She swayed from one foot to the other as if part of her wanted to run but couldn’t quite get up the momentum. His dragon tensed, ready to leap, and he crossed his arms over his chest to restrain it.
“Why would you do this?” She tilted back on her heels, opening space between them.
“Because guilt, fear, hopelessness, secrets, all that is terrible to take into battle.” He looked past her. “I’m giving you a way out when you didn’t have a choice before. But if you go with me, you’ll go like the Vikings did: with a dragon.”
Under the watchful eyes of all the painted and carved beasts, the silence in the oasis was unbroken except for the chime of the water.
Anjali paced away from him, and he forced his boots to stay frozen in the sand at the pool’s edge.
After a dozen steps, she spun to face him. “I already told you I wanted to stop Ashcraft,” she reminded him.
“And I told you I wouldn’t let you fall again,” he said. “But now I can’t promise that. I didn’t have any defenses against the magic you brought to the Keep, and for sure the warlock will have worse at his command.”
She wavered, her wide hazel gaze bouncing back the gleam of the water so her eyes seemed filled with tears. “All the men in my life have wanted clueless victims stupidly going along with their schemes.”
“This time you’d have to be clever and willing.” He watched her. “And I am not just a man.”
The dragon roared through his words.
“I dropped out of school to sell incense and t-shirts, so I make no claim to clever.” She lifted her chin. “But I will be your witch.”
Chapter 11
She couldn’t believe she’d turned down a new car, a pot of gold, and a get-out-of-warlock-free card in exchange for…
The chance to make up for her wrongs, she reminded herself. That was all she was getting out of this deal.
Batteries and sexy dragon-shifter not included.
She’d always been the bold one of her trio of friends. But she’d known her daring was a tightrope walk over an abyss of loss and confusion. And more recently, realizing she’d been fed only years of lies—not knowing what had happened to her mother and not understanding the strange magical heritage she’d left behind—she felt the rope unraveling. The ash-hole had used that to his advantage. But no more.
She was claiming the bold bitch—or witch she’d never been.
She faced Torch, focusing not on his sexiness of which he had waaaay too much, or his softness which he’d revealed when he talked about his commitment to his clan, but his strength. Luckily, he had plenty of that too. After all her years not letting any man close, now she had the ideal partner at her side.
For the fight, she reminded herself, not anything else. “What’s the next step?”
“Rave and Piper will—hopefully—be able to recreate that paralysis you hit me with. You’ll take me back to Ashcraft as your prisoner with enough of that on me to fool the warlock. He’ll go for my ichor…” His deep violet eyes glinted with lightning. “And I’ll take it from there.”
She put her hands on her hips and scowled. “You trust me to do this? After everything that happened between us?”
He smirked back at her. “I trust you
because
of what happened between us.”
A blush heated her face. “I’m not talking about…what happened after my nightmare. I mean after you dropped me. After I tried to kill you.”
It should’ve been stupid to remind him of that, but if anything, his mocking grin deepened. “Such fond memories,” he mused. “I mean those too. We’ve seen the worst of each other, Anjali Herne. How many others can say that and still be together?”
The fire in her cheeks rampaged through the rest of her body in a hot rush. “Together? We’re not… We just…”
He took a long step closer to her, raising the temperature between them to, oh, a million degrees. “We’re both fighters, charging into battle side by side. That
is
together.”
The warmth drained from her limbs despite the oasis’s protective enclosure. Right. They weren’t together-together.
She tried not to flinch at the loss of something she hadn’t even known she’d wanted, but Torch was watching her too closely.
He raised his hand to her cheek. “If you’d rather run the other way…”
She put her hand over his. “No. I’m all in.”
Still, he searched her face. His thumb under her jaw angled her face to the light as if he wasn’t finding what he was looking for.
Bad enough she had her own doubts about—well, about her whole life, but to have him doubting her too?
She sidled closer to him, closing the last space between them. “You don’t believe me? I told you I won’t back down.” She ran her fingertips across his knuckles and over the corded muscles of his forearm. She dropped from his elbow to the point of his hip where she’d held on during their twisting ride to the oasis.
