Jorden: The McCade Dragon –Erotic Paranormal Romance (6 page)

When Vance asked to have a seat on the deck with her, she nodded. When he sat in one of the larger chairs, she heard it groan. Vance wasn’t just tall, but big everywhere, like he worked out using cars as weights. He tilted back his worn dirty hat, a black Stetson, and looked at her. After a few minutes, he finally spoke to her.

“You know that you’re being looked for, don’t you?” She told him that she did. “I figured you did. What I’m afraid that you might not know is that they’re closing in on you and that boy of yours. I ran into a couple of them in town.”

“Ran into them or ran over them?” He just smiled. Jasmine had been kidding, but his look told her that she didn’t want to know the real answer. “They want these earrings. I’ve tried to get them off, but they’re stuck there. I think I might need to have them removed by a surgeon or something.”

“They’re not coming off unless you want to get rid of those pretty ears too. They’re a part of you. Just as much as your son and Jorden now, I guess.” Again she wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not, but didn’t ask. When he leaned back on the chair, she saw the gun. Jasmine had an idea that his gun was as much a part of him as her earrings were to her. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. You’re quiet and very observant, but I think that in your mind lurks something that I don’t want to know about.” He nodded but said nothing. “I don’t think you showed your gun to scare me, more…I think you just didn’t think about it being there until I saw it. You’re not a terrible person, but I think you feel you’ve done some pretty terrible things. I have no idea why I think that, but I do.”

“I’m sorry about the gun. And you’re right, I don’t think of it unless I need to use it. It’s there because I have needed it. Ever since I’ve been back from places better left unnamed.” She nodded and looked at the tree line when he did. “The man that’s after you, he doesn’t care for the dragon, even though he wants others to think he does. He wants the riches that come with owning the dragon. Do you know the legend, Jasmine?”

“Some of it. I’m not sure how much of what I’ve been told is true, but I’ve heard it. You’re one too.” He nodded. “I don’t know a lot of history about this whole thing, as I said. I know what Emma told me, and the dragon. But I don’t think he knows that much either. He seems to be as lost as anyone about what he can do, and what is coming with each piece. And what happens once they’re all here.”

Vance stood up and handed her a sheet of paper. It was a picture of all the pieces, she’d bet. “Do you see them as they are in the photo, or do you see them at their best?” She asked him what he meant. “What do you see when you look at the brooch there in the middle? Just tell me what you see and I’ll tell you what I know.”

“All right.” Jasmine picked up the picture off her lap. “I see a dragon on an oval piece of onyx, I think. His body is blue, small stones that I think are sapphires seem to merge together into a larger piece that makes him glitter and glow. He has emeralds for eyes and his wings.... His wings look like they’re made of some kind of opal; blue opal, I think. The pendant is made of gold, brilliantly polished so that it’s almost painful to look at.”

“The picture, to most people—humans—is in black and white. Nor do they see them as you and the rest of us do. They see, as they’re meant to, just a bunch of cheap looking jewelry that they don’t understand the fuss over. Those that cannot see the pieces for what they are have no magic in them. And being a dragon, or any shifter, is magic.” She said that she had never seen a shifter or magic until coming here. “Not true. You know several shifters where you lived. I’ve talked to a few of them. Mr. Brown, the butcher, he’s a cat. The woman who would ring you out at the grocery store was a wolf. Those animals there, the ones that you can see along the tree line, they’re shifters as well. And once you are comfortable with them, they’ll come and introduce themselves to you.” Jasmine looked at the three wolves that were staring at her like they knew she was thinking about them.

“What does this have to do with the picture?” Vance laid it on his lap and closed his eyes. Jasmine wondered if he was going to answer her, and decided that while she really wanted to know, she wasn’t good at playing games.

“When they come for you, you’ll have to do just what we tell you to do or you’ll be killed.” The calmness in his voice, the way he said it as if he were talking about the coming rain, chilled her to her very core. “There are two men, even as we sit here, that are finding clues as to where you are and what you’re doing. At first I thought them working together, gathering what they could to combine their efforts to come for you. But they’re not. One is coming soon, the other is biding his time. Waiting for the other man to make a mistake. Or to get a piece of the jewelry that he already thinks of as his.”

“They mean to kill whoever has a piece of it, like Emma and myself do, or take it before someone else can put a claim on it. And the picture? What does it have to do with me?” Vance told her everything. “Can you just stop talking to me like we’re on some game show and simply tell me what you’re trying hard not to say? In the event that you didn’t notice, these men hurt me and mine. I want them gone from my life as much as you guys do.”

