Gambling on Her Dragon (Charmed in Vegas Book 2) (9 page)

Until, at some point, he could practically feel his wolf lean in and tap on his shoulder to say,
Hey, buddy. You got your one kiss. Now I get mine.

And then the kiss became a frenzy for more, more, and more that her dragon seemed just as happy to run away with.

“Tell me what you want,” she gasped between deep, hard kisses. “Tell me what you like.”

“I want you,” he mumbled, sliding down her body to kiss her neck.

Want to lick
, his wolf added.
 To pinch, just a little bit. Maybe even nibble—

He yanked on an invisible leash and slid farther down her body, ignoring his wolf’s inner protest.

I was just sniffing!
his wolf protested.
I swear!

He shook his head. That this was more than just good sex — really, really good sex that made his heart and soul soar — was clear. But there was no way he was going to let his inner wolf grab the chance to do something rash. If there really was truth to the notion of destined mates—

Of course, there is!
 his wolf hissed.

And if Kaya really was his destined mate—

Of course, she is!
 

They’d talk about it later, like a couple of rational adults, not hot-blooded shifters.

Talk?
 his wolf scoffed.
What is there to talk about?

Everything. Like how the hell could a wolf and a dragon make a life together…

How the hell can we
not
 make a life together?

He struggled for an answer to that one because, for once, the wolf had him stumped.

Whatever. He shoved the beast aside. All of that was for later. Right now was for letting their bodies get to know each other the very best way. For memorizing every smooth curve, every soft line, every hard ridge of her body.

“Tell me what you want me to do,” Kaya whispered, running her hands over his shoulders.

He dropped lower, kissing her collarbone. Her chest rose with deep, needy breaths.

“This,” he murmured, kissing his way down to her breast. “I want this.”

“This?” The word turned into a squeak as his lips caught her nipple.

He licked in circles, letting his body weight pin her down.

“This.” He nodded. “I want you to lie back and let me explore.”

She answered with a needy moan.

“I want to study every inch of you,” he added, nibbling at the underside of the plump flesh.

Kaya sighed in pleasure, lifting him with her long inhale.

“I want to touch you. Everywhere.”

Her knees flopped apart in open invitation, and his wolf howled.

He nosed her belly, inhaled deeply, and dropped between her legs.

The night before, he’d been drugged by some chemical. But now, he was drugged on the scent of her skin, on the arousal wafting from every pore. On the crazy little mewing sounds she made when he parted her folds and let his tongue dive in.

She might have been a dragon, but she sure did cry like a kitten when he turned her on.

“Is that good?” he asked, glancing up.

Her hands were clutching the sheets. Her head was tipped back, and her breaths came in gasps.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he chuckled and ducked back in.

He tunneled his fingers into her and scooped with his tongue. Fought his aching hard-on as long as he could.

“Trey,” she moaned, pulling at his shoulders. “I’m so close.”

He swept his tongue upward in one last, openmouthed taste. He was so close to coming, it hurt.

“Please.” She lifted her head, and the line of her abs rose like a mountain ridge. “Inside. I need you inside.”

He dragged himself away from heaven to shuffle up along her body.

“Ready?” he asked, nudging her legs wider to make space for his cock.

“Like you have to ask.” Kaya shook her head, but an indulgent smile slipped over her lips. “Like you have to ask.”

K
aya clamped her legs around Trey, as ready as she’d ever been in her life. More than ready, because her mind was already two steps ahead, imagining the hot slide of him inside.

“Like you have to—”

He slid in, and she gasped. He was so wide, so hard, and the pain was so, so good. Skin-on-skin, because she really didn’t give a damn about a condom right now.

“Oh, yes,” she moaned.

He snuck in another half inch, then half an inch more. His legs trembled, and she felt him struggle with his inner wolf to give her time. Thick, muscled arms crisscrossed with a hundred chiseled lines of muscle, caging her in.

She didn’t know what kind of partner he was used to — sure didn’t want to know the details, either — but if he thought dragons needed slow and careful, he had another thing coming.

“Deeper,” she moaned, clawing his back. “Deeper.” Damn it, she was begging. But really, how could she resist?

All the air went out of her as he plunged in. A
you-asked-for-it, you-got-it
 dive that ended with his hips slamming against hers and his cock buried deep, deep inside.

“Kaya,” he sang.

She clamped down on him with her inner muscles, wishing she could capture the sound he made. No one said her name that way, making it into its own melody. No one.

“Kaya,” he whispered.

His voice was hoarse that time, and it still sounded good. But they weren’t lying in that bed to sing or to whisper or to cry, so she licked her lips and forced out two words.

“Again,” she ordered him. “Again.”

He angled his hips to the right and thrust back in, riding one wall of her core hard. Pulled back out and angled left, then pushed in again, doing the same to the other side. Out and back, out and back, always with that delicious, diagonal slide that made her hungrier. Wider. Wilder.

She dug her heels into his ass and danced with him, leaning left and right to accentuate each move in a sensual waltz like none she’d ever felt. The last rays of sunlight flickered in through the window and over the walls. The suite became a time machine, throwing her way, way back in time to caveman days, when primitive instincts could take over and conscious thought could retreat, at least for a little while. Just her and her wolf, possessing her. Thoroughly. Unrelentingly, but with just enough restraint to keep the focus on her.

She closed her eyes to the delicious, searing heat of his movements. Focused everything on giving as good as she got by squeezing inside, matching his moves.

Was she doing it right? She peeked. If Trey clenching his teeth, closing his eyes, and murmuring her name was any indication — then, yeah, she was doing pretty well.

So she did it again, rippling over him like a vise as he thrust forward, dragging moan after audible moan out of the man doing the same to her.

