Pyro’s excitement fought with his tiredness.

The med patch had dispensed enough energy to get Pyro through Amy’s lesson and not a minute longer, emphasizing the youngest Onyx sibling’s diabolical mind. Pyro was so grateful to go home.

To his lair. With Amy. Where she belonged.

He couldn’t help teasing her on the flight. “And on a school night.”

“It’s almost the last week of class.” She hugged him gently, pressing her soft curves where he hungered for them the most. “Besides, I know you’ll fly me in on time.”

Her relaxed, confident tone was such a change from the must-have-everything-planned nervousness that had strangled her in the beginning. She sounded more certain of herself and more certain of him.

He would endeavor to deserve her faith.

“You were really watching the class,” she said. “Was it interesting?”

“Fascinating.”

“Not like school on Draconis?”

“I was given the choice between a miner’s hat and a soldier’s gun. And even that wasn’t much of a choice.”

He’d wanted to mine like his father but had been forced into soldier school after no mines would apprentice him. His “radioactive” scales and eyes assured the mines he had a dangerous attitude before he ever got a chance.

Perhaps a rounded education and career choices made humans creative. Dragons too might thrive if they received a balance incorporating language, history, math, and self-discovery.

But that was a question for another time.

They landed in his Las Vegas apartment … and then he needed to lie down. His chest ached and a draining sensation started behind his bandage.

She noticed.

“You look pale.” Amy helped Pyro to the bed and took off his suit, searched his closets for something more pajama-like to wear, and gave up and returned to him when he said he didn’t own anything like that.

She had changed into an adorable lavender chemise that looked far more classy cupping her full curves than it did on his closet rack. She brought him a bottle of water and climbed onto the bed next to him. “I don’t suppose it’s possible to get delivery.”

“Call Kyan.”

“I was thinking of getting the ingredients for making you a soup.” She spread her fingers across the white body-sculpted bandage. “How did the negotiations with Sard go?”

“No need to torch his building,” he assured her.

She wanted details, so he cast his mind back to the negotiations that had begun in the medical room, as soon as she left, while he was still half naked on the air cushion.

“I’m here to deliver the terms of our counter offer,” Pyro told Sard with a straight face. “I apologize for my lateness. I was held up by circumstances beyond my control.”

The heavyweight CEO snorted. “Never thought I’d hear those words pass your lips.”

Automatically the urge to growl rose. He stamped it down. “What words?”

“An apology.”

Funny. He let the weight of his silence prove his control of the conversation. Sard would neither intimidate Pyro nor derail him.

Sard waved his fingers. “Fine. Let’s have it. Your counter offer is?”

“You’ll produce the jewelry and you’ll become our subsidiary.”

He blinked.

“As our subsidiary, we control the hiring and firing decisions. And as terms of the agreement, we will freeze all current employment as you desire.”

“My brother will never consent to run a subsidiary.”

“He will take my position as vice president of the main company.”

Sard’s chin dropped. “And you?”

“Will head your subsidiary.”

He lifted his chin again and crossed his arms. “You’re going to rule over a bunch of aristocrats? There’s a low caste bastard male’s dream.”

His blood heated as Sard clearly intended it to. But he controlled his anger. “Any male who can’t accept the ‘dishonor’ is welcome to leave.”

Sard’s jaw clenched.

Pyro pushed on with the terms. “Regarding the Zentangles, we will not sell the finished product.”

“You must!”

“We will sell books and kits. Amy will teach summer classes on how to produce this unique human craft.”

“Dragons cannot produce art. They do not possess creative skills or ambitions—”

“That remains to be seen.”

He shook his head. “No. We have seen it. Dragons slavishly copy the creativity of other species. We lack the mental freedom to create. And that is why society has crystalized into aristocrats, low caste, and unquestioning obedience to rules that cause needless pain.”

“Zentangle patterns are intended to be slavishly copied until the creator feels empowered to combine them into a unique art form.”

“That will never happen.”

“Then perhaps dragons don’t deserve to be free.”

Sard blinked.

“You wish to burn down the hierarchy of society by releasing fake family crests and causing chaos.” Pyro smiled with all his teeth. “We wish to distribute the fuel, wicks, and matches to light a fire within each dragon to burn down his inner rules and become free.”

His gaze narrowed. “Is such a thing possible?”

“Is it possible for a low caste dragon to negotiate business with an aristocrat?”

Sard shook his head at the same time a new light entered his eyes. Here they were, discussing business in relative peace. “Paper products will easily pass the censors.”

Pyro nodded.

“I would rather distribute the finished product,” Sard grumbled.

“Your ‘uncreative dragons’ may surprise you,” he said, falling back on Amy’s philosophies. “Things are not always as they seem. Meaningful change begins from within.”

Sard grimaced.

Exporting the product as an educational kit had been Flint’s idea. Amy assured Pyro the craft was simple to learn and meditative to master. They would test her assertion on his and Sard’s employees. If true, once the craft made it into popular consumption, even if the art kits were recalled, it would turn into an endless hunt to suppress all dragon creations.

And the dragons, empowered with their own potential, might just begin to change.

“Very well.” Sard’s lip curled, exposing his dragon fangs. His deep voice shook the very walls. “If you mistreat my employees, I’ll have your scales pinned to my wall.”

“So long as they don’t consider obeying orders from a low caste bastard to be mistreatment,” Pyro growled back.

