Page 61 of Dragon Fight

I wanted to reply, but coherent thought seemed beyond me. His thumb moved to brush against the seam of my mouth, and my lips parted. Draven took that as ground surrendered, and pressed his thumb between them.

“I brought you here for a reason, Pippin: to keep you safe.” This was the voice he’d used when I was sick, the soft, intent tone having a much stronger impact now that I was fully conscious. “And why here? Because all of my attempts to stop the queen getting to you in the capital, or in Harlston, have failed so fucking miserably. Mother and her cronies managed to find increasingly baroque ways to come for you, and I had no hope of anticipating them.” He paused for a moment. “Pippin, you and Glimmermustlive.” He leaned in and bent his head closer to mine. I was mesmerised by his touch, his intent blue gaze. “Because I couldn’t fucking bear it if you didn’t.”

40

So many thoughts were racing through my head, but it was like they all cancelled out when he leaned in closer and ghosted his lips across mine. The touch was so light that I wondered if I’d imagined it. Maybe it wasn’t a kiss. Maybe he was testing the waters, seeing my reaction to him being that close. My brain was still stuck on ‘who is this?’ and, truth be told, the caring, nurturing man he’d shown me was one I trusted, who I felt a connection to. So, I didn’t pull away. When he felt no resistance, he hissed in a breath, then slammed his mouth down on mine, angling my head to kiss me with a wanton greediness that sent flames racing through my body.

At first my hands just sort of floated in the air beside me as my brain tried to process what was happening. Was this really Draven, the icily remote prince? Then his lips and tongue overpowered my thoughts and I lifted my hands to behind his neck to clutch at his dark curls. The moment my hands landed, he groaned into my mouth and speared his tongue deeper, then moved his hands too. He ran one to the back of my neck, the other to the base of my spine to tug me closer, to weld my body to his, making clear just how much he was responding to this…

And that had me pulling out of his grasp. Wide-eyed, panting, I took an unsteady step back.

I stared at him incredulously, trying to work out what was happening. It was as though the prince I knew had been replaced by someone else entirely. I thought I’d seen all his moods: angry, arrogant, smirking, annoying, frustrating and scathing, even the gentle man who’d saved me from being poisoned. But I’d never seenthisman: the one who, ignoring my look of shock, swept forward to pick me up in his arms, deposit me onto the table, and slot his body between my thighs.

“I told you I am a greedy man who wants a taste of everything he believes is his,” the growl back in his voice, but this time softer, more hypnotic. “You thought I was talking about Brom; about the others in the wing.” He put an arm down either side of me on the table and leaned over me, shutting out everything else so that I was looking up into his piercing eyes, my entire focus was on him. “You assumed I meant I was jealous of your place at the centre of my wing, that I wanted to push you out, to take that place. But, sweetheart…”

That little pet name had me searching his face for signs of the Draven I thought I knew, looking for a sneer or a smirk or something else, but his intense look didn’t change.

“…what you need to understand is that I was viciously envious of each one of those bastards.” His hands slid down my neck, thumbing my restless pulse before finding the first toggle of my jacket and flicking it open. “They took so blithely from the woman Iknewwas mine. I imagined them working together to bring you to greater and greater pleasures, and I have never hated four men more.” I swallowed, under his spell, my chest heaving, as his teeth nipped at my neck, and his tongue soothed away the sting. “I should have been there.” He flicked open another toggle, then pulled at the collar of my jacket to bare the top of my shoulder, my collarbone and just a hint of the upper swell of my breast. He ran his nose along the exposed skin, breathing me in, then raised his head again. “I would have made sure each one of them worshipped every inch of you, and then I would have stepped forward to do the same.”

The humming song got deeper, more resonant, as Darkspire’s voice joined Glimmer’s. Their fierce refrain matched the throbbing intensity deep within me. Something was unlocked in me, from his words, his touch, his fervour, and I tore at his jacket until the toggles wrenched free and it hung all the way open, exposing his skin. That wasn’t enough. I needed to stake my claim on him so I raked my nails over his bare flesh, digging my fingers into his chest, his shoulders, his back, as I pressed myself against him, my face into his neck all to his sounds of satisfaction as he held me to him. With every panting breath I took, I drew his woody scent deeper into me; everywhere my body met his, he thrummed under my touch.

“Let me…please, my queen, just this once, let me show you exactly how it would’ve been.”

