Hidden Embers (40 page)

“I want everything you are, Jasmine.” He circled his thumb around her clit and hurtled her into an orgasm so intense her knees collapsed beneath her. He caught her, held her up with one powerful arm against her belly. “Everything you’ll ever be.”

“You have it.” Once again, she met his eyes in the mirror, saw the heat and lust reflected in his.

“And will you take me in exchange?” His teeth sank into her shoulder and she shuddered, her body erupting again. “Take everything I am? Everything I want to give you.”

“Yes!”

“There’s no more running now, Jasmine. No more backing away from me. From what’s between us.” His fingers twisted inside of her. “You’re my mate and this is forever.”

“Yes!” she sobbed, riding his hands as need for him exploded within her. She couldn’t take the pleasure, the torture. It was too much. Watching him and hearing him and feeling him—she couldn’t think, couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t do anything but experience.

Ripping herself out of his arms, she turned and sank to her knees in front of him. “Jasmine!” Quinn’s voice was low, warning, but she paid no attention. She couldn’t; all her concentration suddenly focused on the long, hard cock in front of her. She worked at his zipper frantically, yanking his pants down and off, then leaning forward until she could stroke her tongue up and around his huge length.

Quinn’s breath slammed out of him, his hands tangling in Jasmine’s hair of their own volition. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, wasn’t how he’d planned it. But it felt so good, so fucking good, as she ran her tongue over his testicles before taking them into her mouth and sucking gently.

“Fuck, Jasmine.” His hands tightened in her hair and he tried to pull her away, but she wrapped her arms around his upper thighs and hung on. Then he couldn’t fight anymore, didn’t want to fight, as the most incredible pleasure of his life slammed through him.

He glanced into the mirror and nearly came at his first sight of Jasmine’s naked back. It was incredible, intense, more arousing than he thought possible to watch her from the back
and
the front as she took him.

When she finally pulled back, giving his balls one last kiss, he didn’t know whether to give thanks or howl in disappointment. But she wasn’t done—not by a long shot. Now her hot, gorgeous mouth was swallowing him whole.

Fuck, he was going to lose it, his cum boiling up inside of him as his mate claimed him as surely as he was claiming her. His control was in shreds, his body completely in her thrall, and he didn’t care. He was hers to do with as she wished.

His teeth clenched, his jaw locked as the moist, sexy heat of her mouth drew him in deep. Her tongue ran in circles around his throbbing cock—up and down and around until he was clinging to control by his fingertips.

He looked down, watched as she slid him back and forth between those cherry-red lips of hers. Her eyes were closed, her long, golden lashes resting on her cheeks as she tucked the head of his cock against the roof of her mouth and slid him down her throat.

“Look at me!” His voice was low, guttural, more animal than human. But she understood what he was saying and those beautiful purple eyes flew open. He stared into their violet depths as she took him—as he fucked her mouth and she fucked him up—and wondered if he would ever be the same.

Then the pleasure exploded through him, sweeping up from his balls to the base of his cock, taking him by surprise as she sucked a little harder, her tongue wiggling over the sensitive spot on the underside of his cock.

“Fuck!” It was a groan, a plea, a prayer, but his mate had no mercy in her soul. She took him deeper, her hands clenching on his ass as she worked her throat convulsively.

And then he was coming, spurting inside of her, his cum jetting furiously into her mouth. She took it all, swallowed it down, consumed him and left him so damned shaky he nearly fell on her.

And still he burned.

Pulling her up by the hair, he spun her around, shoved her—stomach down—onto the bed. She moved to her knees, wiggling that sweet ass of hers, and it was as if his orgasm of a moment before had never happened.

With a growl, he launched himself at her, slamming himself into her hot pussy again and again. She screamed, pushed back against him. Her fingers tangled in the pillows, her head thrashed from side to side and her vaginal muscles gripped him in fits and spasms that had him seeing stars.

“Jasmine!” He called her name as the orgasm rose sharply in him. He wanted her with him,
needed
her with him with an intensity that was overwhelming.

