Thea Harrison - Dragon Bound

He angled her head so he had better access and could dig deeper into her mouth, his body hardening. He drove his thigh between her legs and pushed up against the area that had grown wet in response to him. She made another muffled noise as she kissed him back with escalating excitement. He growled and pushed harder with his thigh, deeper with his tongue.

He hit just the right spot. She gasped and arched her pelvis. Both her arms were now wound around his neck. He cupped her ass and pulled her up more tightly against him. He wound his other arm underneath her neck, holding her pressed along the length of his body. He found a wicked rhythm with mouth and thigh that stole all thought from her until she was so torched, she was eating at him with the same lack of control as she had in the dream.

He devoured her with starved greed. She ran her hands over his bare shoulders. His nude torso was all over her, his thick hard erection pressing against her hip. She wanted his clothes off. She wanted him inside of her, holding her down as he pounded into her.

Oh my God, she wanted to pull way the hell back now. She yanked her mouth away and said, gasping, “Stop. It’s too much.”

He reared back his head and hissed. He crushed her to him and didn’t move, his body strung tight.

His gaze had turned to lava again, golden eyes burning. She turned and buried her face against his hard, bunched biceps. She whispered, “I’m just not ready.”

“The boyfriend,” he snarled.

“Ex-boyfriend . And I’m so over him.”

She peeked at him. He was looking down at her, the planes and angles of his dark face cut sharp. “You said you were still hurt.”

She laid her fingers against that taut mouth and traced it, obsessed with the shape and texture of him. “I am hurt because I chose to trust someone and was betrayed. I am no longer hurt by him , nor would I want anything to do with him if he were still alive. The most I would be tempted to do is beat the crap out of him again.”

The tension in his body started to ease. She felt his mouth pull into a smile under her fingers. “You beat the crap out of him?”

She smiled back, eyes crinkling at him. “Well, no,” she admitted. “But I did get a lot of satisfaction out of pushing him until I smacked him into a wall.”

He studied her. The ivory of her skin was flushed a delicate pink, lips swollen and dusky red from being kissed. Those night-dark violet eyes sparkled at him. However she claimed she felt, her body was lax and trusting as it curved to fit his. The scent of her intense arousal was delectable. All her jeweled tones had been polished bright.

“You are utterly gorgeous,” he said. He pressed his lips against her forehead.

Her eyes widened in shock. Then she looked away, her flush deepening. She couldn’t think of anything to say. On impulse she hugged him tight. It seemed to surprise him because he held still and then hugged her back, crushing her to him before letting go.

He rolled away from her and onto his feet in one smooth, lithe motion. “Now we really must go.”

She wobbled to her feet, not as graceful as he had been. He helped her pick up the things that had spilled from the shopping bags and insisted on carrying them and her backpack. Feeling she had lost vital control of her life somehow, she trailed after him.

Before they left she went to the kitchen to collect her cell phone and to grab what she could eat on the run. She ignored the salad ingredients and dressing. She threw into another shopping bag a package of almonds, soy yogurt and a spoon she swiped from the utensil drawer, along with the bottled water she had bought.

The dryer was running in the small utility room off the kitchen. Dragos stopped it and pulled out his torn Armani shirt. He had rinsed out the blood as best he could, but the pristine white was gone. He shrugged it on but didn’t bother to fasten what few buttons were left. She found herself grateful for even that indifferent coverage. Although it didn’t help much. He was still distracting and sexy, with glimpses of that long brown torso showing at the open shirt. The sight of his bare chest had stolen every digit of her IQ.

They stepped outside. As Dragos closed the front door, she made a mental note to call Quentin to warn him they hadn’t left the house in quite as good a shape as she would have liked.

Dragos escorted her to the passenger’s side of the car as he looked around. The stone-cold killer was back. He opened the door for her and closed it after she was seated, then put the packages in the back and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Are you expecting trouble?” she asked, looking around at the tranquil night scene. Altogether with her nap and everything else, they had used about six of Dragos’s twelve-hour time limit, and it was around 3:00 A.M. Someone several beach houses down was having a party with all lights blazing, but they kept it quiet.

“Not if the Elves keep to their word,” he said. He located the lever and pushed the seat back as far as it could go.

“Why wouldn’t they?” she asked, her eyes wide. “I’ve never heard anything bad about their integrity.”

“You’re quite a bit younger than I am too,” he reminded her. “Every race has had its less than stellar moments now and then. Oh, for fuck’s sake. This car is going to kill me.”

“What? Why?”

“Still waiting for it to pick up speed,” he told her. “Any day now. What is it, a POS?”

“What’s a POS?”

“Piece-of-shit car.”

She started to laugh. “It’s a Honda Civic, and it’s a fine car. Very fuel efficient.”

“Well, we know why, don’t we?” Despite his words, he kept to a modest speed until they had left the beach area and came to a main highway. When he accelerated, he held the car’s speed steady at the speed limit.

“What kind of car do you have?” She opened her yogurt. She was starving.

“My favorite is the Bugatti.”

She might have known he would have a car worth over a million dollars. No doubt it did something extravagant like hit the sound barrier in sixty seconds. She started to eat. “How many other cars do you have?”

“Maybe thirty in the whole fleet. I don’t keep track of them all. The ones I drive are the Bugatti or the Hummer. Sometimes the Rolls. My people drive the others.”

“Of course they do,” she said. His people. She shook her head. Such extravagant wealth was unimaginable.

He glanced at her sideways, his lip curled. “What the hell are you eating?”

She wiped the corner of her mouth with a thumb. “Soy yogurt.”

“Is that food? I tried what you bought the other day, the Twizzlers and the cherry Coke Slurpee. I couldn’t get either one out of my mouth fast enough.”

She burst out laughing. “Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“It was,” he told her in a serious voice. “It was very much that bad.”

“How did you know . . .” Realization dawned. “Oh, the note I left you. I wrote it on the back of a receipt.” She smacked her forehead. “That’s how you tracked me.”

“We got the security footage from the date of the receipt. Between that and your human name you told me in the dream, we had you.”

She sighed, finished her yogurt and opened the package of almonds. “So much for my life of crime.” She offered him the opened package and he shook his head. Headlights came up behind them and stayed a steady distance away. She noticed him looking in the rearview mirror and twisted in her seat. “What is it?”

“We have an escort to the Elven border.” His profile looked hard in the dim reflected light. “How polite of them. What do you want to bet they would offer roadside assistance if we got a flat?”