Always (Dragon Wars, #3) (13 page)

She rushed to him then tugged his shirt free. After the clothing was off, he kissed her. Tatyana’s lips were warm, soft and all female. She pushed until he deepened their embrace. His mate had been through a terrible ordeal. He didn’t want to do too much, press too hard and yet she drove him on, her need for him tugging at him until he gave into what she wanted.

His mate released him and sucked in a breath. “I can feel...no, smell something off you. Fear. I don’t know how I know, I just do. It hurts my nose.”

He tweaked her chin. “It hurts. I know. I’ve been afraid of losing you. I’m trying to let it go...the kissing helped.”

“Then we’ll do more of it.” She leapt on him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t be afraid anymore, Robert. I feel like heaven. Stronger than I’ve ever been and more alive than I knew possible.”

Robert wrapped her legs around his waist. His cock rushed to life. Someday he’d have her in a bed.

“Bite me again, would you? This time I want to remember it fully.”

He growled, the sound startled him along with the sheer intensity of his need.

“Look at you, being all male and tough.”

“As opposed to all the times I’ve been otherwise?”

Tatyana snorted. He could feel the waves of happiness coming off her and it cooled some of his anxiety. His mate was here, whole, and grinning from ear-to-ear. He kissed her, because he had to, because not doing so would be akin to not breathing.

“Slow.” Robbie whispered in her ear before he nipped. “I want it easy and unrushed, I need to know if can be simple.”

“You killed the queen.” She held his face in her hands and it sent jolts of pleasure through his spine. “We have lots of time right now.”

He kissed her over and over again until drunk off her taste and scent. Her small sounds, the sighs she made against his mouth, and the way her body moved with his every touch, contented his soul in a way he’d not known possible. She was his reward, what he had earned for his years of hell. She would completely be his.

Running his hand over her belly, he savored the ripples of her muscles and the trembling of her reaction.

“I’m so hot.” Her voiced had lowered.

“Yes, you are.”

She pinched him. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, I don’t want you cooled off, although I may be able to make you more comfortable I don’t have it in me to find a bed or risk anyone interrupting.” He tugged at her clothes until she was naked. Gently, he laid her on the floor. With her beautiful and naked beneath him, he also undressed himself. As soon as he joined her, she ran her hands over him as though memorizing his skin.

“Everything feels different to me.” She sniffed at his chest and his cock hardened. “You smell of sandalwood. Did you know?”

“I’ve never heard my scent described. Its not really the kind of thing men discuss with each other.” Sandalwood? She leaned closer. “And smoke, like after a campfire. I really love it.”

“Good.” He took her mouth before she said anything else about how he smelled. Vulnerability never worked for him. Although he loved how she took to her new senses. She was always supposed to be with him. The woman had clearly been born to be his mate, to be a werewolf.

“Wow, Robert, please touch me. I’m burning for you.”

“Burning for me where?” He stroked his fingers across her breasts until he reached her nipples. Using both his hands, he twisted them lightly and she gasped, her eyes flashing heat at him. “Here?”

Her back arched and he smiled. “Where else?”

Robbie scooted until he was directly over. With a smile in his soul which had never been there before, he licked from her breasts to her pussy loving each gasp she emitted. His lady was turned on and they didn’t have to be afraid of her changing.

“Here?” He asked again, loving their little game. Robbie let himself get lost in her heat. Her wet pussy waited for him and her clit was dying to be bit. “I think you might be hot here, baby.”

He bit and she cried out his name.

“Oh, Robbie. Yes. Shit.”

“I love your dirty mouth. Make you really excited and you say the best things.”

She was manna from heaven, everything he’d been missing in his life and he wanted to make her happy. “Anything you want. You understand what I’m saying?”

Her eyes met his. “In bed?”

“And out of it but, yes, in bed.”

“I know I talked to you about this. Humans are kind of repressed. We don’t experiment a lot with sex. Wolves are selective. Wolves don’t have a lot of sex, you’re particular, but from the way I’ve heard it talked about, I think its more exciting. I mean, before it really was with you. The best ever.”

