow, stretching, filling, and holding just long enough, until she was drifting in a hazy world of sensation even as her entire body throbbed and trembled.

He swelled even larger, and she whimpered with the knowledge that she had done that to him.

With a curse, he pulled out of her mouth. “Not yet.”

Then he was standing her up and positioning her. At first, still floating in that sensual, sexual world, she didn’t pay much attention, until silk wrapped around her wrist and tightened. Turning her head, she discovered the rope used to draw back the curtains of her bed was looped around her, crimson against her skin. Levi moved to her other side. “Give me your hand.”

Without hesitation, excitement fizzing through the languid, hazy parts of her to set her body buzzing, she did as he ordered, and the other tie was slipped around her wrist.

“Feet apart,” came the next harsh-voiced order.

She moved.

“More.”

She widened her stance until she stood before him, legs spread, arms out, at his complete and total mercy.

“Good.” He stepped closer, lips hovering over hers but not touching. “The things I’m going to do with you…”

He brushed the back of one hand across her sensitized nipples, enticing, but not enough.

The word more trembled on her lips, but she held back, waiting to see what he’d do next.

What he did was touch her. Everywhere.

Everywhere but where she wanted. Soft, gentle caresses over every inch of her body—a brush over her shoulders, feathered across her collarbone, kisses to her fingertips, smoothing his big hands down her thighs and back up her calves to the spot at the back of her knees that sent her wobbly. As though he were memorizing her, worshipping her.

His warm breath followed, swirling against her skin, hovering over where she wanted to be touched, over breasts, nipples, over the curls at the juncture of her legs. Teasing bastard.

“More,” she pleaded, eventually unable to keep the word inside.

He stopped what he was doing, leaving his hands against her hips, the heat like a brand, and raised his gaze to hers.

“I’ll give you everything,” he promised, eyes serious and almost…worried. “But I don’t know your boundaries yet.”

Boundaries? None. Take me hard and fast.

“If I cross them. If I do something you don’t want—”

“I’m not shy about speaking up.”

His mouth tipped up on one side in a smile that she might’ve labeled adorable if it hadn’t been Levi. He smiled a lot, and so many different kinds, but every once in a while it caught her on the raw when his face transformed from the serious warrior, all cut lines and intensity, to something softer. More approachable.

“Fair enough,” he said.

She shivered at the dark promise contained in such innocuous words. Then gasped as he set his mouth to her clit and sucked.

Lyndi bowed against her restraints, head dropping back as every buzzing, throbbing inch of her zeroed in on one single spot. That hot as sin mouth doing deliciously naughty things to her body. His tongue twined around that nub, curling and pulling before drawing it into his mouth again. The sucking hit a rhythm, and it felt as though her blood oozed closer to him with each draw.

A tingling started up at the base of her neck, but before it could shoot down her spine and outward, he yanked his head back. Then, moving at a speed only supernaturals could claim, he had her unbound and turned around, hands flat on the mattress, ass in the air.

“No.” The protest sprung from her lips before she even realized she didn’t want it like this.

Immediately he stopped. Finger under her chin, he tipped her head so he could see her eyes. “No?”

She blinked at the emotions in his eyes. Lust, need, demand…and fear. Fear? Why?

“Not from behind,” she whispered. “It’s too…”

She was going to say impersonal. He’d laugh in her face if she said that. Or ask too many questions.

Before she could find a different word, he spun her back around to face him and had her pinned against the wall, his cock aligned at her entrance before she could catch her breath. “I’m going to try to go slow,” he promised through gritted teeth.

He pushed inside her, the thick shaft of his cock spreading her just as she’d known it would, with the welcome burn of stretching.

“Yes,” she hissed, wrapping her legs around him as he fed himself into her an excruciating inch at a time.

He paused, shoulders heaving with each controlled breath. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I want all of you.”

“Fuck.”

“Exactly.”

He pushed more, strong arms holding her up and against the wall without even a tremble, now pumping his hips in incremental thrusts, deeper with each.

