CHAPTER 17
Jasper
Jasper stared at the small parcel his mate was holding out to him. His Abigail, he corrected himself. No. His mate. Even if he was no longer a dragon, she would always be his mate.
She had brought him a present. A Christmas present. For him. For who she had thought he was— just an ordinary man with a strange Christmas obsession.
She couldn’t have known what it meant. Bliss swept through him, human and dragon. A Christmas gift from his mate… if this had to be his last night as a shifter, at least his dragon would disappear suffused with the joy of receiving a gift.
He took the parcel from Abigail’s hands with reverent tenderness. “Thank you,” he breathed, and she smiled nervously.
“I hope you like it,” she said, ducking her head.
“I already love it,” he reassured her. It was wrapped in paper and bubble-wrap. The paper was already disintegrating and fell away at his touch, but he had to wrestle a bit with the bubble-wrap. He could only see glimpses of what was hidden beneath it. Glints of red and orange— something hard, with smooth, rounded edges— and—
He ripped through the bubble-wrap and his fingers stuttered as though electrified. Gold.
The plastic fell away. His gift was a stone heart, inlaid with gold. A jasper heart, all the colors of his dragon held in a polished gem the size of Abigail’s fist. The front of the heart was rounded and smooth, showing off the swirls and whorls of the stone.
He turned it over. His fingers hadn’t lied: the flat back of the stone heart was inlaid with gold. The mineral sang to his heart and his dragon sang back, crooning deep inside him. Jasper ran his thumb over the gold decoration. Scrolls ran around the edge of the heart, and in the middle—
He closed his eyes. There was no way Abigail could have had this custom inscribed only this morning, but that didn’t matter. She had bought it for him. Her love for him infused every atom of it, every particle of jasper and gold, shining from the inscription:
Merry Christmas, to the one who has my heart.
He closed his hand over the jasper heart. Gold sang against his skin, and his own heart sang inside his chest.
“I know it’s cheesy…” Abigail began. He didn’t let her get any further. Heart singing, he pulled her into his arms, kissing her until she melted against him.
He still had the stone heart in his hand, pressed against the curve of her lower back. The gold sang against his skin— and inside him, through him, into his mate, his Abigail, until the air around them seemed to shimmer with it.
Jasper broke the kiss. He looked down at his mate— and blinked. I have to be imagining this.
The air was shimmering. Lights flickered through the air around him and Abigail, like a thousand fireflies or a thousand tiny suns. Abigail’s eyes were wide.
“Are you seeing this?” she breathed.
“Yes.”
“Is it a dragon thing?”
“I don’t know,” Jasper admitted. It was magic. It had to be magic. But what sort of magic? What was it for?
He pulled Abigail closer. Everywhere she touched him, his skin was on fire. It was as though the lights weren’t just around them, they were inside him, as well, flooding his veins. He looked down at Abigail. Was it just a reflection, or were there lights in the depths of her eyes, as well?
The lights grew brighter, and the song of the gold became louder, chiming like bells in his ears. In his heart. His soul.
And then he knew.
“Abigail,” he whispered, and her gaze locked on to his. “We don’t need to go to my hoard. It isn’t up in the mountains. Not anymore.” He drew his hand around from her back and raised it. “It’s right here.”
The heart was glowing, the gold gleaming bright as the heart of a fire. His gold, the first gold gifted to him by his mate. The heart of his hoard.
He folded Abigail’s hands over it and felt the shiver that went through her as she felt its power.
“Abigail George. Will you be my mate, mine to protect and care for, as long as we both live?”
“I will,” Abigail said at once, her face alight with happiness. “Will you be mine? To protect and care for, as long as we both live?”
He didn’t know if that was the proper way to do things, his human mate offering him her protection. But he didn’t hesitate. “I will.” Proper or not, it was right. After all, hadn’t she protected and cared for him today?
He led her through to the bedroom, and the bed he hadn’t slept in since he arrived in Pine Valley. It was huge, a heavy, super-king-sized four-poster piled high with comforters and pillows. Too huge for one person. Perfect for two. Perfect for his mate.
He laid the heart on the middle pillow, where it glowed, and turned to Abigail. He knew he was smiling like an idiot. He couldn’t help it. Abigail smiled back, and reached up to touch his cheek.
“I love you,” she said, and laughed. “Warning you now. Now that I’ve started saying it, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
“Good.” He unzipped her snow jacket. His snow jacket, which hid her curves like a tent. She shimmied it the rest of the way off.
“I love you,” she said again, eyes bright.
He stripped off his own jacket, and then started on her sweater.
“I love you!”
Shirt. Pants. Garments began to litter the floor.
“I love you. I— oh!”
Jasper shed his underwear and clasped her to him, skin to skin. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders and her eyes bloomed dark with desire. “I love you,” she repeated, her voice rough. “I love you, I love you, I… ohhh…”
Her skin was so soft. He wanted to touch every inch of her, caress her, stroke her and nuzzle her and kiss her, but every brush of her body against his made his need more urgent. He was breathless with it, so hard he ached.
This was different to the other times they had slept together. More primal. Before, he had lain with her. Tonight, he would claim her.
He met her eyes and found the same wild, passionate desire in them that burned in him like wildfire.
“I feel—” Her eyes widened, lips parted as though she was tasting the air. Tasting the magic and desire that filled the world around them. “Oh, God, Jasper. Take me. Make me yours!”
He pushed her back onto the bed, gently but firmly. Her skin was creamy against the richly colored comforters. Her whole body quivered under him, her breasts heavy and inviting, the scent of her arousal intoxicating his senses.
Jasper kissed her breasts, one after the other, sucking her nipples into his mouth and making circles around them with his tongue until Abigail’s whole body was shaking with small tremors of desire. He lifted his head and looked up at her.
She stared back, cheeks pink, eyes black and bright with need. She ran her fingertips down his back, digging in with her nails. “Please,” she begged.
He rose up above her, pulling her arms from around himself and kissing the palms of her hands. he nipped the tip of one finger and she groaned. He nipped another and then pinned her wrists above her head.
Abigail lay stretched out beneath him, vulnerable and beautiful and his. She was giving herself to him, fully and forever. His mate. His Abigail.
“I love you,” he whispered, and thrust into her.