She had his full attention. “What have you been wanting to do in bed you haven’t gotten?”

Robbie clenched his jaw to push off the unreasonable surge of jealousy threatening to take him over. He would never have to see the imbeciles who didn’t get her off properly so he wouldn’t have to kill them.

“Could you,” she swallowed before she stopped talking.

He breathed in her discomfort. Not fear, which made him happy. She should never be anxious when it came to him. Uncertainty, more of a ping than a pain on his senses.

“Tell me.”

“Could you hold down my arms? So I can’t move them? Over my head?”

He smiled. “Fuck yes, I can.”

Her surge of desire scented the room. Damn it, he loved the woman. And he was going to love a lifetime of showing her all the different ways they could come together.

****

T
atyana’s shook. He was going to pin her as she’d asked, and he hadn’t looked at her as if she was a freak for asking for it.

Robert slid his hands over her body until he got to her wrists. “Hold your hands here. Don’t move them. In a minute, I’m going to be inside of you and I am going to press them down. If at any time you want me to let go, you tell me. Or if you want me to ease the pressure, you also say something. If anything hurts, I need to know about it Tatyana. I want to give you what you want as much as you want it. For me, it’s about giving you something you fantasize about. However, if the reality doesn’t match the imagination, you tell me. You’re in charge from beneath me. Got it?”

She did although all she could manage was a nod. With a few adjustments to the way their bodies pressed, he moved above her, positioning his cock on the outside of her pussy. “You belong to me. Tell me you know it, too. Tell me since you shifted you can feel our connection, what it is to be mated.”

“I’m yours.” Like a chord had connected them from heart-to-heart she knew she would always feel him inside of her as integral as the beating of her heart or the air in her lungs.

“Good girl.” He pushed inside of her and she closed her eyes, loving the feeling of suddenly being so full. For the few precious moments, they were together, no longer alone but joined in a way where she could actually know his soul inside of her body.

He moved his hands until he held hers as they’d discussed. His hands were stronger than she’d anticipated and the pinch of pressure on her wrists caught her attention. She didn’t mind the pain, in face she liked the way it bit at her a bit. Robert moved his hips, thrusting in and out of her. Unable to move the top half of her body, she arched her hips to meet his every jolt.

Yes, she loved, wanted, and craved him. It would never be enough.

“Ride with me, baby.” He groaned, the sound of the strain in her voice surging her pleasure further. He wanted her. This strong, alpha male would give her whatever she wanted. Being restrained a bit by him didn’t make her constricted, it allowed her to feel protected. For so long she was alone. Not now. Not again. Not with him.

Her muscles clenched around him, she was close. It wasn’t going to take much. As if he could read her mind, and maybe he could—Robert was amazing—he let go of her arms with one hand, and reached between them to stroke her clit. “Don’t move.”

His instruction and the extra stimulation on her nerves set her off. She orgasmed. Her body arching and pulsing, pleasure and pain mixing until she was crying out—his name, nonsense, nothing—she really had no idea what she said—she just came, like she’d never known she could before.

Robert bit her neck. He marked her. It was a second marking for her, unlike the one she’d gotten when she was dying, his marking made her hotter than she could have imagined. Everyone would be able to see it. And the new wolf inside of her loved the claiming. Robert would never throw her away; he’d never leave or want someone else. Forever meant always and his mark showed he meant it.

With both of them panting, he stared at her, releasing her arms. “Good girl.”

She grinned. “Love you.”

He stopped smiling, his face getting very serious. She gulped, a dose of uncertainty filling her. Should she have not said it? They’d only technically known each other such a short period of time. Was it too soon? She’d spoken because she’d felt it and she could never do better than be true to herself.

“You can never take that back.” He bent over until their foreheads touched. “Mating is intense, it implies certain things, those words come from deep inside our souls even further binding than the mating, the bite. I’m going to hold you to what you said. I haven’t had love, not in a very long time.”

