Eternal (Dragon Wars, #2) (7 page)

“No. Absolutely not. Whatever the plan was when there were a dozen of us on a boat is not going to happen with only us here. I have to keep you safe and I can’t do it out there.” Where the crazy purple dragon waited...

“You’re being absurd. I’m here to do a job, and I can still do it. Even if I feel like hell. Danger was always part of it.”

“No.” Before he’d realized what he’d done he backed her to the cave wall. “Risking you is not any part of any plan ever. And screw you if you thought it was.”

“Wow. Why are you yelling at me?” Her eyes were huge. He should feel badly for raising his voice. This was nether the time nor the place. Yet, his heart pounded hard and his blood pumped fast in his veins. He could either run for hours or do something about what was really bothering him.

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

“Um.” Her throat clenched. “When specifically? I must have really made you mad.”

“Not angry, no.” He claimed her with a kiss. The demand and need for her was terrible idea. He wanted her.

When he lifted his head, her eyes fluttered open slowly. “I did something to make you want to kiss me?”

“You told me you thought I was your mate. Only now you don’t think so.”

Her cheeks pinkened, an improvement to her earlier paleness. “Obviously, I was drugged or I’d never have wanted to make you uncomfortable.”

“Do you think I kissed you because you made me uneasy?” He pressed his forehead to hers. “We’re going to work on whatever’s been done to you emotionally. I’m not sure how we will with me here and you back home in your lab, I only know we will.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m your mate. You’re mine. End of story. You don’t go out there with only me to protect you from the dragons. I don’t care about eggs, drugs, or fire. Do you understand?”

“No.” She shoved him with surprising strength. “You don’t get to mess with me like this. We both know I’m unmateable. You saw it yourself. I don’t heal.”

“You think I care whether or not your skin knits in changes? Only in as much as I worry about you getting hurt.” He leaned back. “It’s nothing. We all have something.”

“No.
We
don’t. You can shift and heal your wounds. I’ll always be a walking reminder of how things can go wrong. Every person who ever looks at me will...”

He growled, interrupting her. His nerves were truly frayed. “Fuck whatever they think. Weren’t you listening this morning when Davey, the jackass who shot you, babbled?”

“For the brief moment you let me speak to him? Sure, I paid attention. Why? What does he have to do with this?”

“His sister is mated. To a blind war hero.” He waited. No understanding appeared in her eyes.

“Yes? And?”

“For someone so smart, you’re being dense. He didn’t heal, beautiful. He shifted and his eyes didn’t turn back on. Do you understand? Things are different. All kinds of Wolves are coming home with injuries they’ll never heal from.”

“Other than this insanity, I was never in the war.”

Dougal took a deep breath. It was difficult to let go of ideas he’d held onto for a long time—like the one telling him he had no business being anyone’s mate. He couldn’t expect Caitlyn to simply alter her belief system in one conversation.

“You were burned when your basement boiler exploded. Fire. Like the dragons. Same difference. I’m not a scientist, I’ve never been very smart about this stuff. Maybe there were some Wolves who were never going to heal. We didn’t know because we were living really cushy lives. Not too many Wolves were regularly getting blown up. Either way, I want you.”

****

C
aitlyn had to still be asleep, dreaming in her drug-induced haze. In real life, Dougal Owens wouldn’t be saying these things to her. No way could she have the kind of happiness he offered.

“Dougal, I think you’re confused. If I was really your mate, you would have known it when you met me, when you saw me yesterday. You didn’t...”

“Who says? Where did all these rules come from? Fairytales? How could that be possible? The first time we saw each other was probably when you were an infant in your mother’s arms in my living room or something. It’s nonsense. I’d taken down a dragon minutes before you walked in a room. Whatever system in my body controls this stuff was probably a little off.” He shook his head. A muscle ticked in his upper jaw. “Enough.”

His mouth pressed to hers. It was the third time he’d kissed her. If their lips had locked when she’d been drugged—apparently when she’d also told him about the mating—she didn’t remember.

He thought they were mates.

Dougal pulled back to look at her. “Stop thinking so hard when I’m kissing you.”

