A ripping sound pulled him up sharply to find she’d torn his shirt clean off.
“Lyndi—”
“Please,” she begged.
He knew everything she was asking with that one word. For at least this one time together. To not talk about what it all meant or where it would or wouldn’t lead. Not yet. To just give in.
Levi grinned, brutally satisfied—for the moment—and her pupils dilated at the sight, no doubt his smile falling on the predator side. In a rush of kisses and touches and backing her up through the suite, they managed to get her out of her clothes. Smoothing his palms over her skin, he cupped his hands over her bare ass to lift her up, fitting her against him. Without an ounce of hesitation, Lyndi wrapped her arms around his neck and undulated her body, grinding herself against the straining shaft of his cock, even through his jeans.
Convulsively, his fingers dug into the toned flesh he gripped as he tried to keep from dropping his pants and pushing into her then and there. Damned if he wasn’t going to make this incredible for both of them. He wanted her so satiated, she wouldn’t have the energy to fly away from him the second they were done.
Shoving that thought away, he focused on how he wanted to leave her…replete and filled with his seed.
Fuck.
When had he turned into a caveman?
Needing to wrest back the control she’d taken with that grinding move, he slipped one hand farther around until he found the slick core of her. But he didn’t enter her with his fingers. Instead, he teased, feathering a touch through her folds, just barely avoiding the bundle of nerves at the top of her entrance.
Over and over and over, mimicking the movement with deeper strokes of his tongue in her mouth, winding it with her own. Pressing, but not entering with his fingers, until she was moving her hips, seeking a deeper penetration, chasing his touch, frustration edging her moans.
He wanted her full surrender. Needed it.
She would never, ever give into him anywhere else. He needed this here.
“Fuck me, dammit,” she demanded against his lips.
Levi drew back to pin her with a look of total and utter command. “In here, I give the orders.”
“The fuck you do—”
In one swift move, he impaled her with his finger, sending it deep, and she choked off her words to toss her head back on a moan of pure pleasure that shot blood pumping into his already engorged cock.
Sliding that finger out with deliberate, torturous slowness, he added another and slid back home. “I know you need to be in control in everything you do,” he murmured, voice gone dark and smoky with his need, his dragon, impatient and edgy, wanting to be part of the action. The sight of the pleasure flushing her cheeks, the way her mouth opened as she panted, was stealing his control bit by bit. “But when we…are together in this way…I need this.”
She shook her head, her long dark hair that he’d released from the elastic binding at some point brushing the back of the hand holding her up. “I can’t,” she panted.
“You can,” he insisted. “Give me this part of you. You’ll never regret it. I promise. But in the bedroom, you obey me.”
Her head snapped up in defiance at that, even as her gaze remained hazy, and he stopped the motion of his fingers inside her, staring her down steadily. “Your choice,” he said.
Dragonsteel bands seemed to wrap around his chest, cutting off his breathing as he waited for her answer. Her permission.
For an interminable beat, she searched his eyes, for gods knew what. “You won’t hurt me?”
The dragon in his head made a sound close to a purr. She was going to give in. Levi grinned, watching her through half-closed eyes. “Only if you want me to.”
Deliberately, he crooked a finger, feeling for that spot inside her that would make her shudder. Ah, there it was.
A whimper escaped her lips.
“Agreed,” she said softly, that husky voice of hers wrapping around him as effectively as a fist around his cock.
Everything inside him stilled. Bright relief spiked through him at odds with the moment, bigger than what he’d expected. Only he was far from confident that the surrender she was giving was anything more than her body.
“Are you sure? I won’t ever take advantage of you. I’ll take care of your every need. Your. Every. Fucking. Need, Lyndi. But you need to be sure.”
“I’m sure.” She wiggled, as though trying to kickstart him back into what he’d been doing.
Instead, he pulled his fingers from her.
“Hey—”
“I’m in charge,” he reminded her.
She snapped her mouth shut with a glare but said nothing more. With a nod of satisfaction, he carried her through to her bedroom.
Pausing on the threshold, he took it in, never having dared invade this space. Lyndi had eclectic taste. Plain black T-shirts and jeans were her usual mode of dress. But in here, she’d decorated full-on old-school with a massive fourposter bed human kings and queens of the Renaissance would have envied. Heavy red velvet curtains hung from the ornately carved wooden canopy, tied back with silky ropes of the same color. The carving was of dragons, undulating together, a beautiful depiction of what he was about to do to her. Giving him ideas.
With a grunt at the images flooding his mind, he strode to the bed. There he lowered her feet to the ground and stepped away, backing up until he put the full distance of the room between them.
This would be about taking the control she’d just given him and earning her trust. He’d worry about tomorrow—and everything else he wanted from her—later.
Chapter Three
She’d always thought it would be her. That she would have to leave. That she’d be “assigned” a mate and forced to go off and start a new life, back in Everest most likely, where the High King needed her to politically tie someone down or lift them up. Most likely the latter. Only another red dragon would do for the King of the Red Clan’s cousin. But never this. Never Levi going to fight.
The news had hit her with all the subtlety of an atomic bomb, and any control she’d had over her reactions to him had flown right out the damn window like shattered glass. She knew they had no time, no future. But they could have this. This one moment together.
Lyndi didn’t try to control her racing heart, didn’t want to, even though she knew Levi would be able to hear it with ease. She wanted him to. Wanted him to know that what he was doing was turning her on, because she’d never allowed herself to be that free with him. Not ever.
He wanted to be in charge?
She shouldn’t be surprised. He was always trying to boss her around. But out there, that annoyed the shit out of her. In here, damned if surrender wasn’t exactly what she wanted to give him. She spent her days proving herself, fighting to be heard, making tough decisions, guiding her boys, and generally being the adult who cleaned up the mess behind everyone.