Sera's Dragon Read online

  Lock the door? Are you kidding? Did you see what he did to the locked front door?

  She ignored the thought. Now wasn’t the time to be rational. She had a guy in her home who claimed to be a dragon.

  Her heels skidded from under her as she reached the end of the short hallway and she almost went down. Scrambling for traction, she pulled herself upright and dove into her bedroom, grabbing the edge of the door as she did so. She turned and, throwing all her weight behind the door, slammed it shut.

  Or rather, slammed it into her mysterious stranger’s open palm.

  He stood directly on the other side of the threshold, his stare locked on her face, his nostrils flaring. He lifted his other hand, her towel hanging from his fingers. “Drop something?”

  She turned and ran across her room, searching for the heaviest, hardest thing she could find. A weapon. She needed a weapon.

  There was nothing. Nothing except her iPad on her bedside table.

  She snatched it up and spun around to glare at him, wielding the slim device. “Come near me and I’ll—”

  He stepped into her bedroom. Tall and dark and imposing and sexy and delusional. “God, you’re magnificent,” he stated with a shake of his head, as if in awe. “I can see why we’re mates.”

  Sera stood her ground. Just. She jiggled the iPad beside her head and stamped her foot, all too aware she was naked again. Damn, how intimidating could a girl look, naked and waving an iPad? “Will you stop saying that?”

  Her deluded cultist psychopathic stalker grinned. “Nope.”

  She ground her teeth. “Okay, if you really are a dragon, prove it. Change. Now.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her, his dark eyes dancing with mirth. Mirth, of all things. “You do know what a dragon looks like, right? Big reptile creature with wings? If I shift now I’ll destroy your entire apartment and quite likely cause some serious structural damage to the whole building.”

  Sera barked out a harsh laugh. “Huh! How convenient.” She darted a quick glance around her room, looking for something more threatening than the iPad and found nothing. Not even a pair of work boots she could hurl at him. Damn it, from now on she was keeping a cricket bat beside her bed. Better yet, a bazooka.

  Her stranger’s lips curled into a relaxed smile. “I’ll tell you what, come with me to the Gap and I’ll show you.”

  Sera’s heart slammed into her throat. “The Gap? That cliff overlooking the Tasman Sea? The place where quite a few people go to commit suicide? Why the fuck do you want me to go there?”

  “It’s secluded and at this time of night, deserted. I don’t want anyone seeing what I’m going to do.”

  Sera’s heart didn’t just slam into her throat at his words, it damn near leapt out of her mouth. “Gee, let me think. A nutjob stalker who thinks he’s a dragon is asking me to go with him to a suicide cliff so there are no witnesses. Whatever should I do?”

  Her nutjob stalker took a step toward her. “Well, hon, it’s either come with me to the Gap or make love to me right here and now on your bed.”

  She cocked her head, pouring every ounce of her disdain into her face as she hefted her iPad higher above her shoulder. “Those are my only options? I don’t have, oh, I don’t know, the option to kick your head in before calling the cops?”

  He shook his un-kicked-in head. “No.”

  She sucked a ragged breath. The mirth had left his face. Just like that, the laughing, relaxed psychopath was gone. Replaced with a man radiating raw desire and burning hunger. It should have petrified her. Why didn’t it? She should be scared but she wasn’t. She was angry, she was incredulous and she was something else she wouldn’t under any circumstances let herself analyze, but she wasn’t scared.

  Why not?

  Her stranger’s nostrils flared. “You’re not scared because your body, your heart, your id, knows exactly who I am. It makes no sense, I know—you’re human, after all, but it is what it is. I know you can feel it, a powerful pull in the pit of your belly, an undeniable yearning in your soul. A heat so exquisite in your sex.”

  Sera gasped. He was right. How the hell was he right? She stared at him, all too aware her nipples were hard points of flesh. All too aware she was utterly, completely exposed.

  And now, all too aware she was turned-on. Aroused like never before.

  Damn it, she was as depraved and insane as he was.

  “H-how do you know…” She couldn’t finish asking the question. It was lunacy.

