Chapter 16
It didn’t seem to surprise anyone that Daniel was nowhere to be found. Nobody but Shelby was even worried about him. They worried about his sanity, yes, but not so much about his wellbeing, or ability to physically take care of himself. It was driving her nuts.
“Really?” She asked, rounding on Dallas in sheer frustration. Two hours ago, they’d cornered her about their concern for him, and now they were scattered around the living area of the cave, deep in whatever responsibilities they had. She’d already squared off with the other three idiots only to get the same bland response each time. “
You
’
re
Be
reasonable, Dallas. Two hours ago you were worried sick about him. Now that I’m concerned, not one of you will do anything about it.”
“First off,” he started, his face completely neutral, “we are dragons. We do not do worried sick. Second, we are dragons. If Daniel cannot handle a night watch by himself, then he should have said so. One of us would have gone with him to hold his hand.”
Shelby was not amused. Before she could say a word, though, Dallas held up a hand.
“And third, we are dragons. We are not friends, so do not pull that card.”
Her temper spiked, along with the urge to kick the stubborn beast. Instead, she took a step toward him, drilling him in the chest with her finger. “What if it was you out there?” she demanded. “What if something was wrong, but none of the other dragons came?”
“Then it would be my own damn fault for not calling for help.”
An arm snagged her around her waist before she could do Dallas bodily damage. Or attempt to, anyway. She was sure she’d hurt herself way worse than she’d ever be able to hurt him.
Luca spun her around and set her on her feet, his face furious. “What the hell are you doing?”
Tears stung her eyes. “I’m trying to get one of you to go after Daniel.”
“Daniel’s fine, Shelby. We would know if something was wrong with him, especially you.”
She gave him a look suggesting he was out of his ever-loving mind. They all were. She was sure of it. “Really, Luca? How?”
He crouched in front of her, but Shelby was not going to bend. She was afraid, and they were going to have to deal with it.
“How many times in the last year has the mark over your chest started to hurt for no apparent reason?”
“A lot.” Her nose wrinkled. “”
Luca nodded once. “What do you feel right now?”
“Pissed off and irritated.” She scowled at him, until it finally dawned on her what he was saying. “You’re saying I wasn’t imagining it, or just going insane? That I have a connection to him through the mark?”
“Exactly. So what are you feeling?”
She took in a deep breath, closing her eyes as she concentrated on her emotions. She was worried about Daniel and irritated at the other dragons, but the mark over her heart was pulsing.
Her fingers brushed over her link to Daniel lightly. She’d gotten so used to pretending she imagined the pulsing over the last eleven months that she barely noticed it anymore. She blew out a long breath. “He’s fine,” she murmured. “I think…he’s pissed off?”
“Sounds about right. It’s his usual frame of mind.”
Her teeth worried at her bottom lip as she sank down onto the couch. “So I would know if something was wrong with him?”
“Yeah. He feels what you’re feeling, too. My guess is your fear is feeding his temper at the moment, so, as he’s doing a perimeter check, he’s systematically plotting our deaths for upsetting you.”
Shelby shook her head slowly as she pulled her knees to her chest. “That doesn’t seem fair, Luca. He has enough going on without my emotions triggering his temper. What if I get upset about something that distracts him and he gets hurt?” Her eyes went wide. It felt like someone had grabbed her heart and was squeezing it. “I can’t be responsible for hurting him.”
Before Luca could answer, a low, violent roar trembled through the cave, echoing in the mountains around them. “Daniel!” Shelby was on her feet and running to the boulder before Luca could pull her to a stop.
“He’s warning whoever upset you to fix it before he has to come kill us all.”
Her mouth dropped open as she swung around to face him. “That…that was Daniel”
“Yes.” Luca shot her a desperate look. “So do me a favor and listen to what I’m saying, alright? Have you ever made a mistake because the mark over your heart distracted you?”
She shook her head slowly as she moved to the couch and collapsed onto it. “No. If anything, I was more careful.”
“What about when it was hurting you?”
She shook her head again. “No,” she repeated. “I felt desperate, but it was more like a phantom pain. It’s hard to describe.”
“You don’t have to.” He crouched in front of her, his arms braced against his knees. “It’s your connection to your mate. It’s what keeps Daniel grounded. We’re more likely to do the right thing when we can feel our mate’s emotions.”
