“Exactly.” Something bristled about Adrian now, hot power driving through Layla’s skin in the close confines of the jet. “You don’t need Hunter’steaching, Layla. You and all of us need to experiment with this power-merging phenomenon. And create something he’ll never see coming.”
Suddenly, something became intensely clear to Layla as she gave a soft laugh. “So that’s why you and Dusk are trying not to kill each other over me, or Reginald and Rhennic.”
Adrian gave a wry smile as his fingers caressed hers. “If we can all be adults about this, Layla, about us all being Bound to you and sharing you, then Hunter won’t get his talons in you. And I won’t lose…”
“You won’t lose me.” Layla finished as he went silent.
Adrian looked down and took a deep breath, then looked back up. “Did I ever tell you about Aicha, the woman I almost married thirty years ago before you were born?”
“No.” Layla watched him, feeling intensity roaring off him now.
“She was a Royal Desert Dragon of our clan.” Adrian’s eyes burned and Layla saw a shine of tears in them now, like when he’d received the news about Dusk. “You know she was murdered on our wedding day, but what you don’t know is that I found her in her wedding dress, torn up by Dragon-talons right in her solar. Aicha was an excellent fighter, Layla. I couldn’t figure out how she’d been killed so easily. Now I know it was Hunter, but I can’t have her back. I can’t have her back, or my mother, my six other serious girlfriends Hunter’s killed over the years. I don’t want that to happen with you. Or Dusk. Or any of our other friends.”
Adrian’s tone was so desolate that Layla gripped his fingers. She sat silent a long moment, feeling his pain. He couldn’t meet her eyes now, gazing out the window of the jet as a tear rolled down his cheek, then another. Unclipping her seatbelt, Layla rose. Looking back, Adrian rose also and Layla wound her arms around him. Lifting up, she kissed him gently on the lips. As his tears slid down his high cheekbones, he shuddered and hitched a breath, as if doing battle within. It wasn’t a sob, but it was enough. Leaning in, Layla kissed his collarbones at his open shirt collar, then twined her fingers in his, tugging him towards the rear of the jet.
But Adrian surprised her, stubbornly holding his ground. Meeting her gaze with his intense red-rimmed eyes, he used their twined hands to pull her back. “I hope you know, Layla, I don’t want to use you to increase my power. I made a mistake with the hamsa-cuff back in August, thinking I could Bind you. Now more than anything… I don’t want to earn your hate by coercing you into doing battle against a madman. I want this to be your choice, not mine – how far we go against Hunter.”
“I know.” A soft smile lit Layla’s face as she stepped close, and Adrian wrapped her in his arms. Gazing up at his impossibly handsome face, she saw Adrian’s beauty and strength. It broke Layla’s heart to feel him be so raw and honest, but it was everything to her. As she stroked her fingertips under his open collar to touch his heart, she felt a wave of heat pass through him, flooding them both. She felt the coils of their Dragons twine together, wrapping further into each other’s dark-bright passions than ever before.
“We’re in this together, Adrian,” she spoke quietly. “You, me, Dusk – all of us. No matter what comes at us, no matter what our magics can do separate or intertwined, I know you love me for who I am. And I love you for who you are. I know you don’t want to cage me, or my power. But that’s not what this is about anymore. Iwantto be Bound to you; I want you to use my power to create something amazing that will bring Hunter down. I want Hunter to burn, Adrian, especially because of what he did to Dusk. And I want to be with you when we finally do it – burn him right to his bones for everything he’s done.”
A deep shudder passed through Adrian as his eyes lit with a golden fire. And then he curled Layla into his arms and kissed her, so long and deep that they were already migrating toward the rear of the jet before she knew her feet could move.
CHAPTER 3 – MOROCCO
A knock came at the jet’s partition; Adrian’s co-pilot announcing that they’d arrive at Riad Rhakvir in forty-five minutes. Layla didn’t want to come uncurled from Adrian’s lean frame as he kissed her in his king-sized bed of black silk and desert spice scent. She didn’t want their time to end as he slipped naked from bed and stepped to the small bathroom on the jet, showering with the door open. Layla watched him curry water through his cropped black hair; then step out from the shower gloriously wet and towel off, wiping water from his eyes. Those eyes pinned her, vibrantly aqua beneath his straight black brows and Layla shivered in bed, feeling a curl of his desert winds steal over her neck.