  Her stranger’s lips curled into a slow smile. “Because you’re my Fire Mate, and I am yours.”

  She swallowed. The tingling in her pussy she’d done her best to deny was growing more insistent. “What does that mean?”

  His smile curled some more. “This.”

  He crossed her room in three long strides, plucked the iPad from her hands, tossed it aside and threw her onto the bed. His hands shoved her legs apart before she’d finished bouncing on the mattress, his mouth capturing her sex with wicked greed.

  She cried out, not in terror or fury or shock, but with pleasure. The second his lips claimed her folds, the second his tongue stroked her clit, she was awash in pleasure. She fisted the duvet beneath her, bunching the silk as she squeezed her eyes shut. Gasping breaths tore from her throat, shallow and rapid and hot. God, how could she let this happen…how could she want this?

  How could she not?

  His tongue tormented her clit, his hands roaming her thighs, her arse. He hauled her closer, securing her tightly to his mouth, jerking her hips off the bed as he did so. She cried out again, her pussy flooding with liquid heat at his aggression. This was insanity—and she didn’t care.

  Damned if she did. Whatever the hell was going on, it was right. He was right. Her stranger was right. She was meant for this, for him.

  “Oh God.” She rolled her head from side to side, planting her feet on the bed and straining onto her tiptoes to push her sex closer to his masterful mouth. “That feels so good. So good.”

  His tongue wriggled into her slit, back over her clit and into her sex again. His hands cupped and squeezed her arse cheeks, his fingers working closer and closer to her hole. She’d never been touched there, and she was aching for a complete stranger to do so. A ribbon of wanton need twisted through her belly, made her moan and thrust harder against his mouth.

  “P-please…” she groaned, opening her eyes to stare with dazed rapture at her bedroom ceiling. “Your name…tell me your—”

  He lifted his head from her pussy, replacing his tongue in her folds with two fingers. “Tyson.”

  The name was a growl and it awoke in her an elemental want. Her very nerve endings seemed to ignite with pleasure. Her entire body thrummed on the cusp of something beyond her comprehension. It was as if she was being torn apart and remade for him and him alone, all from the mere utterance of his name. God, how would she survive when he possessed her with his body?

  A shudder rocked through her at the euphoric thought. Her sex pulsed, constricting on his squirming, scissoring fingers.

  “Tyson,” she moaned, his name like ambrosia on her tongue. “Tyson.”

  He growled again, a truly animalistic sound, and reclaimed her sex with his mouth. His tongue lapped at her folds, her clit. His fingers raked over her backside, smearing her juices over her flesh. He stroked them over her puckered anus and she gasped, bucking upward. Fresh pleasure pooled in her core and she called out his name again. It felt wonderful on her lips, powerful. A secret only she knew. And every time she called it, her pussy contracted and her body reacted.

  “You taste like molten honey,” Tyson said against her inner thigh, his fingers dipping back into her folds. “I could drown in your taste without fight or regret.”

  The proclamation sent a tight shudder through Sera’s center. She was close to coming. Damn it, she was so close—and she wanted so much more.

  She wanted his cock inside her. She wanted his tongue in her mouth and his hands on her breasts. She
wanted all of him. Wanted him to brand her, mark her as his and—

  He flicked his tongue over her clit and then sucked on the tiny nub and she lost all train of thought.

  “Oh yes oh yes oh yes!”

  The words left her in breathless pants. A quivering sensation began to build at the base of her spine, in her anus, in her core. He sucked on her clit and wriggled his fingers in her sex and she whimpered and tossed her head and clung to the duvet. And just when she didn’t think she could take any more, just when she knew she was going to erupt, going to come, he dropped her bottom back onto the bed, slid up her body and captured her lips with his.

  She tasted her pleasure. His fingers continued their scissoring torment of her sex, driving her higher and higher, closer and closer to release. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, cursing the fact he was still clothed even as she loved the way his hard body pinned her to the bed. He was massive and powerful and in total control of her pleasure.

