ROMANCE: SHAPESHIFTER ROMANCE: Dragon Baller's Bride (Dragon Shifter Alpha Male Romance) (Paranormal Romantic Suspense) (54 page)

Finally they both stilled, Ivy bracing herself over him so as to not hurt his injured collar bone. Resting her head against the back of the couch she waited for him to speak, to see what he had to say about the world now. It took a few minutes, she almost expected to hear him snoring it had been so long but then she heard him breath in deeply and waited.

“I didn’t believe you, Ivy, I have to be honest. I really didn’t think there could be anything beautiful in this darkness, but you were right. There is still beauty here.”

Ivy pulled him off the couch and got the plastic cover for his leg, determined to shower him and get him back in bed relaxed and ready for round two. “You’ve not seen anything yet, darling, that’s only the beginning.”

“
H
ey
, Ivy, do you realize this song is almost two songs in one? I never quite noticed it but it sounds like there are two sets of drums playing a different song at the same time! How did I never notice that? Ivy? Where’d you go, love?” Liam wandered through Ivy’s apartment, his home for the last six weeks, and finally found her in her office, typing away at her new novel. She’d been typing for days now, wandering off periodically to type furiously for a few hours then she’d emerge, happy but tired. He’d come to realize that writing could be mentally fatiguing after experiencing this with her.

He’d been fascinated when he’d learned she typed her novels. He’d just assumed she’d used a voice program or something. Ivy had explained she’d learned to type before she lost her vision and she used a program that spoke the words back to her to ensure no errors were made, but that she didn’t often make an error. Liam found it all very fascinating and would often sit smiling as she typed so quickly he couldn’t imagine how her fingers weren’t stumbling over each other.

As he walked into the room he called out to her again but stopped as he realized he could see something, light maybe, and some kind of shadow. “Ivy?” he said again and this time she heard him because the uncertain note in his voice caught her attention.

“What’s the matter darling? Is something wrong?” She asked, coming from behind her desk to take his hand.

“Nothing, never mind, it’s gone now.” He said, not sure of why he was lying to her, as she pulled him over to her desk, closer to the windows he realized he could see even better.

“What was it my love?”

“I don’t know now. Oh well, anyway, how are you getting on?” He asked, worried about his response of fear and uncertainty.

“It’s going well. I’m happy with it so far. Don’t you have an appointment with your doctor this afternoon? We’d better get you ready.” She said, reaching up to his face to kiss him.

“Yes, I do, but why don’t you stay here and work on your novel? I know that’s important. Andy can come and take me. I haven’t seen him this week anyway so you just keep working, darling. I’ll be fine.”

Andy retrieved Liam and took him to the doctor but Liam didn’t say much on the drive over. He just stared out of the window, lost in his own thoughts. As he walked into the office of his doctor, he realized the blurriness was leaving the edges of his sight and becoming far clearer. With each hour that passed it was getting better and better. After his doctor came in and assured him it was not a fluke that his eyes were finally healing from the blow and the inflammation and that his sight may return rapidly or slowly but it was definitely returning he was even more afraid. How was he going to tell Ivy?

Logically he knew that she’d be happy for him but they’d created their own world in the darkness. She’d longed for her own vision to return but had finally given up on the idea and made her own way. This could be devastating for her. He made the doctor promise not to reveal the news to anyone and went out to find Andy waiting for him. Andy had become so used to Liam finding him through sound that he was a bit shocked when Liam walked right up to him without Andy actually saying a word. Andy knew without being told.

“You can see again can’t you? You really were staring out of the window in the car on the way over, you weren’t just facing that way, you were really staring. Ivy’s going to be so pleased for you!” He slapped his friend on the shoulder and went to walk out of the surgery.

“You can’t tell Ivy, Andy, you can’t. You can’t tell anyone until I’m really sure this is permanent. Promise!” Liam insisted.

“Well, if you insist mate but I think you should tell Ivy at least. It’s your choice.”

A
week later
, Ivy came out of her office to find Liam walking back into the apartment. His cast was finally removed and he’d gone out with a cane to explore the park to build some strength back up in the muscles. She heard him coming in and rushed to him, excited to tell him about the latest development in her book. She reached up to his face as he took her in his arms and felt his hands already there, removing what felt like sunglasses from his face.

