DragonGames (9 page)

“I could ease you more thoroughly on the
bed,” he said, licking over the place he’d marked where neck met shoulder.

“I’ve still got my panties and heels on,”
his mate said, tormenting him.

He kissed her neck. His hands returned to
her breasts, palms grazing over her nipples before sliding downward, stroking
her belly then tracing the waistband of the sheer fabric separating her from
the cock still pressed between her legs.

“I could rid you of both.”

“Only if you win.”

He smiled against her delicious skin, and
purred, “I will.”

Chapter Six

Tielo won scant minutes later.

She should lose the heels, but the way he
looked at her, eyes traveling up and down her body, glittering with male
appreciation and possessiveness, had her shimmying out of the panties so they
dropped to her ankles like lacy handcuffs.

He stared at them there, hand fisting
around his cock, pumping it, totally uninhibited when it came to her effect on
him.

In just her heels, Lyra felt like the only
woman capable of holding his attention, the only one capable of arousing him.

“You can’t think I’ll let you return to
your seat without tasting you, without hearing you scream my name.”

His words were like mainlining lust. She
was only surprised she didn’t join her panties in a drop to the floor.

He came to her, easily lifting and placing
her on the table, the impact collapsing several golden towers and scattering
the coins like rose petals.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered, and when
she did, he forced her knees closer to her chest, so the heels caught on the
railing of the table.

“Mine.” Guttural. Growled. And her hips
lifted from the felt, primal woman offering herself to the male who’d won her
by natural selection.

He swooped, his breath striking her pussy
before his lips did, like flames escaped with a dragon’s dive on treasure. He
gave her cunt an open-mouthed kiss. His tongue plunged into her opening in a
dominant thrust, in a hungry claiming of her essence. He fucked through wet,
swollen folds until she came on a scream, inhibitions gone to the point she
didn’t care if all those on the other side of the office door heard and knew
she’d orgasmed for Tielo.

Tielo couldn’t hold back the purr of
satisfaction. He lapped the insides of her thighs and sweet, puffy cunt lips.
He memorized the sight of her vulva parted like a dark, erotic flower,
glistening from his mouth and her desire.

He cleaned her as thoroughly as she’d
cleaned his cock, longed to do it in his first form as they basked on the ledge
of his lair. Arousal continued to escape her luscious opening, sliding down
over her back entrance. He’d take her there on another day, perhaps even
tomorrow. Now it was time to end the foreplay and get to the main event so he
would finally be free to reveal the full truth to her.

“I’ll call for the Dragon’s Cup and then
we’ll retire to the bedroom.” Not that he intended children immediately, but
only a fool wouldn’t avail themselves of the opportunity to restore fertility
at finding a mate, and he was no fool.

She’d sleep for hours once his spurs
pierced her skin, injecting the serum. It was a useful adaptation in the days
when humans might easily die of fright on the flight to a high, rocky lair. “We
can finish the poker game another evening. The outcome of it no longer
matters.”

His words poured ice into Lyra’s system in
a way nothing else might have. “No,” she said, intensely aware of the felt
against her back and buttocks, of the way she lay, thighs still splayed, hardly
recognizing herself anymore.

Her heartbeat ratcheted up with thoughts
she’d been drugged.

No. No. She didn’t believe that. Aislinn
wouldn’t have given her the invitation if that were the case. And Pierce was
married to a cop, a cop she happened to know and respect.

“No,” she repeated, and not even Tielo
capturing her clit and sucking changed her answer. It couldn’t. The outcome of
the poker game
mattered
. Maybe not to him, but to her.

She wasn’t here for herself, despite the
possibility of meeting a man. She’d come here with a desire to do good, because
she cared about Nicolas and Sebastian and their family.

Lyra rolled from the table, the sweat on
her skin turning cold. Goose bumps rose and the pound of her heart moments
earlier seemed sluggish compared to the thunder of it now. She’d lost the huge
chip advantage. In the fog of lust and the sexual distraction that was Tielo,
what had taken several of the club’s employees to carry into the office would
now fit in a single chip rack.

