Chapter Thirty-Three
Ember
“The ones delivered to my office?” Dela said, her beautiful face tightening around the corners of her eyes, her lips going flat. “That wasn’t you?”
I shook my head, not bothering to restrain my anger.
Someone else had sent Dela flowers? My Dela?
Who the fuck did they think they were? Interfering like that!
I would see them burned alive and their bodies roasted to a crisp.
I would destroy them and everything they knew! She was mine, and none could have her.
“Who sent you the flowers?” I asked guardedly, hoping to keep my fury in check when talking to her at least. I would direct it elsewhere. At those who deserved it. Like the asshole sending her flowers.
“I thought it was you,” she said. Her eyes narrowed, then widened in surprise. “Oh, shit.”
“What is it?” I asked, sitting up straight, my necklace swinging slightly to the side. It was the only thing that stayed on during sex. “Do you know who sent them? Tell me who it was.”
Dela looked at me anew. Shit. I’d given something away, hadn’t I? My voice had betrayed my rage at someone intruding on my territory.
“Ember,” she said with a sigh, placing a hand on my chest.
“Yes?”
“Lie down,” she growled when I resisted her first push. “Now.”
Reluctantly, I lay flat. Dela flung one leg over and straddled me, her naked body all but glowing in the light.
Free from the sheets, I watched with a hunger that could never be entirely satiated as her nipples slowly hardened in the cooler air.
A stirring of lust in my loins threatened to distract us from the topic at hand.
“What now?” I grumped when she slid farther up my hips, away from my twitching cock. It was a sure sign she wouldn’t let that happen. She wanted to talk.
“We need to talk.”
I knew it.
“Okay,” I said.
“I like how protective you are. The way you told everyone else that only you would fly me to Mount Drakonus. That protectiveness, possessiveness, that’s hot. I like how you made me submit to you earlier. Taking charge of me and my body. Also very hot.”
My cock was nearly raging hard again as she reminded me of that, of the way her eyes stared up at me as I thrust into her, the pleasure creasing lines into her face as I watched.
It was the sexiest thing I’d ever witnessed, and the skin of my shaft was stretched to its limits as she reminded me of it and said how much she liked it.
I could feel the heat between her legs increasing as well, a sign of her renewed arousal.
“But,” she said, the heat between us cooling immediately, “you have to remember that I had a life before you came along. It’s been a whopping three days.”
“I know?”
She glared at me. “Ember, I felt your skin was burning up back there, and I wasn’t even touching you as I am now. I know that happens when you get angry. Or maybe … jealous? That I had a boyfriend before you?”
I turned my head to the side. “It’s not that. I’m glad you haven’t spent your entire life alone. You deserve better than that, even if none of them were me.”
She snorted. “You have that right, at least.”
“It’s not that,” I repeated.
“What is it?” she asked, curious, her words softer, like her body.
“What you said,” I explained awkwardly. I wasn’t very good at this sort of thing. Emotions. Words. They were not my friend.
“That someone sent me flowers?”
I shook my head, steeling myself. Just get it over with. Put it out there. You can do it.
“Tell me, Ember,” she said, leaning down until her nipples tickled the skin of my pecs and her eyes were inches away from mine. “What did I say to make you angry?”
“You told me you wouldn’t have come back otherwise. You came back because of a lie. You thought I’d sent them.” I growled, fresh heat pouring from my body. “I should have sent them. Instead of whoever did.”
Dela shook her head. “No, Ember. You don’t get to be upset here. Not over that.”
“What? Why not?”
“Because,” she said, “you not only didn’t send me flowers, you didn’t even have the guts to drive me home yourself. You made Pyre do it.”
She went to slide off me, but I grabbed her hips and held her in place.
“I don’t want to fight,” I said. “I just don’t want another man making you happy, when it should be me. It’s not you that I’m upset with. It’s myself.”
Of all the reactions I could have expected, the one I did not see coming was laughter.
Dela tried to stifle it, but the first giggle broke through, and then she flung her head back and laughed.
