“Why don’t you?” She breathed, still feeling that delicious ecstasy swirling through her.
“Because someone else would be mad.” Dusk whispered, pressing her lips again with his. Layla arched up into him, pulling him close. He wound his arms around her, crushing her gently to his body. Breaking the kiss, he moved his head so his lips nuzzled her ear. “God, I want you.”
“Then take me.”
“I don’t think that’s wise.” Dusk kissed her neck now, oh-so-softly.
Layla shivered with pleasure, her chin lifting and her eyes closing. “Wasn’t it you who told me Dragons have multiple lovers?”
“Yes.” She felt Dusk smile into her neck as he kissed her again.
“So why can’t you and I be lovers in addition to me and Adrian?”
“Because Adrian and I would tear each other apart.” Dusk kissed her neck again. “We’ve fought over women before. It wasn’t good.”
“Adam told me.” Layla sighed as Dusk kissed her neck again. Holding her, he squeezed her waist, kneading her with his strong hands as he buried his nose in her shoulder. Layla felt a graze of teeth on her neck. She shuddered as Dusk bit her lightly, as if marking his right to be exactly where he was – as her bound mate.
Dusk growled into her neck and Layla’s entire body shuddered, needing him. Without warning, he scooped her up in his arms, pushing up from the cavern floor in a powerful thrust of muscles and striding back over the stream. Moving quickly to the central flow, she thought he was taking her to the rose quartz to fuck her rotten – when he suddenly deposited her on her feet. With a kiss to her nose as she blinked in surprise, he pulled away, laughing his way over to his clothes and scooping up his shirt. Turning, he was still laughing as he slung his shirt on, grinning at her with rogue merriment.
Which pissed Layla off. Feeling like he was suddenly laughing at her, her Dragon coiled up in anger – breathing a stiff scorch through her veins and making her cross her arms. “What?”
“Nothing.” Dusk grinned like a devil as he buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his pants, retrieving his jacket from the cavern floor. “You’re just so cute when you’re pissed, Layla Price. When you want me and I won’t give it to you.”
“Wow. Yousodid not patronize me like that after everything we just shared.” Layla lifted an eyebrow, simmering with a fury that was now overcoming her passion – quickly.
“Yes, I did.” Slipping on his shoes, Dusk faced her. Still grinning, he palmed his hands back over his dark hair, styling it into place perfectly as if it’d never been mussed. “And you’re going to take it – every little bit of patronization I can give you. Because if I know one thing about you yet, Layla, it’s this: you’ve got a weakness for me. Because underneath all the smarts and can-do attitude, you’re really just a desperate girl who likes to fuck. And what you like to fuck, is bad boys. Well, congratulations. I’m a very bad boy and we can fuck all you want. But first… I want you to beg me for it. And then we’ll see about a good, hard fuck to calm your blistering loins.”
“Excuseme?!” Layla’s fury reached its boiling point, incredulity filling her. Dusk had gone from tender lover to frat-guy asshat like Adam in two-point-five seconds – and it scalded Layla in a way she hadn’t felt since he’d first tried to mess with her at her welcome banquet. She seethed with fury, suddenly wondering if Dusk’s tenderness and friendship with her over the past few months had all been a ruse. If it had all been a big game – a long-con, to bind her and steal her away from Adrian at last.
Not to mention, to get in her pants.
“Youfucking asshole!” Layla shouted, rage rising so hot and fast inside her that her body broke out in goosebumps, a surging wrath of heat blossoming up all around her now in a mirage.
“Yes, I am an asshole. Heads up.”
With a rakishly mean glint in his eyes, Dusk suddenly hurled a hand at her like throwing a fastball. Something broke from his palm, a diamond-bright spear of energy now barreling at Layla, fast. Her eyes widened; shock smote her as her Dragon roared in fury. Her palm came up on instinct with all five fingers together in a warding gesture like her hamsa-cuff. Layla felt something slam up before her – a barrier of swirling, molten wind that sundered the diamond-bright lance in a flash of light.
Bursting it into crystal shards so small they looked like glittering snow as they scattered over the rose quartz floor.
Shock smote Layla as she took in all those glittering pieces, not invisible energy now but thousands of actual shards of white crystal, each one sharper than a blade. Her barrier dissipated, her scalding mirage blowing away to nothing as the danger passed, leaving her breathing hard with her left hand still raised in her ward. It was something she’d done on instinct, not a gesture Dusk had taught her over the past many hours. And as she stared at him in astonishment, she saw Dusk grin – a dark light of pride in his eyes as Layla breathed hard, realizing what had just happened.
She’d had a problem of not being able to protect herself while she was hot for him.
So Dusk had solved it like the clever bastard he was – by making her furious instead.
CHAPTER 23 – MORNING
Layla blinked at Dusk incredulously in the cavern of crystal pillars. Thousands of crystal shards coated the rose quartz floor from his killing-strike, like someone had exploded a crystal pillar into tiny daggers of snow, each like a bladed toothpick. And though Layla’s rational mind said she should be infuriated, her Dragon-mind was laughing, roaring with delight as if fighting and death was just some big game. Layla breathed hard as she slowly lowered her palm – stunned at what Dusk had done and also impressed at his cunning.
Not to mention her own response.
“You just tried to kill me!”
“It worked, didn’t it?” He grinned, scooping up Layla’s sweater and flats from the crystal floor and shaking crystal shards out of them, his sapphire eyes alight with merriment. “Congratulations, you just cast a protective barrier with your magics. And you did it with your hamsa-cuff in place. Not a small thing.”
Gone was Dusk’s frat-boy attitude, replaced by his usual self. He was tender and kind as he moved close, setting a warm palm to her cheek, his eyes luminous with delight. With a huff, Layla batted his hand away, slinging on her sweater and eyeing her shoes for crystal shards before stepping into them.
“Fuck you.” She spat.
