She gripped his penis at the root with one hand, cupped his sac with the other and feasted. The taste and feel of him was intoxicating. She crooned as she worked to get him deeper, opening her throat muscles as wide as she could, pulling back slow and tight and then pushing to take him in deep again. Hunger spiraled out of control, wild and hot.
Their game forgotten, he gathered her hair in one fist and pumped in her mouth. He put the other hand between her legs and probed and fondled the wet, silken folds.
Then he pulled her hair, forcing her head away. She made a noise of complaint as his cock left her mouth. He yanked her up for a devouring, openmouthed kiss. He was shaking all over, and it made her crazy. He pulled her on top of him and she parted her legs to sit astride, curling over him and rubbing her sex on his erection as he continued to hold her by the hair, imprisoned for his assault.
Overcome with greed, she lifted up and positioned him so that his thick broad head breached her entrance. Then he took over, grabbed her by the hips and thrust all the way in to the root. His whole body clenched and he gave a shout.
She was making noise too, urgent animal sounds, shivering all over as her body adjusted to the heavy invading length. He found a rhythm, pistoning into her with escalating urgency, fingers digging into her soft white flesh.
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.
“Dragos, am I a prisoner?” she asked. After weighing on her since last night, the question slipped out easily enough after all.
His eyes narrowed as he looked up. She kept her attention on putting things back in her sewing kit and willed her fingers not to shake. “No,” he said after a thoughtful moment. “Why do you ask?”
“The guards last night.” Relief had her offering him an unsteady smile.
“The guards are for your safety. When I’m not with you, they will be.” As she opened her mouth, he said, “That’s nonnegotiable.”
“But—”
His face hardened. “No arguing, Pia,” he said. “I am at war now. Until I bury Urien, he’s going to continue to be a serious danger. Whether he knew about you before or not is a moot point. After what happened on the plain, you have just become a major target.”
“But guards even here?” She felt any hope of even an illusion of freedom slipping between her fingers.
“A couple thousand people work here every day. Several thousand more visit. Yes, there is security and there are restricted areas, but no place is a hundred percent secure, not when Power is involved. You remember how I got to you with the dream. What if some magical attack occurs? You will have guards until this is all over. End of discussion.”
Her lips tightened. His logic was irrefutable and his autocratic attitude all but intolerable. When she thought she had her temper under control, she gave him a short nod. She didn’t necessarily disagree with him once he had explained things. She just expected to have a say in what happened in her life.
He settled back against the pillows and laced his hands behind his head again. He gave her a relaxed, ruthless smile. “Now that it’s come up and we can have that long-overdue conversation, why don’t you tell me all about your mother and how you healed me?”
TWELVE
A
fter a frozen moment, she threw herself off the bed. She grabbed her sewing kit and stomped into the dressing room. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”
He followed and leaned a shoulder against the doorpost. He had slipped on a pair of black silk pants. His gold eyes gleamed. “It’s pretty evident you healed me with your blood. That’s why you were so desperate to destroy it. Your blood tells something important about you. You couldn’t leave any behind.”
She took in his dark lounging figure and looked away with determination. Yes, he was too sexy for words. He was also utterly insufferable and he didn’t have an ounce of shame or embarrassment to his name. “I guess when you promised not to ask me about it, you meant you wouldn’t ask when you didn’t want to,” she said in a grim voice. She shoved her sewing kit into a drawer and brushed past him.
“Of course.” He turned to track her. “I learned that from someone I know. You know, the one who promised not to argue only when she doesn’t want to,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her. “Now who could that be?”
She stormed up to him and stuck her finger under his nose. “That was different.”
“How do you figure?”
“We were in a bad situation. I reserve the right to sometimes know better than you do what should be done. So I’ll argue with you whenever I feel like arguing, big guy.”
His mouth flattened. He folded his arms. It was obvious he was unimpressed with her finger or her posturing. “Like you did when we were in the car with the Goblins watching?”
She scowled. “That was a mistake. I already said that and apologized. I would also like to point out that if I had been a good little girl and followed every single thing you told me to do when you were throwing orders around, I might still be sitting in my cell. My initiative saved your ass.”
“I already said that too,” he said, eyes narrowed. He went nose to nose with her. “You’re deflecting. You really don’t want to talk about this, do you?”
She backed away from him, rounding her eyes. “What part of ‘don’t ask me any questions about this’ gave you that idea?”
He followed, on the prowl, his body moving with liquid grace. “So, let’s see, what do I know? No lock can hold you, you’re an herbivore, you have to wear a dampening spell to appear human, and your mother was revered by the Elves.”
“Stop it,” she whispered. It felt like he was peeling her alive, exposing everything.
There was no mercy in that predator’s gaze. “You know, I felt the Power in your blood when I cleaned you off in the car. Then on the plain, when you put your hand on me, I thought you were going to knock me to the ground. But you weren’t sure it was going to work. It’s because you’re a half-breed, isn’t it? All those abilities are from your Wyrkind blood. You got them from your mother.”