I tried to remain serious, but the way her tits jiggled as she let loose was far too mesmerizing, and I lost focus.
“Ember,” she said, resting both palms on my chest, which squeezed her boobs together. I tried not to stare. Mostly I failed. “Trust me when I say that he did not make me happy. In fact, he hurt me. It was that hurt that led to us meeting.”
“What do you mean?” I was confused now.
She toyed with my necklace, running one finger down the chain and then drawing circles around the emblem.
I shivered at her touch, trying to restrain from lifting her and impaling her on my cock.
It strained toward the heat between her legs and the tight pussy waiting for me, eager for my kiss to ignite it once more.
“He dumped me,” she said quietly.
I stilled. She needed to talk about it. I could feel it. Now was not the time to interrupt with sex.
“I’m sorry,” I said, stroking her thighs, meaning it. I didn’t like to see her hurt.
“Yeah. When I first saw you in the lobby and closed the elevator on you, it turns out the joke was on me because I went upstairs and got dumped.”
“We both went upstairs and got news we didn’t want,” I said, remembering my chat with Ashe about Albright making his move before we were ready.
“Yeah. Then I left. I should have stayed at home,” she said wryly. “Instead, I went back to try to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Big mistake. Never do that.”
“I don’t know,” I purred, my hands cupping her rear and then her waist possessively. “It worked out for the best with us.”
“Barely,” she said, hissing through clenched teeth as I held her tight. “But with Paolo, I walked in on him with another woman. Someone he’d been with for two weeks already.”
Anger and flame roared inside me.
“Easy,” she said, pulling her hand away from my chest. “You get damn hot, mister.”
“Sorry,” I said, calming the heat, though my temper remained. “I just don’t know how anyone could hurt you like that.”
“Too clingy is what he told me.” Dela shook her head, hair bouncing everywhere. “Said that I was overly needy and that all he wanted, I quote, was ‘to smash.’”
I snorted.
“What?” she asked. “You find that funny?”
“Sort of,” I said, shaking my head.
“How?”
“Because I just, as you say, ‘smashed,’ and let me tell you, it was well worth some clinginess. Though to be certain, I’m going to have to go back for more.”
“Hey!” she protested with a laugh as I lifted her and placed her on my cock. It was lying flat against my stomach, so she ended up straddling it, the hard shaft gently pushing between her lips. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I,” I rumbled.
“He’s the reason we met, so you should be nice. If it weren’t for how he treated me, I never would have gone to the building, and then later, I wouldn’t have gone to the grocery store, where you kidnapped me.”
“I did not kidnap you. The magic mirror somehow brought you into the dragon realm. It was nothing I did. It’s not sentient or anything.”
Dela rolled her eyes. “Right. The magic mirror.”
“It’s true!” I protested playfully. “I promise.”
“If you say so.” The smile stayed on her face, but it faded from her eyes.
“What is it?” I asked, stroking her face gently with one hand.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Just thinking about how Chelsea won’t let me live it down for breaking my word.”
“About what?”
She tried to roll off me, but I held on tight. I wasn’t letting her go. Not now that I finally had her. I’d spent too long denying her, denying us, because I thought I had to be with someone else. Not anymore. But if we were going to be together, that meant all the hard stuff. Especially words.
“Ember …” she said.
“Talk to me,” I rumbled, grabbing the back of her head, pulling her down to me, and kissing her.
It was soft, tender, and totally unlike the kisses that had led to us being in bed.
I wanted to remind her that I was there for her.
Not just to fuck her, but for all her needs. Including helping share her burdens.
“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking it off. “A long story. A silly promise I made to myself that didn’t last long.”
I indicated the fact that she was on top of me. “Well, I have nowhere to go. So humor me.”
She sighed, staring at me, trying to judge if I was serious. I was, and I let it show.
“I want to know more about you,” I added, sliding my fingers through hers. “Please.”
“It’s not that big a thing,” she said.
“Tell me everything,” I said, lying back on the pillow and smiling up at her. I wanted to hear it all.