Page 45 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

My eyes well up, and I suck in a breath.

I look up at him. He’s standing in the moonlight with his big wings, pointed ears, bright green eyes, and sharp teeth, and he’s beautiful, every strange inch of him.

My tears spill over.

His wings slide into his back, and he steps toward me with a hand out. “Are they the wrong flowers? I thought you said you liked them. I can go back?—“

I drop the flowers and throw myself into his arms.

He holds me. Then he takes my face in both hands and wipes my tears away with his thumbs.

“Your scent is confusing,” he says. “Are you in pain? Do you?—“

I put my hands over his. “I want you to make love to me, Jalen.”

I have never been more sure of anything in my life. And still I stand there staring into his eyes, waiting for the no, because a no is the answer I trained for my whole life.

His mouth crashes down on mine.

He picks me up, my legs go around him, and he carries me through the door. The peonies stay where they fell.

He crosses the room and puts my back against the wall. My feet dangle off the floor. The wall is cool through my nightgown, and he’s burning hot everywhere in front of me, and I hang there between the two, held up by his hands, his hips, and nothing else.

The kiss is nothing like this afternoon. This one is starved. He kisses me deep and keeps losing his own rhythm, wanting the next kiss while he’s still in the middle of this one. Even starved, he’s careful with me, angling away from my sore side without being asked.

The sounds he makes come from somewhere low and rough, and I feel every one of them in my chest where we’re pressed together. He smells like smoke and honey gone warm, and I breathe him in until I’m dizzy with it.

Days of him holding back, and this is what was underneath the whole time. No one has ever wanted me like this. My eyes sting again, and this time neither of us mistakes it for pain.

He peels me off the wall and carries me to the bed. He lays me down in the middle of it and stands back up to his full height.

Then he reaches back over his shoulder and pulls his shirt off in one motion.

The moonlight through the open door falls on all of him. He’s deep brown skin over long, hard muscle, and his heat reaches me all the way from where he stands. Dragons heal clean. He took bullets for me in that alley, and his body kept no record of it.

He looks down at me, and I reach up for him.

Dragons hoard what they treasure. Tonight, that’s me.

18

ZURI

He comes down over me, taking his weight on one arm, and the whole bed leans me into him. He kisses me deep and patient, and this time neither of us is going anywhere.

He gathers my nightgown up my thighs and my hips, and I lift my arms so he can pull it over my head. My underwear follows it off the side of the bed. Then I’m naked under him, all the way naked. I wait for the old urge to cover myself. It doesn’t come. He’s staring at me so hard I warm up under it.

Somewhere beneath everything, one clear thought surfaces.

“Jalen. Your family. They’ll?—“

“Smell it. Yes.” He drags his nose up the side of my neck. “And every dragon in this mountain will know you chose me.”

I find out right then that I’ve quit caring. Let the whole mountain know.

His mouth works down my neck, and I feel the press of his fangs behind his lips, careful points that never break skin. He wants to. A tremble runs through him. He doesn’t. He’s leaving that choice for me, and knowing it undoes me more than his hands do.

Then his mouth closes over my nipple, hot and wet, and I arch up off the bed. He takes his time, deep lazy pulls I feel low in my belly, one hand full of my other breast while his mouth works. I run my hands down the long muscle of his back, and when my fingers cross the twin ridges where his wings live, he shudders all over and groans against my skin. I file that away. Wing roots. Good to know.