  Her surrender should have terrified her. Instead, it made her ache for more.

  For it all.

  His tongue swirled over hers, his fingers stroking at the sweetest spot within her constricting pussy. She buried her hands in his hair, the cool, soft strands like a balm to her flushed skin. She was on fire. So hot with need and lust and desire she wondered how she still lived. Could a person die from pleasure overload? Spontaneously combust from rapture?

  When their lover is a dragon, perhaps it’s possible.

  The thought whispered through her dizzy mind, wickedly ridiculous and at the same time completely sane. It sent a ribbon of pleasure unfurling through her, or maybe that was his other hand closing over her breast…

  She whimpered into his mouth, and then moaned in protest as his lips dragged away from hers. A moan that turned into another whimper as he flicked his tongue over her distended nipple before sucking it. Hard.

  “Fuck yes!” She arched beneath him, grinding her clit to his palm and holding his head to her breast. “Harder, suck it harder.”

  He did, drawing on her nipple with greedy force. His tongue tortured the tip and she closed her eyes, unable to stand even the dim light of her room anymore. She was experiencing sensory meltdown. Anything else but what Tyson meted upon her body was too much.

  With every caress of his fingers inside her, she grew hotter. With every suck on her nipple, every knead of her breast, she grew closer. If he were to touch her clit once more she would come. She didn’t doubt it.

  And still she wanted more.

  “Oh God, Tyson, I want you inside me. I need your cock inside me. So much.”

  He groaned, rolling his tongue over her nipple before lifting his head to stare down into her face. “I…you need…” He licked his lips, his face a mask of tormented agony. “Tell me your name.”

  “Sera,” she gasped. She could barely hold on any longer. Her climax rushed at her, a squirming tension beyond her control. “Sera Hayes.”

  “I need to feast on your fire first, Sera,” his eyes shimmered dark heat, “or else…”

  He didn’t finish. Instead he buried his head between her thighs once more. His hands gripped her arse cheeks, his fingers pressed against her anus, his tongue stroked her clit.

  And she came.

  Powerful, constricting convulsions of utter release that racked her body. She came and she cried out his name, a name he’d uttered barely moments before and yet it felt like the only one she’d ever known.

  The only name that ever mattered.

  And just as he said he would, Tyson feasted. He continued to lap at her folds, his hands spreading her thighs wider, his tongue stroking and laving her sex as the last throb of her climax faded.

  Sera lay motionless, staring at her ceiling. She knew she should say something. She’d just had the most intense orgasm of her life. She should at last say “good work”. But all she could do was bite her bottom lip and listen to her heart hammer in her ears. All she could do was lie still and feel him continue to lick her pussy.

  All she could do was feel the fire of her release radiating through her body and wonder where her sanity had gone.

  Say something. Anything.

  What? What could she say to the man who insisted he was a dragon and who just gave her the best freaking orgasm she’d ever had?

  “I hope you didn’t break my iPad when you threw it aside.”

  Idiot.

  Tyson chuckled. He lifted his head and worked his way up her body to settle between her legs. His erection, still trapped by his jeans, nudged at her swollen folds and she let out a little groan.

  “I threw it gently onto the pillow. See?” He shifted, stretching for something beyond her head. His cock pushed harder at her sex and she groaned again. How could she possibly still be horny?

  ’Cause you’re an insane skanky ho, remember?

  A grin curled Tyson’s lips as he resettled between her thighs, his obsidian eyes watching her over the top of her iPad as he held it in front of her face for inspection.

  She let out her own chuckle. “Good to see.”

  He nodded, dropping it back onto the bed before studying her face. “Now, do you believe I am—”

  “Hellooooo?” A high-pitched, decidedly female voice called from the front of Sera’s apartment. “Is anyone there?”

  Sera’s stomach lurched. With a jarring smack of reality, she remembered her front door was still open. Kicked wide open by the man between her legs.

  Anyone could walk in. Or hear what they’d just done. Anyone at all.

  She stared up into Tyson’s face, her cheeks hot, her stomach knotting.