With their heads touching, she could hear how his breathing picked up. His scent changed too, getting deeper, richer. She’d moved him. “I meant it. I’ll never take it back. I’ve never said it before. Well, I mean I guess to my family when I was young. Not like this. Those words are only for you.”

“Oh, Tatyana. You make me feel as if I could fly.” He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them he kissed her softly on the lips. “I love you, too.”

“Don’t ever take that back.” His words made more sense to her than ever before. If he said them and then ever didn’t feel love again, it would kill her.

“Not ever. We are always.”

****

S
he hated they had to get dressed. Standing in the room filled with the other werewolves, Tatyana understood the need to move. Robert had killed the dragon queen only it didn’t mean the danger was over. Not yet, anyway. The human compound was fully visible. They had to hurry along.

Only she needed to deliver some bad news first. Robert stroked her back as he stared at a map laid out on a table in front of them. She pointed toward the mountains. “You killed the Queen. The dragons will be in chaos. Temporarily. A new queen will be born. Unless the eggs are all destroyed before she arrives. They’ll have laid all their most important eggs there.”

Robert bent over to look. “Damn, we’ve never traveled so far into dragon territory.”

“We,” she corrected herself, “I mean the humans did. Hundred years ago. I had the pictures and the books left in the cave to instruct you where to find the eggs.”

“We couldn’t read human.”

Oh, it had never occurred to her they wouldn’t figure out the language. The wolves had rebuilt machines, she’d assumed they’d work out the writing as easily.

“Well, we can correct that.” She bit her lower lip. Robert’s heat made her want to squirm. Only they were in a room with people who could certainly smell her level of sexual interest and knew exactly what they had been doing on the floor in the other room. Although, she found she didn’t care. A knowledge of other people’s business had to be a constant in werewolf life. “Anyway, during the chaos, you’ll have to rid the world of the eggs. We never did. Hence, the resurgence of dragons.”

“We’ll go.” Robert nodded. “Inform Command and get the eggs destroyed.”

“No.” August interrupted. “You’re taking her and going home.”

“Brother.”

“You’re mated, Robbie.” He looked at the rest of the room. “Only single males can be part of our secret group. We’re all dead, remember? No mated male would ever pretend to be. You killed the queen. Take your mate home and have a life. It’s why we’ve fought for so long.”

“What about you?” Dougal interrupted. “You should come home, too. We can all be together. Mom and Dad, they’re almost in transition, before they leave it would give them such joy to see you again—to have all their sons back in a single place with mates and maybe future grandchildren.”

“Not for me.” August shook his head. “Never was. War or no war I was never staying home to be any kind of family man. Reform the pack. I’ve got dragons to kill. Anyone who wants to come with me is welcome.”

Robert’s scent didn’t noticeably change with Auggie’s announcement. He must have known his twin felt the way he did. “I wouldn’t abandon you for anything in the world and I don’t think Tatyana would want me to either.”

Robert shook his head. “We’ll all go together, August.”

“Hell.” He shook his head. “The only thing which is going to help me through what has to happen—burning eggs—will be knowing you’re all at home rebuilding. Why else should any of us bother to go through the destruction? Go home, Robbie. And for fuck’s sake, stop denying you’re Alpha. It’s getting old.”

She laughed, covering her mouth. The present wasn’t the time for amusement and yet the way August put things, she couldn’t help her snicker. She must not have been the only one because before long everyone in the room was laughing, hard. Except for Robert. He crossed his arms. Robert’s twin was not amused although she knew from watching him he almost never was.

Why should then be any different?

****

F
our months later...

When she’d first come to live with the pack, or what was becoming the pack, Tatyana assumed everyone would see right through her, know something was off with who she was and where she’d come from. Robert hadn’t wanted anyone to know she’d been human. Too many questions and too much risk from everyone coming home after years of war. Who knew what kind of psychological damage even people who cared about them had been through?

No one had ever guessed a thing.

They’d told everyone she was a Knox cousin and their statement remained unquestioned. If she seemed off, they never mentioned it, and hell they were all off since the war anyway. Four months and August had not come home.

It weighed on her mate. The piece of their family who was missing and couldn’t be filled...