“You mean that,” she asked softly.
He gave a tight smile and nodded. “Do you,” he paused to clear the dryness in his throat. “Do you know where you want to go?”
Her mouth turned up into a tumultuous smile. “It’s not a matter of where I want to go, Draven, so much as who I want to be with.”
His first instinct was violent anger. “Who?”
Her eyes widened at his tone and she took an instinctual step back. “Why with you of course.” Now she looked at him as if he was daft.
Never a man of great patience, Draven felt his slipping quickly away.
“What are you talking about? You said you want to be rid of me.”
“No,” she said sternly. “I said I don’t wish to be your whore or your frimar.” She blushed before going on. “I want more. And I want it with you.”
Frowning, Draven pulled his arm away from her touch. “Never use that word with me again, Lucinda. You were never nor could you ever be a whore. Then what the hell is it you want from me?”
If she was shocked at his language, she didn’t show it. She actually smiled at him, smiled!
“I want you to be with me for me. Because you care for me as I do you.” She held that hopeful, happy smile for a full minute before it started to dim at his silence.
“Be with me,” he said slowly as if he didn’t understand the words. “How?” he said, genuinely puzzled.
She flushed darker and stood straighter. “Well, I don’t know. Like Chloe and Commander Tyrian. They are...together.”
Draven finally understood, and his brain felt like it fell through the floor. She wanted to be with him as in...a marriage. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Then he was breathing too fast too hard. The room spun around him in circles.
And then he fell to the floor.
Draven awoke with a pounding headache and a beautiful woman sitting on top of him.
“Lucinda?” His voice was hoarse and his head felt like he’d had a run in with a rock.
She smiled down at him, eyes glittering in the firelight. He struggled to remember how he came to be here and why he was on the floor but it was hard to think because she leaned down and kissed him square on the mouth.
“Welcome back,” she said softly.
“Thank you,” he said hesitantly.
She laughed, the sound surprisingly husky and loud. He loved that laugh. He was grinning back at her before he knew it.
“I take that as a yes.” Her lips trailed across his cheek. The nibbling at his ear was entirely too distracting. His arms were wrapped around her in the next second.
“What’s that?”
“That you do want to stay with me.”
Then it all came back to him. She wanted to be with him as in marriage, mating, forever together. Draven’s heart hammered in his chest and he forced himself to relax.
Her lips trailed down his neck, her hands moved under his shirt and up his chest. She owned him. With each touch, he felt himself giving in. It was a wonderful, soft feeling, how he imagined melting felt like.
She pulled his shirt up and scattered sexy little kisses across his chest. Slowly he felt himself succumb to her. To her touch, her kisses, her soft words.
“Please, Draven.” She kissed the flats of his nipples then lower. “I can’t have my life without you in it now.” She fanned her hands along his sides and he closed his eyes on a groan as she neared his erection.
“Please, please, please.”
His mouth floundered open and closed, eyes slammed shut as she tugged his pants down to his thighs. Her hot, wet mouth enclosed over him and he groaned, hands burying in her long, loose hair.
“Lucinda,” he gasped.
She licked and sucked, taking him to the back of her throat again and again. His body tightened to an excruciating point. It was too good; he wouldn’t last like this. Her mouth was untrained for this but her simple touches were driving him mad.
She pulled away. In a ragged whisper said, “Do this for me, please.” Then she claimed him whole again, wet sucking heat.
For her. Yes, he’d do it for her. Before he exploded, he fisted her hair and pulled her away, forcing her to meet his eyes.
With a fierce, possessive look he said, “Anything for you.”
For a moment she looked as though she’d cry, but then she gave him a smile that he felt all the way to his soul.
Then she took him deep again and didn’t let up until he gave a hoarse shout and shot his hot release in her mouth. She swallowed over him, her fist pumping his cock to wring him dry. She climbed over him afterward and held him.
Somewhere in the back of his foggy mind, he knew he’d just given her complete control over him. And strangely, he trusted her with it...
Chapter 36
Willow was still staring at the clock when he finally came through the door at four-thirty in the morning.
To say she was pissed was the understatement of the century. She was able to forgive the first night he didn’t come home—because she was super nice. But she was not able to forgive excluding her from a meeting about a demon stalking her. And she was so not able to forgive being ignored for two days. Like she was some kind of breeding mare and now that she was mated to him with his child, he could just lock her up here and come visit her when it fancied him.
“Fuck that!” she shouted coming to a stand.
Lyonis paused in the doorway, then shut it with a soft click. Embarrassment threatened to make her blush, but she was too mad for that now. God, it felt good. Anger she knew, anger she loved.
“Fuck what?”
“You! You can’t treat me like this.”
For a moment he looked as though he’d pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about but then he shrugged.
“Yes I can. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you and our young safe.”
He went up the stairs and she followed him. “By locking me up here? By not telling me there was a meeting about the demon after me! Oh, or maybe you’re protecting me by not telling me my sisters were here!”
He started tearing his clothes off as he headed for the bathroom. “Let it go Willow. It doesn’t matter.”
She saw red. Count to ten, she thought, and calm down. She made it to two before she was ready to pull her hair out.
“Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but this is my life and it matters very fucking much, thank you.”
Naked, he turned to her and nearly bumped into her. “You got to see your family. You should be happy I let you do that.”
Her heart stopped beating.
“What?” she said, her voice dangerously quiet.
His expression tightened. “You heard me. Be happy I let you see your sisters. I can’t trust them not to help you escape.”
“This can’t be happening,” she muttered. All the anger wiped out of her in an instant.
She fell against the door and for whatever reason he was there to catch her from sliding down it. He held her up and for a moment, she thought she saw concern there. No, he didn’t love her. People who loved didn’t do these kinds of things. Monsters did.
“Are you a monster?”
He looked away from her, when he turned back his expression was controlled. What was he hiding from her? That thought had anger spiking sharply inside her. She pushed his hands off her shoulders and stepped away from him.
“You’re just like him!”
Willow’s eyes shot wide the moment the words slid from her lips.