“Trey,” she cried, teetering on the edge of an incredible high.

His body was bent so low over hers that the sweat starting to gleam on his chest didn’t drop so much as slide over to her. And dang, even that felt good. Impossibly good. Unbearably good.

“Trey…” Her voice wavered until she couldn’t hold it any more. Couldn’t hold anything back as wave after wave of sensation steamrolled over her. Emotions, too, damn it, like a mushy, yearning need to call him her own. A desperate, sentimental longing for something she couldn’t quite name.

Mate,
 her dragon puffed inside.
My mate.

He grunted and went stiff all over, filling her, and she squeezed every available appendage around him, keeping him close.

Her heart thumped. His breath came in shallow pants. The throb she felt in her chest could have been his pulse or hers. His fingers tightened around hers, just as they’d done the night before, and a languid kind of peace washed over her as he collapsed, then turned and wrapped her in his arms.

Mine
, her dragon purred.
Mine
.

She really ought to have stamped such crazy thoughts away, but she just couldn’t muster the willpower to. Resisting the pull to him was useless. And Christ, temptation had never felt this good, this right.

“Mine,” he murmured, and she snuggled closer, crossing her arms over his.

A lifetime passed in a minute, and she didn’t regret a thing. She just wrapped herself tighter in the blanket of his warmth and hung on to a high that lifted every layer of her body and soul.

“Wow,” she murmured, which was short for,
Hot damn, that was good.
 Maybe she should have hooked up with a wolf sooner.

She laughed in spite of herself. As if she had a huge stable of gorgeous, steel-muscled he-wolves to choose from back in Wyoming. As if she’d ever met a man like this before.

After one kiss to his arm, she squeezed her eyes shut. She never needed to go looking anywhere else, ever again.

“What?” He tapped her shoulder, and she rolled around. Popped over to kiss him, smack on the lips. One tiny kiss to follow the hurricane-force winds that had just swept past, but it stood out all the same. Love amidst lust. Poetry amidst passion.

She squeezed her lips together, holding on to his taste. “You…I mean, us. I mean, this…”

The corners of his eyes crinkled into a smile. “I think I know what you mean.”

Did he? She searched his face for any hint of a lie or a rote line, but there was none of that. Just joy and wonder and…wow, fearlessness.

She took a deep breath, settling her nerves. Well, the couple of restless nerves that still had the energy to flutter inside her body. The rest were already snoring in bone-deep contentment. Maybe those were the ones she ought to trust instead of the nail-biting, doubting ones over there. Was it really possible for love to move this fast?

“Hey,” he whispered, pulling her onto his chest.

She laid an ear against his skin and listened to the sure, steady beat of his heart.

“I don’t get this, either.” His voice was deep and rumbly from that close up. “But there’s something my mom used to say…”

She tilted her chin up and found his eyes.

He took his time, smoothing her hair back, tucking it behind her ears. “Sometimes, you just got to trust.”

She gulped a little, then rested her head against him once more. She liked the sound of that. A lot.

“You want to hear my dad’s version of that?” she asked a long second later, punching through the heavy feeling of possibility that had settled over both of them.

“Sure. What?”

She dropped her voice to match her father’s gravelly bass. “Never, ever trust anyone. Especially a man.”

Trey laughed, and the movement bounced her around. “What about a wolf, sweetheart?”

“Ha.” She rolled around to lie flush over his body, head to toe, making the mattress dip even more. “He never said anything about wolves.”

“There you go.” Trey pointed right at her, like he’d known it all along. His eyes shone as he echoed his own words. “There we go.”

We.
 A word to frame and clutch to her chest forever, if she hadn’t been clutching him.

He rocked her a little, and she sighed. “So tell me something, wolf.”

“Anything,” he answered without the slightest delay.

“Tell me…” She searched for whatever it was she was dying to find out. But what did she need to know about the man that he hadn’t already shown her in word and deed? “Um…”

He chuckled and started humming a game show theme. “Waiting, darlin’.”

The drawl was a mimic, so she started with that. “Where are you from?”

“Massachusetts.”

Her head popped up. “Massachu…”

He laughed. “Disappointed?”

She shook the notion away. Vehemently.

“Been working in Arizona lately,” he explained. “On my cousin’s ranch.”

So that’s where the cowboy part came from.

“Is that where you learned to play poker?”

His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Among other things.”

Huh. She’d lived most of her life in Wyoming. Never really wanted to leave. So what made him move?

“Why did you leave home?”

“Dunno. I just wanted…something else.” His gaze flitted vaguely over the room, bouncing from curtains to ceiling to bedside lamp until it landed on her and his eyes abruptly dialed into sharp focus. His breath caught on something, and his Adam’s apple bobbed.

Her heart thumped, seeing him look at her that way.

He dragged his eyes away, and damn, she’d put good money on the fact he’d just figured out what
something
 might be.

Dragon lore was full of mysterious forces, like fate, destiny, and serendipity, but none of them was ever used to explain love. Fate was the collective head-shaking that came after a dragon plowed into a cliff at night and crashed to his doom. Destiny was the shrug that came with a business enterprise falling apart. Serendipity was the punchline of a joke told by two dragons at exactly the same time.

Love, on the other hand, was a couple of dragons getting it on late on a Saturday night.

None of those words, not even destiny, seemed strong enough to explain
this.

But wolves, from what she’d heard, believed in those terms the way zealots believed in gods or prophets. Wolves were legendary for spending lifetimes sniffing after scents they swore stemmed from destiny. For bachelors deciding from one day to the next that it was time to settle down. For spending lifetimes gazing into each other’s eyes and howling nighttime duets.