Lord's Fall (Elder Races #5)(90)

She tried to laugh. It came out husky and breathless. “What—what kind of discipline?”

“The kind that comes with restraint,” he said, his voice deepening.

Oh yay, he was going to tie her up? She loved that game. She almost clapped her hands, but then he stripped off his shirt and jacket, and the sight of his immense, muscled chest stole all of her IQ points again. Greedily she stroked her fingers over his hair-sprinkled skin, reveling in the taut, velvet-soft skin over iron muscles. They were so different from each other, so different, yet he pulled the deepest kind of responses out of her, and she wanted him all the time, so much so that it turned her inside out.

He eased her back down on the bed and came down beside her, his long, large body infinitely stronger than hers, a steady haven from all the ills that existed in the world.

His shadowed gold gaze flashed as he brought his mouth down to hers, touching her lips lightly. “I saw you standing in the middle of that forest fire with blood all over you, and the sight damn near pulled my heart out of my chest,” he said roughly against her lips. “And when you were talking to Gaeleval in a f**king dream, the top of my head damn near came off. Pia, you might just make me one of the happiest men alive, if you don’t kill me first.”

There were times when it just wasn’t possible to have a logical conversation. So instead of pointing out that none of those things were her fault, she said gently, “I’m sorry.” She fingered his silken short hair and stroked his face. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You always scare me, goddammit,” he growled. “I’ve faced monsters and demons and nightmares that most people have never even heard of, but you have always scared me the most. We might make a list of pretty words that we can call each other or use for our relationship, but I don’t feel pretty things for you. I feel things for you that are volcanic and dangerous, and I’m not safe at the best of times.”

She nestled her cheek against his bicep, watching his face as she listened. “What makes you think any of that might be bad?” she asked. “I didn’t fall in love or mate with a safe man, because I didn’t want to.”

He fell silent and looked at her with narrowed eyes. “What are you talking about?”

She stroked his face. “Living this lifestyle with you goes against everything I have ever been taught. I had to fight my instincts every step of the way to get here, and the only way I had the courage to do that was because of you. Because you’re the meanest, strongest, toughest son of a bitch I know, and if you decide to go after someone you are not going to stop until he’s both sorry and dead, and I mean all of that as a total heartfelt compliment.”

“I’ll be sure to take it that way.” He gave her a wry, sidelong look, but she could tell he was really listening.

She told him softly, “Sometimes the world is uncertain and it can be downright nasty, but I feel safe with you, and I trust you. And I do feel prettier things for you too—I love you, and I like you, and you make me laugh, and my God, the two of us generate so much heat together, somebody should slap a hazard warning on us.”

His chest moved in a silent laugh. “Truth.”

“But I think none of that would matter, if I couldn’t feel safe.” She tapped his nose until he lifted his head, and she could look deeply into his eyes. “That’s my bedrock and my bottom line. I know that you will protect me and the peanut. I don’t just have faith, and I don’t hope that you will. I know it. Dragos, I don’t think I knew what it felt like to be safe before I got together with you.” She smiled sadly as she thought of Calondir and Beluviel’s exquisite, soul-killing politeness toward each other then she eased them gently from her mind. “So all those volcanic and dangerous things you feel when you’re around me? Bring ’em on, buddy. The absolute worst thing you could do is feel indifferent to me.”

“That isn’t ever going to happen,” he whispered, circling her throat with one hand. “What I feel for you approaches the maniacal. There isn’t a single shred of indifference in any part of what I feel for you.”

“See why I’m such a happy girl?” she murmured. She wriggled against him, luxuriating in the sensation of his warm, bare chest. “Do we get to work on the discipline and restraint stuff now?”

“Absolutely,” he whispered. “My discipline, my self-restraint.”

Wait a minute. That wasn’t how she thought this was going to go. She tried to sit up, but he wouldn’t let her. Ooh, that was more like it.

He held her down by the neck, gently, gently, as he ran his hand along the sensitive curves and hollows of her body. Then he took her ni**les in his mouth, one at a time, suckling at the plump, distended flesh, until flickers of invisible lightning danced across her body. Afterward, he nibbled his way all over her, biting at the tender flesh at the back of her knees, licking the base of her spine.

She couldn’t lie still. Her legs shifted restlessly, as an urgent, empty pulse started between her legs. But he wouldn’t touch her clitoris or come anywhere near the moist, fluted flesh of her sex. He touched her everywhere else instead, until she lost all self-control.

“Stop it,” she panted. “Stop teasing me.”

“No,” he told her with a cruel smile, until she screamed in his face.

“Just f**k me, dammit!”