Tears blurred her eyes. “Can he shut me out?”
Luca’s jaw ticked. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “If anyone can do it, Daniel would find a way if he thought it was best for you.”
Her hands fisted together in her lap as she felt her expression go calm. It was where she always went when her thoughts were a turmoil. “Luca, I think I messed up yesterday, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Alright,” he murmured immediately, his dark blue gaze searching her face. “What did you do that was so bad?”
“I made love to him.” At his blank, bland stare, she ducked her head, blushing. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t know what to do, so you’re just going to have to listen and help me, alright? He tends to be, ah, frantic almost, but I kept it slow. It was, well, it was more me making love to him than it was sex. I wanted to show him how much I care about him, and how I feel about him. I thought he needed to know, because he’s such a good man. But when we were done, he…” She blew out a breath, trying not to be embarrassed. “He’d completely disconnected from me.”
Luca shifted on his feet, before he let out a harsh cough. “I don’t suppose you tried talking to him about this.”
Shelby shot him an annoyed look. “Seriously? Have you tried getting something out of that man when he doesn’t want to discuss it?”
“He wants you to find someone better than him.”
“He’s insane.” Shelby let out an unsteady breath that did nothing to stop the sarcasm that
dripped from her next words. “Have you met him? I barely know him, and I know what he’d have done if he’d known how messed up the last year had become for me. He would have broken heads and scared the crap out of everyone until they’d fixed their mistakes and apologized to me.”
“Do you think he hasn’t kept a close eye on you in the last eleven months?”
She went still at his blank tone and the implication behind it. Her temper ratcheted up to mutinous as she got to her feet. “No. No way are any of you convincing me Daniel is not worth having. Not worth saving.” She scowled at them, because she knew now Daniel would sense it if she started bawling like she wanted to. Her heart was breaking, but she did not want him to know what his friends thought of him. She balled her fists and considered hitting each one of them.
“You can all go to hell.”
Luca caught her around the waist again before she could stomp out of the cave. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he asked in a low roar.
She rounded on him the second he set her down. “Stop doing that,” she yelled. Seething, she blocked the urge to kick him.
“Shelby.” His voice was calm, which only infuriated her further. “Listen to what we’re saying, alright? None of us agree with him that your situation is his fault, but we know how we’d feel in his position. That’s all.”
Her face crumpled. “So you are his friends?” She held up her hand, as if to block off four denials. “Never mind. You’re dragons.” She rolled her eyes as she said it, because she still didn’t get what one had to do with the other. Besides, the important part was they didn’t believe Daniel was responsible. She studied them one at a time. “Now how do I convince him he’s not to blame?”
“You don’t.” Shelby winced at Broderick’s words. “He’ll either get there on his own, or he won’t.”
She glared at him, and since he wasn’t being helpful, decided she’d focus her next statement at Luca. “He’s not allowed to die, do you understand me? He is going to live, and he is going to have to accept that I want him.” She pointed at all of them, one at a time. “You are going to convince him that I will make him deliriously happy for the rest of time.”
Broderick raised a brow. She snorted, wondering absently if it was a dragon trait. She’d never seen so many people with that particular quirk.
“Any idea of how we do that?” he asked on a drawl. “He’s a stubborn one, our
Ashborne.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Bain chimed in cheerfully. “He’d rather eat his own heart out than admit he was wrong about something.”
Shelby considered kicking the two of them. “You’re not helping.”
“But they’re right,” Luca said quietly. “I’m not sure Daniel is ever going to get to a point where he doesn’t feel responsible for this. The best you’re going to get is acceptance, and hope that he comes to his senses and realizes you need him in the same way he needs you. The problem is, he doesn’t trust anyone, least of all his own instincts when emotions are involved.”
Shelby let out a slow, shaky breath. “Leanora.”
Luca’s gaze snapped to hers. “He told you about her?”
She nodded, while some protective instinct told her to tread lightly with this. She didn’t know how they’d react to learning Daniel had almost choked her. She did not intend to find out, either. “Yes. He had a nightmare about her yesterday morning, then Dallas told me about how he’d changed when he got free. She really had him chained in a dungeon for not sleeping with her?”
