The familiar smell of a bonfire and the warm stroke of a hand down my back was what finally pulled me from my mental hurdles.

“Hey,” I smiled softly, looking up at Vali where he crouched beside me. “I figured it wouldn’t be long until you found me. Are the guys mad?”

He smiled back at me, his gray eyes soft and full of concern as his hand stroked soothing lines up and down my back. “No, they’re fine. You did the right thing, pinging your location and keeping your phone on you. After all, you’re not our prisoner. You have every right to leave the hotel alone if you so choose.”

“This is true,” I agreed. “But still... you know how they get.”

Vali chuckled, tucking a loose piece of my hair behind my ear. “I do. Such worry-toads. Don’t they realize you’re stronger than all of us?”

This made me laugh. “You mean worrywarts and exactly! Thank you! Finally, someone understands that I’m not some damsel in distress waiting to be rescued all the time.”

“If it helps,” he offered, “I think they do it because they love you, not because they think you helpless. I know that’s why I try to protect you.”

His words made me pause, but before I could push any further for clarification on what I thought he’d just said, he was standing up and holding out a hand to me.

“Come on, let’s go inside and get a drink. You look like you could do with a little fun before we head back.” When I took his outstretched hand, he tugged me up to my feet and politely brushed some of the dirt and crap off the back of my jeans for me.

The little ass squeeze might have been my imagination... or might not have been. It was so quick it wasn’t clear. Either way, I wasn’t complaining as Vali threaded his fingers back through mine and led the way back into the bar and straight to my green-haired friend.

“Back again?” she asked me when she finished serving her customer and came over to us. “I saw you deck your sister earlier. She the reason your night was so shitty?”

“Yup.” I nodded. “She sure fucking was.” There was no sense in correcting her to say that was my mother not my sister.

“Well, your night certainly looks like it’s taken a turn for the better.” The bartender batted her eyelashes at Vali and twirled her bottle opener on her finger. “Hot damn you are one sexy piece of ass. What are you, like six-four? Six-five?”

Vali smirked but ignored her aggressive flirtation as he ordered. “Could I get a whiskey sour? And for you...?” He looked at me, but the bartender was already bobbing her head in acknowledgement.

“On it, same again, Red?” She grinned at me, and I found myself smiling back.

“Please.” I watched her for a while as she mixed and shook the ingredients, before turning back to my companion. His fingers were still threaded through mine, our palms hot as they pressed together, but I wasn’t complaining.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked him, curiously. “I’d thought you would have dragged my ass straight back to the hotel... but here we are having cocktails. What gives?”

My big, scary, Romanian crime lord threw his head back and laughed, then needed to pay for our drinks before he could respond. After leaving a heavy tip, he dropped my hand—sadly—and took one drink in each hand.

“Find us somewhere to sit,” he suggested, and I looked around the room, spotting a booth that was in the process of being vacated by several girls in mini-dresses.

Pointing it out, I led the way through the crowds and arrived just in time to slide in before another group of girls got to it.

“Long island, huh?” Vali mused, watching me as I stirred the Coke through the sour, alcoholic part, then took a long sip. “I pictured you more as a vodka cranberry kind of girl.”

“Um,” I pondered aloud. “Is that a compliment or an insult? I can’t tell. But besides that, I only just recently found out I was twenty-one, remember?”

Vali gave me a wicked smirk. “Oh yes? And you never consumed alcohol when you were underage? How silly of me to think you might have.” I choked a little on the sip I’d just taken and had to cough in a seriously unsexy way to clear the alcohol from my windpipe.

“Don’t do that,” I growled at him when I was finally able to speak again. No doubt my face was bright red, too. So hot.

“Don’t do what?” he asked, sipping his own drink and shuffling a little closer to me in the booth so that when he draped his arm over the backrest, his fingers were brushing my shoulder.

A shiver ran through me at the light touch of his fingers, and I tried to focus. “Don’t say funny things when I’m not expecting them. I could have drowned on that mouthful of iced tea, and then where would we be, hmm?”

