Page 36 of Dragon Bodyguard
He felt as though her words were creating a vacuum in his chest as he stared at her. What was she saying?
“I climbed up onto this cliff once when we were on holiday. Oregon, coast, you know? Beautiful views. I spread my arms, and I was going to let myself fall, just to see if perhaps then I’d sprout wings. Maybe then my inner dragon would deem the situation worthy of showing itself, of saving itself. It didn’t. Even then!”
She yelled the last and beat herself once, hard, in the chest with one closed fist.
“Kristina,” he said, gently. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“How does it work, then?” she demanded. “My whole life I’ve been an outsider because my dragon didn’t recognize our bond. My whole life I’ve felt askew, trying to find ways of rousing it. Of making myself worthy of it. Why is it waking now?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s not because you’re in danger.”
“Why not?”
“Like you already said—protecting you isn’t its job. It’s your own. It doesn’t care about you, or itself. Not like that. It's instinctive. Have you been good at following your instincts lately?”
She stared at him, her hand detangling itself from his grip as she began to pace around the coffee table. He leaned against the marble top of the kitchen counter, watching her in the silence, patiently waiting for her to begin to explore what this might mean for her.
“Only with you,” she admitted, eyes back on his.
He furrowed his brows, neither of them seeming to know what to make of that.
Was it possible that he was the reason her inner dragon was making a bid for connection? But that would mean…
Kristina seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same moment, her eyes rounding.
That would mean that they were true mates.
Chapter 12 - Kristina
Could that be right? Was he her true mate? Was that what her inner dragon was responding to? Was that why it was waking?
“Why didn’t it react while we were together all those years ago?” she asked.
“Bonds can take time to form,” he said. “Sometimes they’re instantaneous but… I’ve heard that the slower bonds run deeper. They can’t be chosen. They’re…”
She nodded slowly.
She could feel it.
She’d felt it before with him. Always. So drawn to him. From their first interaction. They’d grown close so quickly and even though it had only lasted a few months, he was still…
“They did this, didn’t they?” she asked, the betrayal like something stinging the back of her throat. “My father did this. Made sure to break us up. Kept us apart. But why? I don’t understand.”
“Does it matter?” he asked, but there was something in his expression that made her think he knew more. Much more than he was willing to disclose. And right now, she didn’t want to hear it.
She just wanted him to touch her again.
So, she said, “No.”
She closed the space between them in two short steps, hands on either side of his face as she pulled him in for a deep, lingering kiss that made her heart skip beats and her chest arch against him. He made her feel alive. As though she’d been walking through life with a thin veil in front of her face and now here he was, ripping it apart, showing her what the world really looked like. What it should look like; what it could look like.
He'd made her feel so good, had reminded her of what it felt like to feel that good, and now she wanted to do the same for him. More than that, she wanted to find out what would make him as turned on as she had been by him pushing her up against that wall.
He’d liked her riding him, slowly, patiently, her eyes on his the whole time. She remembered that. He’d liked watching her and watching himself sliding into her. She remembered that, too.
She broke the kiss, pulled away from him an inch, reaching down to catch one of his roving hands. She brought it to her lips, parting them, sucking his middle finger between them. She slowly dragged her lips up it, releasing it and reveling in the expression in his eyes.
He wanted her mouth on his cock.
