One of those evening functions was a gathering she and Dragos were officially hosting at the Wyr residence in D.C., but other than designing and approving the menu with the Wyr event staff last week, thus far she hadn’t had anything else to do except get ready for the trip.
Rubbing her eyes, she walked back into her closet, grabbed another suitcase and hauled it into the living room.
Other than his inky black eyebrows lowering in a frown, Dragos hadn’t moved. He said, “Stop that.”
“I can’t, not if we’re going to leave at eight in the morning.” She dropped the second suitcase beside the first.
“It doesn’t matter if we get a later start. Our first obligation isn’t until tomorrow evening.”
“The White House thing,” she said. Sometimes her life boggled her mind. Once, never in a million years had she expected to attend anything at the White House as an invited guest.
“Yes, the White House thing. Come here.” Quick as a cat, he snagged her arm and pulled her toward him.
She went over to him willingly enough, but somehow, as she got closer, her head grew heavier, until she was looking down at his feet.
Long, dark fingers curled underneath her chin and lifted her face gently.
At the same time, she lifted her gaze to meet his.
So many things had happened to them. Their relationship wasn’t even two years old. Her pregnancy with Liam had happened as a result of their mating. Dragos didn’t choose to become a father. He had adapted to it.
She told him, “Forget about my outburst of emotion at the school. I want you to know, whatever you say, it will be okay.”
“Yes.”
His response was so breathtakingly simple, at first it didn’t register. When it did, her heart started to pound. She couldn’t believe her ears.
“That’s it—just yes?” she demanded, half laughing. “That’s all you’ve got to say about it? I think I feel cheated out of a long, angsty conversation.”
He raised one sleek eyebrow. “I didn’t say that was all I had to say about it. I just thought I would cut to the chase.” He studied her while he rubbed his thumb along the edge of her jaw. “You know as well as I do that the odds are against us. You also know that even if we do get pregnant, we would likely face many of the same challenges as we did the first time, and another baby isn’t going to take Liam’s place.”
She shook her head. “Of course not. Liam is perfect just the way he is. Yes, it shook me at first to discover how fast he would mature, but I’ve dealt with that. Truly, that’s okay.”
“I believe you.” He slid his hand away from her chin, his fingers caressing her neck. “And I believe that you want another baby for that baby’s sake. Parenthood took us by surprise, and that’s okay too. This time, though, I would like to make the choice.”
“Exactly,” she whispered. His touch began to drug her senses, soothing and arousing her at once, and she began to feel heavy for other reasons. Standing upright took more effort. Swaying forward, she spread her hands across the broad expanse of his chest.
He put his arms around her. “I think what we should talk about is how we will deal with the disappointment if it doesn’t happen. Because chances are, it won’t.”
“You never know,” she told him. She peeked up at his face. “There’s no real rhyme or reason to how difficult it is for the Elder Races to conceive and carry children to term. Some families end up having more than one child. Maybe your sperm is so mighty, you shoot magic bullets.”
His intent expression splintered, and he burst out laughing. Almost as quickly, he sobered again and told her with a completely straight face, “Of course I do.”
Then it was her turn to laugh. She threw her arms around him. “Yes, we might be disappointed, and we’ll deal with that if it happens. At least you want to try.”
“I do.” His voice deepened. As he cupped the back of her neck in one hand, he cupped the curve of her ass with the other. “Trying to get pregnant is one of my very favorite things to do. We’ll have to practice frequently, and with great enthusiasm.”
She snickered, while happiness danced inside. Maybe they would have a small intense girl with Dragos’s gold eyes. Maybe they might have another dragon. She adored her fierce, loveable dragons.
There was still so much she wanted to talk about, and so much they needed to consider. As Dragos had pointed out, another child might very well have the same capabilities as Liam and grow at the same accelerated pace.
And as they had just both said to each other, there was also a very real chance they might not be able to get pregnant again. Liam had come as a result of their original mating frenzy. They might not be so lucky this time.
If that were the case, she wanted to consider adopting a Wyr baby. She would actually be happy to adopt any kind of baby, but their household and lives were so predominantly Wyr, she didn’t want any child of hers to feel like an outsider, as she had when growing up.
But that could be saved for a future conversation. For now, her thoughts fragmented as Dragos ran a light finger underneath the neckline of her tank top. The tiny friction of his callused skin against hers caused a shiver to run down her body.
They might have a lot to talk about, but she had a feeling that, for now, the time for serious talking was over.
“We have a while until supper,” he murmured. His gaze had turned heavy-lidded and predatory. “Perhaps we should start practicing to get pregnant.”
She licked her lips. For the Wyr, contraception was not something they needed to do externally, like taking birth control pills or using condoms. Instead, it was an internal, inborn trait. Once, she had needed to use an IUD before she had managed to change into her Wyr form and fully access her Wyr side. Now, trying to get pregnant was as simple and fundamental as telling their bodies to let go.
Just let go.
