Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
CONNOR
F iona struggles against me, kicking and trying her best to squirm from my grip, but it’s not happening. Not today. Not after she finally shared her darkest memory with me. Down the bond, I felt her need to share that memory of her sister with me and also fear, slick as black ice in her mind. But I know my mate. That chain I saw in her head that stifled her creativity for so long, it came from that accident and her telling me just now was necessary to free her from another set of chains, ones that were keeping her from giving herself to me completely. Now that she’s opened up, I won’t let a few careless words ruin this. I wrap my hand around her throat and hold her to me, my cock hard against her backside with the need to claim her. I won’t force her, but I won’t let her cower from it this time. Not now. Not when we’re this close .
“Stay with me,” I growl into her ear. “You’re safe with me, Fiona. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come across the way it did.”
She swallows, and I can feel it against my palm.
“Let me go.” I set her down immediately. She whirls on me. Shoves me with both hands. “Why do you have to be such a brute?”
I narrow my eyes, the fire rising in my blood. “You’re not pushing me away this time. Not over something like this.”
“Something like this?” she hisses.
“A misunderstanding. When I said you were desperate, I wasn’t suggesting you were a gold digger. I only meant that your financial problems made you vulnerable. I know you’d never marry someone for their money.”
She shakes her head. “Damn you. Damn you for suggesting it.”
I reach for her again, but she dodges my grip. My eyes narrow on hers, my finger pointing at the floor between us. “I don’t think you understand what it does to me to think about you with him,” I grit out. “It makes me jealous as hell. It makes me burn to claim you. It makes me wonder what he has that I don’t.”
Her breath comes in pants, and her brows knit together. “You’re jealous… of Roman?” She scoffs.
I nod twice, slowly. “The idea of him touching you enrages me. The idea that he had you and I… don’t… is intolerable.” I turn my back to her, unable to watch her walk away one more time. For what seems like two full minutes, I stare into the cold fire place.
“You never intended to trade me for information from the Order, did you?” Her voice startles me, as does the hand that lands on my back. “If Roman had agreed to meet with you about Lucy’s murder, you would have never let him take me, would you?”
I catch her eyes over my shoulder. “Never.”
Her expression softens and I turn, drawing her to me once more, and this time she doesn’t fight me. “If you accept me as your mate, I will be loyal to you and defend you to my dying day. I’ll always put you first. My soul will be yours. My dragon will be yours to command. You’ll never have to question it. A mated dragon is biologically programmed to serve his mate. Our union has been blessed by the creator, fated, destined in the stars.” I swallow. “You can reject it. I won’t force it on you. But if you say yes, I’ll make it my mission to love you the way you need to be loved. And I’ll tell you one thing, no fucking scar or story about how you got it is going to convince me you are any less of a goddess.”
Her heart flutters and her eyes go wide as dinner plates. “Oh,” she says breathlessly. “Is that all you have to offer? Just a lifetime of love written in the stars?”
Another wave of sickness comes over me, and I close my eyes as my stomach pitches.
“You’ve been patient to wait for me. That’s not what Aries are known for.”
“No.” I take a deep breath, fighting against my instincts to grab her. To claim her.
“And if I left you right now, you’d let me go?”
I open my eyes again, pain like I’ve never experienced before slicing through me. A lump forms in my throat like a fist. “Yes.”
Her hand presses into her chest and she draws a shaky breath. She feels it too, down the bond, the deep sense of dread, the awful black hole at the thought of being apart. “I’ve never truly been your prisoner, have I?”
I shake my head and my voice is trashed as I admit, “Never. If you ask to leave, I’ll allow it. If you ask me to take you, I will fly you home myself. I can’t deny you anything. Maybe I never could, not anything I thought you truly wanted. You do understand that when I took you, I believed it was what you wanted.”
She licks her lips and moves a baby step closer to me. “When I was standing there in that ridiculous wedding dress, I never dreamed a love like yours was possible for a woman like me. A woman could get used to being loved like that.” She reaches behind her back, and I hear her zipper.
My breath halts its flow in my lungs. I’m afraid to breathe. Afraid to say a word. Afraid my reality will shift and she’ll pull away again.
But she keeps going, unzips her dress, then lets it fall off her body. I keep my hands by my sides as she draws near and brushes her lips against mine. “You don’t have to wait anymore, Connor,” she whispers. “Claim me. I accept you as my mate.”
With a growl that rattles the paintings on the walls, I sweep into her, lifting her feet from the floor as my mouth crashes down on hers. Fire meets fire. She’s already open. Already welcoming me in, her tongue stroking against mine in a breathless tangle of repositioned heads, nipping teeth, and bruising kisses.
“I can’t be gentle. Not this time,” I warn her, the words sinking into her mouth, swallowed by our need.
She draws back a fraction of an inch to unfasten her bra and tosses it onto the chair, then goes to work on the buttons of my flannel.
My dragon surges, sending scales flipping along one arm and disappearing beneath skin a breath later. “Faster. I’m not kidding.”
She eyes the place on my arm where we both saw the partial shift, fists both sides of my shirt, and rips. Buttons fly and I shrug the scraps off me, my heart pounding in my ears. My wings unfurl.
“Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful,” she says, reaching up and stroking along the edge of one.
My answering purr makes her heart pound faster, and the scent of her arousal blooms between us. I hook my fingers in the sides of her panties and drop to my knees, taking them down with me. She kicks them aside.
Entirely naked now, she meets my gaze as I eye the scar she kept from me so vehemently, such an important part of her, a badge of honor for surviving her past. I lay the flat of my tongue on the place it starts at her hip and lick the length of it. Slowly, ever so slowly, I worship this thing she’s been so afraid of, this piece of her she’s guarded, still guards, from me. I end with a swirl around the nipple of her right breast.
Her breath stutters. My purr thunders in our ears. I know she feels it because she closes her eyes and her breath quivers. I grip her thighs and spread her feet, the scent of her arousal coloring all my senses, making everything bright and sharp and real. Her hands land in my hair, her nails digging in. I run my nose along her slit, breathing in her scent. It’s pure fire in my veins, and when I lick up her center and hear her gasp of pleasure, it unleashes the last bit of restraint I had over myself. I penetrate her, then drag my tongue along the side of her clit.
“Oh fuck, Connor. My God.” Her breath comes in ragged pants.
“You like that, my mate.”
“Yes. More.” She digs her fingers into my scalp.
My growl grows in intensity, vibrating against her clit, and I pick up the pace, lapping her pussy and spearing her with my tongue. If I weren’t so desperate to be inside her, I might slow down and savor this. But I feel her pleasure building down our bond and can’t rein in my enthusiasm. I replace my tongue with my fingers, massaging inside her while I tease her clit with the pad of my thumb.
“Come for me, Fi.” The power in that command flows down the mating bond and lights her up from the inside.
Her body jolts and spasms, her hands landing on my shoulders as her legs give out. I catch her and lower her to her back on the rug in front of the fireplace, unzipping my jeans and shoving them and everything underneath down and off. Kneeling between her feet, I run a hand over her stomach and between her breasts, my wings fanning out over us both. My cock nestles into her crease, weeping to find a home there, and I brace myself on either side of her head.
I meet her amber eyes, knowing my own are glowing green from the light that dusts across her face, but I hesitate.
She arches, a moan breaking her lips, flashes her wicked smile, and kisses me in a way that has my dragon heating another notch. Into my mouth, she asks, “What are you waiting for?”