Blackwing Dragon (Harper's Mountains 5) (7 page)

Rowan brushed her finger up the metal. It was cold to the touch, the complete opposite of Kane’s dragon-heated skin. He flinched, as though he would pull away, but he held his ground.

“How did you sleep with women?”

“God, Rowan. Filter.”

“I’m serious. I’ve never met anyone who was missing a limb. How did you hide it when you were…you know…banging shifter groupies?”

Kane leaned back on his locked arms and stared up at the ceiling. “I left my clothes on.”

“Like you dry humped them?”

Kane let off a booming laugh, his abs flexing with it. “No, I didn’t
dry hump
them. I can fuck a girl just fine without taking my jeans all the way off. I just need them low enough to pull my dick out.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“Well, when I got desperate, it didn’t happen in the most romantic places.”

“Like where?”

“Uuuh, in a bar bathroom or out in the back of my Bronco. Up against the wall behind this pizza place in Bryson city. And then—”

“Okay, that’s good.” Her blood was starting to boil at the stupid pictures he was painting.

“Are you getting jealous?”

“No. I just don’t want to hear about the million women you fucked in every bathroom you encountered.” Rowan plopped onto her stomach to hide her breasts from him and buried her face against the mattress to try and purge the dumb mental images from her head.

Kane’s light touch brushed slowly down her spine, trailing fire where his fingertip met her skin. “It wasn’t millions,” he murmured. “It was six since I lost the leg. It was always after a fight, or when I was so fucking desperate to feel something…anything. And then afterward, I always had this awful, hollow feeling. It was like I was even emptier than before.”

Rowan rested her cheek on her arm and traced the deep scars on his injured leg. “I hurt someone I loved.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I thought I found my mate. He was human, lived down in Saratoga, so not too far from Damon’s Mountains. He worked at the newspaper. Brainy. Too smart for me, but he never made me feel dumb. He made me feel pretty, and I liked the person I was around him. But we got in a fight one day over something so stupid. I don’t even remember what. And he said he wanted to take a break. That I was too much for him. He didn’t like that I was a dragon and that I didn’t know who I was. He didn’t like that I couldn’t leave Damon’s Mountains. He said he didn’t understand me, and it made me so mad. Just…furious.”

“You Changed?”

Rowan ducked her chin once as a tear slid out of the corner of her eye. “Too close to him, and he almost died. And the first thing he did when he woke up in the hospital was file a restraining order. And I was deemed a dangerous shifter. It’s on my registration and everything. A permanent red mark that will follow me around for the rest of my life. I can’t get a shifter grant for land of my own, and it’s hard to find jobs. I barely finagled a plane ticket. So you see, I know what you mean by looking for something to fill you up, but being drained instead.”

“Is that why you never left Damon’s Mountains?”

“No. But I guess it’s part of it.”

Kane was still trailing his fingertip up and down her spine. God, it felt so good to be touched by someone who wouldn’t break. Someone who understood her. Who wrestled with his own inner monster.

“Kane?”

“Mm,” he grunted, pressing his palm against her back. His hand felt like fire there. Like he was burning his handprint into her skin, but she liked it.

“Who was your father?” She already knew, but she wanted Kane to tell her.

“Marcus.”

The admission of his lineage broke her heart. Marcus, the alpha of the Blackwings. Marcus, one of the last immortal dragons. Marcus, the murderer of Damon’s first mate, Feyadine. He’d ripped her eggs from her body and left her for Damon to find. And then he’d tried to burn the world. In an effort to save humanity from ashes, Damon had gone to war with Marcus hundreds of years ago. He’d thought him dead, but Marcus had only been badly hurt and gathering power, manipulating Feyadine’s bloodlines to lure Damon into his final death.

Kane had been right. His father would’ve been the end of the world, but Damon had been the one to kill him. Rowan’s great-grandfather had been the end of Kane’s father, and a union between Bloodrunner and Blackwing would be her damnation. Falling for Kane would be betrayal to her family and her ancient clan. All of their deaths, all of their suffering at the hands of Kane’s father, was too much for her to ignore.