“What’s this? Why are you wearing sunglasses, you haven’t before?” Ivy asked, confused.

“Oh, um, I just started wearing them, I didn’t know if the light would harm them if I walked around in sunshine without them.” He brushed the question aside moving away from her quickly.

“Ah. Right. Why didn’t you just ask me?” Ivy wondered aloud.

“You’ve been busy darling, it was a silly question and I didn’t want to bother you.” He evaded. She could hear the evasion in his voice. Now she was suspicious.

“Okay. Can you hand me the post from the table?” She asked, waiting to hear his hands slide over the table.

“There’s nothing there darling.” Liam said, forgetting that he hadn’t slid his hand over the table.

“Right, if you’re going to lie to me Liam you can just pack your things now and get out.” Ivy said, walking to her bedroom and closing the door quietly.

“Ivy, what are you talking about? Ivy, can I come in?” Liam asked through the door.

“You may come in but if you’re just going to lie to me again don’t bother.”

“What are you on about, love? What am I lying about?” He asked, feeling guilty. He’d been able to see fully without any problems for a week now but he’d not told Ivy. He’d watched her, realizing that he was in love with her but he couldn’t tell her that either. She might accuse him of pitying her and he had no idea of how to get around the mess he was in.

“You know very well what I mean. What colour is the duvet?” She asked.

“Red. Oh fuck me!” He said automatically, then slapped his hand over his mouth.

“Indeed. Now, tell me again?” Ivy said coldly, a wall coming between them suddenly.

“Ivy, I had no idea how to tell you darling, I didn’t mean to lie, I swear. I just didn’t want to destroy what we have.” He pleaded.

“That’s the fastest way to do it darling, by lying to me.” She responded.

“But Ivy, we’ve had such a very strange relationship. It started out as a way to prove myself to some…um, well to prove my charm could work even on the blind, and then I found I absolutely adored you. But you were so prickly about your independence. Early on I wanted to protect you so desperately I almost wanted to own you but you weren’t having any of it. You tore that idea down quickly and trampled it into dust. Then I had the accident and everything changed. You showed me how to live, with or without sight, and I didn’t want that to change. I know we’ve never said it but I love you. I’ve never said that to another woman but I do, I love you desperately and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. I couldn’t tell you.”

Ivy hadn’t said the words either, she’d never used them, too afraid of giving up her independence but she realized now that this was her chance at real love. Maybe even the one true chance she’d ever had.

“I suppose we aren’t the best pair at this are we? We’re both so afraid to commit, for our own reasons that I suppose you did think that was the only option.” She moved on the bed, gesturing for him to come and sit next to her.

“I’m not saying it was okay to lie to me, Liam, that had better be the last one you ever tell me, but I can see why you would. Especially if you love me. Do you really?” She asked, hoping this wasn’t another lie.

“Yes, I do darling. Ask anyone that knows me. The simple fact that I’m living here has everyone at the station bowled over. I’ve never really had a relationship, never a long-term commitment. Staying overnight is the longest I’ve ever lived with a woman. This is so very new to me and I’m so lost. I’ve found you, lost my sight, regained it, and I’ve been terrified I was going to lose you. It’s been so confusing for me.” Liam said and took her hand, watching her lovely green eyes move around in confusion, as if she was trying desperately to find his face to look for sincerity. His heart broke for her in that moment and he swore he’d never again lie to her. Liam never wanted to see that look on her face ever again.

“Right. But you can see again, you don’t need me anymore.” She said, giving him an out if he wanted it.

“I will always need you, Ivy. You are my heart now, my everything, and without you I might as well lose the ability to see again because my world will be meaningless. I need you to make me whole whether I can see or not because you are the other part of me. You know my fears, my secrets, my hopes and dreams. You understand me and I hope you love me.”

“I, well, Liam, I do. I, oh my I never imagined it was this hard! I do love you.” She said finally, the words pulled out of the depths of her soul. She’d hidden that emotion away when she lost her sight, locked it away as a defence. She couldn’t get by in her world with vulnerability and love was vulnerability. It was a weak emotion but Liam had shown her there was a strength that came with love, a companionship and a partnership that she hadn’t realized existed. She drew strength from him and she returned it. Perhaps that really was love, perhaps that’s what had been missing from her life, even more than her sight, someone to lean on and someone to lean on her.