  And heard footsteps on her hallway floor.

  Chapter 4

  Sera scrambled off the bed. Or more to the point, she shoved Tyson off her, kicking and thrashing her legs so much in her efforts to clamber off the mattress she whacked him in the shoulder, the chest, the balls and the gut.

  He hissed in a breath, mainly at the pain in his unsuspecting balls, before twisting off the bed and straightening to his feet.

  “Fuck, where are my clothes?”

  Sera was throwing the duvet around, wide-eyed. She didn’t seem to notice her iPad went clattering to the floor. Tyson watched her, a part of him wanting to laugh. Another part of him, however, realized that was probably a foolish idea.

  “Of course,” she went on, and he got the feeling she wasn’t talking to him, “the day I need clothes lying around everywhere is the day I actually decide to be tidy and put them away in the freaking morning.”

  For a second, Tyson considered reminding her it was likely she’d find a wealth of clothes inside the cupboard opposite the bed, but he was enjoying the show too much.

  “Hellooo?” the uninvited arrival called again, her voice closer. “Is anyone here? The door was open.”

  Sera spun to him, gloriously naked, hair a wild tumble of red, cheeks flushed, breasts heaving.

  His groin tightened. His dick, still rigid and aching for release, jerked in his jeans. His skin practically shimmered from scalding heat, the force of the mating fire still controlling his body. He wanted to throw her back on the bed and fuck her senseless, regardless of their unexpected guest. Let whoever it was watch, for all he cared.

  But Sera cared. He could see it in the panic on her face. And for his Fire Mate, he would do anything.

  In a blur, he retrieved her towel from the floor near the door and held it out to her.

  She leapt at him. Snatched the towel from his hand and wrapped it around herself so tightly he wondered how she could actually breathe.

  “Are you there, dearie?”

  Tyson narrowed his eyes. He knew that voice, didn’t he?

  “Dearie?” Sera frowned.

  Christ, it’s the old fucking duck!

  Sera’s mouth fell open. “That sounds like the old lady from the café! What the fuck is she doing here?”

  He looked at her, his gut knotting. “You know her?”

  She glared at him
. “She harassed me after your kiss on the footpath. I have no idea who the hell she is.” Her glare almost crackled with tension. “This is all your—”

  “Dearie?”

  With a muttered, “Shit. Stay here,” Sera shoved past Tyson and all but ran from her bedroom.

  “Oh, hello, dearie,” he heard the old duck say, and the knot in his gut twisted. There was something wrong about the elderly woman. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The same something that had caught him off guard back at the café before he’d chased after Sera. A sharpness to her voice. An awareness. Like the old woman wasn’t as old as she appeared to be. Like she was only pretending to be decrepit and doddering.

  “What the hell are you doing in my home?” he heard Sera snap, her anger turning the words sharp. “Did you follow me? How dare you—”

  “I just wanted to check on something,” the old duck interrupted, her voice growing less old and less duckish with every syllable. Less duckish and more… “Wanted to be sure before…”

  Tyson’s heart slammed into his throat. Ice surged through his veins. The old duck wasn’t just an old duck at all. She was—

  Dangerous.

  In a single stride, he stepped out of Sera’s bedroom, his gaze falling instantly on the stooped old woman shuffling toward his mate.

  She snapped up when she saw him, growing a good foot as her spine straightened from its previous hunch. Her eyes, still behind coke-bottle glasses, widened and her pink-smeared lips stretched into a hideous smile of delight. “I knew it!” she cried.

  Tyson leapt at her, smashing his fist into her jaw.

  She went down in a crumpled, pink-wearing heap to the ground.

  Sera screamed. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He turned to face her, his gut still knotting. “Listen, hon, I don’t have time to sugarcoat it. You need to get dressed now. Jeans, boots if you have them and a long-sleeve shirt.”

  She gaped at him and for the first time since arriving at her apartment, he saw genuine fear in her eyes. Christ, this wasn’t how it was meant to go. He was meant to be inside her body by now, moving inside her, bonding with her, mating with her…