Light My Fire (17 page)

“I didn’t technically apologize,” he murmured, turning my hand over to nibble on my wrist, working his way up
to my shoulder.

I shivered at the delicious feeling of heat licking up
my arm. “I know. We’re going to work on that, too. But since I don’t expect miracles,
I’m
willing to be gracious.
Um . . . Drake, there’s something else. If we’re going to
do anything involving the application of your flesh
against mine, we’re going to have to use some sort of
protection.”

“That is unnecessary.” He nibbled my shoulder. “You
are pregnant.”

“I’m not. Or at worst, we don’t know that for certain.”

“So?” His face was buried in my neck, nibbling all my
little shivery spots. I arched against him, trying desperately to hang on to some sort of coherent thought.

“I’m not ready to deal with parenthood now. And I
don’t have any birth control pills with me, so it’s going to
be up to you until I get set up.”

Drake pulled back a fraction to look at me with glitter
ing eyes. He opened his mouth to say something. I bit his
lip. “Please?”

He grunted something I took to be agreement, his head
dipping back down as his tongue flicked over my lips,
wordlessly asking for entrance. As his mouth took pos
session of mine, he breathed fire again, filling me with
the heady, powerful rush of dragon fire. I welcomed it,
embraced it, then turned it back on him, my body celebrating the act with a wanton little shimmy against his
hard body.

“I want to do that,” I said, moaning as he bit my
shoulder, one hand sliding up to caress a breast, the
other pulling my hips tighter against him. “I want to
breathe fire.”

“I will teach you,” he rumbled, his lips demanding and
mine answering. His kisses were so fiery, so potent, so
filled with passion and desire, my legs melted away un
derneath me. Luckily, the bed was right behind me.

Drake pulled away for a moment, looking at me
sprawled across his mammoth bed. I expected a slow, se
ductive strip, which was Drake’s preference, but rather
than him peeling my clothing off item by item, there was a flurry of hands and cloth, the sound of a heated growl,
and suddenly the chilled air was teasing my exposed
flesh.

All of it.

“No,” I said, putting up a hand when he ripped off the remainder of his clothing, obviously intending to pounce
on me.

His eyes spat green flame at me. “What?”

“Not until you hold by your part of the deal. I want to know what you’re thinking, Drake. I want to know what
you’re feeling. You know what you do to me—lord
knows I tell you everything, but I need to hear this. I need to know that I’m more to you than just a convenient body.
I want to know what you really feel about me.”

He looked down at his erection. “You don’t know what
I’m thinking?”

“Well, I know what
that’s
thinking—it’s the rest of
you I want to hear about.”

“You infuriate me,” he said, sliding down until his
mouth was poised over one extremely anticipatory breast.

“I know that,” I said, hissing as he licked my breast
with fire, capturing my nipple and gently swirling his tongue over it. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I need you,” he said, switching to the second breast.
“You are my mate. You are necessary to me.”

“No, tell me what you feel,” I groaned, scraping my nails up his back. He moaned in pleasure, nudging my
knees aside.

“Condom,” I reminded him. “Please? It would make
me feel better.”

His eyes were bright with desire tinged with annoy
ance, but that melted into sheer passion as he applied the
condom and rolled back onto me. “You matter to me, Ais
ling. A great deal.”

“More than all your treasure?” I asked, teasing him as
he sucked my belly button.

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, astonishing me.
A treasure was all to a dragon. “You are beyond price. You
are my mate. There is no other like you and there never
will be.”

“Oh, Drake,” I said, squirming against him, trying to pull him down onto me where he belonged. “That’s just
about the nicest thing you’ve ever said. More!”

“I cannot wait,
kincsem.
I have missed you greatly
these past weeks. You fill my thoughts. I crave your pres
ence. I am not happy unless you are near me, around me,
annoying and infuriating and fascinating me. I want to
bury myself in your body and never leave.” He pulled my
hips up to meet his thrust.

I couldn’t help the little yelp of surprise as he plunged
into me, but it wasn’t his actions that brought tears of love
to my eyes
...
it was what he said. I knew that Drake was
not a man who discussed his emotions easily, so for him, the admission that he needed me was tantamount to a
declaration of love.

“I love you, too,” I told him, my hands dancing down
his sides. Our bodies moved together in a rhythm that was
familiar and unknown at the same time. “Make me burn,
Drake. Make us both burn.”

The molten core of heat that had never left me since
Drake kissed me the first time flared to life, answering his
call. Flames erupted on the bed, dancing and leaping
around us as Drake drove me to the point where I knew I
would lose all control. My body tightened around him as his back arched, his head snapped back, the long, beautiful line of his neck and chest etched permanently into my
brain. The fire between us exploded when he shouted his
ecstasy to the heavens, flames licking along his back as his hips flexed twice. He thrust hard a third time before
collapsing on me.

I opened my mouth to tell him what I felt at that mo
ment, to tell him how much I loved him, and needed him,
and how horrible our separation was, but the words that
echoed in the big room were not mine.

