Dragon's Melody (15 page)

Melody’s aura had subsided after her orgasm and was now simply a pleasant pale glow enveloping them both while he fucked her. The only emotional impression was simple, naked contentment.

“What can’t you decide?” he asked, brushing his lips down her throat and flicking his lengthened dragon tongue between her breasts.

She moaned and arched back, letting him support her weight in his arms while he licked and sucked at her breasts.

“Whether I like your tongue more, or your cock.”

“Why decide?” he murmured. “When you can have both at once.”

A sweet, low moan escaped her throat when he drove his cock deep into her and continued teasing the tips of both breasts. He pulled back to simply watch her in the pale glow of the moonlight streaming in through the high windows behind her. Her creamy skin still shimmered faintly with luminescent blue from his energy, and her hair appeared silver in the light from outside.

He committed the image to memory, and not just the visual of her at that moment, but the subtler pulse of her aura that drifted like a cloud around her and the deeper impression of her emotions in that moment. And for the first time in weeks, he lost the sense of all those other human emotions clamoring through the air of the city around him. His senses were inundated only with her, and he reveled in every tiny nuance of her emotions.

She clutched her thighs tighter around him and raised her head to look at him. Reaching out, she gripped the back of his neck with one hand for leverage as she pivoted her hips with deliberate strokes to meet his.

Sweet Mother, was she coming again?

“Touch me,” she breathed. “I want to come with you.”

“I like the view too much,” he said. “Let me see you touch yourself.”

“Oh God,” she said, her aura growing and swirling around her, teasing at his senses again.

He gazed at her, enraptured by her abrupt change. He hadn’t done a thing differently besides say those words, but here she was, on the verge yet again. Her eyes opened wide and watched him as she slid her hand down between them and stroked herself. Her fingers reached farther to where they were joined and gripped him gently, smiling at his groan of pleasure in response to the added friction of her fingers around his shaft as he plunged repeatedly into her. Then her fingers were on her clit again. His gaze alternated between her hand and her face, hoping to capture the moment and commit that to memory, too.

The moment before she came, her aura surged around them, a hurricane wind of energy that harmonized with her cries of his name. The sound erupted from her throat like a song, the inflection and tone shifting with each swift stroke of his cock. He pulled her tighter against him, gripping her ass to guide her hips and control her motions while he groaned out his own pleasure against her lips and spent his ecstasy deep inside her, sending with it the accumulated cloud of power.

She clung to him, panting, her muscles still spasming softly around his cock.

“Skye,” she whispered.

“Yes, love?” he said, nuzzling at the dewy moisture that glistened on the side of her neck. He let his forked tongue flick out to taste her there and was rewarded with a tiny gasp followed by a tilt of her head to one side.

“You’re right. I love them both equally, I think.”

“Mmm, good,” he said, staring off into the dawn light pinkening the sky outside his windows.

A familiar pleasant tickle raced up his spine—a sensation that he only had when Garen was close by. He realized with surprise that the sensation had been there for some time. He looked at Melody and followed her gaze to where it was fixed somewhere behind him, shifting just enough to see Garen leaning with one shoulder against the wall in the shadows near the front door.

The tickle along his spine turned icy in response to the hungry look Garen gave her. Skye’s arms tightened around Melody possessively, leaving him wondering about his own reaction as much as Garen’s mood. As alien as the chilly aura of Garen’s emotions was for a dragon, Skye knew the emotion well enough from the humans he’d come into contact with. The dark hint of fear that underscored Garen’s aura betrayed the truth of his jealousy, but the second Skye reached out with his mind to his friend, Garen’s aura withdrew, sinking back into him like a Shadow’s breath retreating into its master’s lungs.

By contrast, Melody’s aura grew even warmer, and her moist heat still wrapped around his cock slickened. Her emotions, however, spiked with confusion and before he could stop her, she pulled away from him. He blinked at her naked form in the dawn light as she stooped to grab something to wear, found her ripped gown, then settled on his dress shirt that was still thankfully whole.

“You’re back!” she said to Garen and started toward him, an uncertain smile on her face.

