Thea Harrison - Dragon Bound

She tried to brace herself any way that she could, elbows propped on his chest. His head was lifted so that he was nose to nose with her, face etched with sexual aggression, fierce lambent gaze fixed on hers. He bared his teeth at her.

His feral beauty sent her into a liquid meltdown. She stretched out her arms and pushed openhanded at the pillows, lips parted, reaching, reaching, and then she was overwhelmed with a shock of pleasure so intense as he impaled her, she writhed in orgasm.

He joined her with a harsh groan, pushing up and up as his climax spurted into her. They held tense for long moments. Her lungs worked as she tried to suck in some air. Her damn hair was all over the place. She pushed it out of her eyes in time to catch a glimpse of his face. He looked desperate, out of control.

He shook his head, muttering, “Not enough.” Holding her low at the hips with one arm to keep them joined, he flipped them so that she landed on her back on the mattress with him on top. He was still hard. He began to move again, sliding in and out of her juicy, tight sheath.

“Oh God, you’re going to kill me,” she groaned. He paused and searched her eyes. She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “You better not stop until you’re done. Remember, I can take any pace you can set, big guy.”

His face lit with a savage smile. Then he lost the smile, lost the words, lost everything to uncontrollable passion that swept her right along with him. He didn’t stop until he had spent all that he had.

Wrecked. He had wrecked her again. He took her so far and deep outside of herself, she came back changed in fundamental ways she didn’t understand. She made noises with him and did things she never had before, things she had never conceived of doing. She had never realized how the act of sex could be a total loss of all civilized behavior. He brought her face-to-face with the animal that lived inside her. She had nothing left to cling to, either inside of herself or outside in the rapid changes that had overcome her life. There was only him, the destroyer of her world, and she hung on to him with everything she had.

They lay together in a tangle of limbs, his head on her shoulder, as the morning light advanced across the ceiling. She might have dozed. She had lost count of her orgasms, let alone his. He pressed a kiss to her breast. He said, “I marked you up again.”

She yawned and tried to figure out how he sounded. Complex, that was the word, his voice filled with both regret and satisfaction. “You’ve got a few bite and scratch marks you didn’t have before too, big guy.”

He smiled against her skin. Regret fled and left pure male satisfaction the victor on the field. “That I do.”

A knock sounded on the door, and it opened to a faerie pushing a food cart into the room. “Good morning,” she piped.

Quicker than thought, Dragos yanked up the sheet and threw himself to cover her. He roared over his shoulder, “What are you doing!”

She threw the dampening spell on herself as fast as she could. Dragos looked murderous. She put a hand against his cheek, kissed him and peered over his shoulder.

The poor faerie turned dead white and looked like she was about to faint. She stammered, “I always—it never mattered—”

Pia said in a gentle voice, “What he means to say is, ‘Thank you very much for breakfast.’ And you didn’t do anything wrong. He’s not really mad at you. He just got surprised.” Underneath the covers, she pinched him hard. He grabbed her hand but didn’t contradict her. “Things are a little different right now, so maybe it’s a good idea to knock and wait next time until someone says you can come in.”

The faerie bobbed several times in frantic curtsies. “Of course! Of course! Thank you, my lady. I’ll—” She pointed at the door and bolted.

The door settled back into place. Pia looked at Dragos in bemusement. There were so many things that had just happened. She didn’t know what to make of it all or what to say. She stroked his face and waited until he calmed.

“She called me ‘my lady,’ ” she told him in a plaintive voice. “I don’t know who that is. I’m no lady.”

The last of his fury faded away to be replaced with a quick gleam. He peered under the sheet. “I can attest to that.”

“Ooh!” She smacked his shoulder.

They looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

He piled the pillows up, settled back against them and pulled her against his side. She put her head on his shoulder and tried to reach for her earlier drifting sense of peace. It proved to be a fugitive feeling and began to slip away.

He stroked his fingers through her hair. “You owe me a lock of hair,” he said.

She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the realities of the morning. She asked, “How much do you want?”

“A lot,” he said, holding up a few strands so that they glinted in the light. Then he frowned. “Not too much.”

She started to smile. “Make up your mind. I can cut it short and you can have all of it, if you want.”

“Don’t you dare. I want just enough.”

“Oh, like that makes any sense.” She raised her head to give him a quizzical glance. He was scowling. She sighed. “Hold on.”

She padded naked into the dressing room, pulled her thigh-length pink robe from a hanger and belted it on. She dug through the dresser drawers that held her things, found her portable sewing kit and walked back into the bedroom. She sat cross-legged facing Dragos on the bed. He laced his hands behind his head, regarding her with interest.

She took the scissors from the kit, isolated some hair close to the scalp at the back of her head where the cut would be hidden and snipped it off. She held the lock up for his inspection. It was a good-sized piece, the width of her little finger and the full length of her hair.

“Perfect,” he said, eyes gleaming in satisfaction.

“Debt paid?” she asked.

“Debt paid.” He rubbed the ends between his fingers.

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked.

He frowned again. “I don’t know.”

“Here, I’ll braid it for you. Otherwise you’ll have it all over the place.”

He watched in fascination as she cut two lengths of gold thread almost the exact same color as her hair. Almost but not quite. It was the closest she could find in her sewing kit and wouldn’t be noticed at any distance, but the thread lacked the lustrous quality of her hair.

She put one piece of thread between her teeth. She wound the other thread several times around one end of the hair and tied it. She used a safety pin to pin that end to a pillow and with swift competence braided the lock. She said between her teeth, “You’re not going to do some kind of black magic hoo-doo on me with this, are you?”

“Oh no,” he said, gaze on her fingers. “I just like the color.”

She smiled to herself, both warmed and weirded out by how they were acting with each other. It felt so natural, so right. There were so many reasons why it shouldn’t. She took the second length of thread to tie off the end of the braid.

Some foolish impulse made her offer, “I could tie it around your wrist if you like.”

She waited for him to tell her not to be stupid. Instead, to her surprise, he raised his eyebrows and said, “I would like that.”

He held out his right wrist. She wound the braid around it. Despite how thick his wrist was, the braid was long enough to go around it almost twice. She took more thread and worked on sewing the braid together. After she was sure she had it on secure, she tied it off and snipped the ends of the thread.

He held up his wrist and admired the pale gold gleam. He ran a finger around his wrist, feeling the soft bumps of the braid. The dark bronze of his skin seemed to make her hair gleam brighter.