Page 55 of Kidnapped By The Messy Dragon

She scrambles off the bed and follows me. “What?”

I start flipping it on, mic, board, the works.

She pulls at my arm. “Last podcast?”

I keep at the board. “Yes, Zuri. You heard that correct.”

“But why?” she asks.

I look at her. Then I leave the board and go to her, and I put my hand against her cheek.

“I’ve spent years running this town’s messiest podcast,” I tell her. “I’ve aired everyone’s business but my own. And the onestory I will never put on that mic is how hard I fell for the woman I stole.”

Her breath goes shallow under my hand.

“The show made me big enough to be worth hurting, and now the witch knows the way to hurt me is you. So after this last one, I’m letting it all go. The podcast, the files, the whole messy crown. You’re the only thing in this world that matters to me now.”

Her eyes go wide. Her heartbeat picks up so hard I can hear it across the little space between us.

And there it is, riding out on her scent, sweet and full and unmistakable. She loves me too. She’s not ready to say it, and that’s fine by me. Her scent said it first. I can wait for the rest of her to catch up.

The thought of losing her is driving me out of my own head. The witch wants a key with my woman’s face on it.

“Jay,” she says.

She has called me Jalen since the night I took her. Jay is the town’s name for me. In her mouth it turns brand new, and that’s all it takes. I lose it in the best way a dragon can.

I push her down onto the bed, and everything on my quilt goes over the side. Her phone, the charger, the witch’s precious amulet, all of it hits the floor, and neither of us looks.

I climb over her, and she doesn’t stop me. Her mouth is healed and whole under mine, and I finally get to kiss my mate without holding one thing back, deep and long, with no careful anywhere in it. My blood is still moving in her veins from last night, and my scent is braided all through hers.

I strip her out of the clothes I dressed her in this morning, slower than my dragon likes. Then I get rid of my own.

Last night we were starving at each other. I take this one slow.

I kiss my way down her body and put her thighs over my shoulders. She reaches down and tries to pull me up, tries to flip us and take the wheel like she did in the dark.

“No, baby.” I catch her wrists and pin them to the bed. “You had your turn. This one’s mine.”

She huffs. She also opens her thighs wider, so I know exactly how mad she is.

I take my time, long and greedy, working her with my whole mouth until her thighs shake against my ears and her hands quit fighting mine and hold on instead. She comes with my name in her mouth, and it’s Jay again.

I move up her body and push inside her while she’s still trembling, and we both make a sound the family will pretend they never heard. I keep it deep and easy, her heels locked at my back, and I hold her eyes the whole time. She doesn’t look away from me. All her life she’s guarded that face like a vault, and here she is with the doors wide open, letting me watch everything move through her while I move in her. I kiss her brow, her healed cheek, the corner of her mouth, and I keep on until easy quits being possible.

Then I roll her onto her stomach and pull her hips up and put my mouth on her again, her pussy, her ass, everywhere at once, until she’s got fistfuls of my sheets and my name comes out of her bent in half. When I slide into her from behind, we both quit pretending this is gentle. I give her all of it, hard and deep, the bed frame knocking the wall, until she breaks around me loud enough for the whole mountain.

I pull out and turn her over. I lift her into my lap, and we both watch as I slide back inside her. This is where she claimed me. We both know it.

I lift her up and down slow again, and I watch every roll of her hips, every catch of light on her skin. My whole hoard moves in my hands.

“I love you, Zuri,” I say.

Her lip trembles. Then she breaks apart on a cry.

The urge arrives while she’s still shaking, and I finally understand what took her that first night. My mouth floods. The curve of her neck is right there, bare and mine. I can’t lose her. I won’t. Nothing is taking her from me. If she wants to leave Shadow Wolf Creek when this is done, I’ll fly her out myself and never look back. The clan can follow or wave.

She’s mine.