Chapter Four
But she didn’t move.
With her hand in the water and her gorgeous brown eyes locked with his, she didn’t move. No running, no screaming. No pleading for her life, no reaching for her phone to take a picture.
The young woman sat there. Staring.
More than that: Niko’s dragon didn’t want to attack her.
The dragon was calm, curious. Not fully and completely fused with Niko, but under his control. Through the dragon’s eyes, he could see, and admire, this woman. He turned his head to use just one of his massive eyes to assess her.
Young, probably early twenties. Brown hair, brown eyes, full lips, full figure, delightfully full breasts. He’d never seen her in town before. She wasn’t a Pine Valley resident, that was for sure. But she was here, at Darkwater Lake, a place the residents held somewhat sacred because of it being off the beat trail, untouched by man-made toys. Only the cabins had direct access.
Could she be staying in one of the cabins? That didn’t make much sense either, though, since the Gephardts only rented them to visiting shifters for the Halloween gathering. And this woman wasn’t a shifter. She wasn’t a human either. And not a wizard. Not any sort of supernatural that he could tell.
What the hell was she?
Aside from completely unafraid of him.
Niko moved his feet forward to find purchase on the rocks there on the edge of the water, and rose a little higher into the air.
The woman’s eyes widened, and she started to pull her hand out of the water—and the dragon started to grow restless immediately. Niko reached his foreleg out and carefully placed a great, pearlescent claw carefully on her hand, holding it there in the water.
Their eyes were still locked, and after just a frightened moment—her fear vibrated the air and water around them for the heartbeat she thought he was about to eat her—she put her other hand on the scales of his giant toe.
Niko could swear he heard the earth crack and the sky above him shatter. The water trembled around them and the odd hum in the cold liquid climbed into his very bones. The dragon, which had been uncontrollable his whole life, bowed in complete submission to him, sliding back into his own soul and binding with him.
Who the hell was this woman?
And how did he keep her?
Everything in his body not only wanted to keep her there, but to possess her and to protect her. He’d never felt desire in his dragon form, but now—there was no doubting the feeling that built inside him. The urge to shift to human and take her right there on the rocks was next to impossible to tamp down and control.
“I’ve dreamed of you,” she whispered. “Of you and this lake.”
Was that why she wasn’t afraid of him? He wasn’t used to this. Everyone feared the water’s edge at night because of him.
“You’re not a monster, are you?”
He studied her. Niko had always thought his dragon form to be a monster. Considering he had nearly eaten Frank Plostski’s kid fifteen years ago. They had every right to be in the water—they were Newfoundland selkies, after all—but he just couldn’t stop his dragon from trying to take a bite of the delicious, plump seal carcass.
Tonight, with her hand there in the water, touching his scales, he didn’t feel the monster part. He felt merely like Niko in a different body. He felt like he could control himself.
You make me feel as though I am not.
She smiled. “I dreamed of your strong arms in the water.”
In the water. How strange. When he was in the water, he was dragon. When he was out of the water, he was human. Never between the two.
“Come out. Show me all of you.”
All of him. Leaving the water would mean shifting. He didn’t want to scare her.
“I’m not scared.” Her tiny hand danced over the scales of his foot. “Please. Let me see you.”
Niko blinked a few times, then decided. He lifted the massive claw from her hand and rose up from the water.
More and more, he felt the cool lake slip from his skin. It cascaded in laughing waterfalls from his massive body, off his glistening scales back to the water. He climbed the rocks and lifted himself full into her view.
He paused there, his tail still in the water. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at him, taking in the massive, blue body of a supernatural legend, of a haunting image, of a thing of whispered tales. Niko tilted his head to watch her as she slowly ran her hand up the scales of his foreleg. She traced the diamond hard plates as they grew and shrank as his form demanded. As she reached his shoulder, he unfurled the massive—and ridiculous—wing.
He’d never flown. He couldn’t.
But this little creature was not scared of him. She wasn’t judging him. Instead, he could sense her awe and wonder as her explorations led her to the thick joint of tail and body. She surprised him by ducking under the appendage and walking forward, still trailing her fingers over him.
This time, he straightened his wing and shook it out, sprinkling her with cold lake water.
She laughed.
The sound was like the tinkling of crystals in a soft warm summer breeze.
He didn’t know he could get hard in dragon form. He did now.
Worse, she noticed. A tiny gasp escaped her, but...she wasn’t afraid. She looked up at him in wonder.
And he was even harder.
What was this gorgeous creature doing to him?
“Are you real?” Her question was soft, inquisitive. “Am I dreaming again?”
He turned his head and blinked slowly, then chuffed and let out the smallest lick of flame. Irony: a water dragon with fire he could not use in the water.