But…

Even if Kane was a Blackwing, and there could be nothing between them tomorrow, it was nice to sit in this hotel room and pretend they were two normal people instead of two enemies on opposite sides of an eternal war.

It was nice to pretend Kane could be hers, if even for a little while.

Slowly, giving Kane plenty of time to retreat, she leaned her face toward his bad leg. His muscles didn’t even flinch when her lips pressed against a deep scar there, but he relaxed instead and brushed his fingers through her hair.

He let off a soft sigh and murmured, “You’re a strange one, Bloodrunner.”

“My friends call me Roe, remember?”

Kane huffed a breath, but at least this time he didn’t remind her they weren’t friends, and that, to her, was progress.

Kane laid back on the bed and ran his hands though his hair, let the heels of his palms rest on his forehead as he closed his eyes. He drew his good leg up, the epitome of relaxed, but he wasn’t fooling her. He was strung as tight as a bowstring again.

“Why are you stressed?” she asked, laying beside him.

“Because you’re going to be the death of me, and I like living.”

“I am not. I already told you I won’t hurt you.”

“Yeah? But you’re on a bed with me, tits out, and they’re fucking perfect, and you just kissed my leg. You kissed my damn ruined
leg
, Bloodrunner. There are things in my life I couldn’t believe happening to me, and that’s one of them. And my dick is aching to just take you hard, but Damon will bring fire to me if I make bad decisions here.”

“Gross. Let’s not talk about Damon while I’m trying to seduce you.”

Kane rolled his head against the mattress until he met her gaze. There, just slightly, was a smile in the curve of his lips. “You’re trying to seduce me?”

Rowan waggled her eyebrows and beamed. “You won’t even have to wear jeans.”

That deep, sexy chuckle vibrated up his throat, and he shook his head again. Kane linked his hands behind his head and grinned up at the ceiling. “I bet you were a wild child growing up.”

“You would bet wrong.” She gave him a cheeky grin and repeated his words, “But you’re on a bed with me, tits out—”

“Stop it,” he said, but his smile was so fucking stunning. Straight white teeth and dimples she could see even under his dark scruff.

“Just so you know, I don’t do this. I don’t seduce boys wherever I go. I’ve been stuck in Damon’s Mountains with the same silly guys I grew up with. And my ex and I broke up three years ago—”

“You mean you went dragon on his ass three years ago.”

Rowan swatted his arm and rolled over on her stomach right beside him. “It’s not funny to joke about that.”

“It’s kind of funny. So what you’re saying is you are super deprived and sexually frustrated, and you’ll take anything at this point.”

“No! Kane, that’s not what I’m saying at all.” She made a frustrated noise. “I was saying I don’t do this all the time. Ever really. I was trying to tell you that you feel…”

The smile disappeared from Kane’s lips, and his eyes blazed brighter. “That I feel what?”

“Never mind. You’ll just make fun of me.”

Embarrassed, Rowan moved to log roll away from him, but he caught her arm and held her in place, right beside him. “Say it, and I won’t make fun of you.”

His face was angled toward hers now, his lips only inches away, and her body was humming oddly from where his strong grip was wrapped around her upper arm. His blazing green eyes dipped to her lips. Kane was so big, so wide, taking up most of the bed already, and she’d never found a man more beautifully made than him. His pulse drummed against his muscular throat too fast,
bum-bum, bum-bum
, like hers.

“Tell me,” he whispered, and she knew she was gone. She knew she couldn’t deny him anything, but she couldn’t understand why. Dragon wanted him. She wanted to sink her teeth into him and claim him so that he would never get away. She wanted him to choose them, because who else would make a match like this? Who else could hold their own against her? Who else could survive her if she lost control and Changed again? Who else had a monster that matched hers? Who else was this damn beautiful, this damn alluring, this damn everything?

Kane was big and important.

