Page 53 of Burned

Lord’s eyelids flutter. “Yes. Say it again.”

I slide my hand across his neck to the back. “Balriss. Beautiful dragon. Gorgeous man. Take me apart again.”

He scoops me off my feet like I weigh nothing, carrying me back to the bed. As he climbs in to join me, laying his body acrossmine, I wrap my arms around his neck and hold his dragon’s gaze.

I don’t know exactly how yet, but there’s no way I’m going back to the life I had before Lord. If I can figure out how to get him to keep me, everything I’ll lose in the process will be worth it.

At least, I hope it will.

Chapter

Seventeen

LORD

Alrick snores softly in my arms. In the two days we’ve spent basically locked in our hotel room, it’s a sound I’ve grown addicted to. His quiet breaths, his steady, even heartbeat, the sounds of his laughter and moans… they’ve all become part of me, as necessary as the fire in my veins and the air in my lungs.

I stroke his silky hair, my chest vibrating with my dragon’s purr. The room is saturated with our entwined scents and so is Alrick’s skin. The smell of flowers and ocean are still part of him, coded into his DNA like the color of his eyes, but they’re joined now by the scent of fire and longing and hope. He smells like home. He smells likemine.

From somewhere in the room, I can hear the faint sound of my phone buzzing. How it has any battery left after days of living under a pile of my clothes is beyond me. I haven’t even looked at it since I called Dahlia, but I know my brothers have kept trying to get a hold of me.

I wait for a fresh twist of guilt in my gut, but it doesn’t come. How can I feel shame for mating Alrick? Why should I regret lying to my brothers when it was the only path here, to this room in Paris, tangled up in bed with my mate?

I nuzzle the back of his neck, breathing his scent in deeply again and making another contented noise deep inside my chest.

Idohave to talk to my brothers, and as much as I would love to stay right here forever, I know it’s about time to return home. But the dread that accompanied that thought two days ago is just as absent as my guilt. It won’t be simple or without complications, but Alrick will stay with me if I ask him to. We can have a life together. He can be my mate for real, not just in a too-brief fantasy. In order for any of that to happen though, I need to be honest with him. I just have to hope he won’t be too angry that I waited so long to tell him the truth.

The peaceful rise and fall of his back against my chest has my eyelids drooping, the warmth of his skin almost as perfect as the sun on my scales. I’ll join him for a nap and when we wake up, I’ll tell him everything. Then I’ll take him home and we can continue our little honeymoon locked in my hoard for the next fifty years or so, indulging in each other and forgetting the outside world exists.

A smile tugs at my lips and that warm thought follows me off to sleep.

Some time later, a thunderous pounding has me bolting upright in bed, pleasant dreams of flying with my mate on my back dissolving in an instant. My skin ripples with scales and flames flicker on my lips as I shake sleep from my brain and try to find the potential threat.

Thud, thud, thud.

Alrick jumps out of bed, on high alert just like I am, picking the lamp up off the nightstand and casting his gaze around the room.

“Enough’s enough, Lord. Open the fuck up.” Nico’s growling voice accompanies the next set of forceful knocks.

My heart rate slows, and my dragon stands down, but Alrick grips the lamp tighter, darting a look at me and then at the door.

“It’s my brothers,” I explain, giving him a grimace of apology. Meeting your boyfriend’s family doesn’t usually happen when you’re naked and half-asleep.

Boyfriend. The word is all wrong, but it makes my chest warm anyway. Alrick’s battle-ready expression melts into a nervousness that’s so sweet I want to kiss it right off of his face.

“I can send them away,” I offer, dipping my voice low so my brothers won’t hear it through the distance and the door.

Before Alrick can answer though, the electronic chirp of the lock disengaging sounds through our suite.

“Pants on, gentleman.” Montrose’s voice rings out, followed by the stampeding sound of eight different sets of feet entering.

“Fuck,” I sigh.

Alrick takes a breath, straightens his shoulders, and sets a determined look on his face.

“I’m ready. Let’s do this.” He marches towards the door that separates us from the main living area, and I reach out to snag him by the arm to stop him.

I trail my gaze over him with a smirk. “I’d really rather not let all my brothers see what they’re missing out on.”

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