Playing with Fire

and protect, to care for and cherish, to the end of my days.’’

The kiss he shared with me burned with dragon fire. I welcomed it, rubbing myself against him as it blazed through me, igniting fires I’d assumed were slumbering. With a growl, he tossed me onto the bed, following to kiss a blazing path from my neck to my breasts.

‘‘We’re going to do it again?’’ I asked, amazed but pleased to see his penis beginning to swell.

‘‘Now we will mate like humans,’’ he said, lifting his head from the valley between my breasts. His gaze scorched along my flesh, leaving me trembling with need. ‘‘But this time, we will take it slowly. I will pleasure you at length, giving you the time you need to-’’

I grabbed his head, wrapping my fingers in the thin, soft dreadlocks, pulling his mouth down to mine at the same time I wrapped my legs around his hips. ‘‘Now,’’ I yelled into his mouth, biting his lower lip.

He laughed even as he shifted his hips, thrusting into my waiting flesh. ‘‘My demanding little bird.’’

‘‘You have no idea,’’ I groaned, thrusting my hips up to meet him, my tongue twining around his in an erotic dance that begged for more. ‘‘Give me your fire. Please.’’

He didn’t say anything more, just released his dragon fire until it consumed us, sending me soaring once again into a world that consisted only of Gabriel and me, and the blaze that we built between us.

Chapter Eleven

‘‘Let me see if I have this straight.’’

I rubbed my forehead and wished for the fiftieth time in the last ten minutes that a portal would suddenly open up next to me to take me a thousand miles from this spot.

‘‘Despite the fact that you had just finished explaining to me why you could not get involved with any man-’’

Cyrene ’s voice was drowned out for a moment by the arrival of another fire engine.

‘‘-to the wind and slept with Gabriel? Oh, Mayling, really!’’

In the blissful silence that followed the siren being silenced, Cyrene ’s voice was clearly audible.

I closed my eyes and wondered what would be the worst thing that would happen if I was to suddenly shadow in front of the twenty or so people who now turned interested faces upon us. Luckily, the crowd gathered had other things to capture their attention, and turned away from us almost immediately. All but one person, a tall, wiry man who examined Cyrene and me with speculation I found almost offensive.

‘‘I don’t think everyone in the entire country heard you,’’ I said in a low, dangerous voice, giving the man a thin-lipped look. He blinked a couple of times, then moved off.

Cyrene rolled her eyes. ‘‘The point is that despite everything you had just told me, you slept with Gabriel, and had such incredibly wild sex that the bed was set on fire. Am I correct in that summation of the evening’s events?’’

I grabbed her arm and pulled her as far away from our audience as was possible, my cheeks hot with embarrassment. We were standing a block away from the hotel, huddled with other guests in various states of undress as the fire department put out the blaze that had damaged part of the floor my room was on. ‘‘It wasn’t like that!’’

‘‘And unless that very handsome fireman who brought out my things was mistaken, your little lovefest with Gabriel not only caused the furnishings in your room to burn-a fact that evidently went unnoticed by either of you- but the fire spread to adjoining rooms?’’

I ground my teeth.

‘‘Do I have all that correct?’’

I lifted my chin and gave her a look of my own. ‘‘There were extenuating circumstances. Not to mention the fact that the hotel’s fire prevention practices are clearly out of date. The sprinklers didn’t go on until the curtains were almost gone.’’

She eyed me with a curiously flat look. ‘‘Gabriel must be one hell of a lover.’’

‘‘That is neither here nor there,’’ I said with as much dignity as I could muster, which admittedly wasn’t much.

Cyrene was silent for a few minutes before turning back to me, her voice much lower. ‘‘You slept with him. You really slept with him?’’

‘‘I didn’t intend to. I meant everything I said to you. I still do-but somehow… somehow Gabriel made me believe that there may be a way around the situation with Magoth.’’

‘‘So’’-her hands made a vague gesture-‘‘does this mean you’re a dragon?’’

‘‘I accepted him as my mate,’’ I answered warily. ‘‘I don’t believe that changes me in any way other than my life is now bound to his.’’

Another fire truck arrived. We scooted back as more refugees from the hotel were released by the medical folk. ‘‘What do you think Magoth will do?’’

‘‘Probably try to seduce me yet again, but I think…’’ I remembered the feeling of Gabriel’s body with a warm flush that started at my belly and rippled upward. ‘‘I think it will be easier to refuse him. Rather than being a weakness Magoth could exploit, I think that this relationship with Gabriel may end up giving me strength.’’

‘‘I’m still trying to get over the idea of you having sex. After all those years when I tried to find a man for you…’’

‘‘I haven’t exactly been chaste,’’ I said with a little smile. ‘‘As you should know, since you were the one to give me the Pink Bunny Tinglator.’’

She smiled fondly. ‘‘That was one of my better finds, wasn’t it? But not as good as a man.’’

‘‘No, definitely not.’’

She digested that for a moment. ‘‘Was he in man form, or dragon form?’’

‘‘Really, Cy, does it matter?’’ I draped the blanket I’d been holding tight around me onto a nearby shrub, pulling on the leather bodice that I’d grabbed, along with my pants and shirt, before Gabriel had rushed me out of the blazing room.

‘‘No, of course not, although I can’t help but be curious. I’ve never had sex with a shape-shifter before, so I wasn’t sure how they… er… did it.’’

‘‘They do it like any other human,’’ I answered, emphasizing the important point.

‘‘Yes, but dragons aren’t human, are they? They’re… well, I suppose they’re animals.’’

‘‘Gabriel is not an animal!’’ I said in a furious whisper. ‘‘He’s a dragon, yes, but they aren’t animals. They’re just… dragons. Usually human in form, sometimes appearing in another form.’’

‘‘So… did he do it in dragon form?’’

I scanned the crowd of people for the tall, gorgeous man who’d gone off to explain to the fire department why my room was ablaze. ‘‘This really isn’t anything I’m comfortable talking about.’’

‘‘No, I can’t imagine that admitting to engaging in bestiality is something that you want bandied about, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.’’

I spun around to glare at my twin, keeping my voice low. ‘‘It was not bestiality!’’

‘‘You had sex with him in dragon form-that’s certainly not plain old missionary-position sex,’’ she pointed out with cheerful disregard of anything I said.

‘‘He was not in dragon form. He said he could, but he didn’t, and frankly, I’m glad… Oh, this is silly. I’m not going to discuss this any further with you.’’

Cyrene patted me on the arm. ‘‘Don’t get me wrong-I admire you, I really do. I remember in the old days, when Zeus was always flitting around in swan form, trying to seduce the sisterhood. Have you ever had a swan hump your leg? It’s not the least bit alluring, let me tell you!’’

I gaped openmouthed at her. ‘‘You… Zeus?’’

‘‘Oh, yes, he was always after us naiads. Had some sort of a fetish about doing it in the water, so the rumor went. We won’t go into what he did with his beak.’’

There just wasn’t much I could say to that, so I closed my mouth and made a mental note to read up on Greek