She turned away and looked around the room. It seemed so much smaller than it did before. She went to the French doors, threw them open and rushed outside, desperate for fresh air.
That was just before she saw there was no railing or wall, just a straight, flat ledge to open air. Sharp whistling gusts of wind teased her hair. Everything whirled around her and started to tilt. Hard arms caught her and held her fast.
“Shit,” she said, shaking. She clutched his arm. “There’s no railing.”
“You did so well on the flight. I thought you weren’t afraid of heights,” he said. He pulled her back inside and kept one arm around her waist as he shut and locked the doors. He frowned down at her. “You’re white as a sheet.”
“I don’t have a problem with heights—when there’s a rail! Or a wall, or some kind of barrier!” She pointed out the window. “That’s a straight eighty-floor drop. Not so small a deal to someone with no parachute or wings.”
“Pia, the edge is a good twenty feet away now.” His hand was gentle as he rubbed her arm.
“I know that. Did I say I was being rational?” she said. Embarrassment and fright made her even more irritable. She found her balance and straightened out of his hold. There was a sharp rap on the door. Rune and Graydon walked in. She threw up her hands and snapped, “And does anybody in this place wait for an answer when they knock?”
The two men froze. They stared at Pia, with her disheveled blonde hair and furious face, pink thigh-length robe and delicate contoured legs down to the red-tipped polished toes. Then they looked at Dragos, in his black silk pajama pants, bare chest and blonde braid of hair on one dark wrist.
Dragos stalked after her as she stormed into the bathroom. She slammed the door. He put his hands on his hips and raised his voice as he told her through the panel, “We’re not through discussing this.”
The bathroom door yanked open. She snapped, “And my mother is none of your business!” She slammed the door again.
Dragos turned to look at the two men. Graydon, the brawniest of the gryphons, had begun shaking his head and backing out of the room. Rune just stared.
Dragos said, “What.”
“Who are you,” Rune said, “and what have you done with Dragos?”
He gave them his machete smile. “I had no idea this could be so much fun.”
Rune said, “We just thought you’d be ready to get on with your day. There’s a backlog of issues waiting for your attention.”
Graydon said, “We’ll go now and come back much, much later.”
“No, don’t bother.” He strode over to the serving cart and started inspecting the contents under the silver covers. One hid oatmeal with walnuts and apples. He covered it back up. The other had a pound of fried bacon and a half-dozen scrambled eggs. He picked up the plate and a fork.
He told Graydon, “Make us a pot of coffee.” He paused and looked thoughtful. “Please.”
Graydon turned his head to the side and widened his eyes at Rune while he said, “Yes, my lord.”
Dragos settled on one couch, grabbed the remote and turned on CNN. He ate breakfast in quick, efficient bites. Rune sprawled on another couch. Graydon brought three cups of coffee from the wet bar.
Eyes on the morning headlines, Dragos said, “No more barging in.”
“Never again,” Graydon said. The gryphon had a fervent note in his voice. “We’ll pass the word.”
“The breakfast faerie has no doubt already done that,” Dragos remarked around a mouthful of bacon. “You two clowns just missed the memo.”
“The breakfast faerie.” Rune pinched his nose and coughed. Amused gold eyes met his, then turned back to the running ticker tape on the plasma flat-screen.
“What things need to be addressed?”
He finished his meal as he listened. They ran down a list of things, a variety of domestic, administrative, business and military issues. He responded with his customary decisiveness. The two gryphons started relaying his orders telepathically to the appropriate people.
The bathroom door opened and the scent of Chanel wafted across the room. The men fell silent. Pia walked out wearing her short pink robe. She entered the dressing room and shut the door.
Dragos scowled. “Get a personal shopper for Pia. Make sure a longer robe is on the list.”
“Right.” Graydon looked like he was being tortured.
“Are the contractors done repairing the other bedroom?”
“Almost,” Rune said. “There was some structural damage when you, uh, punched the wall. They’re working hard to be as quiet as possible. Since it’s on the other side of the building, the noise shouldn’t be too bad. They already know they may have to stop at times, and they’re prepared to work around your schedule if necessary.”
He looked out the windows and rubbed his chin. “When they’re through, have them put up a balcony wall. Tell them to go halfway around the building and put gated fences on each end. That’ll still leave plenty of open ledge.”
Pia emerged wearing low-rider jeans and a tight blue long-sleeved jersey shirt that bared her midriff. She carried a cloth zippered bag under one arm. She paused, looking from the three men to the food cart and the unmade bed, her expression uncertain. She looked much calmer.
Dragos unfolded from the couch and walked toward the cart. “Come eat your breakfast with us,” he said. He put his empty plate on the cart and retrieved her bowl of oatmeal and a spoon. “Would you like some coffee?”
She nodded, trailing behind him to the couches. Graydon started to his feet.
Dragos put her oatmeal and spoon on an end table by the couch where he was sitting. “I’ll get you a cup,” he told her. Graydon paused halfway out of his seat.
She gave Dragos a wary scowl. “Are you sucking up?”
