Why do I care what he thinks? Apparently this was what an explosive orgasm did to her—made her insecure and sappy. Not good. Time to put things back on a level playing field. “Told you I wasn’t the screaming type.”
His mouth curling in an arrogant smile, Aiden pulled down the covers and lowered her gently to the bed. “It sounded suspiciously like one to me.”
“You need to have your ears checked.”
He tucked the coverlet around her before giving her a lingering kiss. She could taste herself on his lips. Rather than gross her out it rekindled a spark of arousal. Thank God she was too tired and boneless to do anything about it.
Straightening his arms, he remained leaning over her, his grin too knowing for her liking. “Didn’t I warn you about the dangers of challenging a dragon?”
She rolled her eyes. “What are you going to do? Kill me with orgasms?”
A wicked and sexy laugh rumbling from his chest, he shoved from the bed and pivoted. The tightest, hottest buns to ever grace a man’s—or dragon’s—backside flexed as Aiden strode toward the doorway. Once he disappeared into the hall, she pulled the pillow over her head with a groan. “Good Lord, I must have a death wish.”
Chapter Eight
It was hard as hell trying to sleep all night with an erection, no pun intended. Add that to having to bunk with Jace, who snored like a freight train was parked in his esophagus, and Aiden considered himself lucky that he managed to log a couple hours of Z’s. Plowing his hands through his rumpled hair, he swung his legs over the side of the air mattress and stood—well, as best he could inside the low-ceilinged tent. He stepped outside. The crisp autumn breeze ruffled over his bare chest and his nipples instantly stood at attention, much as they had the night before when Dana toyed with them. His cock throbbed in fond remembrance. Unfortunately, it also reminded him that he needed to piss something fierce.
He slid a glance toward the house. The windows were still dark. Most likely Dana hadn’t gotten up yet. Rather than waking her and risking her wrath—not to mention the temptation of slipping in bed with her—he strode to the other side of the garage. Loosening the string on his sweatpants, he freed his dick. Not a moment too soon. Uttering a loud groan of relief, he emptied his bladder.
“What are you doing? Jacking off back here?”
Scowling, he tossed a look over his shoulder at Jace. “Jesus, is five seconds to myself too much to ask?”
“Seems to me you had way more than five seconds last night.” Cracking a huge yawn, Jace scratched his chest. “Which leads me to believe the last thing you need is a date with Rosie Palm, you lucky bastard.”
Aiden tucked his cock away without saying anything.
“Fine, you don’t want to kiss and tell.” The sound of Jace scrunching through the leaves preceded the distinct noise of him urinating.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
An incredulous snort fell from Jace. “You expect me to believe you didn’t have sex with her?”
“Yeah, because I didn’t.” Aiden turned to find his brother gaping at him.
“Why the fuck not?”
“Dana isn’t ready for that yet.”
Jace readjusted his sweats. “You mean to tell me you indulged in a half-hour shower and then bitched me out about my puny six-minute splash and dash?”
“She’s on a well. We don’t need to be taxing her water pump.” Aiden averted his gaze. “And I said we didn’t have sex. Doesn’t mean we weren’t doing other things.”
“I knew it, you sneaky son of a bitch.” Jace grabbed the large fir branch propped against the garage wall and snapped it in two.
For a second, Aiden expected Jace to toss him the other half of the stick and call him out in some kind of hokey backwoods duel. Jace tended to be a smartass that way. Instead, Jace broke the branch into an even smaller section. Keeping the part that forked into a spray of needles, he stretched his arm behind him and scruffed the pine bough over his skin.
Aiden grunted. “Leave it to you to invent the world’s first redneck backscratcher.”
Ignoring the sarcasm, Jace continued swishing away. “So what’d you do, eat her pussy while she sucked you off?”
“Jesus. You get a vicarious thrill hearing about others’ love lives, don’t you?”
The rustling from the needles stopped and Jace stared at him. “Who the hell mentioned anything about love?”
Fuck. “It’s a figure of speech, for Christ’s sake.”
Jace didn’t exactly appear convinced. “Are you falling for her?”
“Of course not.” Aiden gave a pointed look toward the branch gripped in Jace’s hand. “You must be suffering some kind of weird allergic reaction to fir sap. It’d explain your sudden delusions.”
“Bro, falling in love with Dana would be a lousy mistake. She’s human. Not to mention our fucking sacrifice. If the council even suspects your heart is knotted up over her, they’ll strip you of your alpha ranking and banish you so fast you won’t know what hit you.”
He didn’t need Jace telling him what he already knew. His responsibilities to the Drakoni, to his mother, were top priority. Which meant Dana Cooper could never be anything more than his sacrifice.
Dana awoke from a sexy, decadent dream about her dragon lover worshipping her entire body with his tongue, to an eleven pound tabby with major tuna breath squatting on her sternum. She pinched her nose. “I see we’ve moved on to the bad-morning-breath phase of our battle.” Twisting her torso, she dislodged Ms. Whiskers and tossed back the covers. That’s when she realized she was half naked.
The events from the hall last night came rushing upon her faster than a runaway train. She’d allowed Aiden to pin her against the wall and feast on her like the Tuesday night special at Sven’s all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. Oh yeah—and she hadn’t exactly been an unwilling participant. A wash of heat spread over her skin.
“Ugh, it’s too early in the morning for wallowing in endless mortification.” She peeked at the clock on the bedside table and blinked at the numerals displayed. Eight fifty.
Crap, she’d forgotten to set the damn alarm. The Ren fair would be opening in a little over an hour—which wasn’t a big deal, except it took her forty minutes to drive to the blasted thing.
She leapt off the mattress, scaring the bejeebers out of poor Ms. Whiskers, and raced to the closet. After jerking on panties and a bra, she wiggled into the wench dress and did the fastest makeup job ever. Praying she didn’t look like a psychotic clown from the dark ages, she streaked into the kitchen and filled the cat bowl before grabbing a bagel. Anchoring the bagel between her teeth, she snatched her cell phone, keys, and the Ziploc bag containing her ID and stash of money. Satisfied she had all the essentials, she barreled out the door. Aiden and Jace stood in front of their tent, arguing about something. They stopped long enough to frown at her. Good thing she was running late, otherwise she might have wasted away the morning just ogling their naked chests.
Yanking open POC’s door, she climbed behind the wheel. From the corner of her eye, she spied Aiden jogging toward her. The sight of all those rippling muscles and acres of yummy golden flesh was positively drool worthy. Swallowing hard, she jammed the key into the ignition. The engine turned over with a cranky groan.
Aiden slammed to a halt, his hand curving around the frame of POC’s opened door. “Where are you going?”
Snagging the bagel from her teeth, she gestured to her dress. “Where do you think?”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Uh, thanks for the calendar update.” She tore her scrutiny from his firm lips, trying not to think about where they’d been the night before. “The Ren fair is only open on the weekends. So if you don’t mind, I need to get my ass moving before I lose out on potential sales.” How strange to think that yesterday she’d assumed her gloomy financial straits were the only thing she needed to worry about. If nothing else, discovering she was a dragon’s sacrifice really put things in perspective.