Her feet hit the floor as I instantly complied. Cold weight settled over my shoulders. I had pushed her too far, too fast. Scared her off.
“Anna …”
She shook her head, and any further words fell away into the gaping chasm of silence between us.
“I …” Anna steeled herself, taking a step back from me with a sudden resolve that only made me like her, want her, more. She wasstrong. “No, Caz. I can’t. Not yet. I wouldn’t feel right. What kind of friend would I be, letting myself give in to you while my friends are still out there being used by the very same people who walk the corridors of your home?”
Seventeen
Casimir
What followednext was agony. Four endless days of sheer torture on every level. My dragon and I could not stand being so close to Anna yet unable to touch her, unable to claim her. The memory of that one, perfect kiss was the only thing we had. It was the stuff of nightmares, and I was barely holding on.
Cold water cascaded down my face. The shower was my escape room, the place I went for a few seconds of solace and relief. I was dying on the inside, each passing moment a struggle to respect her boundaries and keep my distance, when all I wanted was to touch her.
But I couldn’t.
No fixing that wayward strand of hair that always fell across her eyes. No little glitter of amusement when I tucked it behind her ear, brushing her cheek with my knuckles as I did. No kissing her good morning or goodnight. I couldn’t even go into the room to adjust the sheets when she threw them off in the middle of one of her awful dreams when she cried out.
It was killing me. I should be there, next to her,holding her tightly and whispering that it was okay in her ear as she thrashed about. That she was safe because I was there.
Except Anna didn’t feel safe with me. She was warming up to the idea, true. There was a gentle thawing of the ice between us, but it was too slow for my liking. It hurt most of all that she wasn’t ready to trust me yet. Every night when she went to bed and I heard the telltaleclickof the door locking behind her, I wanted to bellow in frustration. To ask her what I had to do to show her I wasn’t a threat.
That to her I was just Caz, and that’s all I would ever be. Nothing more. Never a tyrant. Never likethat. If she would only let me take care of her.
“If you want to do that, you have to find her friends,” I growled, punching the tile of the shower with my knuckles hard enough to feel it but not hard enough to break them.
Again.
My shower was gloriously huge, something I normally liked, but as now, when I wrapped my fingers around my cock, stroking slowly to thoughts of Anna, it felt empty. Like I stepped into the abyss, where nothing good ever came.
Only me.
I grunted, fisting my shaft harder as I imagined her perfect lips wrapped around it, head bobbing up and down as she tasted me, sucked me deep. The sway of her breasts as shemoved back and forth. The curve of her body as she sat on her knees, her hands on my thighs.
In my dreams, her one hand slid down, cupping my balls and lightly dragging her fingers along the underside while she worked her tongue against the little flap of skin at the bottom of my head. Her lips still wrapped around it, she sucked gently. She would moan encouragement to me as I groaned, one hand on the back of her head to hold her hair as the other palmed the wall, keeping me upright.
“Fuck.”
I leaned against that wall now, using my forearm to brace myself as my fingers moved up and down the shaft, my index finger sliding over the sensitive tip to provide extra stimulation.
How much longer could I last this way? I didn’t want dream Anna. I wanted the real thing. I wanted to feel her body against mine, to spread her legs and taste her, lick deep her sweet honey and then plunge my throbbing cock all the way inside her. Those mysterious purple eyes would roll back into her skull, and she would call my name. Scream it, as I rubbed her clit, sending her into the first of her orgasms.
In my fantasies, she would slowly come around, recovering minute by minute as I thrust against her, only slowing, never stopping. She would stay on the crest of that wave, and any added pleasure would send her over once more.Until it was too much. Until her eyes glowed and she locked them on to me, and I would know.
I would know what she wanted. What sheneeded, and in that moment, everything would be complete because what she craved the most would beme. Caz.
And she would whisper the words I longed to hear. The ones I shuddered to every day with my eyes closed and the cold water prickling my skin.
“Take me, Caz. Claim me. Make me yours.”
My fangs descended now as I shouted her name at the very idea of having her as my mate for centuries to come. In my hand, my cock thickened and pulsed, and hot seed erupted from the tip, splattering down to the shower floor, to slowly be cleansed by the flow of water. I groaned, resting my forehead against the wall.
How much longer could I do this?
Until you find her friends.
The growl that rattled the glass walls wasn’t one of pleasure, not this time. This was anger, and more than that, frustration.
