When you’ve lived alone as long as I had, patience became a strange concept. On the one hand, I’d been on my own and had learned to be patient about many things. On the other hand, I’d been deprived of company—of a true connection—for so long that I was greedy for every little touch and smile.
Bianca had been dropped into my lap by some kind of miracle, and through sheer stubbornness, she had managed to poke holes in all of my defenses. The truth was, I’d been so stuck in my own ways that I’d needed her to shake things up. I’d stopped caring about even controlling my powers and had fully begun to believe the narrative of my exacting grandfather: I was a failure who could not fully shift to human, and it was to be expected that I’d fail at controlling my powers.
Dropping into a landing in front of my cabin, I was determined not to let that kind of thinking hold me back. Bianca had shown me that I was quite in control when I wanted to be, or even when I didn’t think about it. Knowing that, how could I not want to keep her and prove to her that she was right?
The snow flirted around my knees, soft as powder and blessedly cool. I smiled, and the feeling was strange—foreign—as it pulled on my cheeks. Biance pressed her fingers to the corner of my smile. “You look so handsome, Ísarr. You should smile more often.” I shot her a glare that couldn’t help but morph back into a smile.
“You’re still sure about staying?” I asked, slowly lowering her to her feet in the snow below the front porch. I kept my arms around her waist to make sure she could not retreat, just in case she said no. I itched to take her to my hoard to make love to her there, and I was just as eager to have her in my bed and never let her leave. Instead, I made myself go still as I awaited her answer.
“Yeah, as long as you promise to come to Christmas dinner, Ísarr. No more hiding, okay?” I growled a rough promise, because—let’s face it—I was in so deep by now, I’d say or do anything to keep her. Then I swept her back into my arms and headed for the door.
“Hold it,” she said with a laugh, just as my boot nudged against the wooden panel. “I demand a Christmas tree too, it’s my favorite season, you know?” Her eyes were glittering with happiness, and I was just as eager to keep her in my cabin as I was to see that look in her eyes.
“Sure, we’ll get a tree, garlands, fucking reindeer if that’s what you want. Later! First, I’m going to properly claim you—on the bed, and then on top of my hoard.” I kicked the door open and swept inside with her to the sound of her laughter.
The interior was cold, but I had no time to bother with a fire. I’d warm her up the old-fashioned way. My hands knocked her handmade, pink, flowery hat off her black curls. Then I pushed her coat down her arms and dipped to help her kick off her boots. I didn’t bother undressing myself; I’d get to that later. I didn’t even care about the wet snow I tracked all over my hardwood floors.
Kissing her, I caught laughter and changed it to moans. Then her hands were on me, stroking, petting, setting my blood ablaze. I had not pulled my wings back in, and her hand found the upper edge and stroked. Sensation lanced through me, straight to my groin, and I hardened in a flash. Damn it, why did she make me so hot for her? I was an ice dragon, for God’s sake—I was made of cooler stuff than this.
“Bedroom,” I warned her, and I pushed, too eager to see her naked on my sheets, surrounded by all the things I’d made. In my domain, and irrevocably mine.
***
Bianca
I didn’t think I’d ever get Ísarr to unbend from that stern scowl he’d first greeted me with. To see him unravel for me, to see him smile, it was catnip. But I had to tease him, I had to keep prodding him to shake things up, because I knew that’s exactly what he needed. Now, though, I knew I’d teased just a bit too much, demanding a tree… Yeah, that could definitely come later.
He had me backing into his bedroom, yanking the clothing from my body with rough hands. My sweater went over my head with a crackle of static as it clung to my hair. My jeans were shoved down my hips and nearly made me trip. Of course, then he just picked me up and tossed me with a bounce onto the blankets of his large, canopied bed. I saw no sign of the mirth he’d felt earlier, only the predator in his pale blue eyes.
His chest was still bare, and his wings rose over his shoulders—pale at the edges and darker blue across the thick membranes.Delicate patterns, like snowflakes, edged them, as if they decorated his shoulders. The thought struck me that perhaps Isárr was simply too powerful to contain all that in a human body—an ice dragon through and through. His family were all idiots if they could not see that.
I welcomed him with open arms when he crawled onto the bed with me. It was strange to feel so connected to a man I was supposed to barely know, but none of that mattered. He was the one, and I was all too willing to believe in magic. Especially when he kissed me and stroked his calloused hands along my skin, when he dipped them between my legs and stroked my folds through my wet panties.
We’d combusted together in the forest earlier today. That had been fast, intense, and a little crazy. This? This was very different. As if having me in his bed allowed him to slow down and take his time, he cherished every inch of me with slow, maddening brushes of his hands and tongue. Each time I tried to touch him in turn, he’d snarl and pin my hands above my head with a stern warning. It was very tempting to keep doing that, because that look made me tingle.
Finally, when he’d brought me quivering and trembling to the edge several times before retreating, he finally shrugged out of his pants and freed his thick, hard cock. It was impressive, no less different than before: the head tinted dark blue, the shaft paler and hinting at more of those intriguing snowflake patterns. “Please, Ísarr, I can’t wait any longer.” I wanted to feel him sink into me again and remind me that the two of us fit perfectly.
Maybe he was at the end of his patience too, maybe he was always a little rough once his cock tasted warmth. He sank inwith a rough stroke, and this time my body eagerly took him. No stretch, no burn, he sank in smoothly and filled me fully in that single stroke. I groaned, and two strokes later, I shattered for him, pleasure bursting through my veins, my body going limp even as my core muscles tightened.
“That’s it, mate,” Ísarr told me, eyes beginning to glow with a hint of something entirely supernatural. “Come for me, come around my cock. Show me you are all mine. My mate, my Elskling, my treasure.” I bit my lip and nodded as he did not ease up, but picked up the pace instead. Our bodies slapped together, sliding across the sheets. He pinned a hand above my shoulder, braced us, and I watched the play of muscle beneath pale blue skin.
It was easy to open up my heart to him because every part of him I saw felt deserving, felt like I could trust him and expect the same in return. So it was easy to say, “Yes, I’m yours, Ísarr, all yours.”
His eyes flashed, his jaw grew tight, and, impossibly, his cock seemed to swell and grow thicker. I was full, and all too aware of how connected we were, our bodies joining together, our hearts blending as we stared into each other’s eyes. And then, as he growled and came, I followed him over the edge, coming so hard that I saw stars—or perhaps they were snowflakes, dancing through the air all around us.
Afterward, he pulled me close and we lay cuddled beneath the sheets, still entwined—intimately, in a different way. This was like coming home, and I sighed, smiling, beyond happy. The adventure of that snowstorm and the shadowy thing from our dreams might be over, but I had a feeling the bigger adventurehad only just begun. The thought of spending the rest of my life with a real, flesh-and-blood dragon was just too good to be true.
“So,” I said after a long but comfortable silence, “does this mean I’m moving in? And where is this fabled hoard I’ve heard you mention?” Of course, a dragon had a hoard, and I tried to picture it. Would it be piles of gold stored in a cave? Jewels and riches he’d accumulated throughout his long life?
“What part of ‘you’re not leaving’ did you not understand?” he grumped sleepily, and my smile felt so wide it made my cheeks ache. “Nap first, hoard later,” he added.
“Nap first, then tree, then hoard,” I bargained, still smiling. He opened one sleepy eye, and for a moment, his pupil appeared to be slitted, like that of his dragon. Then he blinked, and it was human again, pale blue and bright.
“Fine, my Elskling,” he said, mouth quirking into a half-smile that was far too sexy. “I think I might be partial to this season these days, myself.”
Epilogue
Bianca
