“Fire!” I ordered, and writhed happily when he chuckled and said, “So demanding. That, too, has not changed,” before allowing his dragon fire to pour out of him and wrap itself around me. It burned, but it did not harm me. It warmed, but it was nothing compared to the inferno blazing within. It teased my flesh, but only Baltic’s touches, soft caresses with his mouth and fingers, made me feel like I was one continuous erogenous zone.
“Embrace the fire, chérie,” he mumbled into my breastbone as he slid lower, kissing and burning a path down to my stomach. “Claim it as your own. Use it. Shape it. Make it be what you want it to be.” I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to, but I couldn’t focus my thoughts on anything but the magic of him as he slid even lower, nipping at my hips with sharp teeth, soothed by long, slow strokes of his tongue.
“Accept the fire, my love.”
“I… I can’t,” I said as he nudged my knees apart.
“You can. You are my mate. You are a light dragon. Accept it.” Heat poured over me as he sent his dragon fire up my body again, the flames licking along my skin before sinking deep into me. His hands swept up my thighs, pushing them wider, his mouth hot on the sensitive inner flesh as he kissed a fiery path to my very core.
“I don’t think it’s possible,” I said, a fever of need and want and desire all mingled together, causing a pressure within me to push higher and higher.
“It is. You must try, Ysolde. Give the fire back to me.” I moaned again at the feeling of his mouth as he breathed fire on the most sensitive of flesh, gasping when he sank a finger into me. “Use it, mate. Use the fire.” A long, low cry tore from my throat as the pressure continued to build, fueled by both his fire and the passion he was triggering with every flick of his tongue.
“Now!” he demanded, and my body trembled on the brink of something so profound, I couldn’t begin to understand it. The pressure inside me gave with a rush as the fire that I had absorbed roared to life, pouring out of me to consume him.
He made a noise deep in his chest, part growl, part mating sound that my heart recognized and answered. My body wasn’t just alight — I was the flame. Baltic suddenly reached underneath me, flipping me over onto my stomach, the arm beneath my belly pulling me upward as he covered my back.
“Mate,” he growled, his body hard and aggressive on mine. I arched again, unable to keep from moaning with sheer, utter ecstasy as he thrust into my body, his penis a brand that only drove the pressure inside me to the point where I knew I was going to explode.
The feeling of him within me, of my muscles trembling around him, was enough to push me over the edge. I spiraled into an orgasm unlike anything I thought possible, my soul merging with his as he joined me in a moment of absolute rapture.
My legs gave out and I collapsed onto the bed as he roared one word, his hands beside my hips as he continued to pound into me with short, fast thrusts until at last he, too, collapsed.
I tried to make sense of what had happened, but my brain gave a little whimper and told me I was on my own. I lay shaking with the sense of power that our joining had brought, Baltic’s heavy body pressing me into the soft mattress.
“Did we die again?” I asked when I recovered enough ability to move my mouth.
A soft, rusty chuckle sounded in my ear. “No, but it was a close thing.” “Dear god,” I said as, pulling me with him, he rolled onto his back. “Was it always like that? Because I’m serious, Baltic — I don’t know if my heart can stand that every night. I’ll have to take up an aerobics class, and I hate that sort of thing.” “It has always been and will always be thus between us,” he said, moving my limp body so I lay draped over his chest, one of my legs caught between his. “You will learn to adjust to the more strenuous dragon matings, just as you learned to harness your fire.” “That wasn’t my fire. It was yours. I just used it,” I said, too drained to do more than smooth my hand over his still-heaving chest.
“It was both.”
Next to us, a body hit the bed.
I glanced over, smiling as the past Ysolde dabbed tenderly at a spot of blood on her Baltic’s forehead. He tolerated that for a moment, then pulled her over him, catching one of her breasts in his mouth. “Goodness. You appear to have had a lot of stamina then.” He didn’t even look, just smiled, his eyelashes thick sable crescents as he lay with his eyes closed. “Give me five minutes, and I will show you that I have improved in that way, as well.” “You might have improved, but I think another round would be the end of me,” I commented, unable to keep from watching when Ysolde impaled herself on the past Baltic. “You know, it’s really too bad we can’t interact with them.” He cracked open one eye and looked at me. “Why?” I gestured to where his previous self bucked, Ysolde riding him as if he were an unbroken stallion, and pursed my lips a little. “Well, if we could, you and the other Baltic could… you know…” The look he shot me was so outraged I giggled. He slapped my behind, then rubbed away the sting before closing his eyes. “Many people have told me to go fuck myself, but I never expected my mate to actually suggest that I do it.” I giggled even more, kissing the pulse in his neck, my body and heart and soul happier than they had ever been.
Chapter Fifteen
My suggestion was, I thought, extremely acceptable. “How about Strand Palace Hotel? It has conference capabilities, and their big business suite is available tomorrow.” “Are you kidding? After what happened the last time Baltic came to a sárkány in a hotel?” Aisling’s voice was filled with scorn. “I don’t think so!” “Why, what happened?”
“He tried to shoot everyone present!” “Oh, that. One moment, please.” I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and turned to where Baltic stood glaring at me. “Did you really go to a sárkány recently and shoot the participants?” “Yes.” The answer was given in a grumpy tone, which, given the look on his face, was no surprise.
I took a deep breath. “You do realize how difficult it is to get the wyverns to agree to meet you on neutral ground so we can talk about things, don’t you?” “What the weyr does or thinks is none of our concern. We are outside of them. They do not matter to us.” “They matter to me,” I said.
He continued to glare. “Not as much as I matter to you.” “Of course not, and stop being so insecure. I’ve loved you for over four hundred years. I think you can relax.” “The other you loved me. This you…” He raked me up and down with a wary gaze. “This you is different. You have unnatural desires. My old Ysolde would never have left me to try to position herself between two lovers.” “I didn’t try anything of the sort! I just moved off you and happened to roll exactly where the old version of us was going at it. Again. For a third time in the space of an hour.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You only managed once.” His eyes blazed black fire at me. “I told you to give me five minutes and I would recover enough to pleasure you again! You are the one who stopped me. You did not wish for me to start again!” “Regardless, I did not deliberately roll under the other you and get my jollies from him pounding away. Although I really liked the looks of that little swirl thing he was doing. Do you think we could—” A faint voice in my ear reminded me that I was on the phone. Evidently, my hand had slipped off the mouthpiece.
“—arguing with him. No, not about meeting us, about sex, I think. Evidently he only did things once and she wanted three times. And it sounds like there may have been another couple involved.” “Um,” I said, giving Baltic a glare of my own. “I’m sorry you had to overhear that, Aisling. Baltic drives me a little batty sometimes.” “Only sometimes?” she asked; at the same time he snorted and said, “It is your bizarre fantasies that make me insane.” “My fantasies are not the least bit bizarre!” I said loudly.