And then she was screaming his name, her pussy clenching around him as her climax hit, the waves milking him despite his best efforts to hold on.

With a cry—of thanks, of need, of bone-wrenching fear—he came, emptying himself inside of her. Giving her everything he had in one bone-crushing, mind-numbing, soul-searing orgasm.

When it was done, when he could finally move without landing on his ass, he picked Jasmine up and carried her into the bathroom. He set her on the edge of the tub, then started the bathwater for her.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t planning on being that rough.”

She wrapped her arms around his legs, rested her head on his stomach. “I’m not. I love it when you’re like that.”

“Yeah, but you just got out of the clinic—”

“Which I could have left yesterday, if my mate wasn’t so overly protective.”

“You nearly died,” he growled, tilting her head up so that she had to look at him.

“But I didn’t, thanks to you. And I was more than ready to begin our life together with a bang.” She grinned at her deliberately bad pun.

“Are you sure?” he asked, the urge to know what she was thinking suddenly overwhelming. “A few days ago you stood here and told me you’d never be my mate.”

“I was wrong.”

“Yes, you were.” He ignored her eye roll. “But I need to know what changed your mind. I need to make sure that you’re not just here out of—” He broke off, unable to even say the word.

“Out of gratitude?” she asked archly.

He nodded.

“Oh, Quinn, how a man like you could be so insecure, I have no idea.” She pulled him down next to her so that they were almost on eye level. “I’m here because there is nowhere else in the whole world that I would rather be—and no one I would rather be with. I fought against caring about you, against loving you, not because there’s anything wrong with you but because I knew there was something wrong with me.”

She paused, tried to look away but he wouldn’t let her. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said.

“Let’s see if you say that after living with me for a couple of weeks. I’m grumpy, mean-tempered, and often suspicious as hell. My family life wasn’t the best—I told you that—and I’ve spent years running from my past. I didn’t want to love you because I was afraid I would cave to your domination like my mother did to my father, like I did to him.”

“You were a child and I would never hurt you. I would never expect you to bend to my will just because—”

She laid her fingers on his lips, stopping him abruptly. “I know that now. And I love you more because you would never force me to do something I didn’t want to do. You might yell and bluster and use those fabulous eyes of yours to intimidate me—”

“You think my eyes are fabulous?”

She laughed. “You know they are. But you would never make me do something I didn’t want to do. That’s enough for me. More than enough for me.”

“What about your job?”

“I think there’s more than enough to keep me busy right here for now, don’t you? And when my feet get restless, I figure we can take off together for a while. You wouldn’t mind seeing the world with me, would you?”

“There is absolutely nothing I would like more.”

“Good.” She kissed him, hard. “Then what do you say? Do you think you can handle me?”

“I don’t know.” He stood up and lifted her against his chest before stepping into the bathtub. “But I’m willing to spend the rest of my very long life finding out.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“For me, too,” he said, and for the first time in a very long time, his future was something to look forward to instead of dread.

It was more than enough.

Read on for an excerpt from Tessa Adams’s next Dragon’s Heat novel,

FORBIDDEN EMBERS

Coming soon from Heat

H
e knew what he had to do.

Even as the words came to him—even as the
idea
came to him—Logan Kelly searched for a way around them. A way around
it
.

But there was none. He knew there wouldn’t be. Better minds than his had been working on this for months now. Years. All to no avail. The thought that had snuck up on him as he’d been drifting off to sleep really was the only rational solution.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

The walls of the cave seemed to close in on him, the stalagmites a crowd of upturned daggers. Without conscious thought, he broke off the sharp tip of one and shoved it in his pocket before using a burst of preternatural speed to get outside.

Under the stars.

Amidst the cacti.

In the middle of the desert that had become more of a home to him than the rolling green hills of Ireland had ever been.

The thought destroyed him, made him dizzy. Nauseous. Not having forsaken Ireland, but having to soon forsake the endless caves and deserts of New Mexico as well. And with it the only men and women he’d ever considered friends. Family.