“Wow…” She stroked the scales above his eye, and the feeling went right through him. “There’s more to you, isn’t there?”
Niko nodded and nosed her back a bit in the rick. She caught on and watched him from there.
He shook his scales and spine and brought her attention to his tail, which still rested in the water. He made a great showing of the moment: his tail lifted from the water, and the shift began.
Shrinking, pulling, decreasing, the dragon folded in on him, disappearing back into the human form that—through some magic no one truly understood—contained the massive water dragon.
The woman stood, staring at his now very human, very naked, very erect form.
“Are your eyes always so blue?”
“They will glow from the dragon’s power for the rest of the night.”
“Who are you?”
Oh, I want to tell you everything. But, Niko had already broken dozens of rules of Pine Valley, and that one might be the bridge too far.
“I am ketea. An ancient water dragon formed from the depths of the oldest sea by the oldest of the gods.”
“I feel like I know you.”
“And I you, agapi̱té éna.” The endearment slipped out; he had no basis or proof that she was his, even for a fleeting moment.
This was so dangerous. He didn’t know her. She didn’t know him. She wasn’t a Pine Valley resident. What would happen if she left and started spreading rumors of the truth of Pine Valley—about who, and what, hid here. He hoped the moon created enough of a shadow she couldn’t really see his face.
But the next second chased that thought away. The young woman stepped into him, her jeans and jacket rough against his skin. Her hand was on his arm again, this time without his scales, small but strong.
The sensations of her pushed against him worked to make his cock even harder. He couldn’t—no, she’d given him the ability to choose—didn’t want to stop the impulse that overtook his senses. He reached up his free hand and threaded his fingers through her hair. Silken tresses tickled against burning skin and he lowered his mouth to hers.
“No names,” she whispered.
That was the logical course. “No names.”
She leaned up and he took her mouth, her lips, her very essence as his. He plunged into her, ruling her, and ramping their desire even higher. His tongue swept across hers, tasting cinnamon and sugar, hoping to memorize her. Her tongue sought his lips, then mouth. It felt so right to have her exploring him.
He became conscious of her hands roaming down his burning flesh, gripping his ass. Her hips thrust against his erection, and the instant he was aware of that, he felt a need to be inside her.
This was lust. This was the burning desire other shifters spoke of. The need to possess a woman, to thrust his cock deep into her waiting desire. The quivering anticipation of joining. The need to make her scream in delight before his own climax took him. He’d never felt anything like this, as though his dragon hadn’t retreated completely, but instead was stoking the heat in his aching sac.
Niko let his hands undress this beautiful creature. The jacket was discarded, along with her shirt in the next heartbeat. His lips fell to her breast and he pulled the beaded peak between his teeth. Sucking for a moment, he nipped gently and she let out a hiss of delight.
“You don’t have to be gentle,” she said.
“But I want to.” Niko kissed his way to her other breast and found that nipple, paying it sweet attention. No, he didn’t have to be gentle, but for his first time, he wanted both of them to have memories of this moment they could call on some day in the future that would bolster them.
The rough fucking came later.
The taste of her heated flesh in the cool night burned into his memory. He peppered her soft stomach with kisses that trailed to the waist of the jeans she was still wearing. Niko unfastened them and slid his fingers around to loosen them from their place on her hips. They slid down, and her warm, tender skin was the same spicy sweet her mouth had told him.
A sigh escaped her, and he realized she was still standing.
He wrapped his arms around her, and caressing the satin-soft skin of her ass, inhaling her sweet spice scent, he lowered her to the ground.
She gasped, and Niko remembered she wasn’t dragon, and the rock was cold. He put his hand on the surface and warmed it for her.
“Oh...” The sound was soft and surprised and so sexy it shot right to his rigid dick. He used that same, still warm hand to slide her pants all the way off and put them on the pile there.
“You are a jewel in this moonlight,” he said, smiling down at her.
“Please, please. Fuck me. I need to feel you...”
“I don’t think I could walk away without feeling your pussy around my cock.”
The air rushed from her lungs, and the desire he thought couldn’t get any stronger notched up again. He didn’t know where those words came from—he didn’t use that kind of language. Then again, who was he to talk when his first time was about to be on a rock near a lake after transforming from his dragon to his human shape.
The scent of her sex took hold of him, and he lowered his head to the junction of her thighs—the hot, wet space there. Had she been wearing panties? It didn’t really matter; they would have been in the way. Niko danced his kisses over her mound and down to the lips that covered her clit. The sweet spice continued to enchant him, and using his thumbs, he exposed the hot bundle of nerves to the cool night air. He licked, slowly, purposefully and she let out a shuddering moan.