He laughed, but she wasn’t sure that it made her feel any better. “The men that are looking for the other pieces, they have been instructed to do whatever is necessary to get them. Even if the owner, as you are with the earrings, happens to be wearing them. When they find what he wants they’re to cut the pieces from the woman, using any and all means possible, then kill her if she’s not already dead. Should they find you, they won’t bother with your ears, as I have said…they’ll simply cut your head off, ship it to him, and he’ll store it away, head and all, until all the pieces come to him.” She asked him how he knew this. He just handed her the picture again. This time she saw the fingerprint. It was small and barely noticeable until he pointed it out to her. The one that seemed to be smeared in blood. “The person that owned the picture was the grandfather to the man who now comes for you. He will kill, indiscriminately, until he gets what he wants. But what he doesn’t know, and he’ll find out, is that I won’t hesitate to keep you and the other women that come here safe. We will all do whatever is necessary to do so. But you must promise me that when I tell you to do something, whatever it might be, you must do it. It will save your life.”

“Will they hurt Gavin?” He only looked at her. “Then I have to ask you to make me a promise. I will do whatever you need, whenever you need it, but you have to keep him safe. No matter what, Gavin is all I have in this world, and I won’t be able to do anything if I don’t know that he’s safe.”

“If I promise you that he is safe, will you trust me?” Trust. A word that she wasn’t sure about. “None of us will never lie to you. Never harm you, and I will protect you both, and my entire family, with my life. If I promise you that he is taken care of, will you trust me that I’m not telling you a falsehood?”

“Yes.” It was a huge step for her, to trust this stranger. When he stood up, she felt like she needed to hug him, to tell him that whatever happened to him—because she knew something had—it would be all right. But she’d not lie to him either. “Jorden thinks he’s my mate. He said that when I leave here, he will die with the dragon.”

“If you leave here before this is finished, I cannot protect you. And in this fight, I’m your only hope.” That scared her to death. “Stay or leave, it’s up to you, but should you do so, then know that you both will die, and it won’t be an easy one for either of you.” With that, Vance walked off the deck and back into the woods, with the wolves behind him.

Jasmine was still sitting on the deck, everything around her faded in the back of her mind, when Jorden said her name. She wasn’t sure that being stuck here was the right word, but she couldn’t leave. Because for every scenario she thought of that they could do to her and Gavin, she was sure there were a hundred more things she didn’t let her mind dwell on. They were here until things were taken care of. Whatever that meant.

“Maxwell said that Vance came to see you.” She nodded. “Are you all right? I know that he won’t hurt you, but he’s a little intense and can be a little abrupt. Few know that he’s still working for the government, and that they can and do call for him when things are bad. But he’s a wonderful man and would do anything for anyone. But as I said, he can be a little scary, even to us.”

“He said he’d protect us, but the only way that he could do that is if we stayed here.” Jorden said nothing but watched her. “I was married once. I know that you are aware of that and the circumstances surrounding it. I don’t trust easily, if at all, and my son is my entire world. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t know what to do about you and your family, or what it is that you want from us.”

“What is it you think we want for you to do?” She told him she had no idea. “All right, that’s fair enough. But can I tell you what I want? What I’d like to see happen between us?”

“You want to fuck me.” He shook his head. “Come on, you’re not going to sit there and tell me you don’t want to have sex with me. I might be a little rusty when it comes to sex, but I know when someone wants me.”

“I do want you. Badly as a matter of fact. All I can think about is laying you out on my bed and feasting on every single part of you. Then when I’ve had my tongue on every single part of you, I want to start over. I want to bury my cock deep into you, fill you with all that I am, and have you scream out my name while I do so.” Jasmine shifted on her seat when he touched his fingers to her cheek. “No, Jasmine, I don’t want to merely fuck you, I want to make love to you. Make love with you. Bring your body to peak with all that I am, not because you’re a woman, but because I want you to belong to me.”

Tears filled her eyes at his soft words. They were kind and loving. She was sure that he meant them too, that he’d not been just telling her things that he thought she wanted to hear. Kris had done that all the time, and she’d hated it.

“I don’t know how to be what you need.” He asked her what it was she thought he might need. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. When I was married the first time, even before we were married a full two days, he told me that I wasn’t what he wanted in a bed partner. And that he’d never loved me, only saw me as a means to get what he wanted from his mom. He cared for me, but he’d never love me, he told me. And if I hadn’t sort of forced his hand that first night we were together, I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t have ever had sex with me.”