“Among other things,” Luca said. “She was a human queen who wanted immortality. If she had somehow forced Daniel to mate to her, her reign would never have to end.”
None of them said anything for a long time. Shelby had the uncomfortable feeling they were somehow communicating without her being able to hear. When she stomped her foot impatiently, Luca cleared his throat.
“It wasn’t pretty,” he murmured quietly. “He was nearly…feral by the time we found him. It almost drained the healer of all energy trying to save his wing. He probably wouldn’t have lost his arm, but he damn near wasn’t able to fly again.” Luca shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “He’d rather die than lose the ability to fly. Any of us would. But the wing was the easy part compared to the mess his brain had become.”
Her breath froze in her throat at the emotion that flickered over Luca’s face. “He was in love with her,” she murmured, her voice devoid of emotion.
“No. But she tried to brainwash him into it.”
“Shit.” Dallas went rigid, and then pointed at Shelby. “She’s human. If he can keep her human, he may be able to break the mating. ”
“But I’m not anymore.” When four pairs of eyes swung to him, she shrugged. “Right? I was shot yesterday. I was almost dead, but I’m already healed. That’s not normal for humans.”
Broderick narrowed his gaze on her. “How do you feel about giving blood?”
She tucked her arms behind her. “I like my blood where it’s at, thankyouverymuch.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “But just out of curiosity…why?”
Broderick gave her a look that was as sheepish as it was slightly manic. “I was bored once, and isolated the dragon-shifter gene. If Daniel isn’t going to change his mind, the least I can do is try to find a way to stop him from killing you both.”
She bit her bottom lip. “I’d rather find a way to convince him to stop being such a stubborn, bone-headed pain in my…butt.” Because she was slightly afraid Broderick would decide to come after her with a needle just to test his theory, she shuffled back on the couch, and shifted her gaze to Luca. “I don’t like needles. I will hurt him if he gets near me with one.”
“Wait. We’re missing something.” Dallas went rigid, his gaze snapping to Shelby’s face.
“You said the paparazzi recently found your father, right?”
She frowned as she tried to catch up with the change of topic. “So?”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“I don’t know.” Her stomach roiled, threatening to revolt. She freed an arm to wrap around her middle, to keep her insides, inside. “A year or so…” Her voice trailed off when the dragon-men went into motion, as if they’d all come to the same conclusion at once.
“Ago,” she whispered to the vacant room.
Chapter 17
They were trying to test the edges of his sanity, Daniel knew it. While he’d told them to do what was necessary to convince Shelby she was better off without him, he was no longer sure he’d thought that plan through.
Her emotions were fucking killing him.
Ryuu, he was an idiot. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. She was supposed to be grateful to get rid of him, not sending them on a goddamn rollercoaster of emotions as she fought against what had to be common fucking sense.
Couldn’t she see he was trying to do what was best--what was right for her?
He snorted. Of course she couldn’t. She was Shelby. She never did what he expected.
Crouching down on the mountain peak across from the cave, he braced his forearms against his legs, staring through the space separating them. If he tried hard enough, he could hear her voice through the distance. The soft sound tinkled in the air around him as if crystallizing, becoming solid. Warming him. He threw up his defenses against it, and tried like hell to find enough temper to keep her out of his heart.
He couldn’t get there. He couldn’t make himself be angry. This was how it was supposed to be for her. She should have found someone who had the ability to make her laugh, to bring out the joy inside she kept shoved down deep in an effort to protect herself. She needed someone who knew how to talk to her.
All Daniel managed to do was find new ways to piss her off.
He closed his eyes. Maybe that was what he needed to do. If he pissed her off enough, was a big enough bastard to her, she’d walk away on her own. The bond wouldn’t break, but he could find the right buttons to push with one of the other dragons until they decided to kill him, and put them all out of their misery.
They all had their weak spots. You couldn’t spend two thousand years fighting side by side with someone and not know his or her Achilles
’
h
H
eel.
Hell, it wouldn’t surprise any of them if he ever decided to attack. Part of him was sure they had been preparing for it since he’d broken free of Leanora’s spell, and had a plan in place for when it happened.
As her laugh echoed through the cool, crisp air around him, he let out a low, dark growl. Like the sap he was, he wondered if the Hunter hadn’t shown up that night, if things could have been different. If he could have been different.
