I make myself breathe until the sobs let up. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and search his face for answers. He’s still not talking.
I grab his wrist. “Jalen. Say something.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t.”
Then his mouth is on mine.
He pours himself into the kiss. His hands frame my face and tip it back, and his mouth moves over mine deep and slow, and the warmth behind my heart opens wider than it has ever gone. His love comes through it. Under his love comes his dragon, and under them both the bond itself, wide open at both ends. There’s more than I know how to hold, and he keeps giving it anyway.
I go lightheaded and hold on to his shoulders with both hands, and it’s too much, and I don’t want it to stop, both at the same time.
He pulls back first. His green eyes are shining wet in the moonlight.
Then he gathers me up into his arms, completely naked in the middle of an open field, and holds me so tight I can feel his heartbeat working against mine.
He falls back into the grass and pulls me into his lap, and we stay there staring at each other, trading kisses, smiling intothem. We stay like that so long the moon moves. I don’t care. I’m warm in his arms, and I have nowhere better to be in this whole world.
“Now what?” I ask, tracing the line of his collarbone.
He leans in and kisses me tender. Then he pulls back with a playful smirk.
“If all you had to do was see my dragon to get the words out, I should have done this shit sooner. First day you got here.” He spreads one hand out grand. “Like, here you go, boo. Now tell me you love me.”
I pinch his arm and narrow my eyes at him. It doesn’t hold. I giggle anyway, and he laughs right along with me, and there he is. My Messy Jay is back.
He leans in and kisses me again. “Now we have our happily ever after.”
“What about Delilah?” I hate her name in a night this good, but I need to know.
“What about her?” He shrugs under me. “She’s not stopping nothing.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Be serious.”
He takes my chin in two fingers. “Let her come. I’ll be waiting for her. Shadow Wolf Creek will be waiting for her.”
I smile at that. Then I take a look around this wide, empty clearing, and I look down at his stiff dick standing tall between us, and I give him my best sultry eyes. “Can we make love out here?”
“Oof.” My back meets the grass that fast. My clothes go next, his hands everywhere at once, and I gasp when he climbs over me and takes himself in hand. Then he fills me in one long push.
I wrap my arms around his neck and throw my head back, gasping at the sky, and I keep my eyes on the full moon while he pushes himself in and out of me, right out in the open.
He takes his time with me, his dick sliding in and out of me in long, deep strokes, and the grass is cool under my back while he burns hot above me.
“I love you,” he whispers against my mouth, and his hips never stop. “I love you.” He moans it into my neck. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Jalen.” I pull his face back up so he can watch me say the rest. “My dragon.”
He groans deep and drives into me harder, and I say his name up at the stars. I hook my legs high on his hips, and he answers by going deeper still. I come hard with my eyes wide open on the moon, crying out while I clench around him, and the moon blurs.
He pumps into me through all of it. Then his rhythm stutters, and he pushes deep and holds there, spilling hot inside me with a long moan of my name.
He eases his weight down and tucks my head under his chin, still inside me, both of us breathing hard.
Above us the moon sits big and bright and full. I watch it until my eyes fall shut in his arms.
25
ZURI