He looked surprised and she realized how that must have sounded. Her face heated and a nervous giggle escaped. “I mean… you’re a great guy and everything, but the only thing she said to me was that I was ‘in the way.’ She seemed to have some kind of plan for you.”
Drake hung his head. “She wanted to mate with me. Dragons are only fertile once every five years and the cycle only lasts for a month.”
“Oh.” Bliss didn’t know quite what to say to that. She hadn’t known him a month yet? It seemed at times like they’d known each other for years. And what if they were still together in five years? Did that mean she’d have to worry about Zina coming back?
“Look. You were never ‘in the way’ because I was never going to be with her. If I had just been honest from the beginning and told her I wasn’t interested…”
“I don’t think it would have mattered. She seemed to think you were her property. If she really is a princess as she claimed, maybe she’s used to just telling people what to do and being obeyed.”
“She certainly acted like a spoiled princess,” Drake agreed.
“So, now what happens? Is the month over? Will she just give up and go away when it’s too late?”
Drake shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about her anymore.” He ran the back of his fingers over Bliss’s face, tenderly. “I know you were probably told not to tell anyone how you got away, and I won’t say anything, but I figure we should talk about it… just between us.”
“Oh, um, that.” She looked at her lap, not even sure if
“Laugh? Believe me, I won’t laugh.” His voice sounded sure and sincere.
She gazed up into his eyes and took a deep breath. “God helped me. I know it sounds nuts, but I was sitting on the toilet in a disgusting tiny bathroom in a warehouse. No way out. Zina standing guard. I thought I was done for. Suddenly this… guy appeared. He turned around just long enough for me to pull up my panties and then zing… we were somewhere else. It was so bright, I think it was heaven… but maybe not. I heard a woman’s voice, and she sounded angry. Then, zing… we were standing outside in the alley behind the bar.”
“Zing?”
Bliss waved away the word in frustration. “I don’t know what to call it. There wasn’t a noise involved. I was just somewhere and then I wasn’t there anymore. Then I was suddenly somewhere else.”
“And you think God took you to heaven and brought you back?”
“Either that, or he was some kind of angel and the angry woman was God… or a goddess… Oh, I don’t know.” She rose and paced toward the windows. “I knew you’d think I’m crazy.”
He followed her and grabbed her by the arms almost as the mystery man had. “You’re not crazy.” He turned her in his arms and kissed her. “You’re perfectly sane. I don’t know
She blinked. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“Put it this way, crazy things happen. Maybe denying that is crazy.”
She threw her arms around his neck. “Thank goodness you understand.”
Back in her hotel room, Zina paced and muttered to herself, “So that human thinks I’m spoiled? Nothing could be further from the truth. I had a very critical father. Nothing I ever did was good enough for the king of the Amazon. There was no pleasing him. He said he was toughening me up for the world. You know what? Now I just want to punch the world in the face.”
She punched her own palm, then shook it to release the sting.
“Come on, Zina, think. You have three more days to get this Drake guy to sleep with you.” She snorted and a curl of smoke left her nostrils. “Yeah, willingly or not. At first, I thought I only had to show him my charming side, but nooo… that wasn’t good enough.
“Now I not only have to come up with a plan to get him alone, I also have to think of some way to threaten him into cooperating. I thought for sure, holding his woman hostage would get him to do anything. Now I find out she has some kind of magical power that lets her escape through walls. Damn it! I can’t catch a break.”
As she paced, she became angrier and angrier. “Why the hell would he allow the whole dragon species to die out? Am I that repugnant? He knows how few and far between we are. He said so himself. And I know that Bliss bitch isn’t a dragon. I mean, we’re good, but even a dragon can’t escape though a solid wall without leaving a big, gaping hole. What the fuck?”
She halted in her tracks as a kernel of an idea came to her. “Maybe I can just threaten to burn the city to the ground. He knows I can do it, and I don’t think he’d let that happen.” The more she thought about it, the better she liked the idea.
Drake tucked a loose strand of Bliss’s hair behind her ear. “A couple days ago you said you thought you loved me but reserved the right to take it back. Now that we’re safe from Zina and all her crazy distractions, do you have a definite opinion on that?”
Bliss smiled and lay back on his bed. “I do. Come here and let me show you.”
She reached for the buttons on his shirt and undid them slowly. The heat in her eyes spoke of good things to come, and she didn’t look away. Perhaps she was waiting to see if his eyes turned gold. Regardless, making love face to face was something he’d wanted to do from the start, and now that she knew his secret, he could.
As soon as she’d removed his belt, he reached out and unbuttoned her blouse with the same care she’d shown his uniform. It took a lot of restraint, but he managed to get her clothes off without tearing anything.
She rolled him onto his back and kissed him. Their tongues found each other instinctively.
Drake hadn’t expected this slow seduction to appeal to him, but it did on many levels. The heat inside him built more slowly, and he finally felt like he had total control over his shift. That didn’t mean he was reacting any less. His balls were tight and his blood was pounding. When she took his cock in her hand, he had to force himself to breathe.
“I see we have a situation here,” Bliss said.
“A situation?”
“A situation that might need my attention.”
“Oh, yeah. I think you’re right.”
Bliss slid down the bed until she was at eye level with his cock, stroking it the entire time.
He thought he might explode right there. “I should point out that this ‘situation’ is entirely your fault. If you weren’t so damn sexy—” He gasped when she took him into her mouth.
Her hair dark fell forward, obscuring his view, so he swept it back over her shoulder. Watching and feeling was almost too much stimulation for a man or dragon to bear. He had to close his eyes for a moment. He was rigid, hot and ready. Too ready.
“Bliss, honey. I can’t take much more.”
She eased her mouth off his throbbing cock and kissed the swollen tip. Then she tongued his hole and he almost short-circuited. He grasped under her arms and hauled her up, then flipped her so she lay looking up at him.
“That mouth of yours is sheer magic. Let’s see if I can do the same for you.”
He bent over her breast and circled the hard nipple with his tongue. When he covered the entire areola with his mouth and sucked, she arched and moaned. His hand found her other breast and cupped its fullness, then he stroked her nipple with his thumb.
After thoroughly suckling one breast, he switched to the other. She breathed out his name as he moved. If possible, she moaned even louder when he latched on to her nipple and gave equal attention to that side while adding a rub to her clit.
“Oh, God,” she rasped. “I need you—inside me.
He let her breast pop out of his mouth and grinned. “I believe in giving a lady what she wants.”
“In that case, I want to be on top.”