“You don’t expect me to be funny?” He looked genuinely hurt, and I cocked my head to the side, considering him.

“Mmm,” I mused. “It’s not that you’re not funny. It just shocks me sometimes. Like, you’re this big, bad, scary, powerful criminal dude, who is almost always serious, and then you whip out these sarcastic lines... It just throws me for a loop sometimes.”

“Huh.” He frowned. “Well then, I should make more effort to be less serious.”

“How is the whole family empire thing going anyway? You’ve been around a lot more lately.” I hadn’t wanted to ask about it for a while since he’d been so incredibly adamant about keeping me out of his nefarious business dealings. But I was curious to know him better.

He smiled again, and I found my breath catching. He and Cole both had the most amazing smiles, and neither of them used it enough. “Really good, Regina mea. I have put in place a very pliable and respectable figurehead, backed by two geniuses to really run things from behind the scenes. Within a few weeks, I’d say I can be officially retired.”

“A figurehead?” I puzzled. “Why use a figurehead and not your two geniuses... Oh.” It just clicked. “Really? Lucy and Elena are running your crime syndicate now?”

“No,” he shook his head, then finished the last of his drink. “They’re running my entirely legal corporation of investments in property and stocks. I promised you I was cleaning the organization up, draga, and I meant it.”

Speechless, I finished off my own drink and then placed the empty glass back on the table. “So... Lucy and Elena, huh? Bet your men would love that if they ever found out.”

“Exactly,” he chuckled, trailing his fingertips across my back. “Hence the figurehead. Another?” He nodded to our empty glasses, and when I accepted, slid out of the booth to order them for us.

While he was gone, I considered this new development and found I was really happy for Lucy. She got bored so damn quickly, and without me needing her help on Fox jobs anymore, she was going a little bit crazy. This was actually just the perfect task for her, and I was really impressed that Vali had thought of it.

“So,” I said as Vali returned with fresh drinks. “Do you dance?”

“Dance?” he repeated, settling back into the booth beside me, close enough that our thighs were pressed together. “Like that?” He nodded to the dance floor where sweaty, half-naked girls writhed and rubbed up against equally sweaty guys.

“Yeah, I suppose. Why not?” I wasn’t really a big one for dancing either, but the combination of an information and emotion overload, three long island iced teas, and Vali’s intoxicating nearness was making me want to grind up on him too.

Damn dragon must have been tapping his gypsy powers because he seemed to read my mind as he leaned in close. “You don’t need the excuse of a dance floor to grope me, you know.” As he spoke, his lips brushed my ear, and I needed to stifle a moan.

Under any normal circumstances, I might have been concerned at how fast my mood had shifted from hurt to angry to exhausted and finally settled on turned all the way on. But these were far from normal circumstances, and I had six boyfriends. Could anyone really blame me for wanting to jump Vali right then and there?

“I thought we were taking things slow?” I murmured a little breathlessly as his arm slipped down from the backrest to tuck around my waist and pull me closer.

“We were,” he agreed, his granite eyes tracing the lines of my face and settling on my mouth. “But now we’re not.”

“Totally fine by me,” I groaned, closing the short distance between us and plastering my lips to his in a frenzy of pent-up sexual desire. To my intense relief, he responded with the same level of urgency, forcing my already willing lips to part and claiming my tongue with his own.

While we kissed, my hands gripped tight to his broad shoulders, trying to pull him closer, even as his own huge palms circled my waist and tugged me onto his lap to straddle him. If I had any doubts in my mind about whether he was into me or not, the steel bar crushing against the denim of my crotch eliminated them.

“We should get out of here,” Vali suggested, pulling back from my mouth just long enough to kiss and suck his way down my neck. My brain was floating solidly on cloud nine though, and all I could muster as a response was a breathy moan. Vali chuckled, his laugh vibrating the soft skin of my neck and sending lightning bolts of pleasure through me.