She trembled, not need this time but the
beginnings of panic and doubt and guilt. How had she lost herself so totally in
the fantasy? Of dragons and Tielo?

Was this what gambling had been like for
her biological father? Not sex, but the glorious escape into a dream radically
different from often hard reality?

With trembling hands she picked up the
dress and slipped it on like armor. But the touch of the material to skin that
had known Tielo’s hands and mouth left her feeling vulnerable rather than
strong.

She reclaimed her chair, restacked the
tumbled chips that only moments ago had made her think of rose petals scattered
in celebration of a lover’s tryst.

Her mouth went dry. The weight of each coin
added to her guilt.

Sixteen hundred dollars, plus or minus,
that’s what each of the coins represented. Even one of them would prolong what
seemed inevitable, the Ochoas losing their restaurant, their togetherness as a
family if the younger children were sent elsewhere to live and Carlos sold his
future by getting involved with a gang. Collectively, the coins meant salvation,
though somewhere along the way she’d started thinking of them as chips.

She threw herself into the game with fierce
determination.

Dismay grew in Tielo, finding a thread of
insecurity and tugging, unraveling it. Doubt crept in as his mate’s scent
changed from desire to desperation. Her guilt was a palpable film across his
tongue.

Was there another male in her life? Even
the possibility was enough to have him battling to keep his flame from escaping
in an incendiary rush sure to blacken most of his office.

By the Great Shared Ancestor, was she
regretting what she’d done now? He gnashed his teeth to suppress a bellow.

Her focus was now on the game, or more
specifically, the gold coins. It was unsettling, even if at another time he
would deem such an obsession fitting of a dragon’s mate.

“Take off the dress,” he said, his tone
coaxing. “If I’m to lose my chips, at least allow me the pleasure of seeing you
naked.”

She hesitated then complied, jerking the
dress over her head, the movement tense rather than the flowing sensuality of
before.

He growled, frustrated. Doubt became a club
beating at his confidence. He’d been in this realm too long, obviously, if he
now worried about her motives.

What did he care if she’d unbuttoned her
dress, unwittingly instigating their game of strip poker as a means of
distracting him? In the end she’d fallen prey to her own plotting and they’d
both enjoyed the consequences.

Insanity. He’d heard tales, of course, of
human females driving their dragon mates crazy, of tying them up in knots with
their inexplicable behavior and murky motivations.

She’d chosen him! She’d allowed the others,
including Jubal and Roque, to be forced away from the larger poker game even
when she’d been attracted to them.

Smoke escaped from his nostrils, visible
enough her head jerked upward, though the thin streams quickly dissipated.

Something else was going on here. He
refused to believe she’d given in to desire, using her body as a means of
gaining coin.

She dealt the hole cards. He peeled them
back just far enough to see the pair of aces. Perfect.

A glance was all it took and he knew she’d
battled back from near defeat. Their stacks of chips were close to equal,
enough so an all-in bet would be a death-strike for the loser if called.

An inhalation told him she liked the cards
she held. This was it then, their final hand in all likelihood. The next one,
if necessary, would only be for cleaning up, so the winner possessed all the
chips.

The betting began. Neither of them pushed
the other to decide in the initial rounds. She dealt the flop—ace of clubs,
king of diamonds and ten of clubs.

Rather than be alarmed, fearing he had an
ace to go with the one on the board, excitement slid into the hope he scented
on her.

The turn card brought the ace of hearts and
her confidence wavered, firming his suspicion she held a king and ten, or
possibly two kings. But with the river card of a ten of spades, her excitement
became palpable. He became certain she had a full house.

“All in,” she said, believing herself a sure
winner.

He took her hands in his, delaying the
moment of truth when it came to the cards. Another truth was far more necessary
to him. “Why is winning so important to you?”

Exquisite eyebrows arched and the dragon in
him purred at her show of backbone. “Are you saying winning doesn’t matter to
you
?”

His shrug had her frowning and mentally
distancing herself from him, if the cool expression that followed was any
indication.

“What I’m saying is that given a choice,
I’d have carried you away from the table and finished the game another time. In
fact, the moment I got you behind closed doors I would have ignored chips and
cards in favor of going directly to bed.”