But not deep enough.

Using her legs as leverage, Lyndi shoved her hips against him and he slid home, balls deep inside her, filling every fucking inch of her in the most delicious, pain-edged way. Every nerve in her body lit up as though an electric current passed through her, leaving her pulsating.

“Fuck me,” he groaned.

“Yes, please.”

Her words seemed to unleash him. He slammed one hand against the wall, the other wrapped around her waist to hold her steady as he proceeded to pound into her, the thick base of his cock butting up against her clit with each out of control thrust. Lyndi held on tight for the ride, letting the sensation slam through her, building and swelling, until the tingling from before once again started up at the base of her neck, stronger this time.

Her body clamped down hard on him as the gathered storm of sensation singed down her spine to her womb then exploded outward. Levi threw back his head on a roar as he swelled inside her, stretching her more, then released, grunting with each pulse as she milked his cock dry of his seed.

Suddenly, Lyndi found herself wishing like hell…

No. She shut the thought off before it could go any further.

His essence would do nothing inside her, no matter how much she wished it otherwise. Even if a small part of her, the part that refused to die no matter the reality, desperately wished it could be otherwise. All female-born dragons were sterile.

Instead, she focused on the glorious sensations washing over every nerve in her body. Breathing hard, Lyndi dropped her head to Levi’s shoulder as her body slid away into a world of sublime release. Every ounce of tension drained from her muscles, leaving her limp, even as lingering jolts of pleasure trembled through her body.

Followed by thoughts.

She closed her eyes against them, but they wouldn’t leave her alone.

Not regret. But…what the hell happened now?

Because, just as she’d always suspected would be the case, she didn’t want to give this up. Give him up. A truth that scared the ever-living fires of hell out of her. Even her dragon gave a small whine of concern.

He’s leaving. The choice is out of your hands.

Gods that hurt.

…

Levi had no idea what alerted him to the change in Lyndi’s state of mind, a subtle tensing around him maybe. He was still sheathed inside her.

Hell. She’d taken all of him. Every thick, long inch.

All he wanted to think about was doing that again. And again. And…

She sighed, the sound wrapping around his heart, and he acted on pure instinct. Pulling from her body, he swung her so that he was carrying her and walked them both over to her massive bed. The covers were all askew, so he tucked them both between the sheets and lay down facing her, keeping her close.

She stared at him, eyes wide, but quiet. Very un-Lyndi-like, which scared him more. “Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t let the world intrude. Not yet.” He wasn’t ready. If she wanted to go back to the way things had been…

I’m leaving anyway.

Lyndi’s smile was edged in a bitter kind of sadness. “The world never went away,” she said.

“It did for me.” In her arms, everything became simple. Beautiful.

Lyndi squirmed, and he knew without asking that she’d felt it, too. “What do you want?” she asked.

“Want?” He trailed a finger over her shoulder, absorbing the silky, warm feel of her skin. “I want a connection.”

“You’ll find your mate someday—”

He shook his head. “You’re not hearing me. I didn’t say mate, I said connection. It’s not about the fates, or destiny, or continuing my family line, or a political advantage. A true connection comes with no strings, no expectations.”

He paused, taking in her stunned expression, and offered her a crooked, self-deprecating smile. “Don’t laugh.”

“I wouldn’t laugh at that.”

“Don’t shut me out, either,” he countered.

She glanced away, and he trailed his wandering hand to tip her chin so she’d look at him. But the second their gazes collided, Lyndi shook off his touch. He tried not to let that sting.

“What do you want from me?” she asked. “You know that this is all we get.”

Come with me.

Levi barely managed to keep the words from bursting out of his mouth. At the mere thought, everything inside him stilled and then rushed forward again. What was he thinking? He couldn’t ask that of her. Could he?

Lyndi stared, still waiting for an answer, searching his gaze which he held steady on her even through his own panic. Too soon. Asking her anything like that was…too soon.

