Page 8 of The Dragon's Dream Mate (Savage Shifters Special Ops 3)

We collapsed together and slowly calmed.

He brushed my hair out of my face.

“Rainey, there is so much we need to talk about. So much, I want to tell you,” he started.

“Shshsh, not right now,” I said. “There is time to talk later. Right now, I just need to feel and not think.”

He nodded. I don’t know whether he understood where I was coming from or not, but at least he agreed to my wishes.

A few minutes later, he kissed me lightly on the lips. “I should get back to my room. Although they likely know I’ve been in here, I don’t want to confirm it by coming out of your room in the morning.”

I nodded, although I would have loved for him to stay all night and hold me.

He got up, washed off, and then with one more simple kiss, he left. I locked the door after him.

I decided on a long hot shower. I smiled to myself when I noted that I was going to be sore between my legs for the next few days. I hoped that I wouldn’t waddle like I had spent a week in the saddle.

Although the other men probably did know what happened, there was no need to advertise it.

The bed was terrific. The sheets were so silky against my bare skin, and the pillows were a perfect mix of firm and soft.

Yet, as exhausted as I was, sleep eluded me.

I had not been with another man since Lucian. No other man had made me feel as special and beautiful as Lucian always had.

I chided myself, as I had in the past, that if I compared every man I met to Lucian, I would never find someone to love. In my mind and heart, Lucian was the quintessential charming prince - the ultimate knight in shining armor - who existed only in the fairy tale dreams of a child.

But, even I could now see that Lucian was no longer that prince I once thought him to be. He was a hardened man who had seen the worst that life had to offer. He was the man who had run off and left me with a broken heart without a second thought. He was a man that I should hate. Yet that tiny bit of little girl’s love still existed and still wanted him. She still needed him. She was still in love with him.

I had once thought that if I could just face him one more time, I could see the truth and that love would dissolve. After all, we often look at our first loves with rose-colored glasses. However, having just been with Lucian, that love was alive and burning hotter than ever before. Instead of achieving a long imagined closure, I had only gotten myself in deeper.

Maybe my destiny was to long for a man I could never have. Fate was telling me that I shouldn’t worry about finding that special man to love. I could focus on my career and love spending time with my nieces and nephews that I adored the same as if they were my own children.

That thought was like a stinging slap in the face. I was thinking so much about Lucian and my own broken heart, that I hadn’t thought about the reason I was in New York. Simone. Someone had my sweet little niece. And somewhere, my niece was scared to death, perhaps hungry, perhaps cold, and perhaps hurt.

“Hang tough and be brave, Simone. We’ll find you. I have the best men in the world looking for you, and they will not fail. You just have to be brave a little bit longer,” I whispered into the air, hoping that my words of encouragement would somehow find her heart.

4

Lucian

My brain was scrambled. From the moment I saw her in the conference room, the threads started coming undone. She was the woman I had thought I would spend the rest of my life with. Then, when I left her, I figured I would never see her again.

I had never thought of myself as a person who let my emotions rule my actions. Tonight, however, I did. She was never a woman to take things lying down, so to speak. She always gave as good as she got.

It was one of the many reasons I had loved her since we were children. At least she had stopped beating up people who irked her and learned to use her words instead. There were many people, myself included, who got the business end of her fists and feet.

I hadn’t even meant to kiss her. I guess it was one way to get her attention, and perhaps to get her to listen to me, although I never did get a chance to explain my actions. I don’t know if I ever could.

I wasn’t sorry that we had sex. It was terrific. She felt wonderful. I would like to think that I was a gentleman, and if I had known that she hadn’t been with any man except for me that first time when I took her virginity, I would have walked away. Yet, I knew better. And if I was honest with myself, I enjoyed our time together, and I didn’t regret it.

However, this was no time to get emotionally involved with anyone, especially Rainey. I needed to focus on the situation at hand. If I let my emotions get involved, then people could get hurt, or worse, those kids could be killed. I wouldn’t be able to live with that on my conscience.

Settling the issue in my mind, I had just about fallen asleep, with that beautiful darkness closing in when I heard pounding on my door. I slipped on my shorts and opened my door to find Rainey, her hair still wet from her shower, wearing only a t-shirt and underwear standing at my door. Gage, Damien, and Jared, hearing her loud pounding, were coming out of their rooms, too, to see what the problem was.

As all military people are, the four of us were fully alert, even out of a sound sleep, at the first sign of trouble.

Rainey held her cellphone out to me with a trembling hand.

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