Chapter 8
“The mating has started, then.” Grigor made a statement rather than asked a question as the two brothers sat eating breakfast together the following morning. “Is the need as intense as the others say it is?”
“You may be the eldest of us, and our leader, but I have no intention of discussing my mate with you or anything to do with our mating,” Dylan dismissed.
His brother arched dark brows. “You didn’t seem to have the same scruples when you asked those same questions of our brothers. Or their human mates. Much to their disgust,” he recalled dryly. “I remember Tegan was especially unhappy at your questions. To the extent she totally refused to let you physically examine her.”
“Yes. Well.” Dylan scowled at this mention of Bryn’s now-pregnant mate. “I needed certain information for medical purposes,” he defended. “So that I could formulate and then decide the correct dosage of the antidote to the mating aphrodisiac. The contraception was easier because I can go on body weight.”
“Which you’re now taking, I hope?”
Dylan avoided meeting Grigor’s gaze. “I’m having the injections of contraception, yes.”
“And Holly?”
“Is still sleeping.”
“Worn her out already, have you?” his brother said knowingly. “I’m surprised you could drag yourself away from her.”
Dylan admitted, to himself, at least, it had been a pretty close thing. Holly looked so beautiful and relaxed this morning, sprawled naked across his bed.
She hadn’t woken when he’d gently eased her beneath the bedcovers last night. Nor when, after undressing, Dylan slid into the bed beside her before drawing her into his arms, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm lying lightly across his abdomen. Despite the fact he hadn’t attained his own release, with Holly safe and naked in his arms, Dylan had never felt happier and more contented than he had last night.
That contentment had been replaced with a raging and relentless hard-on when he woke early this morning.
Rather than disturb Holly with his fidgeting, Dylan had quietly slipped out of bed and gone through to the adjoining bathroom to shower and dress before coming downstairs to run the necessary test on his blood. As he had thought, the mating aphrodisiac was even higher than last time.
Just his luck that Grigor was the only one seated at the breakfast table when Dylan entered the room. No doubt it was too early, only a little after seven, for the rest of the family to be awake yet.
Which begged the question, why was Grigor up so early?
Dylan studied him closely. “Are you having trouble sleeping?”
Grigor’s mouth twisted derisively. “Is this what humans call deflection?”
Dylan gave a knowing smile. “If it is, then you’ve perfected it to a fine art. Now answer the question.” His voice hardened.
Grigor rose restlessly to his feet, his expression grim. “How the fuck am I supposed to sleep surrounded by four mated pairs of dragons? The pheromones in the house alone are enough to almost knock me on my ass.”
“They’re that disturbing to you?”
“Yes.”
Grigor was Dylan’s greatest worry. Well, until he met Holly, his eldest brother had been his greatest worry. Now all that concern had narrowed down on to Holly. Her comfort. Her pleasure. Her safety.
But for the past year, Grigor had been balanced precariously on the edge of turning feral. Dylan had been monitoring his brother’s blood and other body secretions for any sign Grigor was about to shift and remain dragon. But basically, Dylan believed it was only his brother’s strong will that had prevented him from doing so. The rest of the family could only hope Grigor would find his own mate before it was too late.
The chances of that happening had certainly increased now that four of the brothers had found their own human mates, something they hadn’t believed possible until Nathaniel found Chloe. But just because four of them had found human mates was no guarantee Grigor would find his mate in time. If she even existed.
“Grigor—”
“No more tests, Dylan,” his brother grated harshly. “No more taking my blood. No more jerking myself off into a plastic cup so you can test my cum—” His gaze shifted to the doorway, where a red-faced Holly now stood. “Great,” Grigor rasped, dark eyes glittering his displeasure. “Just fucking great. Why don’t we just announce to the whole fucking world that my brother has had me masturbating into a cup for months now just so he can test the result!”
“I’m a doctor—”
“I don’t give a damn what you are,” Grigor cut furiously across Holly’s remark. “If you need me, I’ll be at my cave,” he told his brother dismissively.
Holly stepped quickly out of the doorway to allow Grigor to storm from the room, sure he would have plowed her down if she hadn’t done so.
She’d debated, once she heard the gist of the conversation between Dylan and Grigor, whether or not she should just disappear back upstairs. But Grigor had seen her before she had chance to do so.
And to think she’d believed the most embarrassing thing she would have to suffer this morning was facing Dylan again after their intimacy of last night.
She found it more than a little worrying that Grigor—and possibly the rest of the Pendragon brothers—were prepared to go to such lengths to placate Dylan’s delusion they were all dragon shifters. It wasn’t good for Dylan, and it certainly wasn’t good for any of them.