Ivy reached her hand out to him, needing to touch him. The sudden realization that she could have sent him away and that she could have destroyed what they had by refusing to listen to him made her heart ache and the wall that had gone up around her heart melted instantly. Liam took her hand and pulled her to him, drying the tears that had suddenly come to her eyes.

Together they removed their clothes, desperate to be skin to skin, to find that link that made them whole in a far more than sexual way. This wasn’t just sex it was the sharing of souls and they both craved it. Ivy realized that’s why they were so good together, why the sex was so different. They’d reached for each other in the inescapable darkness and found a light that neither could see, a fire that grew between them, and fed their souls.

Ivy reached desperately for Liam’s body, hungry for the taste of him and Liam responded by slipping his mouth over hers, his tongue twining with hers. He realized she was still crying but knew it was an emotion that she couldn’t control. She’d locked herself away from the world while fighting to be a part of it, she was overwhelmed now with just how much she felt for him and though he regretted her tears he rejoiced in knowing she returned his feelings.

Ivy clung to him, his naked skin solace, his seeking tongue a lifeline. She craved his lips on her breasts and they were there, she longed for his fingers to fill her and they were there, she needed his scent to encapsulate her and there it was, filling her nostrils with the smell of the man she loved desperately. Ivy gave herself up to the depths of her passion, her desperation for Liam and fed his own needs with her hands, with her body. She writhed beneath him, needing more and more with each moment, each wave of passion overwhelming her, demanding more from him, demanding she give him more.

As he stroked her passion into stronger flames that threatened to consume her she exploded, his fingers delicately stroking her over the edge as she let out an agonized moan of release. But he wouldn’t let her stop and replaced his fingers with her tongue, stroking the oversensitive nub until she wanted to scream but again Liam drove her over the edge, a sensation of colours filling the vision she did not have. She gasped, the sparkling colours real to her in that moment, even if they weren’t, and she fought to stay in the realm where she could see something, if even for a moment, but then lost the battle and had to let go to Liam’s will.

Liam still wasn’t ready to let her go, however, he wanted more of her moans, more of the gasps he’d become addicted to when they were his anchor in the darkness, and he drove his cock into her pliant body, driving his hips into her body again and again as her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper into her liquid heat. The grasping glove of her silken muscles spurred him on, and he felt her urgency as her nails raked his back, as she begged for more from him, until he exploded into her. He felt as though his soul was pouring into her, not just his seed, and knew he was exactly where he needed to be. Ivy was his home and as long as he had her it truly didn’t matter whether he could see or not because she was his light, his vision, and all he truly wanted now was her.

“You are my home, Ivy, you are what makes me real. I far more than love you, I need you. Nothing in this world can replace you and if I had to give up my vision to see you then that’s what I’d do.” Liam whispered against her sweat dampened hair, still joined to her body.

“Well, I have to say, Liam, it’s good one of us can see. I have a feeling we’re going to need to see test results if we keep doing this.” She laughed.

“What do you mean?” He asked, not sure what she meant.

“We haven’t used protection, my love, what usually happens when people don’t?” She asked, the idea pleasing her.

“Oh. Oh wow. Do you think so? Would that be alright with you? Do you want children?” He asked, worried she might not.

“I didn’t used to want them but they’d be part of us, wouldn’t they? We’ll find out tomorrow, darling. Never fear. Now, I want to show you how much I love you again, are you up for it?” She asked, teasing him by squeezing him intimately.

Liam gasped, blood flowing directly to the hard flesh she was now, somehow, stroking from inside of her body. “I don’t know how you’re doing that but don’t stop, it’s glorious!”

Ivy hushed him by pulling his mouth down to hers, her world complete and happy now. She’d been so happy when she accepted that award for her book, so certain that she couldn’t feel any more complete. She knew better now. Nothing quite compared to having the man you loved in your bed, in your heart, and in your life. Ivy was now truly complete, part of a whole, and though some might say she should have been happy with what she already had she was greedy enough for Liam to not care what anybody thought.