Deryk (Dragon Hearts #2)(13)

This was what she had been wanting all day, Izzi acknowledged as pleasure surged through the whole of her body at the possession of the heat of Deryk’s mouth and the rasp of his tongue over her swollen vulva and clit.

“Yes!” she cried out wildly. Her climax hit immediately, her fingers becoming enmeshed in Deryk’s long hair to hold him against her while her hips undulated against his stroking tongue to deepen and lengthen that release.

It was nothing, absolutely nothing like the letdown feeling she always felt after touching herself. This climax claimed the whole of her, from the tip of her head to the curled toes on her feet. It took her up high, so high she felt as if she soared like a bird.

Deryk took her there again and again, with his mouth and hands, until every part of her was totally consumed in that fiery pleasure. No one and nothing else existed but having Deryk pleasure her.

Deryk.

What was she doing?

She’d met this man less than twenty-four hours ago. She didn’t know him at all, and yet she was allowing him to touch her in this intimate way. Had silently begged him to do so when she entangled her fingers in his hair so that he didn’t stop stroking and eating her pussy with his tongue and mouth.

“Stop.” Speaking was an effort, and keeping her eyes open even more so. Izzi’s arms also felt as heavy as lead. She didn’t even have the energy to remove her legs from where they were draped shamelessly over Deryk’s broad shoulders, despite the fact it left her completely open and vulnerable to his gaze.

He raised his head to look at her with glowing gold eyes, his lips red and moist with her juices. “You’re burning up still,” he murmured after reaching up to place the back of his hand against her brow.

She was also too exhausted for this conversation, Izzi realized as Deryk stood up and lifted her into his arms before carrying her through to her bedroom and placing her carefully on the bed. He folded the duvet over her to keep her warm.

“Sleep now,” he encouraged gruffly as he lay on the bed beside her. “We’ll talk again when you wake up.”

She should demand they talk now.

Should ask him to leave.

She did neither of those things as sleep claimed her instead.





Chapter 6


Izzi fought her way through the haze of sleep and exhaustion before opening her eyes to the soft glow of her bedside lamp. At the same time, she became aware she was held tightly in Deryk Pendragon’s arms while he lay wide-awake and fully dressed on the bed beside her.

Her cheeks burned with humiliation when she recalled everything that had happened before she fell asleep.

“What have you done to me?” She knew from Deryk’s pained wince that she was right. He had done something to her. She pulled out of his arms, wrapping the duvet around her as she glanced at the clock on her bedside table and saw that it was after midnight. She had been asleep for at least two hours. “Tell me what all this is about.” She sat up. “This effect you have on me and why. Tell me right now.”

Deryk rose to his feet, needing to put some distance between himself and Izabella in order to explain this in a way that wasn’t going to have her going for his throat again. This time with her teeth bared.

His senses were not only saturated with her scent but also her taste, the latter a delicious and addictive combination of the sweetness of honey and the tartness of lemons. He could have carried on pleasuring her all night long and never tired of that taste. Holding his mate in his arms as she slept had been a sweet torture he had relished.

He straightened his shoulders. “You already know I’m a dragon shifter.”

“I presumed so, yes.”

Which, thank the Goddess, was at least one thing Deryk didn’t have to explain to her.

But the rest of it?

Deryk knew he should have taken heed of Bryn’s warnings.

That he deserved whatever was going to happen next.

Even if it was to have Izabella refuse to be his mate.

“Have the Romanovs ever talked to you about their dragons?”

She gave a shake of her head. “Maybe to my parents, but if so, they have never told me about them.”

That was what Deryk had thought. This arrangement of having human servants was completely new to him. They had local people working in the castle in Wales, but compulsion invariably took care of any anomalies those people discovered about their employers.

He nodded. “Okay. Well, I’m fifteen hundred years old—”

“That explains your outdated caveman attitude!” She snorted.

Deryk shot Izabella a frowning glance. Although she wasn’t wrong about his caveman attitude, and she had taken the news of his true age with a lot more equanimity than a lot of women would have. “Unlike the Romanovs, my brothers and I weren’t born to a matched pair of dragons but to those Welsh goddesses I told you about, and a human male. My own mother is Aeronwen, the Welsh goddess of war and battles,” he explained as Izabella’s eyes widened.

“That also explains a lot,” she said dryly. “Is your mother also the reason you have the ability of compulsion?”

He smiled his approval of her perception. “All dragons have it.”

“Including the Romanovs?”

“I presume so,” he answered guardedly.

“And you used that compulsion yesterday morning on Pyotr, and again last night, to make him leave?”