Skye rose and started after her, but paused, deciding modesty might be appropriate, all things considered.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Garen’s voice was calm and contained in Skye’s mind, with no hint of the emotion he’d sensed earlier. He sounded so normal, Skye could almost believe he’d imagined the earlier look. One thing he certainly didn’t imagine now, however, was the way vibrant threads of Melody’s energy trailed out through the air between her aura and Garen, and in the other direction toward Skye himself.

She stopped half way between them and turned, her pretty face caught in the reflected glow of the sunrise off a window beyond their building. Skye stood and donned his trousers, entranced by the way the light gilded her almost as perfectly as her aura. The trailing tendrils of energy reached for him and, in equal measure, for his friend, stretching toward them like vines seeking nurturing sunlight. They flamed blue in his direction and white in Garen’s, bleeding to a bright gold close the center where she stood between them, frozen in place by uncertainty.

“Do you see this?”
Garen asked, his silent voice awed.
“How is she attuned to me?”

“It must be the bond you and I share that bled through when I shared my Nirvana with her. There’s no other way she could have absorbed your energy. It’s odd that it’s reaching for you, though. It should only do that if you’ve tasted hers, too.”

Garen’s expression became stricken with shock.
“Sweet Mother, I’m sorry. I didn’t know this could happen. Forgive me.”
He turned away and strode swiftly to the door.

“Garen!” Skye called after him. “Forgive you for what?” But his friend was out the door, leaving behind him an impression of shame and self-hatred more intense than any emotion Skye had experienced from a human. Suspicion crept into his mind for the first time, leaving him cold.

Melody turned back to him, her shock plain on her face. “Forgive him? Did he do something wrong?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Skye said. “Perhaps you can shed some light on the matter.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

M
elody’s sense of elation faded swiftly under the cold blue gaze. Her jaw set and she stared back at Skye, working to quell the defensive reaction to what was obviously sudden mistrust. Not that it wasn’t entirely warranted, but the entire situation was something she struggled to come to terms with and thought she finally had.

“You pay him to get me going, which he is extremely good at. So why are you suddenly surprised that I slipped? It wasn’t his fault, and he only took the tiniest bit of whatever it is you take from me when I come.”

“I don’t blame only him, Melody. You’re the one who has a contract with me, and you’re the one who managed to void it after only one day.”

“Did you stop to think that maybe it was a ridiculous thing to expect? I’m not some kind of bottomless well of sustenance you can just take from as it suits you. I was willing to attempt the arrangement because I liked you both. Garen made me want more, and you showed me exactly how amazing it could be if I let myself give in to the idea.” In spite of the chilly reaction he gave her now, she still wanted to learn more about him, and not just the secrets he wouldn’t share, but the other things that made him tick.

He clenched his fists and his blue irises flickered with bright light for a second. A ripple of emotion passed over his face, brows clenching in what could have been pain or hurt as his throat worked to respond. Melody had the sudden urge to turn and leave him there to work out his issues—to go after Garen and try to comfort him. They had both messed up, but she was only human after all, and he was extraordinarily adept at arousing every kind of emotion and exquisite sensation in her, body and soul. The only problem was that Skye incited the same reactions in her, and the abruptness with which that realization hit terrified her.

“You were aware of the requirements.”

“Did I actually manage to displease you last night? Was my performance somehow lacking as a result? Tell me that, please! Because unless you feel like you really got shafted because my own body betrayed me—that you didn’t get what you think you were due—then you really need to rethink the terms. I’m already rethinking them, to be honest. Because in spite of how fucking
amazing
last night was for me, I don’t think I really like you all that much. I’d have been better off pining for Kol and pretending to enjoy sex with normal men for the rest of my life.”

That’s right, lying through your teeth makes everything better,
she chided herself. In spite of how unhappy she was with his reaction, saying she didn’t like him was more than an exaggeration. She despised the way he looked at her now, but her heart ached with the knowledge that either of the men might be hurt over such a confounding situation.

Nobody was truly at fault, she knew that. Yet, her stomach churned with a combination of the same shame of failing Skye she’d seen on Garen’s face and her own shame at having failed herself and given in to emotion so easily. She could not let herself fall apart over a man so swiftly, much less two at once. She’d have to get her damn feelings under control if she intended to see the contract through.