Over the last eleven months, he’d convinced himself she was just a damn good actress. He’d only been feeling for her exactly what she’d wanted him to feel. He snorted. He was such a jackass. He was as in love with her now as he had been that night. Had the Hunter not shown up, he would have torn the goddamn world apart at the seams to find a way to keep her happy for the rest of their lives.
He wanted to believe it wasn’t too late. That he could tell her how he felt, and she would want him. Determined to start righting all of his wrongs, he straightened as her laugh shimmered in the air again. He shifted into his dragon form and headed for the cave.
When he entered, he wanted to turn tail. He should have stayed the fuck outside. It would have been better for his sanity, and just safer all around , when he saw her sitting on the couch, crowded on all sides by the other dragons.
She was in the middle, Broderick and Dallas sprawled on either side of her, Bain perched on the back of the sofa next to her, while Luca sat on the floor in front of her.
Even more brain-twisting, it wasn’t just Shelby laughing--they were all doing it as they watched something on the .
He didn’t pay attention to anyone but her. She looked…happy. Carefree. He had no idea what they were watching, but he’d never seen anyone laugh so hard at a show before.
Though it royally pissed him off the other dragons were sharing the moment with her instead of him, he loved the sound of her laugh too much to be an ass about it.
It occurred to him that if he succeeded in finding a way to break the mating bond, there was a good possibility one of the other dragons in the room would step in to take her as mate.
The pain it caused in his chest had him stumbling back a step as rage blurred his vision.
* * * *
“Daniel.” Shelby’s hands shook as she crouched in front of him, gently shaking his shoulder. She didn’t know what happened. One moment everything was normal, and the next, the lights in the cave had started flickering as a low, violent rumbling sound began. By the time they had realized it was coming from Daniel, he’d hit the floor. “Daniel, wake up. You’re scaring me.”
His eyes snapped open, temper already flashing in the silver depths. He reached behind him for his weapon. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head slowly as she wrapped her hand around his wrist to stop him from pulling out his knife. “You passed out.”
His gorgeous face was astonished. “Bullshit.”
“It’s true, we all saw it,” Bain drawled. “We were watching Parks and Recreation when you just hit the ground like a pansy. What the hell happened?”
Daniel growled as he got to his feet. He then bent over, hooking his arm around Shelby’s waist, lifting her gently. “Nothing happened.” He turned to the dragons in the room. “I need to talk to my mate. Alone.”
Shelby watched the other dragons study him for a long moment. She scowled at them while moving in closer to Daniel. “It’s okay, you can go. He’s not going to hurt me, and you all know it.”
“Yeah, we know,” Bain drawled. “But we like you, and it’s fun to make Ashborne’s head hurt. Nothing’s ever gotten to him before.”
“Well stop,” she chided, frowning at him. “It’s not nice.”
“Sure it is,” Broderick chimed in. “It’s funny as fuck, too.”
Daniel’s lip lifted in a snarl. “I will start knocking heads together.”
Shelby snorted, expecting them to argue, but to her shock, the threat was enough to get them moving. She frowned as she turned to Daniel. “Are they afraid of you?”
“Yes.” His face went neutral. “They’re never sure if I start pounding on one of them I’ll stop when my point’s made.”
She shook her head, not sure she understood. “Why would you pound on them?”
“We’re dragons,” he said simply, as if it explained it all. “It’s what we do. It releases tension. You don’t get to know someone for countless millennia without getting on each other’s nerves.”
Her head canted as she wondered if she’d ever get used to the dragon way of life. “Do you fight with your friends often?”
“They’re not my friends, and no. Like I said, they don’t trust me.”
Her teeth worried at her bottom lip for a moment. “So how do you release tension?”
When he just gave her a bland look, she was sure she was going to be sick. “Never mind. What did you want to talk to me about?” He scooped her up and carried her to the back of the cave, toward the bedroom. She tilted her head back so she could smile at him. “How is it you’ve been outside for hours and you’re still so warm?”
“I’m just hot?”
Shelby went still, the only sound in the cave was her erratic heartbeat. Then a whoop of pure joy escaped her. “Daniel! You made a joke.” She leaned up, cupped his face in her hands, and grinned as she kissed him. “I’m so proud of you.”
