The Billionaire Dragon Shifter Meets His Match: BBW Paranormal Romance (Gray's Hollow Dragon Shifters Book 6) (2 page)

He would burn down the world for her, and he would never let her go. If he’d known what she was a few seconds earlier, he’d have taken his dragon form and done his level best to kill the dragon he’d met tonight, heedless of secrets or danger or sanity.

He couldn’t control his dragon by giving it what it wanted.

He shook his head. “I’m a dragon, that’s all you need to know.”

“Oh, no,” Jane said, getting to her feet. Laurence put all his strength into containing his dragon, which wanted to leap up and take her into his arms. He wanted to
take her
.

“That’s not all I need to know at all.” Jane sat down again on the furthest corner of the bed, her hand playing idly over the gold-flecked sheets. He could feel the mattress move under him with her movement. He dug his fingers into his sides, seeking out the old scars there to remind himself.

“I need to know who’s been forcing you to wear dragonglass,” she said quietly. “I need to know where you come from, that you didn’t know better than to go blundering into privately held territory. I need to know where you come from, period, because I haven’t been able to find any information on you, and I can’t leave dragons running around unaccounted for.”

Laurence stared at her, uncomprehending, and she reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a black dragonglass medallion on a gold chain. “Jane Curlew, Georgian Corps.”

Laurence tilted his head a little. She said it like it should mean something to him, with utter certainty. She had shot him, after all, even though he couldn’t see any weapons close enough to protect her now. 

“Is that... some kind of police force?”

She stared back. He had a feeling he’d asked her if the sky was sometimes a color somewhere between green and purple.

“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Yeah, that’s the easiest way to put it.”

He’d never known there was such a thing; if he had, he might have gone to them a long time ago and turned himself in. They clearly had put some thought into how to subdue and control dragons.

But he couldn’t answer her questions about the rest. He couldn’t let some quasi-police corps who named themselves after history’s most famous dragon-hunter find Gray’s Hollow. His brothers would protect their mates and children, but the whole town would be caught in the crossfire; what would the
Georgian Corps
make of humans who protected the secrets of dragons the way everyone in their town protected the Gray family?

Jane tossed the medallion over her shoulder, and it hit the wall and dropped in a jingle of gold to rest in the furthest corner of the room from the one Laurence had crammed himself into. “But I’m not really here in my professional capacity. I’m curious about all that stuff because it’s what I’ve been trained to be curious about, but that’s not why I’m locked in here with you, and it’s not why I really want to know. You know that, right? You feel it?”

Her gaze dropped to sweep over his body, and he saw the desire in her again. If she knew of dragons, she would know what that pull meant, and it was obvious she was more interested in following it than in keeping herself safe.

“You’re my mate,” Laurence said quietly.

She smiled crookedly and said, “Well. That’s how it looks to you, obviously. But you see—”

Her eyes flashed with a dragon’s fire.

“You’re mine, too.”

***

Jane’s mate sat speechless, staring at her. He uncurled from his defensive position a little. Jane didn’t let herself be distracted by the sight of his bare chest, or the tracing of scars that quietly testified to what he’d been through before they found each other.

“Now will you tell me your name?” Jane prompted.

“Laurentiu,” he said, dazed, and the sound of his own name made him shake his head. “Laurence. My name is Laurence.”

He sounded American, but the name suggested Eastern European origin. A refugee, brought over at a young age? If a human parent had smuggled him into the country he might have grown up as an isolate, perhaps even believing he was the last of the dragons. There were enough stories in the Georgian Corps archives of dragons with those sorts of beliefs.

But whoever forced him into dragonglass must have put an end to that notion. And he still hadn’t given her his last name.

“Laurence,” she said, keeping her voice soft, holding down all her instincts—dragon and cop were unusually well-aligned in wanting to find and destroy whoever had left her mate so scarred. “I meant what I said; you’re safe here. We’re in the Georgian Corps headquarters. Another George is on his way to take over your case, since I obviously can’t be in charge of any investigation that touches you. Whoever forced you to wear dragonglass, they didn’t have the authority to do that, and if they’ve been threatening you—”

Laurence turned his face away, his shoulders jumping with something like a silent laugh.

“You’re a cop,” he said, dragging his gaze back to hers. “You keep the peace, isn’t that the idea? Keep dragons under control?”

Jane studied his gaze. His eyes were silver when the flames didn’t overtake their usual color, and he looked desperate. Jane forgot all about wanting to find who had done it; she only wanted to be allowed to hold him, comfort him. But it was obvious he couldn’t accept that yet.

“I’d think you would understand,” Laurence said quietly. “I had help making the glass, but I put it on myself. It was—it
is
—the only way to keep my dragon under control. That’s why you’re not safe here. There’s nothing to hold me back.”

Jane glanced around at the walls. Unless he had a rather puny dragon shape, she couldn’t imagine him shifting in here. When she looked back at him he looked more frustrated than anything else.

“Why don’t you, then?” Jane leaned on one arm, and watched the way his eyes slid down the curve of her body before snapping back to meet hers.

“Because I’m trying very hard not to,” he said tightly.

“Well, then there is something to protect me, isn’t there? There’s you, trying very hard. And you’re my mate, so I know you’ll try your very, very hardest for me.”

He stared at her like he couldn’t understand what she was saying, and the strangeness of that was what made Jane notice for the first time that he hadn’t spoken to her with dragon speech at all, even after she revealed what she was. More strangely, she hadn’t either. She was used to playing human at work—despite everything, most Georges still were human—but this had stopped being about work as soon as Laurence hit the ground in front of Ray’s club.

He was her mate; her dragon knew him.

