Chapter Eight
Every part of his body caught fire and the dragon within him roared. He’d become drunk on her rich scent of arousal, but holding her near, having her offer to show him her most intimate part, was more than he could control to push back the primitive animal inside him.
“If you show it to me…” His dragon’s blood grew hotter. “I’ll want more than to look at it.”
Her stormy eyes, even in the dark, smoldered. The spark of her desire reflected in their depth. “I’m not one of your mother’s expensive works of art. Not only can you look… but… you can also touch.”
Olivia took his hand, slid it down the front of her denim cut offs. He sucked in his breath, she hadn’t bothered with panties.
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Why? Because Marissa isn’t here to join us?” He heard the grate at the edge of her voice. His dragon pounded from within him. Jacques cupped his fingers over her garden, the tip of one finger rubbing over the gate.
“If you think I want her you’re wrong.”
Her shallow breathing, the gentle rise and fall of her chest, he took her lips and caressed them with his own. His finger tracing up and down her damp sex. His other arm sliding up her back, pulling her in closer.
Olivia moaned, opening her lips and entwining her tongue with his.
He would take her slow, savor every inch of her body as he claimed her. She stroked the inferno blazing within his dragon as hands slipped under his shirt and splayed across his abs.
Coming up for air, she tugged at his shirt.
“Not here. We’re almost there.” His took her hand and led her deeper into the cover of the trees to a spot where a hot spring bubbled, and steam rose in the air like white mist against the cool breeze.
She reached up and pulled off her cami, then he watched as she unbuttoned her cut offs and started to slide them down. “You have too many clothes on.”
As long as he kept his pants on, he couldn’t invade the entrance to her secret garden. He tried to keep his eyes on her face, but curiosity won the best of him. There, near the hot springs with the glow of the moon falling over her curves, he spied the shadow of her heart between her legs.
She walked over to him, pushing up on her toes, and kissed a hot path along his jaw. “Don’t you want to join me?”
Groaning he caught the sides of her face and kissed her. Her naked body pressed against him, she felt right in his arms. As she slid his shirt up and over, breaking their kiss long enough to pull it over his head, he realized how far gone he was.
Her hands swept across his chest as the slow sweep of her tongue made him painfully aroused. His dragon side wanted to throw her on the ground and claim her and it took every ounce of his will power not to give in.
He slid his hands down her back to cup her ass, rocking her hard against him. Jacques wanted her to feel the man part of him wanting to become unleashed.
She whimpered between kisses, her fingers finding the button of his fly. He whipped her around and held her back against him. “Olivia…” He cupped her breast, loved the weight of it in his hand. “I’m a dragon.”
“I know.” She moaned pressing her bottom against him.
He laved her neck with his tongue, found the sensitive spot at the curve of her neck and kissed it. “If you’re doing this to get back at your father, then you need to walk away.”
She tried to wrench free. “What does it matter?”
Heart pounding, his gut twisting, hunger flaring from his dragon, he said, “Because you are my mate and after tonight I will mark you.”
Jacques stopped himself from reaching for her when she pulled away. “Mate?”
“A dragon’s bond is like a wedding ceremony to humans, but it last for life.” He cursed the darkness and the shadows of the trees which hid her face. Admitting she was his mate wasn’t as big of a mistake as the devastation his dragon would have to deal with later when she rejected him.
“Let me get this straight,” her voice still husky with lust. “If I give you the key to my garden, then you’ll mark me as your mate for life?”
“Yes.” For a man who made a living from knowing other people’s secrets, he should have been better prepared to let Olivia go the moment his dragon had recognized her as his mate.
“And then Avram couldn’t marry me because I’d be bond to you?”
Painfully aroused, he closed his eyes. “Correct. Our joining would be recorded by Father Abrams and looked upon in human terms as a legal binding union.”
She went quiet for so long he feared if not for the scent of her lingering so near, she had left him. Only the soft slide of his zipper caused his body to tense.
“Jacques…”
His eyes shifted as they opened, for his dragon saw better in the dark, to watch her undo his pants. She worked them down enough to free him. Her fingers closed around him, and his cock twitched under her touch.
“When I was young, I used to dream of what it would be like to be with a dragon.”
A wave of searing heat streamed down his spine as his dragon side approved of both his mate and her attention.
She started to sink down in front of him and he caught her under the arms pulling her back up to him. “I can’t… Not the first time.”
Jacques wasn’t going to demand anything of her. Asking her to become his mate had been more than a demand. He wanted her to want him without anything standing between them. No regrets for later.
He kicked off his shoes. By the time he managed to strip off his pants, she’d moved closer to the hot springs. “Then how about in here?”
Olivia hadn’t said she had accepted him. Not as her mate and he couldn’t just be a one-night fling.
Olivia Haralamb was the real deal and he wanted the real thing.