"What am I doing here?" I asked aloud.
A shadow separated itself from the wall and resolved itself into Drake's form. He glided toward me, the light casting the lines of his face into harsh relief while the rest of his body remained in shadow. "I called you here."
"You're a dream," I said, unsure if I really was dreaming, or if I had somehow been transported to the scene of the murder. "You're not real."
"No? Perhaps not. Or perhaps the line that divides reality and fantasy has become blurred in your mind."
His hands slipped up my bare arms. I looked down at myself, surprised by the touch of his hands on my bare skin. I was wearing an absolutely gorgeous cream-colored satin-and-lace negligee, one that emphasized my good points and hid the bad ones. "Now I know this is a dream. I don't own a nightgown like this."
I slipped effortlessly into his arms with just the slightest tug of his fingers on my shoulders. He was wearing a black silk shirt that felt like cool water beneath my hands.
"Perhaps that particular gown is part of
my
fantasy," he admitted with a roguish smile, his fingers dancing along the exposed flesh of my back, trailing fire with every touch.
I leaned closer to catch that elusive, spicy scent that seemed to cling to him. "Are you saying that this is real, then?"
"It's as real as you want it to be, sweetheart," he murmured against my collarbone, his lips caressing my skin. If I thought he had magic fingers, his lips were candidates for the Houdini Hall of Fame.
"Really?" I breathed, allowing my fingers to do a little walking of their own. He groaned as I slid my hands down the silken contours of his chest. "Then maybe you'd like to talk about why you were at Mme. Deauxville's last night?"
His chuckle was a bit rusty, as if he didn't use it very much. "You don't give up, do you?"
"Not when my freedom is at stake." I swirled my fingers lower, over his belly. Beneath the material of his shirt, his stomach contracted. "Did you have an appointment with her?"
He discovered the sweet spot behind my ear. I arched into him, my mind threatening to completely give itself over to the pleasure of his mouth on my flesh. "Not with her, no."
It took every ounce of willpower to keep my mind on the questions I wanted so desperately for him to answer. "Did you draw the circle?"
"Dragons can't summon demons," he whispered into my neck just before he sucked my earlobe into his mouth. My knees buckled. His arms tightened behind me, holding me up as I let my hands drift lower, over the tight front of his black jeans. Beneath the zipper he twitched.
"Do you know who did draw it?"
He breathed a groan into my ear. "If you touch me there again, this dream will become more real than you can imagine."
I was tempted—oh, how I was tempted. My fingers hovered just in front of him, but I needed answers, so when sanity sank through all the desire and need and lust that were swirling through my brain as they tried to blot out rational thought, I payed attention to it. I reversed my hands and sent them upward instead, mapping out the terrain around his rib cage. "The circle?" I asked again.
His teeth scraped gently along the curve of my ear, his breath harsh and hot on my skin. "No, I do not know who drew it."
There was a slight inflection on the word
know.
He might not know for certain, but I was willing to bet he had a good idea of who was responsible for the circle, possibly for the murder, too.
"Who do you—?"
He cut off my question by kissing me. Unlike the kiss in the bar, this time I knew what to expect, and I reveled in the heat he poured into me, allowing it to flow between us like a completed circuit. I melted against him, his fingers digging into my behind to pull me tighter. He was aroused, his body aggressive and hard against mine, his fingers everywhere in touches that became progressively more insistent. I tugged the tail of his shirt out from his jeans and slid my hands under his shirt to feel the muscles of his back.
He moaned into my mouth, a moan I felt all the way down to my toenails.
"You cannot touch me like that and expect me to remain in control." The warning in his voice was heated, as heated as my blood, which I swore was about ready to boil as his lips moved down my jaw to my neck, pressing hot kisses into my flesh. "If you do it again, I will not be responsible for what happens."
A shiver of pure desire rippled down my spine as he bent me backwards and licked the valley between my breasts. I clutched handfuls of his hair, trying to decide what I wanted to do—give in to the desire that was roaring through me like his fire, or remain fully in control of the situation, not to mention my life.
"What the hell—this is just a dream," I said, my voice shaky as his mouth moved in hot circles around one satin-covered breast. "That makes this nothing more than a fantasy, and I refuse to feel guilty about fantasies."