His cock agreed with the notion. Though
bathed in the scent of her arousal and with memories of the ecstasy they’d both
found at the poker table, he couldn’t regret the games they’d played.

He brushed his thumbs across the backs of
her hands. Touching her soothed him. It made his doubts ease to the point he
could expose his vulnerability. “Twice I tried to draw you away from poker and
twice you refused me. Why?”

Surprise widened her eyes and changed her
scent. She stood, hands tightening on his rather than pulling away. She
maintained the contact as she moved around the table.

He pushed his chair back, heat searing
through his cock as she straddled him, pressing her bare mound to his rigid
length.

“You can’t be worried that I’m not
interested in finishing what we started?”

“And if I am?”

She shook her head in gentle, feminine
rebuke. “What am I going to do with you?”

Love me.
But
he’d not yet been so softened by his mate that he was ready to confess his
newly discovered need. “Tell me why you changed so suddenly.”

“Because despite the fact that I’m now
naked with a man—”

His growl forced a correction. “With
you
.
I didn’t come here for myself. Aislinn giving me the invitation seemed like the
sign I was looking for. Two of my students became ill during the school year.
They nearly died. It was a miracle they didn’t. But their family is in dire
straits because of the medical costs. The Ochoas are living in a motel and
struggling to stay together and keep their restaurant going. I had this grand
scheme of being able to win enough at poker to help them.”

Warmth exploded in his chest at having such
a tenderhearted mate. It would be nothing for him to assist this family she
cared so much about.

He wouldn’t notice the loss of funds.
Against his hoard, the near priceless gems and artifacts he possessed, the
modern-era gold coins on the table were very much like pieces of costume
jewelry, the paste and plastic baubles humans often wore.

Other than leaving them at the club to
gamble with, he had no use for them unless… He smiled as he imagined having
some of the coins melted down and turned into a sculpture of his naked mate, a
small piece of artwork he’d keep on his desk to commemorate this evening.

In his mind’s eye he could see himself
picking it up while they were separated, stroking it like a talisman necessary
for getting him through the day. A win and he’d take her completely, making her
his mate in the process.

“What’s it going to be?” she asked. “Call
or fold?”

A good question.

“Go back to your side of the table.” Though
his hands delayed her for a moment by cupping her breasts so he could stroke
her nipples. “I have a decision to make.”

She went. And by the time she’d reclaimed
her chair, his desire to see her succeed in what she set out to accomplish
outweighed his own desire to prove his superiority and then his generosity.

Ignoring poker etiquette, he pushed his
stacks of chips into hers with enough force they tumbled and comingled, making
separation impossible. “Call.”

A quick flick of her wrist revealed the
king and ten, a full house when combined with the king and two tens in the
middle.

He tossed his hole cards into the muck with
a show of disgust and stood, hoping to distract her from a demand to see them
by pulling her into his arms. “The victory is yours. What will you do now? Cash
out your winnings and leave?”

He could never let her do it, of course. But
he wanted her to choose him, not just for the night, but forever.

A lightning strike of need shot straight to
his cock when wicked fingers stroked his nipple, toying with the piercing so
that he moaned, his mating spurs about to fully descend. He couldn’t take much
more of her torment.

“Lyra.” It was a plea before his lips
covered hers, soft persuasion against raging need.

She parted for him, tongue meeting his,
rubbing and twining in a mimic of bodies, the dance of male to female before
covering and completion.

“Leaving isn’t an option, not unless I can
take you home as part of my winnings,” she murmured against his mouth when he
allowed her breath. “What if I just stay here and indulge in a sexual fantasy?”

“And what sexual fantasy would that be?”

“We could play
the virgin and the dragon
.
Didn’t you brag you were capable of making me forget I’d ever been with anyone
else?”

He couldn’t prevent the growl, though he
used the opening to do what he could to prepare her for what was to come. “Be
warned, Lyra. I play for keeps.”

Lyra felt him tense against her,
playfulness a mercurial shift into seriousness. “A lot of people see
relationships as the ultimate gamble, the ultimate game of chance.”