Chapter Eight
Ashlyn came to with the high thrill of a Dark-eyed Junco piercing her ears. A sharp stabbing pain hit her eyes and she rolled over burying her head back in her pillow. Somewhere outside her windows a Northern pintail chirped as a woodpecker drilled its beak into one of the timbers overhead of her tree hut. She tried stuffing her pillow tighter around her ears. “Go away. All of you. Please leave me alone.”
“Not what you were telling me last night.”
Ashlyn’s heart skipped a beat, her eyes wide-open, awake, she rolled back over. She bumped right into the solid wall of Sigurd’s body.
She squinted, blinked, tried to focus on the block of naked chest mere inches from her nose. She got a good whiff of coffee combined with male sweat and a bitter aftertaste of last night’s pear flavored beer. “Oh God.” She flew back against her pillows, squeezing her eyes shut.
Gently, Sigurd pried the feather-filled barrier from her hands. “Come now, baby. It’s not all that bad.”
“Says the naked man in my bed.” Her body hummed with his closeness. Like a magnet, she gave into the pull to get closer to him.
Sigurd chuckled. “Says the naked woman who tried to rip my clothes off.”
She glanced down under the blanket. Her cheeks flamed. Seeing the red marks on his chest, she reached out, tracing them. Part of her had hoped it had all been a beer-induced dream, while the other part grew damp in remembrance. She rested her forehead against his chest, the constant throb behind her eyes blocked her efforts to recall more of her wanton behavior.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, took a deep breath.
“You’ve a bunger of a headache I image. I know what is good for headaches.” He cupped the back of her head. His fingertips against her scalp felt good as he massaged the nape of her neck. She sighed, relaxed against him, and closed her eyes in effort to refocus.
She must have fallen asleep for when she opened her eyes again, she was alone with a blinking light of her cell phone to greet her. Beside it a glass of water and two Aspirin awaited.
After she washed the pills down with the water, she picked up her cell phone.
Haven’t heard from you.
Status?
Have you gotten the egg from Emily?
M
Leave it to Emily to screw everything up for the Keepers. Her foster sister would have to get herself out of the mess she created by not delivering the egg she had been sent to retrieve. Ashlyn had her own dragon to deal with.
At least her head didn’t throb as bad as it did. Cell phone aside, Margaret could wait. Her state of undress, and the man who’d made her world quake, took priority. Forcing herself out of bed, with it clear past noon, she moved as fast as she could to look alive, but the smell of coffee still lingered in the hut. It drew her to the kitchen and the bare-chested dragon frying pancakes at her stove top.
“I see you made yourself at home.”
“You know what they say when you invite a dragon in.”
“And what is that?”
“He stays with you always.”
“There is no such thing as always. Don’t you have some place you need to be?”
“I’m right where I need to be.”
She couldn’t resist staring at his broad back while he fried pancakes. Fried food and hangovers didn’t mix, she placed a hand over her stomach, feeling sick.
He laid out plates and the pretty cloth napkins she embroidered with roses and a blue-tailed finch. If it didn’t hurt her head to laugh, she would have at him standing there with a dishcloth over his arm and waiting to see her to her table.
“I have no time for this. I have duties. The birds at the aviary…”
“Have feeders full of seed. You, however, need more than bird pickings.” And there it was, that wicked grin of his. “Unless you wish to skip dinner and start your first lesson?”
“And what lesson would that be?” She had to ask.
He sauntered over to her, looked down that straight nose of his, and said, “The one where I show you how to properly greet your mate.”
A shiver tingled her spine as he took her by the chin and lifted her lips to crash against his. Teeth and tongue, she opened her mouth to the sheer bliss of entwining her tongue with his. She didn’t think. She couldn’t. His hands rubbed and pinched and plucked her like the cords of an instrument needing his tuning. His touch, the thrill of it, ran through her hot and scorching. But she liked it.
No one had ever touched her like this. Nor had they been as bold as he to taste her in her most intimate spot. Her panties got wet, quick, and made her squirm a bit.
Breaking the kiss, she panted to catch her breath.
“Have you been properly greeted, then?”
“Lesson is not over yet.” He led her to a mirror above the little table by the door. He spun her around, held her there as she gazed into the mirror. “You have the most beautiful eyes, dragoness.”
Up came her shirt, over her head, quick and slick before she could protest. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the ones reflecting at her in the mirror. Not her eyes. No. Those couldn’t be her eyes. Those eyes didn’t belong to a green-eyed girl. Those eyes had slits and shined like emeralds with tiny flecks of gold staring back at her.
But they blinked when she blinked and those were her kiss swollen lips.
He reached from behind her. Looked at her with the same slatted eyes. His blue like sapphires watching in the mirror as his fingers slid inside her bra and the tips brushed against her nipples, cool against her heated flesh. Over and over again, he flicked the little nubs as they hardened.
She arched for him, resting her head back on his shoulder. Her gaze held with his in the mirror. “You’re tricking me. Trying to seduce me.”
“Tricking you?” Sigurd’s hands stilled. Looking back at her in the mirror. “Those eyes don’t lie, baby.”