He kissed her back, then sat on the edge of the bed and settled her on his lap. Shelby shifted until she straddled him. Looking at him was her favorite thing in the world, next to kissing him.
“Tell me,” he demanded. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned your father to me?” When she dropped her gaze to his chest, he let out a frustrated rumble. “Dallas mentioned it.”
His hands locked around her hips when she tried to scoot off his lap. The determination in his eyes worried her, and she already knew she had no defenses against him. If he wanted something from her, they were both aware he would get it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He didn’t like hearing that. She felt his fury building, and for a moment, she was sure he was going to tear something apart. “But you will tell the others?” he asked.
“I didn’t tell anyone anything.” She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. “You know more about me than anyone. That’s the way it should be.”
This time, it was pure arrogance sparking in his eyes. “Yes, it is. So tell me about him.”
She sighed. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Daniel. It’s not open for discussion.” Because she could feel the panic starting to rise in her throat at his resolve to find out every dirty detail of her life, it took everything she had not to shut down and hide her emotions from him. “Please. Just let it go.”
Instead of yelling at her like she’d expected, Daniel wrapped his arms around her waist.
He pulled her against his chest, resting his chin against her shoulder. “He hurt you.”
Unwanted tears flooded her eyes. She knew the softness in his tone. When he was angry, he yelled and he snapped and he growled. When he was contemplating killing someone, he turned to ice. He was prepared to kill her father if he’d hurt her. “No, Daniel. He didn’t hurt me.
He just didn’t care.”
He slid his hands into her hair and tugged, forcing her to meet his gaze. “How is that not hurting you?”
“He had another family. They were perfect without me. He tried to get me to fit in with them, but I was never able to.” At his confusion, she blew out a breath. “I was the result of a one night stand. He’d cheated on his wife with my mother.”
“What happened to her?”
She shrugged, absently rubbing at the dull ache in the center of her chest. “She died in a car accident. A drunk driver they were never able to find.” When his eyes went dark with sympathy, she forced a smile. “I was little, so I don’t remember much about her. My father took me in afterward, but he traveled a lot, and his wife hated me. When it became too much for them, they shipped me off to other relatives, then eventually to boarding school. After a while, they stopped planning for me to go home for holidays and school breaks. He said it was just too difficult. No matter what I tried, how much I tried to be one of them, I didn’t fit in. I made everyone uncomfortable. Luckily, I’d joined the drama club in seventh grade, and I found people I understood and liked. I learned that I could be anyone I wanted to be. I was good, so good the drama teacher started taking me to auditions.” Because he was back to his furious pissed-off dragon state, elongated pupils and all, she forced a smile for him. “At my first audition, they hired me on the spot. They said they’d never seen anyone so adaptable and capable of becoming someone else.”
His brows drew together over his eyes. “It bothers you.”
She tried to shrug it off, and gave him a dazzling smile. “It makes me a good actress.” “Shelby.”
She winced at the anger in his words. She pushed at his shoulders, needing to be off his lap, but he tightened his arms around her waist before she could climb down. She gritted her teeth at that damnable raised-brow look he was giving her. “What?”
“What do you mean? You could be anyone you wanted to be
.
?
”
“I spent my childhood trying to fit in, to be who my father wanted me to be so he would keep me. I tried so many different personalities, tried to be so many different people.” She shrugged and made a face, though her voice was quieter than she’d wanted it to be. She hated herself for it. “It didn’t work.”
“Your father is an idiot, princess.” Even as her mouth dropped open, he shot his hand into
her hair, tangling his fingers at the nape of her neck. He rested his forehead against hers. “What happened when the paparazzi found him?”
Her fingers played with the ends of his beautiful hair. It hurt to go back and think about it, but she realized being close to Daniel made it better. He always made the bad things better. “Nothing. Well, he, my step
-
mother
,
and their girls couldn’t wait to reconnect with me. They were on the first flight out.”
He dropped his chin on the top of her head. “What happened?”
“They missed me.” Because she couldn’t get what Daniel had said about her sister out of her head, she now doubted everything. “They were sorry, and they wanted to make it up to me for the way they’d treated me.” She shrugged, the ball of shame she’d always lived with settling in her belly again. “It didn’t take long for them to realize I hadn’t changed, and for their act to start to slip. They were convinced if I could act and become famous, . So I set up an audition for Alicia that didn’t go well. It was my fault, of course. I’d sabotaged it somehow, to get back at them for being mean to me when I was a kid.”