“Drakeling, what are you doing in London? I thought you hated this city.
Madre de dios!
Who is that woman?”

It took a few seconds for the words—spoken by a
strange woman—to sink into my sated, Drake-bemused
mind, but in that time Drake rolled himself off me, yank
ing the side of the blanket up so it covered most of me. I
lay like a stupefied log and stared at the well-dressed,
gorgeous, dark-haired woman who glared at me from the
doorway.

“You have the worst timing of anyone I know, Mother,” Drake said with a sigh.

Mother?

11

“Yes. I understand.”

“No, you don’t. You say you do, but you can’t possi
bly imagine the embarrassment I felt. Feel. Will continue
to feel to the end of my days.”

Drake’s hand was warm on my hip as we walked down
the hallway to the staircase that split midway down into
two curving arms ending at the marble-floored entry way,
which looked as big as a football field to my over
whelmed eyes. “You’re being overly sensitive. I was cov
ering you. All my mother could see was that I was lying
on you in an intimate manner.”

“Leaving aside the fact that anyone saw that, it was
your mother! Why didn’t you tell me you had a mother?”

Drake shot me an exasperated look. “I did.”

“You know full well what I mean,” I told the look.
“Why didn’t you mention that your mother was alive and
well and prone to walking in on you at any moment?”

“I had no idea she was in this hemisphere, let alone in
England. She loathes England. That’s why she gave me
this house. I doubt if she’s been to this country more than
three times in the last hundred years.”

I took a deep breath as Drake paused outside the dou
ble doors I knew led to a formal library. I’d had a quick
tour of the house when we arrived, just enough to see that
it wasn’t so much a house as a small mansion, but none
of that mattered now. Inside that room was someone I’d
never expected to have to meet, and certainly not in the
circumstances I’d just found myself.

“Made it downstairs, did you? So many comments come to mind,” Jim said, sitting up from where it was
lying on the gray marble floor.

“You make just one of them, and it’s back to limbo for
you,” I warned.

Jim evidently read with unusual accuracy the threat in
my eyes. “Sheesh! Fine. Make a big deal about it. It’s not
like I haven’t heard you two going at it before.”

I narrowed my eyes and thought about a nifty curse
Nora had told me about that turned the target into a slug.

“I’m really impressed with the flame-proof quality of
your bedding,” Jim said in a conversational tone to Drake
as the latter swung open the double doors. “Think I can get a dog bed made up in something like that for when
Ash gets pissed at me? The last time she got really an
noyed, she singed my blanket.”

“Behave yourself, or there won’t be anything left of
you to need a bed,” I whispered, slapping a smile on my
face that I felt far from feeling. The four people in the
room—Nora, Pal, Istvan, and Drake’s mother—turned to
look at us as Drake gently pushed me into the room.

“So. Here you are,” the dark-haired, olive-skinned woman said from a gold brocade couch. Nora was
perched next to her, Paco at her feet. Pal and Istvan sat in chairs opposite, both looking uncomfortable. They leaped
to their feet as Drake entered the room.

“Yes, we are here.
Kincsem,
this is my mother, Dona
Catalina de Elferez.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said pleasantly, lying
through my teeth as I held out my hand for her.

She looked at it like it might contain toads.

“Mother,” Drake said in a voice rife with warning.

I dropped my hand when she stood up, her dark eyes
hard as she looked me over from feet to forehead. I felt
hideously gawky and awkward despite wearing clothing Drake had purchased for me—a lovely pair of raw-silk
black pants and a flowing fuchsia shirt that highlighted
my assets. “Your woman is unacceptable.”

“That’s the second time today someone has said that.”
My nerves were clearly a bit on edge, but despite the de
sire to snap at her, I kept a pleasant expression on my
face. “Your nephew shares that opinion, for which I’m
very sorry.”

“You look tired.” Catalina ignored me completely, ex
amining Drake’s face for a moment. “You are unhappy.”

“On the contrary, at the moment I am quite content,”
he answered, escorting me to a loveseat that sat at right
angles to the couch. “You, however, are being unforgiv
ably rude to my mate. Aisling has done nothing to justify
such hostility and poor manners on your part.”

“Mate!” she shrieked, sending me a look that could
have dropped a horse.

My fingernails bit into my palms as I squelched back
any number of things I wanted to say. To my surprise, Jim
marched over and sat next to me, leaning on my leg as if
to offer support. I was touched by that, as well as by
Drake’s hand, which he kept on my shoulder as he stood
on my other side. I felt oddly protected by the two of
them, although why I needed to be protected from Drake’s
mother was beyond me.

“She is human!” Catalina accused, pointing a scarlet-
tipped finger at me.

“Yes, she is,” Drake answered calmly. His fingers
tightened slightly on my shoulder. I took that as a sign
that he appreciated my silence while he dealt with his
mother.

“You cannot have a mate who is human! You are a
wyvern!”

“I know what I am. I also know what Aisling is, what
the rules governing the weyr are, and the history of the
sept. Regardless of all three, Aisling is my mate. The sept
has accepted her. You would be wise to do the same.”