“Come on,” he urged, lifting me off him and then standing. He took my hand in his, and I hurried behind him as he tugged me through the crowded bar and out into the street. “I borrowed River’s Maserati for the night.” He winked at me as we rounded the corner and passed the spot where my mother had dropped about sixteen thousand bombshells on me only maybe half an hour ago.

“What?” I exclaimed, my arousal being tempered by offense. “He let you take one of his cars and not me?”

“Let me.” Vali snickered another evil-sounding laugh. “I didn’t ask.”

Oh, he really is the devil. I love it.

If it was even possible, the fact that he’d taken one of River’s cars without asking—even though this was a rental and not actually River’s car—made me even more aroused.

River’s careful control was a wild turn-on for me, but so was Vali’s blatant disregard for River’s rules. Fuck, it was one sexy conundrum. If I hadn’t already been pretty positive Vali wasn’t the sharing kind of guy, I’d kill to get them both in bed at the same time.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I jogged a little to keep up with Vali’s long strides. I was still wearing my chunky-heeled boots from earlier in the day when Vali and I had gone for a walk to calm my magic down. Damn, that felt like a lifetime ago.

We’d almost reached the back of the valet parking lot, which was why I’d asked, as it was pretty dark away from the main lights of the street and the bar.

“Oh, never mind, I see,” I answered my own question when I saw River’s sleek black Maserati tucked into the last space of the row, almost totally hidden by an enormous GMC Yukon with something like nine seats. Who the hell needed nine seats, unless... Okay, sure, I had six lovers, so who was I to judge?

Vali wasted no words, spinning me to face him, then lifting and pinning me to the hood of the hundred-and-something-thousand-dollar car. His hot lips descended to mine, kissing me without restraint, like I was the last damn woman on earth.

“Regina,” he growled as my hands slipped beneath his shirt and my knees spread to let him in closer to me. “I don’t think I can survive the drive back to our hotel.”

“So don’t,” I offered, then demonstrated my meaning by dragging his T-shirt up and over his head. That was all the encouragement he needed as he dove back in to claim my lips in a bruising kiss. His hands pushed my jacket off my shoulders, then returned the favor by yanking my dove-gray T-shirt off and leaving me in just my black bra, jeans, and boots.

“You sure?” he checked as his hands went to the waistband of my tight blue jeans and flicked the button from its loop. “We are very public right now.”

That was actually part of what made this such a turn-on. We could get caught any damn second, and I loved it. “Hell yes, could not be more sure if I tried.”

Vali dragged my zipper down, and I lifted my ass so he could step back and drag the thick fabric from my body. Somehow—I have no idea how but made a mental note to ask later—he managed to get my jeans totally off me without getting them tangled on my boots.

Magical creatures seriously have the best tricks.

“Huh,” Vali muttered, grabbing one of my legs in a strong hold and pulling me tight against him while my upper body sprawled on the hood of the luxury car. “I see why my little brother keeps destroying your underwear.”

“Don’t—” Before I could even finish the damn word, let alone the warning, a little fire ball had incinerated my black silk thong. “Seriously? Ugh, you two are as bad as each other!”

Vali grinned his wicked dragon grin at me and stroked a sure finger down the length of my pussy, dipping inside me briefly then lifting that finger to his mouth.

“Mmm,” he hummed, rolling his tongue over his wet finger and holding my eye contact. “Seriously addictive.”

Arousal swept through me in another heady wave, and I moaned as my nipples tightened even more in the cool night air. “Vali, seriously? Shut up and fuck me.”

“Your wish is my command, Regina mea,” he chuckled, making quick work of his own belt and fly and freeing his jaw-dropping equipment. It actually gave me a moment’s pause as I stared in fascination.

I mean, I’d caught a glimpse here and there as he’d changed back and forth from dragon form, but that had just nothing on seeing him in all his erect glory. It was, simply put, shocking—in a really good way—but also sent a shiver of anticipation through me... Was it going to hurt?