“You’re welcome to come in, you know,” Dylan teased.
She gave a grimace as she stepped farther into the breakfast room. “I’m sorry about—about upsetting Grigor.”
“Grigor is always upset nowadays.” Dylan stood to cross the room before bending to kiss her warmly on the cheek. He straightened to look down at her intently. “How are you today?”
How was she?
Well, her body ached in places she hadn’t known it could ache. Every muscle in her body felt well used. She felt well used.
Possibly because she had been.
The intimacy with Dylan last night had been…as incredible as the rest of this visit. She hadn’t imagined, ever thought—
But I did hope, a little voice mocked inside her head.
Her attraction toward Dylan at the hospital a week ago had been undeniable. She’d thought about him a lot as the week passed. When Gayle told her what she’d done, Holly had felt a mélange of emotions: anger, fear, worry. At the same time, Holly had immediately thought of Dylan as the one person she thought might be able to help her. Imagining him returning the attraction she felt for him hadn’t been too far from her thoughts and hopes either.
Last night had been… She blushed at the memory of having Dylan’s hands and mouth on her. Of how he’d been just as insatiable in his need to give her pleasure.
Waking in Dylan’s bed this morning, alone, Holly realized she hadn’t returned that pleasure.
Along with that feeling of guilt had come other memories. Of Dylan telling her he was a sixteen-hundred-year-old dragon shifter, his mother was a Welsh goddess, and one of his brothers had been King Arthur. That she was Dylan’s fated mate.
Whatever the hell that meant.
“Last night should not have happened,” she told him now. “I’m a doctor, you’re obviously ill, and I shouldn’t have taken advantage— Why are you laughing?” She frowned as Dylan chuckled.
“Because I was the one who took advantage of you.” He grinned. “And very nice it was too.”
Nice? Last night hadn’t been just nice for Holly, it had been life-changing.
There really hadn’t been time for men in her life the past eight years, and now, at the age of twenty-seven, she was probably less experienced than most teenagers were nowadays. She might even be the last twenty-seven-year-old virgin left in London.
The moment she’d heard Dylan’s voice again earlier, the desire from last night had slammed into her with the force of an express train, preventing her from moving. Which was the real reason she’d overheard the latter part of his conversation with Grigor.
She couldn’t imagine, was trying not to imagine, that dark and imperious man stroking and pumping his own cock until he ejaculated into a plastic cup. “Did Grigor say he was going to his cave?” she realized belatedly, those feelings of unease once again churning in her stomach.
Dylan nodded. “We all have them as somewhere for us to go when we want to be alone. Mine is in the French Alps. I’ll take you to see it once this other matter is settled.”
The “other matter” being Gayle’s embezzlement of millions of pounds from Gregori Markovic.
Something Holly needed to concentrate on now rather than the weirdness that was the Pendragon family.
Dylan placed a hand beneath Holly’s chin and lifted her face so she was now looking at him. “It will be settled, Holly,” he assured her. “One way or another,” he added grimly.
A frown creased her creamy brow. “What does that mean?”
Dylan thought it best not to tell Holly that if everything else failed, he would simply kill Gregori Markovic and anyone else who got in his way. The safety and well-being of his mate was paramount.
“That isn’t important for the moment,” he dismissed. “I talked to Garrett half an hour ago. Your sister is still safely locked in her hotel room.”
She sighed her relief. “Thank God.”
Dylan nodded. “We’ll leave as soon as you’ve eaten some breakfast.”
“I’m really not hungry—”
“You’re going to eat, Holly.” Dylan was aware she’d barely eaten anything at dinner last night, and he meant it when he said she was going to need her strength once he’d given her the mating bite.
Holly recognized Dylan was using that implacable voice on her again. The one that warned her against arguing with him. In fact, he sounded exactly like one of her stricter tutors at university. If it wasn’t for the wildness of the tale Dylan had told her last night, Holly would have thought he was completely sane. As it was…
“There’s no reason for you to come with me,” she assured him in a bright and cheerful voice. “I may have initially panicked by coming here, but I’m sure I’ll be able to sort this out on my own.”
Dylan’s dark eyebrows rose to his hairline. “And I’m equally as certain that you can’t. Nor will I allow you to do so,” he added as she would have argued. “I told you, whatever happens in future, we’re doing it together.”
“But—”
“Do I have to prove you’re my mate again?”
She frowned. “I don’t—”
“I think I do,” Dylan answered his own question, bending slightly to put his shoulder against her abdomen and an arm about the backs of her knees before straightening.