“From all accounts of Kris that we were able to find, he wasn’t a very good man. I mean, he might have been had his mom not messed with his life, but he should have taken better care with you and Gavin. Money, it seems, was more important to him than simply seeing that he had responsibilities that had nothing to do with his sexual preferences.” She nodded and looked away. “Jasmine, Gavin will never feel like he’s not important to me. I’ll provide for you and him like he’s my own child. And any we might have later, if you wish, they will only know him as Gavin, their big brother. I want him to carry my name, be a McCade, not because I’ve married his mom—and that is what I want more than anything—but because I love you and him enough to make sure the world knows it.”

“I don’t know what I want or need right now other than to be safe. And Gavin will need to know that you’re not just saying pretty words to get his mom in the sack. He has to trust you more than I do right now.” He said he understood that. “Can you? Can you know what it’s like to not have any idea if the next person that comes around the corner is going to try and kill you? That every time Gavin isn’t in your sight, you wonder if he’s safe?”

“Yes.” She stared at him. “Gavin might not be of my body, but he’s like a son to me already, and will be if you consent to it. I know this is too soon, that you’re still trying to get your feet under you, but I’m in love with you.”

“No, that’s not possible. You just.... It’s just the need to have sex, that’s all. You’re a man that needs to have sex, and that’s all you’re feeling right now.” He stood up but didn’t move. She was worried that she might have hurt him in some way. “I’m sorry, Jorden, I really am, but I’m slightly overwhelmed right now and I don’t know what way is up.”

“I want to take you to my bed and make love to you for hours. When I see you lying in my bed, it’s all I can do not to join you. I haven’t, do you know why?” She said that she didn’t. “Because I want you to trust that what I say to you is truth. That when I tell you that I want you, it’s not because I’m some horny kid, but because I want to make love to you, cherish every part of you. Do I want to simply bend you over this railing and fuck you hard? Hell yeah, I do. But because I love you, not because you’re here and wearing a part of me you brought to life.”

“Brought to life?”

Jorden nodded to her and stepped off the deck. Before she could ask him where he was going, he was gone. And in his place was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen. His dragon was even more amazing than the man had been.

Chapter 5

Jorden wasn’t sure who was more surprised by his shift, her or him. He’d known that he’d be able to shift, in theory, but not how easy it was. And when he spread out his wings behind him, she stood up despite her being hurt. Her fingers danced over his flesh, making him tingle within the dragon. And when he moaned, he felt the dragon smile, as if he wasn’t wholly him but someone else.

“Can you fly?” He had no idea, but looked up to the sky when she did. “Try it. Dragon said that my earrings would bring you your wings. Show me, Jorden. I want to see you in the sky so badly I can almost taste the excitement of it.”

You can fly, my lord. As can Lord Kenton. Just think of lifting up and you should be able to do it.
He asked him what he meant by should be able to do it.
I have not flown in many, many generations, sadly. I have spent so many years apart because of the magic that I can no longer remember what it feels like to be in the air. Should you do this now, as the lady wishes, you’ll not only please her but me as well.

I’m sorry.
Dragon told him it was all right, but he should please his mate and fly with her.
Not until I know what I’m doing. What if I drop her? Or I fall from the sky?

You will not.
But Jorden wanted to wait, and when Jasmine told him again to fly for her, he thought of soaring upward. When he lifted from the ground with only a little effort, he felt wonderful. And his dragon did as well…his joy ran over him as Jasmine’s fingers had.
You should tell her. Let her know what you are thinking. You have a connection now. All of those that have come to be with their mates, we can speak this way
.

I love you.
He heard Jasmine giggle and he smiled. Something so small as a laugh made him feel as if he’d conquered the world.
You should take pictures of me. I haven’t any idea what I look like.

“You’re beautiful. I mean, simply the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. Your wings are blue, but like the sky blue, not the ocean. And when you’re spread out the way you are now, I can’t see them…they’re a perfect match for what’s around you.” He landed on the ground in front of the deck, bowing before her and Gavin, who had come to join them. “He wants to ride with you. Take him up, please, but be careful.”

Reaching for him, it never occurred to him to think it might be a bad idea but took Gavin up in the air. The boy’s laughter, his excitement, was well worth the small fear he’d had. And when he turned in the sky, letting Gavin see what he wanted, Jorden thought he could die a happy man right now when Gavin told him he was the best person in the world.

Jorden held him tightly, not painfully, but he wasn’t going to drop him. And when Gavin’s laughter touched his ears again, Jorden laughed with him. Never would he have thought that he’d be flying, much less with his son. Landing on the grass, he reached for Jasmine this time. And when she backed away, he knew it wasn’t from fear of him but of the unknown. When he took a step toward her again, she came to him willingly and he wrapped her into his arms. They were in the sky in seconds.

