Page 55 of River Dragon’s Song

“This is ours?” he asked.

“That’s ours.” She pointed to the specifications along the side of the drawing and read them out, trying hard to keep her voice professional. “Reinforced frame. Double-gauge alloy supports. Floor load tested to five times standard. Rated for one human and one extremely large dragon.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he turned his head and looked at her, and his eyes had gone very dark.

“We should test it,” he said.

Her mouth went suddenly dry. “It’s a blueprint.”

He set the tablet down on the shelf, carefully, out of the way. Then he took her by the waist and lifted her off the shelf. He set her down on the smooth, level floor of the chamber, in the exact spot where the sleeping alcove would one day be. He knelt over her and braced his hands on either side of her head, and smiled down at her, slow and wicked.

“Then,” he said, “we should test the floor.”

She burst out laughing, and she was still laughing when he kissed her, and then she wasn’t laughing at all. He kissed her slowly and thoroughly this time, as if they had all the time in the world. Maybe we do, she thought, and the thought made her dizzy. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, and felt the long, warm weight of him settle against her on the cool stone.

He undressed her with maddening patience, removing her coverall an inch at a time. He kissed every bit of skin he uncovered, her throat and her collarbone and the curve of her breasts, until she was squirming beneath him and tugging at his shoulders.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” she accused breathlessly.

“Yes,” he agreed against her stomach, and she felt him smile.

“You’re testing the floor, not my patience.”

“I am testing,” he said, and pressed a kiss to the inside of her hip, “everything.”

Then his mouth moved lower, and she stopped arguing.

He had learned her so well. He knew exactly how to touch her, how slow and how deep, and when to hum against her skin so that she felt the low vibration in her bones. She clutched at his hair and arched off the floor and said his name, over and over, until her voice broke on it. He took her apart with his mouth and his hands, slowly and deliberately, until she came with a cry that echoed out through the opening and over the gardens below.

She lay there afterwards on the cool stone floor of her future bedroom, gasping, boneless, laughing weakly at the ceiling.

“Well,” she managed at last. “The floor passed.”

He crawled up beside her and lay down on his side, propped on one elbow, looking extremely pleased with himself. His scales were flushed a deep, burning blue from his temples to his chest.

She looked at him mischievously. Then she rolled over, pushed him onto his back, and climbed on top of him.

“My turn,” she said. “I need to test the load rating.”

His eyes widened. Then that low, rumbling laugh came up out of his chest. It turned into a groan as she slid her hand down his stomach and found him already hard and waiting.

She took her time too, because she had learned him just as well as he had learned her. She slid down over him until she was so full that she could barely breathe, stretched tightly around the rigid bar of his cock. She could feel each separate ridge, and the broad flare at the base pressing exactly where she ached the most. He was trembling below her with the effort of holding himself back. His eyes were almost black, and the rough rumble in his chest went all the way through her body.

Then she began to move. She knew the rhythm that made his hands clench on her hips, and the moment when he stopped being able to hold still. She teased him until he was growling her name, and then she gave him what he wanted, and she watched his face the entire time. When he came, with his head thrown back and her name on his lips, she thought her heart would burst out of her chest.

Afterwards, they lay tangled together on the floor with her silver blanket pulled over them, and looked out through the opening at the gardens glowing in the dark.

“It will be good,” he said drowsily, his fingers stroking her hair. “The habitat.”

She closed her eyes and smiled into his chest.

“Yes,” she said softly. “It will.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The stone came from the bottom of the deep pool beneath the falls. Korrak had dived for it on the night after Frankie came back to him. She had been sleeping peacefully in the moss hollow in the gardens, with her hand still tangled in his, and he had slipped away. He hadn’t known what he was looking for until he found it. He had simply gone down into the cold, dark water where the falls churned, deeper than he had ever gone before. He had swept his hands across the stones on the bottom until one of them felt right.

It was smooth and round and a little larger than his palm. When he brought it up into the glow of the moss, he saw that it was a deep, clear blue, shot through with fine threads of green. It was the color of the water in the gardens when the light fell on it. It was the color of his scales.