Bending over, he braced his hands on his knees and sucked huge, gulping breaths of air deep into his lungs. One after another, until the world around him stopped spinning. One after another, until the panic receded.
I’ll do this for them
, he told himself,
because I’m the only one who can.
The realization steadied him, when just moments before he’d been certain that nothing could.

Unable to bear his thoughts—his own stillness—for one more second, he walked. Around him, the desert teemed with life. Night predators searched out prey. Prey scrambled for new and better hiding spots. In the distance, an owl swept down toward the still-warm sand at amazing speed. Seconds later, a small animal squealed in pain.

He refused to let it get to him. Predator, prey. It was the way of the world. Certainly, the way of
his
world. After a decade of watching his clan mates living in fear, he was sick of being the quarry. Sick to death of hanging around and waiting for the next attack, the next wave of sickness, the next horrifying death of someone he loved and was sworn to protect.

He was ready to strike. It was the nature of the beast, after all. The nature of
his
beast and those of his closest friends. He would find their weak spot, hit fast and hard. Whatever damage he sustained—even if it was absolute—would be worth it if he could finally find a way to neutralize the enemy.

He snarled at the thought of the Wyvernmoons, and his long legs ate up the miles, walking off his frustration, his pain. Inside, his beast thrashed and snarled in an effort to get out, but Logan kept him on a very short leash. One slip and the dragon would burst free. He couldn’t afford that, not now, when logic and reason were everything.

The hot-tempered screams of the animal would not advance the case he knew he had to make.

As he walked, he memorized the feel of the desert at night. After living here more than two hundred years, he could call it up at will, but he wasn’t taking any chances. South Dakota in winter was as different from New Mexico as one could get and still be in America. God only knew how many winters he would have to endure in that hell-hole compound before he would once again find his way back here.

If he ever did.

The pragmatist in him knew that there was a good chance that he would die on this latest quest, knew that he might never see his beloved stretch of desert again. He didn’t fear death—at three hundred and ninety-seven years old, he had faced that enemy many times before—but he did regret that he might never again enjoy the peaceful solitude of a walk over the land, his land, while a blanket of stars carpeted the sky.

He broke into a run, all but flying across the forty or so miles that separated him from the small house he kept in town. The closer he got to town, the more the telepathic voices and thoughts of the other Dragonstars crowded in on him. They pressed down from every side, nearly blinding him. Almost making him insane with the fear and worry and pain that threaded through so many of his fellow dragons.

It was exactly what he needed to cement his resolve. Usually his psychic abilities drove him nuts. Though they made things easier in battle, the rest of the time they were nothing but a pain in the ass.

An ability to eavesdrop on thoughts and conversations that were never meant to be public.

An invasion of privacy that, even after close to four centuries, he sometimes couldn’t block.

His psychic ability was one of the reasons he spent so much of his free time deep in the desert, away from the other dragon shifters. It was often the only way he could give the civilian dragons of the clan any privacy. The only way he could quiet the nonstop chatter in his head.

He slipped silently into town, nodding to his friend and fellow sentry, Ty, as they crossed on the street. It was Ty’s turn to patrol the town boundaries, and though Ty looked like he wanted to talk, Logan didn’t stop. He couldn’t afford to. His plan was only half-formed, and he didn’t want to talk to anyone until he could back up his resolve with action.

No, he would wait until the council meeting in the morning, a gathering of the other sentries like himself, to reveal his plan. Till then, he had to prepare himself. He must be resolute, unshakable—otherwise, his king would never go along with what he wanted to do.

Dylan had to go along with it
, a voice inside his head whispered. They were running out of time. Even with the new advances Quinn, Jasmine, and Phoebe were making against the virus that was killing his people, it was only a matter of time before the Wyvernmoons trotted out some new version of the disease. Even though their last attack was decimated, the Wyvernmoons would soon be back, looking to wipe out the Dragonstars once and for all.