It was a heady experience, like releasing the throttle on a high-speed engine. The need she felt for him never eased. It was a driving, unrelenting force that drove the definition of her days and nights. She had never been so obsessed about anything or anyone before. It had marked her so indelibly, she couldn’t imagine living without it, without him.
Attempting to sound nonchalant, she said, “Yeah, I think you could use some pointers on that.”
His eyes narrowed, and he tightened a massive fist around the delicate shoulder strap of her tank top, a gesture at once both very gentle and unabashedly dominant. “I’ll make you eat those words.”
“You are very welcome to try,” she whispered. Her attempt at cockiness had turned breathy and yearning. “Please, try very hard.”
A smile lit his hard features. “Trust me, that will be entirely my pleasure.”
Chapter Two
There was nothing new to their banter. It was a staple of their daily lives, and Dragos had come to rely on it like he relied on breathing.
He basked in the sparkle that lit her eyes as if it were sunlight. Her happiness warmed and sustained him. Her feminine scent fed a ferocity of hunger that never faded or mellowed, no matter how he tried to sate himself on her.
Even when he had forgotten her completely, he had still wanted her. The memory of his brief spell of amnesia tightened his mouth.
The construction accident that had caused his injury had happened a few months ago. It had only taken him a few days to recover almost all of his memory, but even when he could have flown away from everything in his life and never known the difference, he had been fascinated by her presence and ensnared by her perseverance.
Even then, when the dragon had been at his most feral and dangerous, he had mated with her. He still remembered the strange, possessive struggle he had felt—the odd jealousy toward himself, or at least the man he thought he had been, before his memories had come flooding back.
They were twice mated. Old as he was, he had never heard of such a thing before. Using his grip on her spaghetti strap, he pulled her closer and growled softly into her face, “You?
??ll never be rid of me. Never, as long as either of us live.”
The same miracle occurred, as it always did, yet it never failed to astonish him. An expression of peace softened her features. She gave him a soft smile as she whispered back, “Never.”
She wanted him to hold on. She wanted him.
He took hold of her hips and pressed her against him, so she could feel his erection straining against his jeans. Her eyelids grew heavy, and her peaceful expression grew flushed. She licked her lips, moistening the plump, soft flesh so that he had to taste her.
Bending his head, he covered her mouth with his. She had taught him how to be gentle, a trait that did not come naturally to him, but he had savored learning it, because it brought out all the many, delicate facets to her pleasure that he loved to devour.
The catch of her breath. The way her violet eyes darkened. The trembling of her lips. She was cooler than he, but even so, when passion rose, it tinted her pale skin with a dusky rose, as if she was lit inside from an internal fire. He drank it all down, the evidence of what he did to her. He would have missed all of it if he had not learned the lessons that she had taught him.
He would always be a selfish man. The gentleness she had taught him brought him pleasure.
But despite himself and the enjoyment he took in her arousal, the combination of things that they had talked about—that he had thought about—were too potent a cocktail for him to resist.
The possibility of making her pregnant had him so hard, he almost spilled in his pants just considering it. And the memory of how recently he had mated with her—both times—put him in touch again with those earlier emotions.
There were so many times when he had almost lost her, and she had almost lost him. Back in the beginning, when he had such dominant, possessive feelings, she could have rejected him out of hand, and that would have been it. She’d had every reason to reject him. He had chased her, terrorized her, and yet she still ending up loving him. Mating with him.
The mating frenzy always lay in the back of his mind, rather like a place that he had left, just around a corner. All he had to do was turn back, step around the corner, and he was there again.
Crazy from wanting her.
Insanely jealous of everything that took her attention away from him.
And needing her so badly, it felt like a knife in the gut.
After passing his hand over her hair, he lifted his head from the kiss. Tilting back her head, he pressed his lips against her vulnerable, beautiful neck.
He said against her fragile, petal soft skin, “You know how this goes, don’t you?”
He had meant to take her back to the first time they had made love, when he had told her I’m going to eat you until you scream.
Instead, Pia grabbed his conversational gambit and skipped away with it.
“In a general sort of way,” she whispered unsteadily. She ran her hands up his arms and dug her fingers into his shoulders. “You diddle here, I suck there. Or maybe you suck, and I diddle. Or both. Couple of pats, and ten or fifteen thrusts. ‘Oh baby, you’re so good, I can’t take it,’ pow, et cetera, ‘let’s go raid the fridge.’”
He felt his lips pull into a grin, and he made himself stop. Forcing some bite into his voice, he repeated, “Ten or fifteen thrusts?”
Her body shook as she started to giggle. “Well, you know, I never really counted them up. I’m usually too preoccupied with my own pow to keep track of what you’re up to.”
“Your pow,” he growled. Her tank top was a pretty cherry red, one of his favorite colors. He eased the soft, thin material up her torso, and she lifted her arms so he could pull it over her head. “I think you’re mistaken.”
“About what?” Her laughing face emerged from underneath the top, hair disheveled and eyes sparkling.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her breasts bounced free. Her beautiful, generously rounded breasts with the erect pink nipples. His mouth watered as he looked at them.
