Dark Embers (29 page)

“What the hell is going through your mind?”

She pulled out of her reverie enough to see Dylan bending down until his eyes were on the same level as hers. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit. Whatever it is, just get it out right now.”

She swallowed despite her suddenly dry throat. “You don’t think you bought—”

“No, I don’t think that.” His voice was firm, his eyes resolute. “I’m sorry if something I did made you believe—even for a second—that I could think something that despicable.”

Despite his protestations, she felt the need to say something more. “I’m with you because I want to be.”

“As am I.” He held out a hand. “Now let’s go explore some more.

If you want to see some gems, wait until you see the rest of the cave.”

They worked their way into the next room. “What’s the real reason you have all these jewels? It can’t just be because they’re pretty.”

“They help with—” He stopped abruptly.

“With what?” she asked curiously.

“Never mind.” He pulled her along. “There’s more to see.”

It stung that he wasn’t willing to trust her with the answer to her question, but then, he’d already stepped pretty far outside his comfort zone tonight when he’d shifted in front of her. It wasn’t like he hadn’t trusted her with more of himself than anyone else ever had.

They didn’t talk much as Dylan continued the tour. He showed her rooms with natural baths, and one with a waterfall. Others were filled with more gems and treasures than she could possibly imagine.

When they finally got to his bedroom, an opulent room filled with the most gorgeous speleothems she’d ever seen—mineral shelves and long, winding crystals—she stood in the center of it, just absorbing her surroundings. In the middle of the room was a gigantic bed covered in a comforter of the darkest sapphire silk. Huge tables flanked the bed, and a few yards away were hot springs that warmed the entire room.

“You sleep here?” she asked incredulously.

“I do. But if you don’t like it, I can take you back to town. To the house.”

“Are you kidding?” She wrapped her arms around his waist, rested her head on his chest. “When else will I have the chance to sleep in a cave surrounded by all the luxuries of home?”

He stiffened against her, but when she glanced up at his face, he was smiling. “So you like it?”

“I love it.”

His eyes gleamed, and she was suddenly conscious of her nudity—and his. Crossing the room, she pulled back the covers on the bed and looked at the sapphire silk sheets. “I really don’t have to worry about creepy-crawlies down here?”

“Not a one.”

“Okay.” She climbed in. “And where do I, um—”

“The bathroom’s through there.” He nodded to an alcove. “I can show you if you want to get cleaned up.”

“Right, cleaned up.” Her eyes fell on the hot springs. “Can we wash up in there?”

“Absolutely.”

He went over to what looked like a man-made closet against one of the huge chamber’s walls and pulled out a couple of towels—also in dark blue. Then he held out a hand to help her into the water.

It felt wonderful against her aching body—not boiling, as some hot springs were, but definitely hot enough to ease the kinks and aches that had come with her last enthusiastic bout of sex with Dylan. “What’s with you and blue?” she asked, playing with the sapphire around his neck. “Everything’s blue in here—even the gems in the walls.”

He shrugged, but his eyes were careful as he watched her. “Sapphires have always worked for me.”

“Worked how?”

“Surrounded me with good energy. Helped me clear my mind, make good decisions.” He noted her look of disbelief. “I know it sounds stupid, but—”

“I’m sitting in a natural bath in an underground cave with a man who can change into a dragon, and you think a little thing like sapphires promoting mental clarity is going to trip me up? Give me a break.” She ran a hand over his face. “Although you don’t look like the type to believe in all that stuff.”

He captured her hand, held it against his cheek. Then turned his head and kissed her palm. “It’s hard not to believe in all that stuff, when you grow up knowing it as fact.”

“Right. Of course.”

“Besides, they’re the exact color of your eyes when you get angry.”

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you think I antagonize you so much?” He grinned at her—he’d been doing a lot of that through the evening—and she couldn’t help admiring how much younger he looked. How much more carefree, when the smile actually reached his eyes.

She started to tell him so, but when his tongue reached out and caressed her index finger, she got distracted by the sparks shooting through her. His teeth nipped lightly at her fingertip before he gently pulled it into his mouth and swirled his tongue around it in slow, lazy circles. And then he started to suck, a subtle back-and-forth motion that made her breath catch in her throat and her eyes roll back in her head.

Minutes before, she would have sworn she was too tired for this, had believed that she was completely worn-out. But she couldn’t deny the need flowing through her, arcing between them. Didn’t want to deny it. Dylan—with his mystical ways and incredible intensity—wasn’t meant to be hers forever. But he was with her now, and she would take whatever he could give her.

As he slowly relinquished his grip on her finger, she bit back a protest. Then shuddered with delight as he shimmied his mouth over her palm in a trail of soft, teasing kisses.

“Dylan,” she gasped as her body tightened to the point of pain. “I need you.”

He merely laughed, the sound dark and sexy and so seductive that Phoebe felt her sex clench in response. Leisurely, as if he wasn’t half as affected by what he was doing as she was, Dylan pressed long, lazy kisses to the bend of her elbow, to her wrist, to the front and back of her hand. Then traced his tongue along her life line, her love line, slowly working his way to her mound of Venus. And there, right above where her palm met her wrist, he bit her. Gently, firmly, his teeth sinking in even as he soothed the hurt away with his tongue.

She cried out, grabbed on to him with her free hand and pressed her lips to his. She slid her tongue along the seam of his lips, trying to get deeper, trying to take his essence inside her, but he merely laughed. And slipped away from her grasping fingers.