The moment he did, Holly’s feet left the floor, and she found herself hoisted up and facing back over his shoulder. “What are you doing?” she demanded as he carried her out of the breakfast room toward the cavernous entrance hall.
“Restaking my claim,” he stated lightly.
“Re…?”
“I won’t complete the mating until you ask me to, but make no mistake, you are mine.”
“But—” Holly clung desperately to the back of his T-shirt as she bounced precariously on his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time. “Dylan,” she warned sharply.
“I want to hear you say that a lot more in the next hour or so, and with increasing pleasure and desperation,” he returned happily as he reached the top of the stairs and walked down the hallway to his bedroom.
Holly fell silent as he verbally made his intention crystal clear. She wasn’t sure her aching muscles were up to another marathon round of intimacy.
But as she lay on the bed seconds later, watching as Dylan took off his boots and socks before taking off the rest of his clothes, she thought perhaps she was willing to try. The desire raging through her body said she was more than willing.
Dylan had the most perfectly toned chest and arms she’d ever seen. The perfection of a sculpture by Bernini, if a golden glow had been added to the marble.
Her breath caught in her throat as Dylan unfastened and then removed his jeans and boxers before straightening.
Oh God…
His body really was pure perfection. Wide shoulders. Muscular arms and chest. Toned eight-pack. Long and strong legs. His engorged cock, the bulbous top a fierce red, jutted upward from a nest of black curls. The sac beneath was taut.
Her lips had gone completely dry at the sight of his nakedness, and she ran the moistness of her tongue across them before attempting to speak. “You’re beautiful.”
He gave a self-derisive grin of pleasure. “Don’t ever let any of my brothers hear you say that,” he murmured as he stalked up from the bottom of the bed on all fours until he was looming over her. “Time for you to get naked again too, Holly.” He moved up onto his knees to begin unfastening her blouse.
“No.” Her hand covered his. “I want to— Last night, you didn’t— If we’re going to do this—”
“We are.” His tone left no doubt in the matter.
“Then I want to make love to you today.” The words burst out of her in a rush, before she had time to lose her nerve. Making love to a man was as alien to Holly as having one make love to her. But she could only hope enthusiasm would make up for her lack of experience, because she really wanted to touch and kiss Dylan’s cock.
He tilted his head, studying her flushed face for several seconds. “Once we find our mate, the aphrodisiac is present in all our bodily fluids,” he warned. “Each time we’re intimate together will deepen the mating bond, for me and my dragon.”
Holly didn’t want to hear any more talk of dragons or mating bonds. It was all nonsense anyway, and without it, Dylan was as sane as the next man. “I want you, not your—your dragon,” she stated firmly.
He slowly nodded. “If you’re sure?”
Holly wasn’t sure of anything, had no real idea what she was doing as she rose onto her knees and gently pushed Dylan so that he was lying on his back on top of the bed. But she was a doctor, for goodness’ sake. She had the general idea of how a man felt pleasure and achieved his release.
Whatever.
She was doing this.
She wanted to do this.
The general idea hadn’t told her Dylan’s cock would feel like steel encased in hot velvet when she curled her fingers about that thick length. Or that a single pumping motion—thank you, Grigor!—would elicit a bubble of creamy fluid from the slit at the top and cause Dylan to groan with pleasure.
Emboldened by that groan, Holly continued that slow pumping with her hand as she bent forward to lick that pearl of pre-cum from the tip of the mushroomed head.
The taste of him exploded on her tongue. Hot and salty sweet, with an underlying citrus.
That single drop was instantly replaced with another pearly bubble, which she again licked up greedily. Then another, followed by another as her hand continued to stroke along his length.
That release became a steady and delicious stream, until Holly found her lips were wrapped around the bulbous top and she was sucking and swallowing more and more of the creamy release. Her lips were stretched to the maximum, and she had both hands wrapped about his cock as she continued to caress and pump along its impossibly thickening length. She was totally lost in the sounds of Dylan’s pleasure and the addictive taste of him.
Still she wanted, craved, more.
Of Dylan.
Of that delicious-tasting pre-cum.
“Holly.”
She glanced up at Dylan but didn’t release him. His face was flushed, and his eyes were dark and glowing eerily.
He gave a shake of his head. “I’m going to come, so maybe you should— Oh God!” His body arched as she gripped his cock tighter and sucked him to the back of her mouth, the heat of his release pumping hotly down her throat seconds later.
Nectar.
Ambrosia.
Food of the gods.
A taste so delicious, so addictive, Holly’s own climax hit without warning, her body trembling and shaking with the force of the pleasure ripping through her in never-ending waves.