“That’s pows. Plural,” he told her. He cupped her breasts, massaging her nipples with his hands. His voice lowered into a growl. “You’re too preoccupied with your multiple pows to keep track of what I’m doing. And I’m going to make you pow until you scream.”
Her chuckle turned husky, and her eyes darkened with pleasure. She whispered, “Give it your best shot, big guy.”
She hadn’t called him that in months. A corner of his mouth lifted as he picked her up and dropped her on the bed.
Her eyes widened as she landed in a sprawl among suits and outfits. Her pale blond hair spilled over her face. Laughing, she started to roll away. “Clean clothes! Clean clothes!”
“Screw the clothes,” he said. Bracing himself with one knee on the mattress of the bed, he picked handfuls of material up and tossed things aside.
Her laughter turned breathless. “I was going to pack all of that,” she protested.
“Screw packing,” he told her. As she tried to wiggle off the bed, he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her toward him.
“That’s easy for you to say,” she scolded, but there was no heat in her words. “You never pack your own stuff. Things just magically appear, clean and pressed, and ready whenever you need them.”
She sat up, and her unsteady fingers caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it up his torso. He obliged her by pulling the shirt over his head and tossing it.
He picked up a handful of her hair, studying it. Pale gold strands gleamed in the late afternoon light. Obeying an impulse, he rubbed his face in the luxuriant mass. It felt like raw silk against his skin.
“Of course things magically appear when I need them,” he told her. “That’s why we have so much house staff.”
She pulled back to glare at him. “Hey, I have news for you—all this prep work neatly laid out on the bed that you just threw on the floor? Your house staff had nothing to do with that. Your wife did.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “We are both half naked on the bed, about to practice getting pregnant and giving each other multiple pows, and we’re arguing about laundry?”
Her glare faded into uncertainty. After a pause, she said, “I guess so?”
Immensely satisfied, he nodded and pulled her up against his chest. They knelt there, skin against skin. Running his hands down the elegant curve of her back, he whispered against her mouth, “We are so married.”
Her uncertainty vanished, to be replaced by happiness and heat, and a gleam of returning laughter. “Yes, we are, aren’t we?”
“And twice mated,” he whispered against her mouth. Her lips were plump and soft, and molded to his as he kissed her. “In case you were thinking about trying to get out of it.”
“Well, technically, you’re twice mated,” she pointed out. “I didn’t suffer amnesia, so I’m not.”
His questing fingers found the fastening of her shorts. As he thumbed the fastening open and pulled the zipper down, he heard her breath catch.
“Don’t give me semantics at a time like this, woman,” he growled. “We’re married, twice mated, and I’m about to get you barefoot and pregnant with my mighty sperm, so lie back and take your pows, will you?”
“Ooh.” Her sexy little murmur of anticipation shot straight to his crotch.
As he eased her back, she went willingly, and when she was prone, she lifted her hips for him to yank off her shorts and undies. He tossed them as well without looking where they landed.
All his attention was fixed on the gorgeous woman lying in front of him, spread out like a feast. She glowed gently in the late afternoon sunlight, and he realized she had stripped away her dampening glamour so that she lay utterly naked for his perusal. Because her Wyr form was so rare, and it would be so incredibly dangerous for her if it ever became public, she hid her true nature from everybody but him, Liam, and the most trusted of their associates.
Warmth spread through him, pleasure and some kind of emotion he didn’t know to put a name to. She gave him so much, before he ever thought
to ask for it. She gave him everything.
He took off his jeans and lowered his body down over hers, watching her eyes darken as their nude bodies came flush against each other. When his rigid cock brushed against the graceful arc of her pelvic bone, he pulsed, and by the catch of her breath, he knew she had felt it too.
He reined in the impulse to cut loose. It was too soon, and she might not be ready for him. Growling under his breath from the buildup of internal pressure, he allowed himself to ravish her plump, inviting mouth, while with one hand, he roamed restlessly over the gentle curves of her body.
She twined her arms around him, kissing him with the same feverish need as he kissed her. The internal flames grew hotter, wilder. He cupped her breast, rolling her nipple between thumb and forefinger, while his tongue plunged deep into her mouth.
“You’re burning up,” she whispered against his lips.
“I’m on fire,” he muttered.
Clear thinking disappeared in a haze of red. He bit down the soft skin of her slender throat, shifting his weight down so that he could suckle and tease her full breasts. Moaning, she moved restlessly under him. She held the back of his head with tense, shaking fingers, while the intoxicating scent of her arousal bloomed in the air.
His sucking bites brought the blood up under her glowing skin, so that the shadows of his touch clearly marked her.
He loved putting his mark on her. He loved that she fingered the places with evident enjoyment after they had made love. He knew her pleasure points, and he knew her limits, and the intimacy they had developed over the last eighteen months only enhanced their times together.
Moving farther down, he eased her long, slender legs over his shoulder so that she lay even more exposed to him. It was one of his favorite positions, and she shifted eagerly to accommodate him.