“Where are you going?” she cried, her body aching for him. “Come back.” A part of her—the rational one—was shocked that Dylan had so easily reduced her to pleading, but the rest of her didn’t care. All that mattered was touching him, taking him into her mouth and her body. She wanted to taste him, to feel him come against her tongue. Wanted to swallow him down so that she had a part of him inside her, even if it was just for a little while.

It was a strange feeling, one she’d never had for another man. But it was there nonetheless, and in those moments, she needed Dylan like she needed water—for her very survival.

“Dylan, please. Come back.”

“You’re the one who wanted to know what else I could do.”

“Later. You can show me later.”

“Why? When it’s so much fun to do it now.”

“Fun for whom?” She was pouting and didn’t even care.

“You’ll see. Now stand up.”

She crossed her arms over her bare breasts. “What if I don’t want to stand? It’s cold out there.”

His laugh echoed through the chamber. “I’ll warm you up.”

Now, that sounded more along the lines of what she’d been hoping for. She stood up so quickly that she nearly slipped on the rock formations. Dylan caught her with one hand, and she shivered at the feel of his calloused palm against her too-sensitive skin.

“Now step up one more.”

“Where?”

He gestured to a raised portion of the rock bench she’d been sitting on.

“I’ll be almost completely out of the water if I stand there.”

“That’s the point. Come on, Phoebe. Trust me.”

She did what he asked, reluctantly, shocked at how exposed she felt standing there while he was still chest deep in the water. It was so much harder to be covered to her calves in water, the rest of her body bared to his gaze, than it was to be completely naked in front of him. Maybe because she knew cover was only a short slide away, and yet she didn’t reach for it—because Dylan had asked her not to. Yes, it was the vulnerability he teased out of her, the way he tried to make her bend to his will, that made her so uncomfortable—and so aroused, all at the same time.

“Now close your eyes.”

“Dylan, please. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the steadiest on my feet—”

“I won’t let you fall. I promise.” His voice was deeper now, more dragon than man, and she didn’t know how she felt about it.

“Dylan.”

“Do it, Phoebe.” He barked out the order, and her spine stiffened. She wasn’t used to taking orders from anyone, and taking them now, from Dylan, grated on her nerves.

But then he touched her, running his index finger from the hollow of her throat down the center of her body to her navel, and her body clenched in response.

“Come on, Phoebe. Trust me. Close your eyes. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Freaked out, pissed off, turned on and absolutely desperate for release, Phoebe did as she was told.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

D
ylan stepped back and watched Phoebe as she shivered with cold and arousal. A part of him wanted to quit the games, to just go to her and love her as he’d been doing all along. But another part wanted to give her this, wanted her to see yet another side of him—and enjoy it.

With a deep breath, he concentrated on shifting, not into dragon form, but into his other, more secret form. Few people knew he could do this—Gabe and Quinn, Shawn and Logan—as it was rare for dragons. But her question,
What else can you do?
hung in his mind. Made him want to show her just what he could do.

The shifting started—all pleasure and no pain this time, as his bones didn’t have to break, elongate, change. No, they simply dissolved as he turned from human to smoke. Seconds passed, a minute, as the change took place. He could hear Phoebe moving restlessly from one foot to the other, each shift in her weight causing a little ripple in the pool.

And then it was complete, his body gone. He could still feel in this form, could still think and smell and see and taste, though he had no skin. No mouth. Shifting into smoke was one of the rarest gifts and biggest mysteries his people possessed. But as he floated across the hot springs toward his lover—visible only in the soft gray curls he’d become—it was a gift for which he was intensely grateful.

He started with her legs, winding himself around her like a snake—stroking, soothing, seducing her with a featherlight touch that had her gasping for air. He skimmed up to her hips, focused on a ticklish spot he’d found on her hip bone.

She giggled, but didn’t jerk away. And she kept her eyes closed, making him warm at the sign of trust.

Moving on, he circled her hips, wrapped himself in rings and caressed her from her waist to her upper thighs all at once. He dipped into her navel, circled the slight indention, softly, slowly, again and again until her stomach quivered and clenched.

He wanted to move lower, to brush against her clit, to slip inside her and feel what it was like to take her in this form, but it was too soon. She wasn’t ready. And more, he wanted her to know him—to see him as he was now—when he finally brought her to climax.

So he moved on reluctantly, though every cell in his strange, weightless body demanded that he dip in and taste her, smell her, feel her warm depths.

Deciding he wasn’t steady enough to caress her breasts yet—he would end up inside her the second he tasted her sweet, pink nipples—he started circling her again, then slowly inched his way up her back.

The scars were still there, harsh and ugly and enraging. He skimmed over them, covered them, stroked them all at the same time to show her once and for all that they didn’t matter to him. That they only made him want her more, these badges of courage she had received while trying to save someone she loved.

She gasped, tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead he gave them soothing caresses, glancing kisses, trailing fingertips.

He slipped up to her shoulders, kneaded the aching muscles even as he allowed himself to slide up the pale, soft skin of her neck. He teased her, taunted her, explored the hollows of her neck as he liked to do with his tongue, trailed delicate tendrils up her jaw, licked into her ear with a soft laugh.

She stiffened at the contact, let her head fall back as her nipples peaked. He stayed there for a moment, rimming the soft shell of her ear before sneaking behind to kiss the sensitive spot on her neck.

Phoebe moaned, trembled, and the scent of her arousal filled the room. He breathed it in, loving the vanilla smell of her, the sweet warmth that told him just how much she wanted him.

He lingered at her throat, behind her ear—it was one of his favorite spots, after all—but eventually he wanted more. Needed more. He worked his way through her glorious curls, blew just a little bit, and sent them streaming out behind her for his enjoyment.