Dragos Goes to Washington (Elder Races #8.5)(24)

“That was utterly vile,” she muttered.

He stroked the damp hair off her face. “It’s better to throw up than have it take the long way through your system. Hopefully after a good night’s sleep, you’ll feel better by morning.”

“True.”

After he helped her to her feet, she brushed her teeth again and followed him to bed. He opened his arms to her, and she crawled over to curl around his long, stretched out frame. Comfort sank deep. Nuzzling the bare, warm skin of his shoulder, she closed her eyes.

Just before she fell asleep, the tired fog lifted from her mind and she remembered.

She had been nauseated well before eating the hors d’oeuvres that evening, and her skin had begun to feel irritated too.

Time to make an appointment to see Dr. Medina when they got back home.

Then darkness called, and she was unable to resist its inexorable pull.

When awareness dawned next, she discovered that she had curled on her side, and Dragos lay spooning her from behind. The room lay in deep shadow, although a sliver of light at the edge of the curtain indicated it was close to dawn.

His warm mouth traveled across the nape of her neck, while he stroked her torso from breast to hip. His large, hot erection pressed against her buttocks.

“Good morning, lover,” he whispered in her ear. “How are you feeling—any better?”

“Mmm,” she murmured, luxuriating in a long, all-over body stretch that might also have made her brush all along the length of his body as well. She adored the feeling of his body next to hers, dark bronze skin covering sleek, iron hard muscles and sprinkled with black, silken hair. It was beyond a doubt the very best way to wake up in the mornings. Rolling onto her back, she rubbed her face against his chest. “Still tired, but okay.”

He cupped her breast and pressed a gentle kiss against the jut of her nipple. “Okay enough for this?”

She took stock. Her muscles ached and her thigh still itched, but none of it could dispel a growing sense of hunger for him. “I want to,” she admitted. “But I don’t feel very rambunctious.”

“We’ll go slow and easy this time,” he promised. “I can do all the work. You can lie back and count your pows.”

Delighted, she snickered as she tilted her face up for his kiss. “You offer a bargain so good I can’t resist.”

He cupped the back of her head, supporting her neck as he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her gently, deeply. A sense of golden well-being suffused her, physical pleasure mingling with the emotional.

He was so good, so good. He was more fierce and demanding than anyone else she had ever known, but he was also the tenderest of lovers too, and he handled her as if she were a treasure beyond compare.

It was impossible to maintain worry when she was in his arms, impossible to hold on to anything negative or isolating. When they were together, they were all in, utterly immersed in each other, invested completely in this intangible, essential thing they had developed between them. Nothing else existed.

Trailing light kisses along her body, he nipped at her breasts gently and suckled at the stiff, sensitive peaks of her nipples. While he caressed and licked at her, she quested down his body with one hand, running her fingers through the silken tract of hair low on his tight, flat abdomen until she located his erection.

Closing her fingers around his cock, she massaged the long, thick length. His skin felt like silk stretched over iron. Using the ball of her thumb, she rubbed circles along the broad tip of his penis.

In response, he exhaled hard and flexed his hips so that he pushed against the palm of her hand, while his mouth traveled up the line of her neck to caress her lips again.

He wasn’t a man filled with soft words or poetry, and it was rare for him to say that he loved her. But he told her in so many different ways, the lack of soft words and poetry never mattered, not in the slightest.

He told her through the touch of his lips, and the depth of emotion expressed in every caress of those callused, powerful hands. He told her in the amount of attention he paid to every detail of her life, and the way his hard face would light up whenever she entered a room.

He told her every time he put his arm around her, or complained at her absence. This, from a male who did not tolerate the presence of others very well in general.

In a thousand different ways, he made her feel cherished and valued, and this bout of lovemaking was no different. He was as good as his word, and even though she could feel his rising heat and hunger, running like lava underneath his skin and hardening his big, tough frame, he never once broke out of the gentle pace he set for himself.

Using just his fingers, he stroked her to climax, and only when she had eased out of the shaking pulse of completion did he come between her legs to settle his hips against hers and push into her entrance easily, carefully.

A hot wave of emotion washed through her as she felt his cock entering her. Both physical and emotional pleasure lit her up entirely. She wound her arms and legs around him, cradling him with her whole body, trying to tell him without words just how important he was to her too.

At this one place, their conversation was unchanging.

Here I am, her cradling body said to him. I’ll be your home.

Looking deep into her eyes, he began to move. Here I am, his body said to her. I’ll cover you and keep you safe.

At this one place, his normal possessive nature shifted. At any other time, he told her in a dozen ways, you are mine.