Page 37 of A Witch and Her Dragon
My fingers drift down his cheek, across his throat. Beneath my touch, he shivers.
“Seeing you like that...” I recall his scream, the trembling of his body as the magic seared his skin. “It made me sick. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He lets out a low laugh, then puts a hand over mine, presses it against his chest until I can feel the heavy beating of his heart. “Whatdoyou want?” he asks.
To kiss him. To touch him. To taste him.
His eyes burn in the darkness.
And for the second time today, I give in. Once more, I allow myself to abandon reason and propriety.
My fingers curl, gripping the soft fabric of his tunic. Between one breath and the next, I close the distance between us.
And then my mouth is on his. And I drown in him.
Chapter 18
Raelan
I’M A FOOL, A MASOCHIST. But I can’t help myself. And though I feel my control slipping, I can’t bring myself to care. As long as I have this chain around my neck, and as long as Alina doesn’t take it off again, I know I won’t hurt her.
I, on the other hand, have become familiar with pain.
The pain of yearning for her while knowing I can’t have her. The anguish of not telling her the truth, of not claiming her as my own.
If I have to feel pain in the name of tasting her lips one more time, of sharing her breath even for a moment, so be it.
This time, I won’t give in.
She lets out a breath as I wrap my fingers around her waist. My dragon, previously curled quietly inside me, at ease after our long flight, starts to uncoil, drawn out by Alina and the urge I have to make her mine.
My fingers slip inside her open robe to touch the thin fabric of her nightdress. It’s silky against my skin, a delicatelittle thing. I could tear clean through it, rip it from her body and leave it in tatters.
But I don’t. I resist.
Alina presses her body close to mine, her hands coming up to wrap around my neck. I tense up feeling her fingers along the chain, but she whispers, “I won’t do it again. I promise.”
Her breath is minty as it drifts along my lips.
My fingers slide down her waist to cup her ass, and then I’m lifting her up, causing her to gasp as she wraps her legs around me. Her slippers fall to the floor with a soft patter, and the nightdress she’s wearing glides up with the movement, bunching around her upper thighs and waist. My cock throbs as I crush her to me. Her mouth finds mine again as I take a few steps through the sitting area and press her back against the wall between the hearth and the small window, through which silver moonlight gleams.
Her long blue hair is loose around her shoulders, and I release one hand from beneath her to push my fingers through the silky strands. They slip between my fingers like water, so soft I feel they must be charmed with magic.
I fist her hair in my grasp and turn her head to one side, finding her throat with my mouth, picking back up where we left off in the hall before my dragon sent me running into the storm. She whimpers softly, such a breakable little thing, and my cock jumps. There’s only a thin layer of fabric between us, and as I push my hips against her, I can feel how wet she is through my trousers.
I have the urge to sink my teeth into her neck, her wrists, her breasts, to claim her fully and feel my magic pulsethrough her veins, to make hermine. I want to tear her thin panties aside and bury myself inside her, to make her arch her back and claw my skin with only my name on her lips. She’d be better than any woman I’ve ever had, like a cask of precious fairy wine before a roaring fire, like strawberries dipped in a sinuous river of dark chocolate. She’d be everything and more.
“Raelan,” she whispers in the firelit darkness. It’s more a breath than a word, and I capture her mouth again before she can even draw a gasp.
Fully awake now, my dragon thrashes inside me, fighting once more to be free. But this time it doesn’t wish to fly away; it wishes to stay here, to hoard the treasure that is Alina Ravenscroft, to curl about her and never let her free.
I could do it. If she were to remove my chain, I could claim her, fuck her,have her. No one would be able to best me, to wrest me away from her. I could—
No, I tell myself, abruptly cutting off that intoxicating train of thought.This is Alina. The princess. My duty and charge.
And I realize suddenly that I have her pressed against a wall, my dick straining for her, grinding along the wet slit between her legs.
What the fuck am I doing?