She slipped her hand up under the hem of his t-shirt.
His eyes widened as she caressed the taut ripples of his abdomen. “Your hands are still cold.”
“Then fire me up,” she murmured.
The glint in his eyes flared higher. “Last night, I wanted to break Ashcraft’s hold on you.”
“Oh. If that’s all you wanted…” She teased her fingers along the inner rim of his jeans.
“Not
all
I wanted.” He snaked one arm behind her and yanked her to his chest.
She gripped his waistband and pulled his hips to hers.
Bodies flush, he brought his mouth plunging down on hers. She gasped, taking his tongue deep while her fingers clenched on his jeans, her knuckles scalded against his burning skin. So hot, so strong.
So hers.
For this moment. But lately, a moment was all she could reasonably expect.
She leaned into his body, letting his arm at her waist hold her up. Breathless, she closed her eyes and her head spun. As if she was flying…
No, he
was
lifting her. Could he read her mind? Or was she just that obvious?
He broke the kiss just long enough to march across the sand. “Have you ever been on a Viking ship?”
She shook her head.
“Come on then.” He splashed through the shallows toward the boat.
“Never done that either,” she said solemnly.
He grinned down at her. “Me neither. It’ll be a first time for both of us.”
Was that why her heart was fluttering like she was a damned virgin? The impulses racing along her nerves felt as chaotic as the sparkles of light bouncing off the miniature waves churning around his knees.
The Viking boat was unmoored, floating like a giant bath toy, but its shallow draft—the better for invading beaches—had left it fetched up close to the edge of the pool. With a flex of muscle across his chest, Torch lifted her easily over the side. The boat tipped like a bird banking into the wind as he boosted himself up behind her, water splashing.
The interior was mostly emptied out, with only a few benches left that he stalked over to get to her.
His eyes gleamed. “Take off your clothes.”
She didn’t mistake it as anything other than a dare. Locking her gaze on his, she skimmed out of his leather jacket and the pretty boutique clothes and tossed everything aside on the millennia-old wood until she stood only in her bra and panties, balancing lightly against the rocking of the boat.
She angled both hands behind her for the clasp on her bra, and he leaped forward. The boat barely moved.
“I changed my mind,” he growled as he clamped his hands on her elbows. “I like you like this.”
She tilted her head to look up at him. “Helpless with my hands bound behind my back?”
“Where I can’t see them so I have to wonder what you’re up to.” He stared down at her. “I like to live dangerously, I guess.”
“And I guess I’ve always gone for bad men,” she shot back.
“I’m not—”
“Not a man. I know.”
His lips quirked to one side. “I was going to say not so bad.”
The hint of wistfulness in his voice went right through her, sharper than a Viking’s sword. “No, you’re not.”
He looked down at her. “Even though I dropped you?”
“You said you wouldn’t do it again. At least not on purpose.”
So why was she suddenly afraid that she was still falling?
“Your turn,” she told him. “Get naked.”
He stripped the t-shirt over his head, all those glorious chest muscles flexing. She stopped him mid-strip, her hands skimming up his triceps to catch him with his arms above his head, t-shirt straining to hold him.
“You’re right,” she purred. “I like you this way too.”
“But then I can’t touch you.” Did he actually pout? “I want to fill my hands with you. Feel your skin.”
“Well…” Maybe she’d have to reconsider.
“Also, these wet jeans are chaffing my ass.”
She choked on a laugh. “Can’t have that.”
“Unless you take it off for me.”
She sank to the bleached boards at his feet, her knees cushioned on the leather coat. She anchored her hands on the waistband of his jeans and looked up at him. The silvery heat is his eyes almost steamed the splashed water. Or maybe that was just her blood.
Slowly, she popped the button of his fly and ticked the zipper down tooth by tooth. She hadn’t gotten far before his cock surged out. The blunt head was darkened with blood and tipped with a gleaming pearl of ichor.
She fluttered her lashes. “For me?”
“Taste it.” The demand was a low growl. “Swallow it. My essence inside you will offer some power and protection.”
She smirked at him. “Dragon head, hmm?”