“Of course.” He bent to give her a swift kiss. Dusky color touched her cheeks. He touched one high, delicate cheekbone.
She glanced sidelong at the two other men. They were dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Leather jackets were thrown over the back of the couch, and each man wore a shoulder holster and gun. She suspected they both had several other hidden weapons.
Graydon looked like he was watching a train wreck. Rune sprawled, long legs stretched out, his expression unreadable. She curled up at one end of the couch, thanked Dragos for the coffee as he set it beside her and concentrated on keeping her head down and eating her breakfast while the men talked. She was so hungry again she almost inhaled the apple walnut oatmeal.
She pulled out of her bag a bottle of nail polish remover, cotton balls and a bottle of Dusky Rose nail polish. She cleaned the chipped red polish off, tucked cotton balls between her slender toes and began to paint her toenails.
From what Dragos had described, Cuelebre Tower was a small city. Just from listening to the men, she got the merest glimpse of how vast and complex Cuelebre Enterprises was. It was quite the global corporation.
There was a pause in the conversation. She looked up. Dragos had angled himself toward her, one long leg hooked up on the couch cushions, an arm draped across the back. His head was tilted as he watched her work. She glanced at the other two men. Still not a whole lot of friendly coming from that quarter. She looked down at her half-painted toes and her cheeks burned.
“I’ll go into the bathroom,” she said.
“No,” Dragos said. “You are to be comfortable here.”
She sighed and muttered, “You just can’t dictate things like that happening, big guy.”
“I can dictate anything I want,” he told her.
She rolled her eyes. She decided to try to ignore the other two men and went back to painting her nails. She finished one foot and started on the other.
“Anything else?” Dragos asked the gryphons.
“One last thing,” Rune said. “The Elven High Lord is demanding a teleconference and proof of Pia’s well-being. She’s become somewhat of a problem.” The gryphon’s tawny, expressionless gaze flicked to her; then he looked away.
Sudden anger burned. “I am not a problem,” she announced. She finished painting her little toe. “I am a ‘tactical consideration.’ ”
Dragos dropped his hand to her shoulder. He squeezed her. She glanced sideways at him. He smiled at her. He said to Rune, “The Elven High Lord can go fuck himself. You can quote me.”
“Ms. Giovanni,” Rune said. “Forgive me. I did not mean to imply that
you
are a problem. I meant to imply that the Elves are turning the subject of you into a problem.”
Chin resting on upraised knee, she looked at the gryphon. The apology seemed too easily offered, his handsome face too smooth.
I don’t think you meant that, slick. She looked at him hard and made sure he saw it.
But now was not the time to pick another confrontation. Instead, she said, “If they’re turning the subject of me into a problem, why don’t we just make it go away?” She turned to Dragos. “You could have the teleconference and let me be there.”
His white teeth showed a little too much as he enunciated, “I have no intention of pandering to that son of a bitch’s demands.”
She set aside the nail polish and put her hand over his. “Is this important?” she said to him. He looked at her from under the dark slash of his brows, gold eyes obdurate. She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. “Wouldn’t it be better if the Elves would just shut up and go away? Hey, what if they stopped throwing a fit at you walking across their backyard. It’s not like you ate their tulips or dug holes in their lawn. You didn’t piss on any trees when I wasn’t looking, did you?”
The thundercloud that had darkened his face broke apart. He laughed. “I would have if I’d thought of it.”
Rune grinned. A snort exploded out of Graydon, who covered his smile with a hand as big as a dinner plate.
She ducked her head and wiggled the cotton balls from between her toes. It wasn’t acceptance. But at least it was something.
While Dragos showered and dressed, Pia gave in to the urge that had been eating at her ever since Rune and Graydon entered the room, and she made the bed with quick efficiency. She felt better when it was done, less exposed, even though it was crystal clear that she and Dragos had shared that bed the night before. She kept her face averted from the gryphons’ covert stares while CNN continued in the background.
Dragos strode out in boots, fatigues and a black shirt that molded to his muscled torso. The symbolism of his attire didn’t escape her. He was still in a combative mood. She ducked past him to pick out a pair of sandals to wear. She chose black slipons with silver sequined straps and low heels. She mourned her tennis shoes. They had been a big splurge, custom-fitted, and she doubted the dried blood and filth could be cleaned from them enough so that she would feel comfortable wearing them again.
Dragos led the way to the floor below. Pia had to trot to keep up. Rune and Graydon fell in behind them. She looked around, taking in as much as she could while on the move. She felt adrift. She didn’t know the layout of the penthouse, and she couldn’t get a feel for this floor’s layout in the route they took. They did pass a massive gym with aerobic equipment, weights and a weapons training area. She stared through the windows at four Wyr engaged in a sword-training exercise and almost ran into a wall. Dragos’s hand shot out and corrected her course.
His presence was a battering ram that cleared their path. People gave way as they approached, greeting him with a variety of nods, bows and other gestures of respect. She avoided focusing on any one of the sea of unfamiliar faces and curious gazes.