Adrian’s gaze was knowing as he slung his towel to the bathroom floor and came to her, sitting on the edge of the bed. Reaching out, he ran his fingertips over her face and Layla sighed. His thumb brushed her bottom lip, and then he was leaning in; kissing her. Smooth and soft, his lips were delicious as his desert heat writhed through Layla, coils with sweet barbs and hot winds. She made a sound as he released her, resting their foreheads together.
“Did you know I fell in love with you that first night we flew to Paris,” Adrian breathed, “when you were sleeping here in my bed? You asked me to come to you. My heart broke when we kissed – and it’s been breaking for you ever since.”
“You’re not the only one.” Layla breathed back. “I was hoping it was true, rather than a dream.”
“Sometimes dreams are the truth.” Adrian smiled at her sweetly.
“Sometimes.” Layla breathed back.
With a tender sigh, Adrian cupped Layla’s neck with one hand. “We’re landing at Riad Rhakvir soon; we should get dressed. It’s probably too late for you to shower, though.”
“I don’t mind smelling like you. Besides, Dragons like a little scent, right?” Layla smiled and Adrian smiled back, both of them lighter after lovemaking, despite what they might face soon with Dusk. Pulling her in, Adrian gave her one last good kiss then let her go. She rose naked from the sheets and saw how he watched her; heard how he growled.
“God, I love your ass.”
“Take me on vacation again and you’ll get to see it more.” Layla glanced back sexily over her shoulder as she stepped into her beige lace thong. Bending over, she made sure to present her ass to Adrian as she slid the thong up. A spiced wind seared the air as Adrian rose from the bed. Hot, sexy things moved in his blue-green eyes as Layla pulled on her tan leggings, then turned to don her bra. Before she could get it clasped, though, Adrian stepped in like lightning behind her. Sliding his hands in, he cupped her breasts and Layla sighed, leaning back into him as he kissed her neck.
“One more for the road,” Adrian murmured.
Wordlessly, Layla nodded as he slid a hand down, easing her leggings back down her hips. She was fully wet below as he cupped her throat with one hand, using the other to lift her hands and place them upon the jet’s bulwark. Using his hand at her throat, Adrian pulled her close even as he positioned himself between her legs, pulling her hips back. Layla bent into a delicious arch as he slid in, hard and deep. His sigh in her ear was like a gasp, his fingers spasming on her throat with pleasure. A hot wind roared through the plane as Adrian thrust in again, deeper, and Layla cried out, feeling coils twine in her flesh, hot scales everywhere their skin touched.
And then Adrian was taking her, hard and rhythmic; delicious. Layla pressed into her hands, her throat deliciously choked as he fucked her. It was slick and fast, not a slow lovemaking now but just as good as he slid in over that spot that made her shiver and clench as his own breath came ragged. Layla felt heat surge through her, speared by his Dragon’s fury. She felt her own heat twine into an inseparable coil of wind and light with his.
When he unleashed inside her with a roar, Layla came also, feeling something scalding lance through her. It was pain and pleasure all at once, like a spear of white-hot power had been thrust through her. Her fingers spasmed into the bulwarks and Layla screamed, only Adrian’s hands holding her up from collapsing. The power passed through her like chain-lightning, scalding up her central channel and lancing down into her hands. As Layla shuddered with a pleasure so deep her equilibrium spun, she saw her fingernails had shifted into long golden talons like a Manchurian empress. Her arms raised against the jet’s bulwark, her talons were trapped in the wall – and as she gasped back to sanity, she saw a dusting of gold crystals shimmer around each talon-rent. Before she could think about it, her long, wicked talons shot back as her real fingernails re-emerged; her skin rippling in a wave of light back to normal.
Leaving ten massive rents in the inner wall of the jet – surrounded by glittering gold crystals.
“What the…?” Layla gasped as Adrian cradled her, staring at the crystals even as that white-hot light still crackled through her.
“Partial Dragon-shifts can happen during sex with a bonded mate,” Adrian gasped at her ear, shivering with his own pleasure from that sudden, enormous energy. Turning her shakily as if her experience had affected him also, Adrian used his towel to gently wipe out her nethers before sliding up her thong and leggings. Still shivering from the intensity of the pleasure, Layla’s head was thrown back just from the touch of the towel. Corralling her close, Adrian’s gaze was infinite as he held her, pleasure shining from his dark aqua-gold eyes.