“You are evil like that.”
“I really am.” Against her will, she laughed at his dry comment, and wrapped her arms around his neck. God, it felt good to laugh with him.
Daniel pressed his lips to her temple as he pulled her even closer. “?”
Shelby squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re going to think I’m an idiot.”
“No,” he murmured quietly. “I promise that’s not going to happen.”
She snorted pathetically, letting him know she didn’t believe him. She said the words, anyway. “He and Alicia showed at my door a month or so after you disappeared. They couldn’t handle my step-mother’s reaction to the scandal, and her complete lack of sympathy.” Her face crumpled as she remembered that day. “He hugged me. He told me he was sorry, and that he and Alicia were there to help me through it. I trusted him, and I was so grateful for the way they stood by me, the way they helped me, I set up another audition for Alicia. Then I asked my dad if he wanted to be my manager. Part of me knew he was using me, but in my world, everyone uses everyone. At least I had a relationship with him.”
Daniel was quiet for a long moment, before he just murmured softly, “.”
“You…” her voice trailed off as she shook her head slowly, confusion rippling through her. “That’s it?”
“I’d rather string him up and eviscerate him slowly, while taking my time peeling his skin from his bones, but that could take days and I don’t like the idea of being away from you for so long.”
She felt it. She literally felt the second she went from being half in love with the man, to being all-the-way-to-her-soul, heart-deep, wildly, madly, completely and absolutely in love with him. Not because he wanted to eviscerate her father, but because he hated that she’d been hurt. She leaned up, cupped his face in her hands, and with a smile blooming over her face, she kissed him.
* * * *
Daniel was kissing her back before he realized what he was doing. By then, it was too late to stop. He was lost in her eyes, in her smile, in the way she looked at him and simply made him feel.
Tangling a hand in her hair, he let his mouth move over hers slowly, suddenly determined to give her back what she’d given to him last night. It was the least he could do after she’d laid herself bare to let him in.
Mindful of how precious she was, his hands were feather-light and gentle as he slowly stretched her out on the bed, his body carefully covering hers. He was ever aware of how small she was against his massiveness. Hurting her in any way was not something he would survive.
Determined to take his time with her, he peeled her clothes off slowly. He needed to see her. Touch her. Feel her.
She was so perfect to him, in every way possible. Her small, tight body was so magnificently formed it nearly brought him to his knees. She was amazing. Every inch of her, from the dark freckle at the corner of her left eye, to the small, nearly invisible scar on her chin, to the soft, round breasts and narrow waist, were exquisite.
He’d be afraid of breaking her, but the idea of never being inside of her again was enough to push him over the last fine edge of insanity.
She bowed up into him on a soft sigh, pressing her body willingly to his as his mouth slipped down her waist to the core of her. The way she responded to him--the way she needed him--it was almost enough to make him believe the parts of him were all right. Made him want to be all those things--gentle and sweet and patient, and so much more. Just for her.
Part of him knew it was the mating mark causing her reaction to him, but the same part of him hoped against hope, if he gave her enough of everything she needed, she’d take pity on him and agree to be with him. He didn’t want to be without her anymore.
He drove her up with his mouth until she screamed with her release, ignoring his own needs in his desperation to give her the world. He knew even after he died, he’d never stop craving the sweetness of her.
“Dear God, you killed me.” Her head fell back as her body bowed with a long shiver. “I’m dead. I’m in heaven,” she murmured with a slow, languid stretch, a lazy smile curving her mouth, “and holy damn does it feel good. I mean, wow.”
He grunted as he fell onto the bed next to her. She immediately rolled over on top of him.
“Wow, huh?”
She smiled and leaned down to trail her mouth slowly over his Mack-sized chest. “I thought you were angry at me.”
“No.” He caught her hair in his fist, holding her still. “Shel--don’t.” He cursed quietly when her body stilled. He didn’t have to see her eyes to feel her uncertainty. It took him several tries to get out the words he wanted to say. “This time was for you.”
She frowned, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip as she shook her head slowly. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s not about being fair.” He gripped her hips and with all the gentleness he could muster, set her on the bed next to him. He stood up, thankful he still had his track pants on, aware if she dropped her gaze, she’d be able to see just how much it was killing him.