They weren’t high, not as high as he’d been the first time he’d gone up…he knew that she was afraid of him dropping her. He showed her what he had shown Gavin. The top of their home. And Kenton’s. The town that they had been in only hours ago. He pointed out landmarks that he could see, and showed her the places where their land touched his family’s.

Taking her to one of the hills behind their home, he landed on his feet and turned her in his arms as he shifted to himself. Taking her mouth with his own, he felt her respond to him like she had before, needy and hungry for him. He lifted his head just enough to speak to her. He nibbled on her between thoughts.

“There is no bed here, but I need to be inside of you.” She nodded, pulling at his clothing. “Christ, all I can think about is taking you right here, on the ground.”

“Then less talking and more getting naked.” He laughed when she did. “I think it was the excitement of seeing you like that. A dragon. You have any idea how…? You brought him to life, made me believe that this might be worth it. Hurry, Jorden. I need you.”

“I see, you want me for the dragon and not for my lovely body.” Jorden pretended to pout when he dropped to his knees in front of her. “I’m going to enjoy this more than you can imagine.”

Burying his mouth over her pussy, he could smell her need even through her panties. He pulled them down a little at a time, tasting her skin as he exposed it. When they were down around her knees, he pulled her to him again and licked her hard nubbin that seemed to be begging him to bite. Taking her into his mouth, Jorden moaned at the taste of her.

She flooded his mouth with her cream. It was hot, spicy, and thick. Jorden lifted her leg up to get more of her, but all it did was tease him more. He wanted all of her, not just the little he could get with her standing up. Begging her to lie down, he helped her strip out of her shirt and bra. Then when she was on the ground before him, Jorden stood up and took off his own clothing. Christ, he hurt, he needed her so badly.

When he pulled his shirt off and dropped it atop her things, she sat up and rubbed her cheek over his cock. He could have come right then, just let his cum fill his boxers rather than his mate. And if she kept it up, which it looked as if she might, he would. But he needed to be deep inside of her and he backed from her. Jorden took off the last of his clothing. When she told him to stand still, he wasn’t sure what she needed until she reached for his cock, wrapping her hand around him.

“You’re very hard.” He nodded and moaned when she kissed the tip of his cock. “Every time I hear the shower running or find a damp towel in the bathroom, all I can think about is seeing you like this. Naked and hard. And when I take the towel that you used to my nose, I think of it rubbing over your body, how hard it must be when you scrub yourself. Christ, it’s all I can do not to hunt you down and beg you to take me again and again.”

Jasmine ran her tongue over the tip of his cock, then circled his crown. When she sucked him into her mouth for the briefest of seconds, he felt his balls tighten up. And then when she let him go, he grabbed the tree next to him and held on, knowing that he was that close to falling on his ass.

“I’ve had to relieve myself every time I’m alone. Just thinking of you touching me, it hurts.” She licked him from tip to root, pausing long enough to take his balls into her mouth one at a time. “I’m so close, Jasmine. And unless you want me to come all over you like this, let me eat you.”

She laid back, her body beautiful against the dark grass, her hair spread out under her head. He looked at her, really looked, and told her how incredibly gorgeous she was.

“I’m not.” He got down on his knees again and she shivered. “You’re going to bring me over to your dark side, aren’t you? I have to tell you; I’ve never had oral sex before. So while I know theoretically what is going to happen, I’m a little afraid of disappointing you.”

“What a shame. But then, I’m very happy to introduce you to something so wonderful that you’re never going to want me to stop.” She giggled again. “Christ, I could go every day and be happy just to hear you laugh.”

Kissing her inner thigh, Jorden wondered how he should start. Slowly, his mind told him, but his body said go for it. Spreading her tender lips open, he could see how wet she was, how hard her little clit was. Taking it into his mouth, he bit down hard enough to bring her but not taste her blood. He would do that some other time, he thought. And when she screamed again as he sucked her into his mouth, Jorden slid his fingers into her to see if he could make her come at least a dozen or more times before he took her. If he didn’t die first.

She rode his mouth, then his fingers. Every time she begged him to stop, to let her rest, he would begin again, bringing her harder, faster than before. Jasmine was his, and he was going to make sure that she enjoyed this as much as he did, even if it killed him. When she pulled his head up by jerking his hair, he was breathing hard, his body hurting to take her.

