Page 23 of Red Dragon’s Heart

He groaned when he felt it. You are so hot. I need you now.

Yes.

With a growl, he pushed back and sat on his heels, pulling her after him like she weighed nothing. He lifted her up so she straddled him, and she slid up his shaft, arms around his neck, unable to think of anything except feeling him inside her, where he was supposed to be. She rose up and he was right there, at her entrance.

Slowly, slowly, she sank down. He filled her completely, and she couldn’t believe how amazing it felt. Everything was right. Perfect. This was where she belonged.

For a moment he just held her, and she could feel him savoring the feeling, the same sense of wonder and rightness she felt.

Then he pulled her against him and thrust inside her, and Maddie was sure she’d gone to heaven.

As Zak moved within her, Maddie lost herself in the sensation, her feelings and his merging in one unending stream. She heard his thought: she was so beautiful, nothing was more beautiful than his perfect woman riding him, all around him.

Connection, emotion, sensation, belonging. The emotion rose up inside them, exquisite almost to the point of pain. This was what they’d both been waiting for..

Zak reached between her legs and moved his thumb over her clit, bringing her back to the edge, drawing it out to make the sensation stronger, make her want him with everything in her.

Make her need him, the way he needed her.

She exploded around him, and his own need spiraled up, opening inside him like a flame. She could still feel his emotions: it was too much, he couldn’t stand it, and so he laid her down and drove himself into her, listening to her soft cries, feeling her wrap around him, need and desire, until his own need overtook him and he emptied himself into her, shaking with the furious storm of emotion.

And for a brief shining moment, everything that had ever been wrong was suddenly right.

Chapter 12

Maddie woke slowly, as if she were coming up from deep underwater. She was warm and relaxed and holding onto the ragged remains of a dream, one so good she didn’t want to wake up.

She sighed and snuggled into her covers—but they weren’t covers. Warm skin enveloped her, and hard muscles fit perfectly around her.

She was in bed. With a guy. A living, breathing…

Zak.

Zak the dragon-monster, the shapeshifter, who’d pulled her into his dreams with some kind of telepathic powers. She’d dreamed—or maybe, he’d dreamed—that they’d been making love. The kind of hot, wild, emotional sex she’d only ever fantasized about.

And she’d just gone with it. Only now she was here, waking up in his cell. And—oh, god. They were naked.

The dream sex hadn’t been a dream at all. They’d actually done it.

Maddie froze for a minute. Then, ever so slowly, she untangled herself from him. Zak didn’t move; his breathing was soft and regular. Apparently he slept like the dead.

Or he was just worn out, from everything he’d gone through last night. As Maddie gazed down at him, a strange mix of feelings washed over her. He looked exhausted and hollow-eyed and somehow vulnerable. The feelings from the dream rose up in her again. She’d never felt so connected to anyone in her life.

It wasn’t just his looks, although he was beyond gorgeous. He was fully human again, and the long lean lines of his body could have come from a statue. All his muscles had muscles, and she still remembered how they’d felt under her hands. She’d wanted him—she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t. When she was in his head, feeling what he was feeling, it had felt right. Perfect. Like she really was that person he’d always longed for and dreamed about.

She could still see the expression on his face as he’d looked at her, the naked desire and need in his eyes. Precious.

But he’d been dreaming, she reminded herself. Delirious. Under the influence of the drug, he must have thought she was someone else—maybe someone he’d left behind. Because there was no way he felt that way about Maddie Fox. All he knew about her—or believed he knew—was that she had somehow caused him to become an out-of-control monster.

Only, he wasn’t a monster. And he wasn’t a soulless sociopath, either, like Eric had told her. Inside, he had the same feelings she did. He was alone in the world, lonely, with a hole inside him nothing could quite fill.

She wondered if anything she’d been told about shapeshifters was true.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself. She wasn’t his dream woman. He’d kidnapped her—whatever his reasons—and if she didn’t get out of here before he woke up, she’d be at his mercy again.

Naked and vulnerable.

Clothes, she thought desperately. Where are my clothes?