A slow grin spread over the heavyweight aristocrat’s face. He loosened his shoulders and shook his head, then gazed around the spaceship. His company, his legacy. The whole world. “It’s going to get hot in here. I hope you’re ready for it.”

“Of course I am.” Pyro flexed his claws, the radioactive red scales shimmering along his arms. “I like to play with fire.”

“And so you do,” Amy agreed.

Now, hours later in Pyro’s Las Vegas lair, he finished the story and relaxed as she stroked the new pink skin growing under the edges of the bandage. Her gaze played over this nude form to the hard erection bulging from his waist. “What’s this?”

“My feelings for you.”

Her soft smile turned wicked. “A good girl shouldn’t encourage you.”

“A very good girl should.”

She wet her fingertips and stroked him from tip to base and back, sliding with silky pleasure. He moaned.

Then, she frowned. “You’re still healing. Is playing around like this safe?”

He didn’t care. “Absolutely.”

She licked her lips, causing him to shudder, and then dipped her head, taking his length into her hot, wet mouth. Her tongue stroked the ridges of his vibrating hot cock. His balls clenched.

“Clearly this isn’t your first time,” he managed.

She lifted her head. “If you can form a witty comeback, I’m doing something wrong.”

He grabbed her soft arm and drew her up his body to straddle one thigh. “You’re doing everything right.”

“Prove it.”

He cupped the back of her head and drew her to him. “Gladly.”

Their mouths united and tongues tangled. Tasting, enjoying, savoring. The pleasure of sex with Amy was intense from the first kiss to final explosion.

He stroked her curling tongue, then dipped under her chemise and scooped free her heavy breasts. Swiping across her nipples, he sucked one candied peak into his mouth and massaged the other. She whimpered with pleasure. Her wet center slid across his bare cock.

He released her. “No panties?”

She shook her head, the wicked smile returning. “Do you like it?”

He liked everything about her. This new confidence was most sexy. “Yeah.”

She rubbed her slick center across his hard cock, making him groan, and then positioned herself over his tip. He steadied her. She slowly bore down, taking him in. Her tight channel squeezed his cock with delicious pleasure. She moaned as they connected, complete.

Here was where she belonged. His wife. Gorgeous, innocent, and so responsible it pushed him to be a better male. She deserved it. And so did he.

She moved, slowly at first, then with more expertise. Discovering herself as she discovered him. Learning together what felt good and what felt exquisite.

He guided her, chasing her pleasure. She slid her channel over his cock, trying different angles and depths and speeds. Every stroke took him closer to the hot edge.

She flushed and concentrated, so serious, so lovably hot. And then she gasped and clenched. Release broke over her, squeezing his cock in her inner fist.

He lost it. Watching her come pushed him over and he shot his own release deep into her hot center.

They would have dragonlets together. He would be a loving, caring, responsible father.

She collapsed.

He cuddled her body, grateful for the continued lack of nerves in his chest beneath the bandage. Otherwise, holding her where he needed her would cause pain in the tender regrowing region.

Amy suddenly gasped and bolted upright again. “Your injury!”

“It’s fine.” He loved this view of her. Disheveled, her lingerie barely cupping her breasts, and silk pooling around their connection. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“For now.” She rolled off him carefully.

After cleaning up, she came back and lay beside him, her head on his bicep. She traced the edges of the bandage. “Is it going to scar?”

“Pretty badly,” he said, although it could have been much worse. “I survived the Colony Wars without a scratch only to get a wicked scar from supposedly ‘safe’ civilian life.”

She flubbed her lips dismissively. “Nothing you do will ever be risk-free safe.”

“And you signed up for that life.”

She rose up on one elbow and tossed her gorgeous red hair over her shoulder. “I wanted to feel the wind in my hair.”

He ruffled her hair. “That you did.”

“I feel like I’m finally starting to live.” She frowned and traced the bandage again. “We still have a lot to learn about each other. With empathy, patience—”

“And really hot sex,” he inserted, guessing where she was going.

“—I think we’ll be able to get over any obstacles and reach our own happy ending.”

His throat closed. “I’ll try to deserve it.”

“You don’t need to try. You do deserve it. You always have.” She lowered to his level again and rested one arm across his unblemished abdomen. “Life dealt you bad hands. You had to overcome prejudice because of things you couldn’t control and you made some ‘learning’ choices on the way. But you kept trying and now you’re luck’s going to change. I can tell from here. You’re definitely a winner.”

He swallowed, searching for his carefree grin. “You can tell, huh?”

“I’ve still got to learn how to be sexy.”

He laughed. “You learned it. Trust me.”

She smiled softly. “Okay.”

The rough emotion overwhelmed him. She trusted him. She had faith in him. Even after the mistakes he’d made and ways he’d gone wrong.

“Pyro?” she asked worriedly, as if his silence might be related to his chest injury.

He cleared his throat. “Nah. Still thinking about how to deserve it.”

“You already do.” She nuzzled him. “I’m a teacher so I’ll help you learn.”

She’d already taught him so much about what it meant to live up to his ideals and be the dragon he’d always wanted to be. He’d thought he’d be giving the lessons in the bedroom, but she’d shown him the true depths of passion and love.

Whatever he could do to deserve that, he’d start right now.

He nuzzled her back. “Let’s study together.”

* * *

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