“I need you to stop.” He shook his head. “Yes. You’ve made your point. You enjoy oral sex and so do I, but I’m exhausted. I never knew a body could come that many times.”

“Oh, but that was only the appetizer. Now I’m going to have you as my main course, as well as dessert, before I can declare myself filled.” She was shaking her head even as she reached for him. Jorden tasted her navel as he made his way up her body. Nipped at her hip. When he licked a path up her ribs, he knew she was close again; her hips were rising up to meet his and he teased her a little with his cock. “When I fill you, I will come quickly, I’m sorry to say.”

“I need you.” He slid the thick crown of his cock into her and paused. “More. Please, I need more. Jorden, fill me please?”

He slammed forward even as he took her mouth. He tasted her climax, felt her scream all the way down his back. When she dug her nails into his skin, drawing blood that he felt run down his spine, Jorden fucked her hard, pounding her as hard as he could, filling not just her pussy with himself but everywhere he could touch her. And when he felt his body ready to release, he threw back his head and cried out as he emptied. Every part of his body, every cell inside of him, exploded as he released deep within his mate.

Even as the thought that he was done entered his mind, his body spent, he felt himself fill again, and his cock thicken. And when his balls ached again, he leaned into her throat and licked her pulse there. As soon as she screamed she was coming, he bit down and came with her, his mouth filled with her blood even as his body filled her with his cum.

Bringing her once more, hearing her beg him to please let her rest, Jorden knew that she was his. Marking her with his cum and taking her blood, he also knew that no one would hurt her so long as he was alive if he could help it. And he’d love her with his dying breath.

Dropping down, his body rolling at the last second to pull hers onto his, he held her. When his heart wasn’t feeling like he’d run a race and had given it his all, he might be able to tell her again how much he loved her. But for now, he could barely move. Closing his eyes, Jorden smiled. He had his mate.

Waking to the sound of some of the forest animals coming back out into the area, he laid still while he watched a pair of wolves leap and run around as if they had not a care in the world. He supposed so long as they stayed here, where he could protect them, they didn’t. When Jasmine lifted her head up and looked down at him, he brushed the tears away and asked her what was wrong.

“I don’t know. Nothing and everything. I never wanted this, another man in my life.” He nodded, trying his best not to be wounded by her words. “I mean, you’re a wonderful man and probably could have done better than me, but I never wanted to fall in love with you.”

“I love you as well.” She nodded and laid her head back down. He smacked her on the ass hard, and when she lifted her head up again, he kissed her. “I couldn’t have done any better than you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re perfect. And why shouldn’t you be? I’m perfect as well.”

She laughed with him, but he could tell she was still thinking about them being together. But instead of trying to reassure her again, which he wasn’t sure she’d believe, Jorden told her about his art and the exhibit that was coming up.

“When I was a kid growing up knowing that I wanted to work in art, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to work with. Paint, clay. I even played around with pen and inks for a time. But something about the way colors flow together in painting makes me love it the best. When I’m working, which hasn’t been very much since you’ve been around, I get excited to see a blank canvas, the colors on my pallet there just waiting to be mixed together and put to the material.” She looked at him. “Like you. When I first saw you, I honestly was terrified of you. Not you really, but what you would become now. As my mate.”

“You mean what you could change me into?” He said no, that wasn’t it at all. He loved her just the way she was. “Then I don’t understand. Why did I frighten you?”

“I was afraid that you’d change from the picture that Gavin had painted in my head of you.” He knew that he wasn’t explaining it well. “Gavin told me all these stories about you. How you took on that proctor at the college. When you had a man trying to date you and he had a wife and children. He gave me a side of you that made me see you in this way that I bet few see you in. A protective mother. A warrior for the underdog. Someone that cries at sappy commercials and gets excited about a box of junk that no one else wanted that you only paid a buck for. He told me of the times he would see you sitting at your desk when you thought him in bed, writing descriptions for your pieces to flip, and the two of you laughing at the stories you made up for him about the people you’d encounter. The woman that he showed me, the woman that you are, was the person I fell in love with long before you came to me. And you are just that woman, all of the things I said and more.”

“Oh Jorden, what a way with words you have.” He kissed her then, giving her a small taste of what he felt for her. And when he looked up at her when she lifted her head, Jorden fell more in love with her than he’d been before. He truly did love his mate.

~~~

Gavin was sitting in the living room when Jasmine came into the house. Maxwell told her that he’d been in there a little while, but he had told him that he was thinking. Gavin did that better than most, and when he came to her about it, he had whatever plan or scheme completely worked out in his head before he opened his mouth.