I rested my cheek on his shoulder to stare at this prince who had called me his queen. His head thrown back in profile. Flared nostrils pulling in gusty breaths. My marks on his skin. And one blue eye looking down at me through tempest-tossed curls as he waited for my response.

“You’re mine?”

I barely squeaked the words out, feeling like a mouse, not a queen.

“All yours,” Draven agreed, with a slow nod, “no matter what I might say or do in front of others.” He trailed a hand down the side of my face. “Remember that. I don’t have the luxury of wearing my heart on my sleeve like Ged and Soren, of proclaiming my love to the world like Brom or debauching you so fucking utterly like Flynn, but I can have this.”

He leaned down and kissed me. But this time it was a slow study of my lips, the whole deed drawn out so long that it became something else: an exploration, an opportunity to learn and an invitation to discover more. Like, why did I tug him closer when he went to pull away and ask if this is what I wanted? Why did I sink my hands into his inky hair, glorying in the slip of it between my fingers? Why did I claim his mouth, just like he claimed mine, our hands moving blindly to reveal more of the other, even though we couldn’t draw back long enough to look?

And then we did.

Draven lifted his head, to follow the passage of his fingers as they mapped the expanse of my bared shoulders. He drew my jacket and shirt down my arms. A tender expression crossed across his face, and his eyes filled with something I’d never seen in them. Reverence, that’s what it was. Bringing his hand up to cup my cheek, he traced his knuckle along my jawline, down my neck to my collarbone. He lifted his eyes back up to mine as his knuckles stroked along the inner curve of my breast.

“Please, Pippin…”

I answered him by lifting his hand to place his palm right over the fullness. The heat of his touch sent a shiver through to my core and I gasped. My nipple tightened to a hard bead the moment he touched it and he lifted an eyebrow as though recording the information. Draven flicked his eyes to meet mine one more time as I sobbed out my approval. He licked his lips and then he struck, faster than a cobra. It felt as though he was everywhere at once, kissing my mouth and my neck, sliding one hand down my side while the cruel fingers of the other pinched pleasure from the aching point of my nipple. I moaned, shifted against him, and his hand slid down, dragging my hips closer to wedge them against him, that hard length rubbing right where I needed it.

And yet I wanted more.

A frantic little noise of pleasure escaped me, and then a particular violent thrust of his hips against mine had the table rocking, threatening to unseat me, and we were forced to pull away from each other for a moment. He smiled like the boy I imagined he would’ve been, if not for the burden of his title.

“You’ll end up with a bloody bruise on your perfectly formed arse if we don’t take this to the bed,” he said. “Then your pack of lovers would descend on me and make sure I wore bruises twice as black in retaliation.”

“They wouldn’t fight against you.”

“Yes, they would. Against me, against my mother and my father.” He moved in closer, dropping soft kisses across my face, as if he couldn’t stop himself. “There’s something so deliciously treasonous about you that drives a man mad, making him forget everything he stood for moments before.”

“Well, if I’m keeping you from your true purpose…” I tried to make it a joke but my voice was a little too high, too thin for that.

“Or maybe you’re helping me discover what that really is,” he countered, stopping with his lips hovering just over mine. “Tell me to pick you up and lay you down on that bed, Pippin. Tell me to remove those leather pants you wear that seems designed to drive a man mad, the way they mould to your body.” He stared into my eyes. “Let us come to bed, just a man, just a woman, with nothing else between us, at least for a little while.”

“Yes,” I gasped. “Oh, yes.”

And so he swept me up and carried me over to the bed, laying me down and pulling the rest of my clothes off with flattering haste. I turned to my side to watch him finish undressing. The room was quiet now. The dragons’ song had died down when our earlier hectic passion had turned to quiet exploration of each other. As Draven stood beside the bed, loosening his leather pants, Darkspire lifted his head to regard us. The big dragon nudged Glimmer with his snout, and she climbed sleepily up onto his neck. He carried her into a nearby room and slammed the door shut with his tail as he went. We both laughed for a second in surprise. As he directed his gaze at me, the humour left Draven’s face and was replaced by a predatory look. He dropped down onto the bed on all fours, and stalked slowly towards me. My heart started to race as I watched him approach: dark curls, deep blue eyes, chiselled features. Broad shoulders and hard, lean muscles honed from years of weapons training. By the time he lay down to face me, my legs were moving restlessly and my breasts felt heavy and tight.

---