Deryk (Dragon Hearts #2)(21)
“It will,” Deryk confirmed for Izabella. “I understand your need to finish your time at university here. Although we do have universities in Wales,” he added teasingly.
She looked confused. “You would be in agreement with my staying here to finish my law degree, despite the mating?”
“I would seek permission from Vlad for us both to remain in Russia, at least until after you finish university, yes.” It would probably kill him to be apart from Izabella for so many hours a day, and once they had offspring, it would become even more difficult, but Deryk had no intention of curtailing Izabella’s life to suit his own.
He might be that egotistical and selfish bastard he had described to Bryn, and have been born in the late fifth century. But Deryk would hope he hadn’t brought all of that chauvinistic attitude with him to the twenty-first century, even if compromise went totally against his own dominant nature, and his dragon’s need to claim and possess his mate totally.
He inwardly thanked Chloe for helping him to understand that concept, at least, before he had met his own human mate.
But, Goddess, this was going to be hard work if he had to talk over every decision with Izabella before making it.
Suck it up, big guy, he heard Chloe taunt inside his head, knowing how much his sister-in-law was going to enjoy seeing him mated.
The rueful smile on Izabella’s face indicated she was also aware of how difficult that compromise had been for him. Which she would be, having lived with the Russian dragons all her life; Vlad’s arrogance rivaled even Grigor’s.
“Izzi’s place is here,” Anton Mikhailov insisted. “We have a duty to the Romanov family.”
However, that need to compromise did not extend as far as Deryk’s future in-laws. “Izabella’s only duty now is to me. As mine is to her.” And from the increased trembling of Izabella’s body as it rested against the side of his, and the erotic aroma of the arousal only he could detect, his duty—and pleasure—now involved doing something to ease her physical discomfort. “If you will both excuse us?” His arm tightened about Izabella’s waist. “Izabella and I have some things we need to discuss in private.” His tone dared the older man to challenge him.
Anton Mikhailov wisely chose not to do so, allowing Deryk to guide Izabella out of the sitting room.
“My bedchamber or yours?” Deryk prompted urgently the moment they were alone together in the hallway.
Izzi wanted to say neither. But the arousal of her body was now so painful, she needed a relief she knew only Deryk could give her. That didn’t mean she accepted their mating, only that her need was too desperate for her to be able to ignore it any longer. But neither did she want one of her parents following her to her bedroom and finding the two of them together.
“Yours,” she decided through tight lips.
Chapter 8
Izzi didn’t say so much as a word or make a gesture of protest when Deryk began to divest her of her clothes as soon as they reached the privacy of his bedchamber. Instead, she let out a long and relieved sigh as the last piece of clothing, her panties, fell to the floor. It felt so good not to have any of those different textures of material against her hot and too sensitive skin. Enough so that she no longer felt self-conscious about her nakedness. Besides, Deryk had already seen her this way earlier tonight.
Her knees almost buckled under the fierce possessiveness of Deryk’s gaze as he looked his fill of her nakedness, lingering on her breasts and the damp blonde curls between her thighs.
That golden gaze gleamed with hunger as Izzi’s hands moved up to cup her aching breasts. “They ache to be sucked,” she invited breathlessly.
Deryk sank to his knees in front of her. Izabella was so much shorter than him that her breasts were on a level with his mouth. Her whimpers and groans of pleasure as he placed his hands on her hips to suckle first one nipple and then the other, until they had both grown to twice their normal size, was like sweet music to his ears. Her scream seconds later as she came merely from nipple play made his heart swell in his chest.
He kissed his way down her rib cage and across the softness of her belly. “Part your legs for me,” he instructed gruffly, needing to taste her again, to lap up the juices he knew would be flowing between her thighs after her orgasm. He was already addicted to her taste.
Izzi might not have a great deal of sexual experience, but she did know it was supposed to be reciprocal, and so far, Deryk had showered all his lavish attention on ensuring her pleasure and satisfaction.
He might be arrogant and domineering, but his actions proved he wasn’t selfish in his lovemaking.
Instead of parting her legs, Izzi stepped back a little to look at Deryk down on his knees in front of her. His overlong hair was disheveled, his eyes glowing deeply gold, his lips a deep pink and slightly swollen from his ministrations to her nipples.
She held out her hand to him. “I think it’s time I returned the favor, don’t you?”
A flush appeared on the sharpness of his cheekbones as he took her hand and rose slowly to his feet. “What did you have in mind?”
Izzi found it rather daunting to realize this man was fifteen hundred years old and must have had dozens of lovers during that time. There couldn’t be anything, anything at all, that Deryk hadn’t already experience when it came to lovemaking.
“None of them were you.”