“That’s not fair,” he said instead, hating every damn syllable.

She closed her eyes and leaned forward, brushing his lips in a kiss that was a hundred percent regret. “That old cliché?” she whispered.

“I want more than what we’ve had,” he said. “Don’t you?”

But what could they possibly have? Every option, every choice, was a door slammed in his face. She’d never leave the boys, and they couldn’t take them to the clans.

Orphans were anathema to most dragon shifters. Dragon shifters needed an anchor for their human side when they shifted. Family and tightknit bonds. Orphans who’d lost all that more often than not lost themselves to the beast within and had to be put down before they went on a rampage that could expose their kind to humans, not to mention potentially kill a lot of people.

While no one—not just Levi—had been all that happy about Lyndi starting her orphanage here in the first place, the clans would be even less accepting. The Alliance barely tolerated them…for now. Besides, putting the boys in the middle of a war wasn’t the answer, either.

Lyndi swallowed, then shook her head. “Please don’t ask me for more.”

Levi grimaced, heartsick because there were no good answers here. No path that didn’t lead to hearts cracked wide open. “Dammit,” he muttered.

“Don’t,” she whispered. She pushed to sitting, taking the sheets with her to cover her body, hiding from him.

Levi let her pull away, giving her the space she silently asked for but making an equally silent vow. This wasn’t over. His dragon rumbled his agreement. He wasn’t sure how, and she didn’t realize it yet, or maybe couldn’t let herself acknowledge it, but she was theirs now.

Lyndi bit her lip. “We shouldn’t have—”

“Yes, we should,” he cut her off. Then leveled a stony stare on her, daring her to deny the perfection that was their bodies coming together.

“It complicates things.”

“Yes.”

Frustration had her frowning in that familiar way. “We—”

“Should definitely do it again.”

“Not what I was going to say.”

“Why? Not good enough?”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

He smirked. “So I was good enough.”

She blew out a frustrated grunt.

“Mind-blowing, you might even say,” he continued as though she’d made no sound.

“Don’t be arrogant.”

With a shrug, Levi got out of the bed and left her sitting there watching while he grabbed his pants off the floor and pulled them on.

“Hey…” she said. “What happened to doing it again?”

He turned to find her watching him warily, eyes a wounded dark color, as though his leaving her hurt.

He desperately wanted to get right back in that bed, but, maybe for the first time ever with Lyndi, he also knew exactly what he was doing. If they slaked their need with marathon sex, she’d call it a day and slam the door in his face on his way out.

End of story.

No way was he letting that happen. Now that she was his, even in this one small way—an incredible, drop-to-his-knees-in-thanks kind of way—he had no intention of giving her back. They’d figure it out. All of it.

But keeping her as his would only work if they both decided to make it work. He couldn’t fight all the stumbling blocks in their way and her at the same time. That meant getting Lyndi out of her own head and out of her own way. And he only had a week to do it.

He stalked across the room and she stayed very still, tipping up her chin to face him down, exactly like he knew she would. Levi planted his hands on the bed and pressed a long, tender kiss to her lush mouth. The touch set him to pulsing again.

With sheer force of will, he shoved away the sensation and drew back, lips hovering over hers, eye to eye so she could see exactly how much he meant this. “I plan to claim your gorgeous body over, and over, and over, until you’re walking sideways. That’s how much I want you.”

She opened her mouth, but only a squeak emerged, her eyes glowing red with an answering desire. He’d give thanks to the gods later. “But I need you to stop fighting me, fighting this.”

The glow dimmed and she shook her head as though trying to clear it.

“You have a week to figure it out.” Hopefully, she did.

Unable to stop himself, he kissed her again. Fiercely, when what he wanted to do was linger. To take off all his clothes and slip between the decadent sheets just to be able to hold her.

She wasn’t there. Yet.

Gods above, he intended to get her there.

Because walking away from her was about the hardest damn thing he’d done in a long time.