“Sorry.” He shrugged a guilty-looking shrug. “I usually keep lube handy, but I didn’t come here expecting to fuck you on the hood of River’s car.” I just blinked at him a couple of times, still at a loss for words, and he smirked. “Don’t stress, draga. I know what I’m doing.”

Using a solid dose of his dragon strength, Vali lifted me by the back of my thighs, bringing my cunt to his mouth and leaving only my shoulders resting on the car while he sucked and licked at my already throbbing pussy.

His lips and tongue worked me over in what seemed like no time at all, and right as I felt like I was about to come, he dropped me back down and pushed the tip of his monster cock inside my slick opening.

“Holy fucking shit,” I moaned, writhing against the car as he pushed in another half inch and my walls tightened, relaxed, then adjusted to allow him more progress. By the time he had made it in as far as he was probably ever going to, I was a panting mess.

“You okay, draga?” Vali checked, and I was pleased to hear his own voice tight with tension and need.

“I’m amazing, but I think I might actually die if you don’t start fucking me now, Vali,” I confessed in a rush of words, and he snickered.

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Regina mea,” he replied. “But if you’re sure you’re okay...”

In response, I hitched my legs up around his waist and pulled him in tighter, feeling him slip a little deeper. Guess I’d been wrong, after all.

My words slurred into a jumble of noises as he began to move inside me, slowly at first as he coated himself in my lube, then faster until I was practically sobbing with the intensity of the orgasm clawing its way out of me.

“Christ, Vali, I’m about to come,” I moaned, then seconds later felt like my entire body was shattering into a million pieces, with the epicenter at my pussy. The climax rippled through me over and over while Vali thrust his rigid shaft into me, and I heard myself screaming my way through a second and then a third orgasm in quick succession.

When my quivering finally began to die down, I licked my lips and peered up at Vali with hooded eyes. “That was...”

“Fucking intense,” he finished for me, grinning wickedly and still pumping slowly into me. “Also, not the quietest... I think we might have company soon.” He flicked a glance over his shoulder but seemed really in no rush to move.

“Well, we better hurry things up a bit then.” I smirked back at him, removing his cock from inside me then scrambling up from the smooth car hood, now slick with my sweat, and sinking to my knees in front of him.

His breath sucked in with a sharp hiss as my hand wrapped around his thick erection, my fingertips not even touching together. Looking up at him, I slowly and deliberately licked around the head of his cock while he held my gaze, until his fists bunched in his hair and he groaned.

“I thought you said we were hurrying?” he reminded me in a teasing tone, and I grinned.

“Oops, good point. Time for playing later, right?” I threw him a wink but didn’t wait for a response before wrapping my lips over the head of his dick and sucking him in.

My tongue swirled around him while my hand made up the difference in length that I just couldn’t take into my throat. It made me think I needed to have River work on my gag reflex a little more.

“Fuck, draga,” he gasped, his hands gripping my hair and encouraging a faster pace while his hips thrust gently, testing the limits and begging for more. “I can hear someone coming.”

Not willing to stop before he was done, I pumped him harder with my fist, sucking him deeper still until seconds later his hot come was filling my throat and he let out a decidedly dragon-like roar.

“Well, if they hadn’t heard me, they couldn’t have missed you,” I snickered, releasing him and wiping off my mouth.

“Shit,” he swore, grabbing our discarded clothes from the ground and bundling them in his arms. “Quick, hop in the car before they see you out here in all your glorious nakedness.”

With all the chivalry of a well-mannered man, he helped me up from my knees and brushed the small pieces of gravel from my flesh before holding the passenger side door open, then closing it behind me.

“River’s car is going to smell like sex tomorrow,” I commented as he got in the driver’s side, still shirtless, and started the engine. He’d tossed our pile of clothes in before me, so I yanked my T-shirt over my bra, just in case anyone could see through the tinted glass, then went to work on figuring out how in the hell he’d gotten my jeans past my boots.

“Look,” Vali pointed up to a large tree overhanging the parking lot as we pulled out. It wasn’t far from where we’d been fucking, and sitting on a branch staring at us was a very intelligent-looking crow.