She stalked past Skye with a huff, tore off the shirt and bent to grab the robe she’d been wearing earlier—the only garment of hers that hadn’t been ripped to shreds. The sheer fabric did nothing to conceal her body, but at least gave her an illusion of feeling dressed. When she picked up her other garments she grabbed his jacket and tossed it on the edge of the sofa along with his discarded shirt.

A small clattering reached her ears as something hit the floor near her feet and skittered under the sofa’s leg. She bent down to retrieve what looked like an intricately inlaid golden box, its surface reflecting the pink morning light.

“Don’t touch that,” Skye said, his voice tight with emotion.

She ignored him and reached for the box, clutching it in her palm before he could reach her.

“Is this yours?” she asked, holding the beautiful shining box up to him. The object seemed to warm in her palm and the glow of light she thought was a reflection from the window brightened, clearly coming from within the box.

“No!” Skye said, stepping toward her with a panicked look on his face.

There was a tiny
click
and the box seemed to split cross-wise in the center, the corners springing outward to reveal a smaller cube-like frame within, inside which was a glowing orb of beautiful golden light.

“Oh!” Melody exclaimed, blinking at the dazzling shape. She extended the index finger of her other hand to the glowing haze around the orb, but an invisible barrier seemed to be holding it in a tiny force field.

Skye stopped cold right in front of her, his hands dangling by his sides. “Mother, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” he said under his breath. Or at least that’s what Melody thought she’d heard.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to open it,” she said. She hurriedly pressed the box closed again and stretched out her hand toward him.

Skye gingerly took the box from her, eyeing it with suspicion. He turned it over in his hands, squeezing with his fingers as though trying to find the latch. Finally he simply cursed in frustration and stuck it into his pants pocket.

Instead of heading to her room as she intended, she paused to watch him, curious about his reaction to her touching the mesmerizing little object.

As he dressed, his eyes kept darting to her, his expression bemused. At least he was no longer giving her that disappointed scowl from before. Now he simply seemed indecisive, his brows scrunched together and his eyes staring off at nothing every so often while he buttoned his shirt.

“What are you going to do?” Melody asked, suddenly apprehensive about precisely what it was he was working out in his head.

“Review the contract. Rewrite it. Burn it. I don’t know. Before I do anything I need the absolute truth from the both of you.”

“I told you the truth. Garen was doing his job and I just couldn’t hold back. That’s it. I actually did it to myself, if you must know. He happened to be in contact with me at the time.”

She stared at him defiantly, silently daring him to contradict her. She was tempted to spit out the dirty details just to see how he would react, however.

I masturbated while he finger fucked me and I loved every second of it.
But she had less at stake than Garen had. It might be a setback for her dreams, but Garen’s life was more closely tied to Skye’s than hers was. She’d be able to move on without looking back, or she’d have a better chance of it, at any rate. Either way, she was pretty sure she’d regret it if she continued down this path with these two amazing men and one ridiculous yet enticing contract.

Skye gave her a dubious look, seemed thoughtful for a moment, then his shoulders sagged with defeat. “If you say so. I hope his account doesn’t contradict yours.”

“Is it really so bad for it to happen? You’ve never once explained
why
it could only be you and me. Yet you force him to be in such close contact with me—”

“He was never forced. I trust him to do the job without taking advantage of you. I do trust him more than you at this stage. Until you can prove your loyalty to me, consider yourself on probation.” His jaw set and his gaze turned cool again—businesslike. “You’ll remain here at my whim at least until I believe I can trust you fully. You’ve had a day to understand what your job entails, so I trust there won’t be any confusion as to what is expected of you.”

Melody clenched her teeth, angry in spite of the brisk tingle of arousal that shot down her spine at the suggestion of truly being confined here,
at his whim
. The contract had provided for some freedom of movement—she had free run of the city, for example—but there had been a clause regarding discipline should she fail to perform her duties as outlined. Confined for his pleasure meant that he would at least still need Garen to do
his
job, and the thought made her relax.