“Turning off my brain isn’t something I do very well.”

“Really?” His hand caressed the outside of her shirt right above her nipple. She gasped. “Can’t turn off your brain?”

He was right. Every thought she had shut off, rapidly. What else did she really have to think about? Only Dougal and his hand stroking her nipple. The cotton of her shirt rubbed in time with his finger.

She squirmed, her back against the cave wall. The stirrings inside of her were getting stronger. Caitlyn had plenty of experience getting herself off thinking about Dougal. She’d never been turned on so fast. The real thing was so much better than anything her imagination created.

“I should have you on a bed. Not in a cave.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “I don’t care.”

“I’m going to be a terrible mate. You do realize how bad I will be, don’t you? A really awful one.”

If he kept stroking her nipple, he could tell her he had plans to move them to the moon and she wouldn’t care. “Fine. I’ll probably be pretty bad at it myself. I’m already defective.”

“Caitlyn.” He spoke in her ear, his words clipped. “First, right out the gate, we have a new rule. Every time you say something disparaging about yourself I am going to punish you.”

The way he said it, the idea of punishment...it sounded okay. “How are you going to do that?”

“I am going to spank your ass.” As if to demonstrate, he rubbed her behind. “Every time you say something bad about yourself. Do you understand?”

He stroked her cheek. She loved when he did so. This time, however, she bit his finger because she realized she could.

His slow smile showed her he liked it. “Oh. You’re a biter.”

“I don’t know what I am. I’ve never done this before. Except alone.”

“Oh?” He licked the side of her neck. “So you’re entirely mine then?”

He pressed against her and she might not have personal experience, but the bulge in his pants told her he didn’t mind the idea of her not having had sex before.

“From the moment I saw you. And...”
Realized I’d never have you
. She didn’t say the words. A spanking might be...fun...only she didn’t want one right then.

He kissed her again so she never had to figure out how to finish her thought for him. Or maybe he knew. Dougal seemed to possess a great ability to read her mind.

“Shirt. Off.” He tugged at her clothing, and she squirmed to oblige.

“Am I going to get naked alone?”

“No.” He stepped back and discarded his own clothing. “You’ve already seen me this way so I suppose it’s too late to warn you how scarred I am.”

“Um. Dougal? You think I care about scars?”

“We’re a pair, aren’t we?”

She wasn’t sure what scars he meant. His chest was strong, while his abs were fit and defined. Maybe there were a few scratches. She could see where some of the skin wasn’t as smooth as the rest. Caitlyn kissed his shoulder.

He growled, from deep in his throat. “Your body? From this point on, it belongs to me. You’ll be my mate, my eternal partner.”

“Yes.”

They were the words from the mating ceremony which usually took place publicly. Obviously, that was going to have to be put off, might not happen at all. Who knew what the future held? Speaking the words brought her the same reverence she experienced when she heard others make similar declarations.

“Whatever there is of me, it will always be yours.”

“Eternally.”

He kissed her nose. “Good girl.” He stroked near her pussy, running his fingers around her thigh. She tingled everywhere. “I’m going to make this so good for you, beautiful.”

“Being here with you is more than I ever imagined having.”

“Your imagination couldn’t do better than a dingy cave?” He laughed against her, the slight roughness of his beard scratching her. She wished she could roll against it, cover herself in his scent for all time. He pushed his thumb inside of her and she gasped. “Although to me, beautiful, I’m going to always remember this cave as one of my favorite places.”

Then he found her clit.

“Oh.”

So, that was what it was supposed to feel like. She was wet, dripping since he’d first kissed her. By the gods, she’d been practically soaked since she walked into the commander’s tent and realized Dougal was there.

He increased the pressure and her body sprang to life. Every inch of her seemed electrified. “Gods, I think my knees are going to buckle.”

“Let them. I won’t let you fall.”

Her control slipped, and her skin was too tight. Something was going to happen, different than she’d ever known it before. An eruption formed at the base of her spine and surged, needing release. Nothing she’d ever been able to do for herself had been close to this.

And all he’d done was touch her, so far. “That’s my good girl. You can come for me. I’ll take care of you.”

