Chapter 22
Lucan
My bare feet landed on cold rock, Liz’s warm palm pressed flat against my chest. My heart was hammering under it, and there was zero chance she couldn’t feel that.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide, still carrying the remnants of whatever the flight had done to her. Her cheeks were flushed from the wind, her short hair wild in every direction, and she was the most stunning thing I’d ever seen.
I didn’t move. Didn’t reach for her. My dragon was roaring triumph through every inch of me, but I held still because the look on her face wasn’t quite ready for what I wanted to do.
Liz dropped her hand and took a small step back.
She let out a short breath that turned into a laugh, shaking her head as she looked around the basin. The rock walls rose around us, silver and shadow under the moon. Her gaze returned to me, and there was something lighter in it that hadn’t been there before the flight.
“Show-off,” she said under her breath.
I huffed a quiet laugh and stepped closer, reaching around her to ease the backpack off her shoulders. She let me take it, watching as I unzipped the bag and pulled out the sweatpants.
Her eyes dropped as I stepped into them.
I was hard. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about that. Shifting always left me running hot, and having my mate pressed against me while her thighs gripped my neck had not exactly helped the situation.
Liz didn’t look away. She wasn’t shy about it either, her gaze tracking down and then up with an expression that was somewhere between appreciation and amusement.
I pulled the sweatpants up, trying not to smirk, and didn’t bother with shoes or a shirt. The cold didn’t touch me the way it would her.
“Where are we?” She turned to take in the basin again, her arms crossing over her chest.
“Not far from the hoard, actually.” I gestured toward the far wall where the rock folded in on itself. “Through that gap about a quarter mile away is a rockfall we created to cover the entrance.”
Her eyebrows went up. “You created a rockfall?”
“With drones and other air surveillance, we had to make sure it’s as secure as possible. It’s pretty difficult to get to without flying, and even then, someone would have to be looking for the entrance and walk a bit into the mountain to find it.”
She nodded, processing that. “And Zarek thought little old me could navigate that to get to your hoard?”
I shrugged. “Anything is possible.” The more I thought about the possibility of any human getting to that exact location, the less likely it seemed.
I moved toward her again, slower this time. I stopped within arm’s reach and waited. She didn’t step back. The energy between us had changed, and the adrenaline from the flight was fading. I settled my hand at her waist, giving her the space to lean in or pull away.
She didn’t move. Her eyes held mine, and she shifted forward by a fraction of an inch. Not a lot, but enough.
My thumb traced a small circle against her hip, and her breath caught, barely audible, but I heard it.
I leaned down and kissed her.
It was different from last night. Last night had been careful, a question and an answer.
This was the conversation that came after.
Her hands came up to my chest, fingers spreading over bare skin, and the contact sent heat racing through me.
My other hand found the back of her neck, my fingers sliding into her hair the way I’d been thinking about for days.
She made a humming sound against my mouth, and my dragon surged so hard I had to lock my knees to keep from pulling her off her feet.
I kept it slow. Barely. She deepened the kiss, and I followed her lead, letting her set the pace.
She pulled back to look at me. “Okay,” she said quietly, as if she was confirming something to herself.
I grinned. “Okay.”
I took her hand and led her to a massive pine, then sat down with my back against the trunk and pulled her down into my lap.
She went with it, settling sideways against me with her legs across my thighs. The position put her head almost even with mine, and she leaned into my chest, causing something in me that had been coiled tight for weeks to finally loosen.
My dragon settled. Content. Present. Exactly where he wanted to be.
“So, the hoard,” Liz said after a minute. Her fingers traced idle patterns on my skin. “What’s actually in it? Piles of gold coins and jewels?”
I snorted. “Some gold. Some jewels. Old weapons, artifacts, things that have been collected over generations and passed down to us.” I shifted her slightly, adjusting her weight on my thigh.
“But it’s not only valuable objects. There are books in there, maps, pieces of art.
Things that matter to us for reasons that aren’t financial.
It also fuels our magic and keeps us sane. ”
“And if the hoard was gone?”
I searched for the right word. “It would be catastrophic.”