His answering grin was wicked. “Whatever it takes to get me some witch’s tail.”
She spread the fly, revealing the full length and turgid width of his engorged shaft, and wrapped her fingers at the base. Another full handspan protruded beyond her grip.
When she licked her lips, his breath caught harshly. “Anjali…”
She leaned forward to tease the tip of her tongue around his crown, avoiding the opalescent bead weeping at the slit. Hot, velvety flesh surged against her lips, and his hands latched on her head.
She braced herself for a thrust, but he skimmed his hands down to her shoulders, as if he needed something to hold himself steady. His hips circled, and she found herself chasing the bob of his cock, tongue and penis swordplay.
She lifted one eyebrow as she glanced up at him and swirling her tongue over her lips again. He groaned and gave in, centering himself at her mouth. The mineral tang of the water on his jeans as she pushed the denim farther down and the darker sweetness of the ichor swirled in her senses, and she closed her eyes when he slipped over her palate like melted chocolate.
He stroked into her mouth so smoothly she didn’t realize he was kicking out of his boots until the rough silk hair of his calves framed her knees.
She looked up again, and at the tilt of her head, a few droplets of ichor spurted down her throat. She hummed at the tingle, and Torch groaned again.
“Enough,” he said hoarsely. “Or I’ll shame myself.”
He was standing with his jeans around his ankles in what was probably a stolen antiquity, and he was worried about coming before her. How charming.
She opened her mouth to tell him that, and his cock slipped out. He pulled her half upright, just enough to yank his jacket off the bottom of the boat and lay it across one of the benches. He layered his t-shirt there too and his jeans, the wet legs splayed to either side. He set her down and urged her back so the makeshift cushion was under her ass. The worn wood was smooth against her spine as he knelt between her legs.
No doubt this ship had seen blood and treasure spill across its ancient wood, but in all its adventures, had it seen pleasure from a dragon’s fire?
She lifted her hands above her head and arched her back, a willing offering to the hot, wet lash of his tongue. Spreading her knees with his hips, he kissed a blazing line from the top of her panties up between her breasts. Fumbling under her, he unfastened the hooks of her bra with one hand and skimmed the stretchy fabric over her arms, freeing her breasts.
With one hand cupped under the soft flesh, he lifted her breast to his lips. A long, lascivious swirl of his tongue tugged her swelling nipple between his teeth, and she gasped. She clutched the seat behind her to stop herself from reaching for him, but he sucked harder and she felt the pull all the way down to her pussy.
“I smell myself on your breath.” His breath gusted hot across her dampened skin. “The ichor marks you as mine. While it’s in you.”
Make me yours
. The words welled up in her throat, but she swallowed them back on a moan. She didn’t need to be his. She just needed
this
. While he was in her…
He lapped at her other breast, his long fingers circling restlessly around the stiff, rouged peak, and each suck churned the waves of desire in her to a maelstrom. She dug her fingernails into the wood, not caring if she left marks there.
His path of kisses over the curve of her belly made her squirm at the ticklish sparklers of sensation but still she held fast to the boards. Nothing would make her let go. If she let go, she would fall…
Torch clamped his jaws over her panties and thrust his tongue across the soaked fabric between her legs.
She arched off the bench with a throttled scream and clamped her hands on his head.
He lifted her knees over his shoulders, but his shoulders were so wide, she was splayed open and defenseless against the velvet onslaught of his tongue. The silky barrier of her panties only seemed to spread the wet, hot pressure of his mouth, as if he was swallowing her whole.
She writhed against him, but he was relentless with the rising, circling, ever-widening pleasure. Her tingling fingers slid off the taut muscles of his shoulders, and she spread her arms out wide, suspended in the air.
And she flew.
The orgasm flared through her, lighting every nerve. She screamed for real this time. The cry bounced off the crystal and water and reflected back to her in shattered shards that made her spasm again, heat and light shooting out to her very fingertips.
She was still shuddering when Torch pulled back, stripping her panties off as he went. He poised between her legs to slick his cock in her drenched folds before ramming himself into her with exquisite slowness.