She loved it when he called her that. Funny, because it wasn’t a nickname she would have chosen for herself. Yet, the growl in his voice, the ownership when he said, flooded her body with heat. It was all she needed to come.

As she’d predicted, her knees buckled and, as he’d promised, he caught her body before she could fall. She saw stars and pleasure flooded her.

“Beautiful,” he whispered against her ear. His body vibrated and she lifted her head to look at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Ha.” He shook his head before he took her hand and placed in on his cock. “You got me really, really excited.”

She put her hand on top of his hard tip. He hissed in his breath. “Careful. Too much touching and I won’t make it inside of you.”

He felt warm in her palm. Moist, hot, and all male. She ran her hand along his shaft all the way to the base. He closed his eyes and she watched his face for signs she was doing it correctly.

“I’m a quick study if you tell me what you like.”

He laughed, a pained expression on his face. “What I like? Anything involving your hand on my body. I need to be inside you. And it’s going to be on the cave floor because the first time can’t be against the wall. I refuse to hurt you.”

He bent over and flung his t-shirt over his shoulder so it lay on the ground. “It’s still going to be hard as hell.”

“Like you?”

“You’re funny, did you know that?”

After lowering her to the floor, he stretched over her. The strength in his broad masculine body blanketed her in security. He might be a vicious predator against the dragons, but never to her.

“Next time, on a soft mattress.”

“Okay.” She shrugged. “Whatever.”

He pressed his hard cock against her pussy. It was huge and, although intellectually she understood it should fit, a part of her wondered if they’d actually be able to get the job done.

He pushed in gently. “Inch-by-inch, sweetheart.”

“More, Dougal. I won’t break.” For the first time in forever, she knew her words to be true.

D
ougal had to hold it together. Spilling himself within ten seconds of getting inside her sweet pussy wasn’t acceptable no matter how long it had been for him. Her muscles slowly welcomed him inside.
Home.
Where he’d always belonged.

He pushed slowly, his balls tightening sending surges of pleasure along his spine. Gods, she fit him like a glove. As though she’d been made for him. “You waited for me.”

Why had he gotten so lucky? Females were protected, worshiped. Everyone knew what went on behind the scenes. Yet, she’d been untouched until him. The gods had given him such a gift.

He wasn’t particularly spiritual. Whatever the reason, he was grateful she’d come to him, even though he was going to be a terrible mate.

He wouldn’t worry about what would be. Instead, he’d give her his best, no matter how little he had to offer.

“Dougal.”

The moment was near perfection. He reached between them, finding her clit. She cried out when he did and he altered his position to catch her clit more with his cock. Her body arched beneath his. He grinned. She obviously liked it. His female wanted clit action.

She’d get all she wanted.

He rubbed against her, surging his hips in time with her cries of pleasure. The strength of her gasps rose as she writhed in excitement. Her muscles spasmed around him.

There was nothing in existence more important to him than Caitlyn coming, Dragons and wars be damned. Mating his female mattered. What was the point of any of it without her? How had he thought any day held meaning? It hadn’t. Not before Caitlyn walked into his life.

She cried out, digging her fingers into his back. Her juices coated him and he took a deep breath. A couple more seconds was all he needed.

Finally, yes, it was time. His cock exploded, and he filled her with his seed. Seated deep within her, he gave her all of him, every drop of eternity. The words he’d spoken finally made sense to him. Mating wasn’t about the now. It was about always. It was about committing every moment of their lives.

The urge he’d known he would be unable to resist filled him. His fangs elongated and he bit, strongly, on her neck. Marking her, claiming Caitlyn. She didn’t heal well and the thought made him smile. Everyone would see the evidence of their bond. No one would ever dispute
his
claim.

****

I
t was full dark and his mate slept against him. Where the fuck was the boat? Shouldn’t Brett have sent it back? What was going on?

He closed his eyes. Dougal hadn’t slept deeply in ten years. If the boat came back, he’d hear it. They both needed rest. Caitlyn’s ability to conk out in his arms was either a testament to her trust in him or because he still hadn’t fed her since her time on the drugs he’d insisted she take.