Thea Harrison - Dragon Bound

She had moments of clarity when she felt she was connected to him in a way that went deeper than either of them comprehended. She felt like she understood him better than he understood himself.

Then all the certainty slid away and she was left clutching at air. When that happened, she felt fractured inside. Maybe she was the kaleidoscope, breaking and re-forming. Maybe she was part of everything else that was unpredictable and unknown.

He was beyond splendid. He made her breath catch and her heart race, her temper flare and her sense of humor sharpen. He had her sexuality dancing for joy.

He wanted her to trust him, but how could she trust someone she didn’t understand?

How could she love someone who admitted he didn’t even know what love was, who claimed her as his possession, and who was capable of almost killing his oldest, most trusted ally and friend?

Wait a minute. She didn’t just think that, did she?

Well, it wasn’t true. She was suffering from a supersized value meal of Stockholm syndrome. She would admit to having a mouthwatering crazy going-on for him. Heh, not like she could deny that at this late stage. But she would not admit to the L word.

Oh God.

She wanted to go home, but she didn’t have a home. Her apartment wasn’t hers anymore. It might be let to someone else already. Even if it wasn’t, she was afraid that if she were able to step back inside that space, she would find it was cramped and too small and just as alien as everything else had become in her life.

The shower stall opened. She started and shrank back, covering her breasts in a reflexive gesture, as Dragos stepped in fully clothed.

He knelt in front of her, gripping the bench on either side of her thighs. The severe lines of his face and muscled body were drenched in moments, the gold of his eyes shadowed. She plucked at the collar of his soaked T-shirt and sighed. “What are you doing?”

“You’ve been crying again,” he said. “Why?”

She chuckled, a small, hollow sound. “Hard day, I guess.”

“Don’t deflect,” he said. “Tell me why.”

“What if I don’t want to,” she snapped.

“Tough,” he told her. He took hold of her shoulders and drew her into his arms. “You have to tell me so I can learn not to do whatever it is I did.”

Damn him. How could he end up saying the exact right thing just when she needed it most?

“Who said it was you? I already told you, everything’s getting to me.” She tucked her face into his neck and nuzzled, reveling in his warm, wet skin.

“Still deflecting,” he said. He reached for a bottle of herbal scented body wash, squirted some into a palm and began to massage her neck and shoulders. “You were having a good time with the gryphons. It was me.”

“We weren’t always having a good time,” she grumbled. She bit back a moan at how good his hands felt as he dug into tired muscles. “I’ve had to exert a great deal of my considerable charm on them these past few days.”

His chest moved in a silent chuckle. His fingers roamed the pale violin shape of her back, trailing suds. He paused and said in a dark tone, “You have a hell of a bruise on your shoulder.”

“Don’t even start that with me,” she said. She rubbed his back. “After all my hard work we did end up getting along pretty well today. I’ll have you know I was having a perfectly splendid time mopping the floor with them when you broke the party up.”

He pulled back and stood to strip off his sodden clothes and fling them into one corner. She stared at the sleek strong lines of his nude body and her heart started to pound. She couldn’t deal with the strength of her reaction to him right now. She averted her gaze.

He sat on the bench and picked her up. She tried to pull away. “Dragos, don’t. I can’t.”

“Hush. Trust me.”

He put her on his lap and tugged her around so that she was facing him. Then he leaned back against the wall, wrapped his arms around her, laid his head on her shoulder and just held her. She laid her head on his shoulder too, and he rocked her.

He said, “Take it off.”

“You’re such a pain in the ass.” She sighed, removing the dampening spell.

“I know.” He pressed a kiss to her clavicle.

His erection pressed between them, but he made no sexual moves. She sniffled as warmth and comfort stole through her limbs. “And I’m such a wuss.”

“So speaks the young lady who Rune said tossed four of my toughest fighters around like throw pillows,” he said. He squirted shampoo on top of her head and lathered her hair. “I frightened you again, didn’t I?”

“No. Yes. Oh, I don’t know.” She straightened and looked at him. Water trickled down the hard planes of his face and spiked his black eyelashes. “How could you do that to him? He’s your second-in-command. You’ve known each other for . . . for far longer than I can comprehend. If you could do that to him, who else could you do it to?”

“Right now, I could do it to anyone but you.” He eased her off his lap, stood and lathered. He washed his groin and genitals. He handled his erect penis with brisk practicality, but she still had to glance away from how mouthwatering he looked. She finished rinsing her hair as he sluiced off. He turned off the shower.

She wrapped her hair in a towel and dried off with another, while Dragos rubbed a towel over his head and body. The domesticity of the scene was both bizarre and seductive. She fought against giving in to a sense of belonging. It was an illusion. She slipped on the black Dolce & Gabbana robe and saw his eyes light with approval.

“Why anybody but me?” she asked. “Why am I the only one who’s safe?”

Why can I trust you? she wanted to ask. But the strain had eased from his features and she didn’t want to disturb the peace that had crept in to take its place. She took the towel from her hair and started working a brush through the wet length.

He stood behind her, a towel slung around his hips, and took the brush from her. He smoothed out her hair as she watched him in the mirror. The wet braid at his wrist was the same darkened shade of honey.

After several moments of looking thoughtful, he said, “You don’t know much about living in Wyr society, do you?”

She shook her head.

“I forget how secluded you’ve been.” He kissed the nape of her neck. “It will all come clear in time. I promise. Just believe me when I say that not only will I never hurt you, I will protect you from anyone else who would hurt you.”

She did believe him. It fit with how he responded to her when she worked to calm him, with everything that he had said to her and with all his actions. Things settled back in their rightful places. “All right,” she said. “But how do we make sure that you don’t hurt the others then? They’re so loyal to you, Dragos.”

“I know they are. They’re good men. You’ll have to take my word that they understand what happened earlier, maybe even better than I do. We were all a bit too careless today. It won’t happen again.”

“Can you be a bit more enigmatic?” she asked. Irritation brought out the sarcasm in her like nothing else. “A few of those sentences made sense, you know. What won’t happen again?”

He smiled. “Are you hungry? Let’s have supper. It should be set up in the dining room by now.”

Once he mentioned eating, she noticed how famished she was. All of a sudden she felt hollow and shaky. “I’m starving. All I had for lunch was a salad.”

He frowned as he strode into the dressing room. “You should eat more than that. It must take a lot of lettuce and carrots to keep up any kind of normal body weight.”

“Very funny.”

He cocked his head at her. “I wasn’t aware I was making a joke.”