Her fingers resumed their tracing. “What about female dragons?”
“Fewer than there used to be. A lot fewer. Dragon pairings always produce a dragon. But there aren’t enough female dragons for that to sustain the population anymore. Dragon and human pairings don’t always result in a dragon child. Sometimes they’re fully human but have dragon blood.”
She was quiet for a long time before she shifted in my lap. Then her leg slid over my thigh, and she straddled me.
My hands tightened on her waist before I forced myself to hold still.
Her hands braced on my shoulders, and she looked at me, the uncertainty that had been in her expression earlier gone. The space between us closed again, and she kissed me, the sureness of it hitting me somewhere deep. She wasn’t pulling away. She was staying right where she was.
Her fingers curled into the muscle at the top of my shoulders. I opened for her, and her tongue slid against mine with a confidence that made my brain short-circuit. I had to dig my fingertips into her hips to stop myself from doing something stupid like flipping her onto her back.
She whimpered, and I deepened the kiss, tilting my head to get more of her. Her hands moved into my hair, tugging enough to send heat down my spine.
I broke the kiss and moved to her neck, dragging my lips along the line of her jaw and then down to where her pulse was hammering beneath her skin. She tilted her head to the side, giving me more access, and I took it, kissing and tasting her skin.
“I haven’t been turned on in a long time.” She said it as if she were admitting she was broken and bracing for my reaction.
I didn’t say anything. I waited because the way the words came out told me there was more, and I needed to hear it before I opened my mouth.
She bit her lip. “I don’t know if it was all the stress with my ex and the money stuff, or if it’s hormones, or both. But I haven’t really thought about sex in a while.” She hesitated. “Like at least six months. Maybe even a year. I don’t even know if I can…”
That hit me sideways. I blinked at her, processing what she was saying while my dragon was still roaring in my skull. “Sex isn’t important to me.”
Her gaze dropped pointedly to where she was sitting directly on the evidence, and she gave me a skeptical look.
I laughed despite myself. “Okay, yes, it is. But it’s not an end-all-be-all thing. If you’re not feeling it, or if I do something that turns you off, you can tell me. Or if I need to use anything special, just tell me.”
She stared at me for a few seconds, and then her expression softened. She leaned in and kissed me again.
This time, it was hungrier.
She shifted her hips forward, the friction making me groan into her mouth. She did it again, the pressure dragging along the full length of me through the sweatpants.
My fingers moved up from her waist, finding the zipper of her jacket and dragging it down. I slid my hands under the hem of her shirt, and the feel of her warm, soft skin made me even harder.
Her breath hitched as my thumbs traced the underside of her ribs, and she set a slow, rocking grind that built friction and heat between us.
“Fuck,” I breathed against her mouth.
My mouth found her neck again, and she tipped her head back, her breath coming in short, uneven bursts.
Her fingers dug into my shoulders. “Don’t stop doing that.”
I moved my hands higher, tracing the curve of her waist, and she arched into the touch and shivered.
I cupped her breasts through her bra and pulled the padded fabric down enough to brush my thumbs over her nipples. She gasped.
I circled slowly, and her hips rolled forward harder. The friction was almost too much, but I wasn’t about to stop her. She was making small breathy sounds, and every single one of them went straight through me.
Her fingers tangled in my hair, pulling hard enough to make me groan.
“Lucan—” Her breath caught.
“Come for me.” I kept my voice steady, even though I was barely holding it together. My hips lifted to meet her rhythm, and the pressure was building fast. Too fast.
She shuddered, her body tensing. I felt the moment she came, the way her muscles locked and her weight sagged forward.
I held her there, my hands moving to her back, and kept rocking up into her until the friction and her shaking against me pushed me over the edge.
I bit down on her shoulder through the jacket to muffle the sound I made, my vision going white for a second.
I held her close as she slumped against me.
“Holy shit,” she muttered into my shoulder.
I laughed, my chest still heaving. She lifted her head, her eyes meeting mine. She looked surprised.
I brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “Are you okay?”
Her lips curved into a small, dazed smile. “Yeah. I’m okay.”