Kane was…

Closing her eyes like a coward, Rowan whispered, “I was trying to say that you feel special. I’m supposed to be afraid of you, but you don’t feel scary. You’re good.”

“I’m not,” Kane murmured, pulling her palm onto his chest, right over his racing heart. “I’m really not good, Rowan.”

“I can tell you are—”

“You’re wrong. I’ve killed people. I’ve hurt people, ruined people’s lives. You shouldn’t get attached to someone like me.”

“But I’ve hurt people, too—”

“Not like me.” Kane shook his head and leveled her with a look. “I’m not special, Rowan. I’m not important. Don’t convince yourself otherwise, or I’ll hurt you, too.”

He was wrong. Kane didn’t see himself the way she did. Okay, he’d killed people. War was ugly. War brought death, and he had been recruited to be part of that machine. But the Kane she saw—the one who helped her on the plane and at the airport, the one who picked up her plane ticket and who defended her at the restaurant—that Kane wasn’t a pretender. He’d given her real peeks into himself. She just knew it.

Before she could change her mind, Rowan dipped down and kissed him, her lips perfectly still on his. She hadn’t done this in so long, and Kane lay like a fiery stone beneath her. They were both shaking like leaves, and she didn’t know what to do now. Pull away? Maybe he didn’t like this. Maybe this wasn’t what he wanted.

Rowan softened her lips and eased back with a quiet smack. Kane’s eyes were wide and so intense, as though she’d shocked him. Maybe he hadn’t closed them during their kiss. His chest heaved with his breathing.

She’d just kissed the last Blackwing Dragon, and she should be terrified being this close to him. But instead, she felt safe. She felt happy, and deep inside, Dragon was practically purring.

Kane wasn’t reacting, though. He wasn’t blinking, and now a soft rumble was working its way through his body. With a baffled expression, he dipped his eyes to his chest. He drew a harsh breath, and the noise stopped. “What was that?” he asked in a ragged whisper.

His question hurt. “A kiss. I’m not very good at them. It’s been a long time—”

“No, I mean…what was that noise?”

Rowan frowned. “That’s your dragon, silly.”

A loaded second passed, his eyes blazing and locked on hers, and then his lips crashed onto hers. He pushed and rolled her on her back, gripped her neck as his lips worked against hers. God, the man could kiss. He knocked the rust off her in three seconds flat, and then she was with him, kissing him back, making soft smacking sounds, making soft helpless sounds as her body lit on fire. And when he pushed his tongue past her lips, she was gone. Kane’s body was graceful against hers, grinding once against her side before she turned toward him. Draping her leg over his hip, she gave him access, and he used it. He settled perfectly between her thighs and rocked his erection against her. Fucking shorts.

“I’m on birth control,” she whispered, fumbling with her buttons.

Kane shoved her hand out of the way, slid his hand down the front of her pants, and
ooooh
. She rolled her hips to meet his touch. When Kane cupped her, slid his finger through her wetness, the feral sound was back in his throat. Sexy dragon. She’d never been with a man like this. One who she wasn’t afraid of hurting. One who she could be herself with. He wasn’t grossed out by her glowing eyes. Every time he pulled away far enough to meet her gaze, his expression became more determined, and it made her feel beautiful and sexy.

He'd found her clit, was working it gently while he swallowed her moans.

“Kane, please,” she begged against his lips.

“Please what?” he growled.

“Inside.”

Kane slid two fingers inside of her, stretching her with pleasure. God, this was too much. She was already close. So close, but she wanted more. Needed to touch him while she finished. Needed to bite him.
Stop it, Dragon.

Rowan ran her fingertips down his chest, down his abs, down to the waist of his briefs and slid her hand into the band. His dick was thick and hard, swollen and ready for her. She eased out of the kiss just so she could watch his eyes roll back in his head when she gripped him. Kane didn’t disappoint. How were his eyes so light? So bright? She drew a long stroke of him, and then another, and reveled in the fact that he was bucking against her now, their bodies crashing against each other like waves.