Deryk (Dragon Hearts #2)(5)

Deryk’s predatory nature wouldn’t allow that. Whoever this woman was, she was his.

And if she should refuse the mating?

Then she would leave him no choice but to do what Nathaniel had done with Chloe, and carry his mate off to his cave until she accepted him.

He—

“Hello…?”

All Deryk’s reasoning, his plan to proceed slowly and carefully in order to win over his mate, all in the knowledge he would be spending the rest of his life with her, was utterly destroyed the moment he and his dragon heard her voice.

Mine.





Chapter 3


Izzi realized her mistake the moment she entered the bedchamber after knocking briefly.

A very tall and muscular man, standing silhouetted outside on the balcony, let out a feral growl before rushing toward her.

His eyes glowed golden in the darkened room. Four-inch-long talons visible in the moonlight as they burst from the end of his fingers.

Dragon.

She couldn’t see his face clearly, only perceived that he was huge. But she had known the Romanov brothers all her life, and she knew it wasn’t one of them. Besides, they were all downstairs—

Izzi had no time for further thought as she was swept up into steely arms before the man carried her with lightning speed toward the four-poster bed.

“What are you doing?” she cried out as she was thrown on top of the bedcovers and the man—dragon?—followed her down, pinning her beneath his much larger and stronger body as he held her hands captive above her head. His cock was hard, long and pulsing hotly against the soft flesh of her jean-covered belly.

“Please…” Izzi wasn’t sure, as her body suddenly filled with heat, if she was asking him to stop or give her more. More heat. Desire. Pleasure unlike anything Izzi had ever felt before.

All those emotions surged through her body at the same time, the blood in her veins feeling as if it had turned to liquid fire as the man above her claimed and then began to devour her mouth. A sweep of his tongue parted her lips even further before it thrust inside to explore and touch each and every part of her mouth: tongue, teeth, the moist dips and hollows in between.

Izzi’s arousal centered between her thighs to gather and coil in her core until she felt as if she was about to explode with the overload of intense and unrelenting pleasure coursing through her.

The man’s free hand, bare of those talons now, moved to cup one of her lace-covered breasts beneath her sweater. The nipple became hard as a pebble as he squeezed and teased Izzi’s aching and sensitive flesh until she was shaking with arousal.

She had no idea what this man even looked like or who he was, and yet she was poised on the brink of a sexual climax she knew would totally devastate her if it was allowed to break free.

Panic caused Izzi to fight against the restraint the man had on her wrists, but she only succeeded in having those talons bruise and scrape against her tender skin.

Ouch. That was going to leave marks.

Attempting to squirm out from beneath him only caused his aroused cock to grow harder and longer.

Ouch again. That was going to hurt even more if he attempted to put it inside her.

It took all the strength Izzi had to wrench her head sideways and pull her mouth free of his. “Stop!” she gasped. “You have to stop!”

“Mine,” he growled as those hot lips moved to her throat, teeth scraping over the pulsing vein running along its length.

“Please. I don’t—”

“Deryk!”

Izzi barely had time to register the sound of that third voice, along with the snapping and snarling of the man above her, the talons back in evidence on both hands as he was wrenched from her, leaving her panting and alone on the bed.

She turned on the bedside lamp before turning back quickly to look at the two huge men standing over her. Ominously dangerous-looking men who could probably snap her much smaller body in half without even trying.

She instinctively huddled into a ball to make herself a smaller target for those dual piercing gazes, one golden, the other a dark and equally unnatural bronze.

Because she knew without a doubt these two men were both dragon.

Deryk felt a degree of humanity returning to him now that he wasn’t actually touching the woman on the bed. Enough to allow him to take control of the mating haze and fight the shift as he looked down at his mate. A mate who was curled into a protective fetal ball on top of the bedcovers.

She was so tiny, probably only a couple of inches over five feet tall. Her body was slender and yet curvaceous, and he already knew the full swell of her breasts fit perfectly into the palms of his hands. Her hair was a long and shiny blonde and probably reached all the way down to the perfect curve of her ass.

She was utterly beautiful.

An angel.

Which was pretty fucking insane when he probably looked as threatening as the devil himself as he loomed over her.

She had perfectly arched brows above eyes the color of a flawless emerald. A small retroussé nose, her lips a perfect bow, with the top one fuller than the bottom as an indication of a passionate nature he intended to enjoy fully. The pointed challenge of her chin, as he continued to stare at her, indicated something else: a strong and determined nature.

Something she would also have need of as his mate, Deryk conceded self-derisively.

Bryn kept a firm grasp of his shoulder. “What the fuck, Deryk?” he rasped, his eyes gleaming the same color bronze as his dragon.