He heard her teeth chatter before she grabbed the comforter off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Daniel, what’s wrong?” When he ignored her, she mimicked a growl and scooted off the bed so she was standing in front of him. “Don’t do this. What’s going on?”
He didn’t move for so long, the woman actually reached out to pinch his bicep. He started to growl at her, to demand she get away from him, when something inside of him snapped.
He moved in. His hand tangled in her hair as his other arm banded around her waist. He hitched her up, his face burying in her shoulder. “.” The words tore out of somewhere deep inside. It terrified the hell out of him. He was giving this woman all the power in the world to break him. “Please don’t give up on me, baby. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Just don’t give up on me.”
“Daniel.” She murmured it gently as she wound her arms around his neck. She rested her head against him as his shoulders shook violently. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I’m right where I want to be. Hey.” She trailed one of her hands over his shoulder, until it pressed against the mark on his chest that matched her own. “What do you feel?”
“You. I just feel you.” He shifted his hold on her as he took them both to the ground, and wrapped himself around her. He had no idea how she’d done it, but she had. She’d made him need her, and now he needed her so goddamn fucking much he couldn’t breathe through it. “So help me, Shelby. I know I should let you go. I know it, but I can’t fucking get my body to cooperate with my brain. I don’t know how to fight it.”
She lifted her head, letting him see the wild storm raging inside of her. “I don’t want you to let me go. I’m as much a part of this mating as you are. Don’t you get it?” she asked, her eyes searching his. “Even if you found a way for both of us to survive the break, I’d still find a way to be with you.”
“No.” He gritted it out through clenched teeth as he dropped his head back on the bed. She only shifted on his lap until her face was directly above his. He trailed the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. “You’re saying that because I’ve left you no goddamn choice. I came in here to tell you good
bye. It’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
She stared at him for so long he actually began to twitch, before she let out an indignant “No.”
He cocked his head, certain he’d misunderstood her. “Pardon?”
“No,” she repeated. “I don’t accept your goodbye. Sorry.” Her grin went impish as she licked her way down his throat. “But we can have sex again.”
His head exploded. It simply exploded until he was sure he could feel it bounce off the edges of his skull. Any willpower he thought he had, vanished. His mouth was ravaging hers in the next heartbeat.
Chapter 18
Daniel was fucked. There was no other word for it, and no other way to describe it. He was well, truly and completely, utterly and royally fucked. He knew it.
He just couldn’t give a shit.
His head dropped back on a hiss, and as Shelby slowly climbed on top of him, her mouth dragging slowly over the muscles in his abdomen, he decided it would be hard for anyone in his position to care about how royally they’d fucked everything up.
He had Shelby, his mate, the woman of his dreams. And she didn’t want him to let her go.
She brought her mouth back to his, shifting her hips to take him inside again. He wrapped his arm around her perfect ass when she reared up, loving the way her tiny, tight body felt as she wrapped herself around him.
Her beautiful eyes locked on his as he drove them relentlessly up and up, and ever further up, until there was no choice but for them to shatter completely. Together.
He was cross-eyed and half dead as Shelby’s trembling body went limp. She collapsed against him, her after-shock whimpers tickling his chest.
Yeah. The beast inside of him let out a satisfied purr as his hand possessively cupped her ass. He was fucked.
“Seriously,” he rasped, his voice hoarse. Raw. “I’m glad you can’t get enough of me, princess, but we have to stop. One more orgasm like that and I’m going to blow out my vocal chords.” He yawned, too sleepy and sedate to be stern. “You don’t want to see a dragon without his roar, woman.”
“Somehow,” she murmured, her eyes dancing as she peeked up at him, “I think you’d still find a way to intimidate all the other dragons on the playground.”
His face went blank as he stared at her, confused. She seemed to expect some kind of response from him, but no one had ever teased him before. He had no idea what to do. He didn’t have time to think about it, either. She giggled and bounded naked off the bed, running for the , her laugh trailing behind her.
He didn’t question the urge to run after her, he just did. She was his mate. Where she
went, he followed. She was laughing as he caught up with her in the kitchen. He was so distracted by her smile he didn’t realize until too late she had a weapon in her hands.