Chapter Ten
If she’d learned anything in the last few days of getting to know Sigurd Eltvik, it was that he was a show off. She rolled on her side, elbow on the bed, and rested her head in her hand as she watched him saunter that well sculpted ass to the kitchen area. According to the ancient ones, dragons had been a gift to human-kind from the gods. No wonder every naked inch of him reminded her of well-formed sculpture.
He set two plates of cold pancakes and sweet slices of apple on the bed. “Hungry?”
She licked her lips. “Starving.”
“Hope you don’t mind them cold.” He plunged his fork into a piece of cut apple. After the first bite, she grinned. “Mmm—so good.”
“There’s more where that came from.” He gave her that sexier-than-hell quirk of a smile.
She picked up a fork and jabbed a piece of pancake. He’d cut it up on her plate and a little part of her beamed at his thoughtfulness. He took the bite, and back and forth they fed each other. Each bite, his eyes glazed as he watched her. A spasm burst between her legs in her most tender spot.
When they finished, he piled their plates on a stand beside her bed.
Ashlyn settled beside him. Mixed feelings swirled through her.
Sigurd took her wrist, lifted it to his mouth, blew on it gently branding her with his tongue.
“Why did you do that?”
He sealed the mark with a kiss. “You are my mate now. We dragons brand each other, but since you’ve not learned to shift...” He shrugged, those damn sparkling blue eyes of his made her nerves dance.
“Then shall I mark you, too?” She pulled back her wrist, rubbing the area. Not of pain, for his cold dragon’s breath numbed her skin, but to ensure like a temporary tattoo out of the gum ball machine, it wouldn’t wash away.
“Baby, your mark on me runs deeper than the skin. Can’t you feel it? You’re in my heart as much as my thoughts.”
And hearing his thoughts in her own head made her body flush with need for him. Her foster mother had been right. Men did think with the head between their legs. Her body tingled thinking of him buried deep inside her. So complete. So whole.
He yanked her against him. By the darkening of his eyes, he heard her thoughts, too.
Would there be no secrets between them?
He pressed kisses against her flushed skin. “Whatever you’ve got locked up, baby. I want to see it.”
“And if I were to become a dragon?” She shuddered.
“Then I’d love you the same. I’d give you the scale which covers my heart as you would I. We’d hibernate in my lair.”
“Yours? Not mine if I had one?”
He nipped at her neck. Kissed the spot on her shoulder where he’d bitten her during their love making. How could he proclaim love for her this soon? One rowdy bout of sex and her body had betrayed her. He looked at her with that arched brow. She reached up and pushed a lock of his muted golden hair from his eye. He’d unlocked more than her hidden dragon from inside her. He’d unlocked that part of her heart. The part which spoke truth when she’d felt their hearts beating as one. And even now, when she looked into those smoldering blue eyes. She’d been his from the start.
“We dragons go where the biggest hoard is stashed. Call it our nest egg.”
She almost laughed. “You really put things in a cave? Not stash them in a safe deposit box? Or these places we like to call a bank?”
“A bank won’t warm you at night. Paper money doesn’t sing to you like heated gold, and there are some treasures best left hidden for their value is immeasurable.” His voice grew thick with his accent.
“Priceless you mean?”
“You, baby, are the most priceless treasure any dragon would risk his life for.”
She believed him. Not because she could sense the truth in his words, his heart, but because of the way he looked at her. In his eyes she saw the love he proclaimed for her.
That was all she ever wanted. This moment. This man. Someone who saw her, the real her, and they weren’t frightened by what she’d suspected had been hidden inside her all along.
Only one thing frightened her more, but she wouldn’t think of it, couldn’t think of it and have Sigurd know the one secret she’d kept buried deep down inside of her all these years.
She shuddered again. Thinking her cold, Sigurd pulled her closer into his arms. She would have kept him there, snug in her bed, if not for her responsibilities to the hatchery. Her next lesson would have to wait. Suddenly, her life felt as if it had gone to the birds.
“Have you met the Curl Crested Aracari? We keep it in the haven part of the hatchery.”