She tried to whisper to him,
It’s all right
, from her mind to his, just as they would speak when they were in their dragon shapes and their mouths weren’t set up for human speech.

But the words bounced back, as if she’d spoken them to a wall of dragonglass.

He didn’t even seem aware of deliberately blocking her out, and it couldn’t be an effect of the bracelets he’d been wearing—she’d removed every bit of dragonglass from his body before she shut herself in this cell with him. She’d removed her own bracelets and anklets, too—the safeguards mandated by the still human-dominated upper echelons of the Georgian Corps. As an unmated dragon shifter, Jane was assumed to be naturally prone to losing control under stress.

She felt a wild surge of stress right then, at the thought that Laurence—her mate, and not just any mate but a fellow dragon—might not be able to hear her. She scooted closer without thinking, raising a hand to reach for him.

Laurence stayed where he was for a moment, crammed into his corner with his whole body folded up tight. She saw him tremble with the effort of keeping still; she saw his jaw tense, and the muscle of his arm stood out visibly, as if he were clinging to himself with all his strength.

When he reached the end of that strength he moved almost too fast for her to see. She had a second to see him rising to his knees on the bed and reaching for her, and she thought,
Oh, yes, finally, yes
.

Then he was pulling her to him, hauling her up into his arms and crushing her close. She felt the hard strength of his body wrapped around hers and let herself melt into it as his lips found hers. The kiss was gentle for the briefest fraction of a second, just a press of his mouth to hers, and that last instant of hesitation made her whole body flash hot, her toes curling and pussy clenching.

Her lips parted, and Laurence’s last shred of control snapped, his tongue pressing roughly into her mouth. She surrendered to him, inviting him in, and he took everything she offered, kissing deep and fast, his hands sliding down her body, exploring her curves and pulling her closer still. She could feel his hardness pressing against her through their clothes, and as fast as it was happening she knew she was ready for him, her pussy wet and aching with desire for him, her mate, her perfect match.

She pushed closer, rubbing herself against him. She couldn’t feel the warmth of his bare chest or the softness of his skin through her shirt and bra, but the hardness of his muscles was just right against her nipples. She moaned helplessly against his mouth.

Yes, Laurence, yes—

But the words bounced back, unheard.

The shock of it froze her for a second. Laurence jerked back instantly, leaving her cold without his arms, his body, his kiss. He sat on his heels and stared at her, wide-eyed. He looked younger than his scars just then, younger than the hard set of his face made him seem. She didn’t think he was more than a few years older than herself.

“There,” he said hoarsely. “You see? Now get out.”

Jane sat back helplessly, spreading her hands rather than actually reminding him out loud that she
couldn’t
.

And of course that was the moment that the door swung open, and William leaned in to say, “Curlew, am I going to have to report you for harassing my prisoner?”

***

Laurence twisted to face the stranger with a snarl. He was dimly aware that he was still on his knees, still shirtless, still
hard
, but none of that mattered.
Another
strange dragon had turned up, and this one was blatantly threatening Laurence’s mate, trying to take Jane from him.

The other dragon stepped back from the threshold, and at the same time Laurence felt Jane’s hands on his skin. The softness of Jane’s body pressed against his back—she had moved behind him, so that he was between her and the other dragon. She pressed a kiss to the back of his shoulder blade, and Laurence dropped his gaze, staring down at his clenched fists.

A small sound heralded his familiar dragonglass bracelets landing on the mattress just in front of his knees. Laurence snatched them up on instinct, looking up to where the other dragon stood, still carefully outside the door.

Belatedly, Laurence noted the dragonglass medallion he wore, obviously kin to Jane’s, which was still on the floor in the corner. He was another member of this Georgian Corps, and like Jane he was clearly a dragon himself.

“William,” Jane said in a warning tone.

William shook his head, spreading his hands in a gesture of abdication oddly like Jane’s when she couldn’t open the door. “You don’t have to wear them, Laurence, but you’re fully healed. There’s no medical reason to deprive you of your property. Wearing black or not is up to you.”

Laurence quickly wrapped the bracelets around his wrists, sealing them in place with a touch to the gold beads among the black. As soon as he did, William pushed up the sleeves of his shirt to show that he wore dragonglass as well, coiling up both wrists.

Laurence felt a mingling of reassurance at the other dragon’s obvious pledge of truce, and perverse covetousness. Dragonglass might be a scourge, but William’s was more thorough and elaborate than his own.

William tugged his own sleeves down and stepped to the side momentarily; when he reappeared he tossed Laurence’s sweater and undershirt to him. Despite being thrown, it was obvious that the shirts had been separated and neatly folded.

Jane’s hands tightened on him, and she kissed the nape of his neck before she let go, staying behind him while he pulled his shirts on again. He reached back for her as soon as he had done it; already he couldn’t resist looking for her touch, the reassurance of her closeness. Laurence suspected that that had less to do with the threat of an unmated male dragon nearby than he’d like it to.

But Jane caught his hand immediately and pressed close to him again. This time he twisted toward her, catching her next soft kiss on his lips. His heart raced again at the mere contact, his cock hardening and his body heating, finding the human way of catching fire. He needed her, even knowing that he was dangerous; she refused to be afraid of him and he couldn’t resist—

William cleared his throat so loudly it was nearly a growl, and Laurence jerked around to face him again, keeping a firm grip on Jane’s hand. Jane seemed to be keeping an equally firm grip on him.

“Now that you’ve had your property returned to you and you’re fully clothed,” William said, making a little ushering gesture. “Perhaps both of you would like to come out of there and talk with me about what happened tonight, somewhere where there are chairs. And no beds, or illusions of privacy.”