“Does Rosco need to go out?”
“No. I walked him before you arrived.”
“Is the door locked?”
“Yeah… when you came in. Why?”
She looked at him through her lashes. “The last two times I’ve been in your arms, we’ve been interrupted.”
He laughed, his eyes dancing in the soft light.
“If you kiss me now, I don’t want you to stop.”
“Deal.” His mouth met hers.
Rowan had never been kissed the way Nick kissed her then. Not by a dragon, or a shape-shifter, or another human. His kiss was a free fall, a stomach-dropping descent into madness. A swirling, spinning, star-filled fantasy with fireflies and pounding hearts and heat that threatened to burn her dragon skin.
Nick flipped all of Rowan’s switches. He was strong but kind, handsome but genuine, unspoiled and unpretentious. He was everything she’d been denied when she was princess of Paragon. There, she’d been viewed as little more than a designer brood mare. She was courted by every stuffed shirt, power-craving social climber in Paragon, all with their perfectly tailored clothes and perfectly manicured hands. All they’d ever cared about was winning her hand and the power and privilege that came with it. None had cared to win her heart.
Nick was different in all the right ways. He might be human, but his draw for her was anything but. Dragons couldn’t combust, but he was a man whose mere presence threatened to consume her. He was her own personal accelerant. She couldn’t get enough.
Burn, baby, burn.
Rising on her tiptoes, she licked along the seam of his mouth. He opened for her, lips parting and tongue stroking inside. Deeper. He kissed her like he was claiming her, his big body seeming to completely envelop her. His hand fisted the back of her hair.
Her inner dragon roused and stretched.Mine. One hot palm trailed down her back and landed on her ass. He tasted of wine, a hint of mint, and warm, healthy male. And his smell. Oh goddess, his smell was a heady perfume that filled her lungs. It wasn’t until he pulled back from her that she realized her wings had extended while they were kissing and had partially wrapped around them.
“Sorry,” she said, tucking them behind her.
“I like them,” he said quickly. “And I like the sound you make.”
“What sound?”
“Like a purr. Like the sexiest fucking purr I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Her face burned. Her mating trill. Her dragon had never bothered to trill with the other men she’d dated. When she’d dated Verinetti, her inner beast rarely even woke up. “It’s a, um, dragon thing.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and lowered her voice. “I can’t control it.”
He brushed his lips from her jaw to her ear. “I love it. Let’s try to make it happen again.”
His mouth trailed down her throat, and then his hands were on her ass, lifting, spreading. She wrapped her legs around his hips.
“I want you, Rowan.” He stroked along the place her wing met her back as he held her to him. His touch sent fine tremors through her that seemed to end at the peak of each breast. “It’s been a long time for me.”
“Me too. But I won’t hurt you.”
He chuckled. “I think I’m supposed to say that to you.”
“I didn’t know there was a script,” she said into a sliver of space she made between their mouths. With one beat of her wings, she lifted his feet off the floor and moved him into the bedroom.
His eyes widened. “Definitely ad lib,” he mumbled breathlessly.
Rosco jumped up from his dog bed, startled by the strange movement.
“Go lie down, Rosco.” Nick kicked the door closed behind them.
His scent was even stronger in this room, the navy-blue comforter on his full-size bed seeming to be the source. She desperately wanted more, wanted it all over her.
He backed her toward the bed, and his lips found hers again. Deeper. Hotter. The long, hard length of him pressed into her belly and she ground against him, enjoying the moan she elicited. Drawing back, he grabbed hold of the bottom of her dress and pulled it over her head. Large rough hands stroked along the rose-colored lace that ran from a band around her waist to her breasts. It was backless, all the support coming from the stiff material that ran up and under her breasts at the front of the garment. His thumbs stroked across her hardened nipples.