“Your tongue is burning hot. Oh, God. It feels so good...”
Encouraged, he licked again, and again, and each lick was rewarded by a sexual groan from deep inside her. He moved one hand from her lips and traced her skin back to her entrance. He was amazed to find her so wet. The dragon in him rumbled its approval, anxious to fill her. And again, in a new, amazing sensation, he was completely in sync with that. Another time, another place he’d bring her to heights with just his tongue and fingers, but now, in this place, he ached to fill her.
Sliding up her body, nipping at her tender, beaded nipples, sucking hard, he found himself back at her lips and possessed her, demanding, taking what he needed.
“Please.” Her voice was soft, needy, and he was thrilled when she wrapped her leg around his waist. “Please, fuck me.”
“Oh, yes.” Bracing himself above her, he fisted his throbbing, hot erection and slipped its crown to her waiting entrance. The sensation was electric, sliding over wet, willing pussy. He pressed forward and fixed himself there, letting go and moving his hand to brace again, but not without dancing his fingers over her clit. Feeling her shudder and clench on his dick was amazing and drove him to desperately want to feel her walls wrap him tightly.
Niko couldn’t wait. He pressed into her, feeling her welcome him. She was hot and let out a throaty groan of ecstasy as he filled her, pushing to the top of her willing channel. There was no hesitation from her body on the size of his cock—she accepted all of him down to his root, and wrapped him tightly. This was like no other feeling in the world. No wonder men would kill for this. It wasn’t Helen of Troy’s face that launched those ships; it was the desire to have this, a warm, willing pussy to slide deep inside every night.
“Oh, shit,” she breathed. “Oh, fuck. Like you were made for me.”
“And you for me,” he answered.
“Move, please, move. Make me feel you.”
Withdrawing, a whole new wave of sensations tripped through him. Her noises, whimpers and moans and gasps, made Niko move faster or slower or in a new direction. He listened to her, both voice and body, and learned her. She liked it hard, and he was happy to oblige, thrusting hard and slow into her. Her breasts moved like waves on the water, slow and swollen with her desire. The dusky nipples were as hard as his cock as he slid in and out of her willing, wanting pussy.
“Faster, please faster. Fuck me, make me come.” Her nails were in his back, dragging on his skin, marking him, and the dragon couldn’t get enough of that.
He leaned down and snagged her breast in his teeth, biting and sucking. She screamed, the sound laced with desire and delight. She rolled her hips with him, and there was yet another new sensation that flew through him. He could feel his cock slide against her clit as he thrust and withdrew—he was going to come, hard.
And he wanted to.
The new motion over her bundled nerves was what she had needed to chase her own climax. She panted and rolled and pulled on him, her nails clawed at him, and her breath was ragged. She was chanting beneath him, “Oh God, yes, fuck me. Make me come.” The words off her lips were a sexual prayer, and Niko let himself be taken over by them.
He buried his cock deep inside her, again and again, sucking and pinching her nipples as he was consumed by his need to come. The rush of climax sped through him.
“Coming.” Niko managed to grunt the word.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Each word was louder than the last.
He felt the orgasm speed up his shaft and with a great, powerful thrust he bottomed out in her and bathed her walls with his cum. And in that rush of ecstasy, he heard her cry out, “Oh, fuck me, yes!” Her whole pussy clenched, pulling his cock deeper in her as he released the last of himself into her.
For a long moment, they let the waves control them, washing over them, through them. He slowed his motions carefully, watching the lust on her face turn to satisfaction. Niko leaned down and kissed each fluttering eyelid with a tender, sweet kiss as he withdrew from her.
She whimpered, but he offered her his mouth and the kiss that followed was a full, consuming but undemanding joining of lips and tongue. It was another form of communion, another way to be with each other, in each other. He found her staring at him again.
He kissed down the column of her pale throat. “I would have you again.” And again, and again, and again.
“Not tonight.”
“One week, here.”
She nodded. “Here.”
“No names.”
“No names.”
Trailing his kisses down her body, he found the water behind him with his foot and moved himself back into the lake. As soon as his foot was mostly in the water, the shift took him, and the massive dragon form was back. But this time, Niko was all himself. He blended with the beast, and the beast with him. He watched her sit up, her gorgeous breasts swaying as she still tried to catch her breath. He slipped under the water, her form disappearing into the night.
Like an arrow, he shot to the other side of the lake and hauled himself back out in a cove beyond sight of the other shore. He shifted again into his naked human form and collapsed on the sandy dirt there.
He panted, staring up at the moon. Just thinking about her made his cock stir.
Who was she? And why did the dragon listen to him now?