Page 9 of Drawn By Dragonblood
The trip had been my wife’s idea, and we’d been walking our feet sore up and down mountains I couldn’t remember the names of. Washington, though, that had been one hell of a sight.
“We’ve been there already,” she answered him.
“Back to civilization then,” Elijah said, deducing we headed out of the mountains toward the south.
“I wouldn’t mind getting lost up here.” The longing in Dakota’s voice, her eyes glowing with desire, made her even more beautiful to me.
My heart ached to hold her, protect and give her an easy life. Everything her heart desired.
Disappearing from the woes of reality sounded fine by me—if we’d been somewhere closer to the equator. A warmer location than where we’d been trekking the last couple of days. But Dakota loved the mountains. Who was I to say no?
If it lay within my power, everything Dakota wished for would be placed at her feet. She was my reason for living, after all, and no way in fuck would I ever allow someone to wreck the life we’d built together.
Even if the stranger led my thoughts down a dark, delicious-looking path I’d never dreamed of walking.
Chapter 4
Dakota
Need burned in my core, a desperate yearning for the man sharing our fire and breakfast. His presence was a magical cinch on every atom in my body, attempting to pull me closer from where I’d firmly planted myself at my husband’s side.
A live wire of tension between Jon and Elijah sizzled and snapped in the open air as well, but I couldn’t tell where it stemmed from.
Lust or jealousy?
Jon was straight, so I feared the latter as the minutes slid past and my unrest continued.
I hadn’t been able to hide the instant connection I’d felt with Elijah like I would sometimes experience with complete strangers. That unvoiced whisper through my thoughts promised I knew him from a different reality. Or, rather, something about him hid from my mind like a fuzzy pane of glass when I tried to figure it out.
Years ago, a similar but not nearly as potent a situation as this had caused Jon’s and my one serious fight that had left both of us brokenhearted. But the draw toward Elijah was a hundred times more insistent—and sexual in nature unlike the others’ images I’d captured and stored on my laptop.
An all-consuming need owned my body to explore whatever it was that connected us on a different plane than anything I’d felt for a stranger before. My body urged—begged—to touch and taste. Become one with him emotionally and physically as I’d only ever done with my husband.
Jon had noticed my reaction. He could read me like an open book, always had, and he was well aware of my obsession with all things supernatural. Paranormal books lived rent free in my head. Daydreamer didn’t begin to describe my state of mind most days.
I trusted Jon to be my protector in the real world. I always deferred to him to keep me safe since he was critical and careful in making choices while my head floated in the clouds. In my imagination, I was secretly a fierce creature rather than needy and insecure, a woman who didn’t second-guess herself at every turn.
If only that other half of me existed in real life.
Even though Jon didn’t appear angry or shift away from where our thighs touched, guilt like I hadn’t experienced in years twisted my stomach. My body’s reaction to the pale-eyed stranger must have hurt Jon, and like an idiot, I’d invited Elijah to stay for breakfast without thinking it through beyond my desire to feed and care for a guest.
I’d promised Jon all those years ago when my sixth sense nearly ended us to never hurt him again. That he was my one and only, forever and always. Jon was my reason for living and had been since we were young. There had never been a doubt in my mind that we were meant to be together. Best friends as children, we’d bonded by our similar home life, but we became so much more as we had grown into adulthood. Our bodies changed at the same time, mine much later than most girls. A late bloomer but perfectly in tune with Jon’s squeaky voice and filling out.
I hadn’t ever considered touching another man, hadn’t ever desired anyone else in that way until the crystalline blue eyes of Elijah Tolzman met mine. My blood roused like I read about almost nightly on my e-reader. Unnatural, unquenchable desire even more than I felt for my husband flooded through me and refused to lessen as we ate.
The yearning to draw closer to the man disrupted more than just our peaceful hike through the White Mountains. He’d brought an unrest deep in my soul I couldn’t categorize in my head. And although Jon had always been the one I trusted with my emotional well-being, I feared my need of his direction in that moment. Knowing how Elijah made me feel would prickle Jon’s insecurities that stemmed from his never measuring up to the expectations his foster parents had put on him.
But what could I do other than defer to Jon’s leadership?
I would find a way to squash the stirrings inside me.
Had to. Then Elijah would leave, and Jon and I could move forward in the life we attempted to build together.
My eyes strayed to the one who’d disrupted our peace.
Elijah was the opposite of Jon, bulky with muscles compared to the lithe, swimmer-like body I’d had wrapped around me all night in our warm sleeping bag. An alpha, rugged mountain man aura surrounded Elijah although his carefully groomed facial hair and the styled hair atop his head suggested refinement. He spoke with clarity, enunciating every word, his manners impeccable even though we sat on the ground beside a campfire. If I truly believed in time travel as I did magical creatures roaming the earth among humanity, I’d swear the man had been born and raised a century or two earlier.
I wanted to capture his beautiful face from every angle, stolen images for me to ponder on as I often did over my laptop’s strange folder in attempts to figure out why I felt drawn to complete strangers.
