Page 23 of Myths and Shifts

“Inside then.” Giving him one more kiss, I relaxed my hold on him to fish my key out of my pocket. “Cuddles and touches and kisses. Then we’ll see where we go from there.”

“You like planning things.” There was a hint of a smile in his voice but it was mostly just a statement of fact, and since he was right, there was no reason to get offended.

“Yes.” Kissing his head again, I opened the door and herded him inside so we wouldn’t end up with an ER visit because of a nosy…dragon. “It makes me happy and it makes sure we’re both on the same page. Some people like surprises but I’ve found with most subs it’s best not to surprise them.”

He was quiet for a moment before pulling away as I shut the door. “I guess you’re right. I mean, I don’t mind the idea of surprises but they’re not the best way to get me to relax enough to submit.”

As I made sure the curtains were closed completely and turned on the lamp by the bed, I tapped on the wall and nodded as Wren tapped back. His giggles coming through the wall were suspicious as fuck, but I wasn’t going to ask what he was doing.

He was a grown-up most of the time and legally an adult all of the time, so his questionable decisions were his choice.

And I was going to remind his mother about the adult part when she cornered me at the next family party.

“Wren?” Merritt smiled when I nodded, but it didn’t distract him as he went over to the large bed in the corner of the room and sat down on the edge. “I like surprises like new toys and taking me out to dinner somewhere new. That kind of thing.”

“Do you like them in the sense that you want me to incorporate those into our relationship or do you like them in a they’re okay kind of way?” Those were very different things and I couldn’t predict his answer based on how he’d explained it.

He didn’t seem to be able to either.

Cocking his head, he frowned and then flopped back dramatically on the bed. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about that.”

“Okay.” With everything as relaxing as I could make it, I toed off my shoes and stretched out beside him on the bed. “You can tell me the answer once you’ve thought about it more.”

Looking up at me, his frown faded to almost a smile. “You’re going to be an interesting mate.”

My shrug got an even bigger smile from him. “At least I’m not as weird as the locals.”

Snickering, he pushed up and then flopped me onto my back before straddling my lap. Once he had me in position, he crossed his arms and did his best to frown at me. “Is that a nice way to talk about our hosts?”

My snort had him trying not to laugh but I raised one eyebrow. “Everyone keeps asking about my kink preferences and I got a lecture this morning at the bakery about how I need to be nicer and share. It’s evidently not good manners to keep hiding gossip material from everyone.”

I was making their lives harder, evidently.

Merritt nearly cracked up but he managed to hold it back as he shook his head. “See? You’re just not being nice. They’ve been working very hard to include us in their customs.”

If I rolled my eyes any harder, they were going to break.

“I will never concede that the nonsense around here is any kind of custom. Not dragon ones. Not mage ones. Not even normal human ones.” No. “And I think you must’ve been taken over like a pod person to think that’s reasonable.”

Before he could guess what I’d meant, I rolled us over again until he was under me and I had his arms pinned above him on the bed. Dragon strength came in handy sometimes and I loved the startled inhale that radiated desire. “My sweet mate would never accuse me of something that ridiculous. You’ve been spelled or possessed or abducted and returned wrong.”

I ran out of horror movie themes, so I moved on to the next step as he clamped his lips shut to hold back his laughter. “I’ll find out what happened.”

Because I was a stubborn planner and we were the best at solving mysteries.

Every TV show proved that.

“First, I’ll have to check for scars from where they tortured you or altered you.” I needed to watch a few more alien movies, but it worked for the time being. “Don’t worry. I’ll be thorough.”

Because while he wanted to keep the BDSM side of things light, he’d said we’d just go with the flow on the sexual side. We both knew that once the bond started kicking into high gear, logic about orgasms and skin-to-skin contact would be iffy.

Kissing along his jaw gave him a clue about what I was going to do, but all I got was a sexy moan and waves of desire I didn’t think were completely mine.

And neither of those was a safeword.

Making my way slowly toward his ear, I paid attention to the way his body changed as I licked and nibbled, and I catalogued every patch of skin that seemed more sensitive. There were definitely parts that liked attention more than others, but his funny bone was a big one.

“Oh.” Getting to a freckle under his ear, I sighed before giving it a kiss. “This one. It might be the scar from your implantation.”

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