Drake lifted his head, his eyes glowing green in the faint light. "I'm so glad you refuse to feel guilty. Fantasies should always be encouraged, especially when they involve me."
"Arrogant dragon. Too much talking," I murmured as I tugged on his hair until his mouth was where I wanted it. I claimed it, welcoming the flash of dragon fire that filled me when my tongue rubbed alongside his. My hands slid down the sleek muscles of his chest, pausing for a moment to tease two impudent nipples.
His breathing went choppy as I slithered down his chest, kissing a path along his collarbone, then down the middle of his chest. I ached to touch him, kiss him, taste him, my body tight and gathered as if for a leap, but our standing position was too awkward to maintain for long.
I kissed my way back up to his jaw, nibbling on his earlobe for a moment before growling into his ear, "In my fantasies there's a long, wide chaise where I can comfortably frolic upon your body. A red velvet couch. With gold tassels."
"Something like this?" he asked, sweeping me up into his arms and turning to the long, wide red velvet chaise bearing a number of silk pillows with gold tassels that was hidden in the shadows. He laid me gently on the chaise, standing over me for a moment, gazing at me with eyes that had gone a dark forest green.
"Exactly like that, except you're the one on the bottom."
His hands strayed to the buckle of his belt. "Are you sure, Aisling? Once we begin, I will not be able to stop. It is the way of the dragons to possess their mates fully. You must be certain this is what you want."
I stretched with the sensual languidness of a well-fed cat It was just a fantasy, nothing but a dream created by the frustrated attraction I felt for Drake. Surely indulging in a little healthy brain sex couldn't be bad? "Yes, I'm certain."
If there was a land-speed record for getting out of tight jeans, I'm willing to bet that Drake broke it. One moment he was standing over me, scorching my body with his green-fire gaze; the next he was naked, hard and aroused, crawling up the couch to part my legs. "I can smell your desire," he said in a low voice that seemed to rub itself against me. His head dipped to kiss my belly as his hands slid up my thighs, spreading them. "It matches my desire, my need. You are my mate, Aisling, but I will show no mercy to you, for tonight, I will make you truly mine."
The shiver that swept over me had nothing to do with fear, and everything to do with arousal. Drake pushed the satin nightgown up, kissing in the wake of the frothy lace that hemmed the bottom. His mouth was hot and aggressive on my stomach, moving higher as he bared my breasts, the hot brand of his body singeing my flesh wherever we touched. His tongue swept over one aching nipple, followed by the gentle sting of his teeth as he tugged on the tender flesh. I arched beneath him, mindless to everything but the touch of his mouth and hands, my body weeping silent tears of desire as I dug my fingers into the heavy muscles of his behind, trying to pull him closer, tried to merge myself with him.
"No," he whispered, his mouth hovering over my other breast. I groaned as he lathed that breast, his hands and mouth stroking and teasing me into a frenzy of need. "The first time, I must take you as a dragon's mate. After that, we can make love as humans do."
I rubbed myself against him, my legs closing around him in a desperate, overwhelming wave of passion. "I don't care how we do it—I just want you inside me, Drake. Deep inside me.
Now!”
He rose up, his knees on either side of my legs. I stared up at him, part of my mind marveling at the beautiful, masculine sight he made, the other part wondering just how he expected to make love with my legs trapped between his. He snaked a hand beneath me, pulling my hips upward, his fingers curled around one thigh, parting my legs just enough to suddenly possess me with his mouth. I was growing familiar with the heat of his dragon fire flaring through me when we kissed, but the heat that roared to life from this most intimate kiss had me literally screaming with pleasure. Flames licked my sensitive flesh as his tongue probed, swirled, and sucked, leaving me breathless and writhing in his grip. Before I could do so much as catch a breath, he pulled two fat gold silk pillows beneath me, flipping me over so my belly rested on the pillow, his body covering me completely with his hard heat.
"You are mine, Aisling," he said just before he spread my legs and thrust into me, his teeth biting into the flesh of my shoulder at the same moment. I was pinned, helpless, unable to move, Drake's body heavy on mine as he moved within me, long, deep strokes that-seemed to touch every part of me. The tension that had started building with his first touch wound tighter and tighter as his movement rubbed my breasts, aching and swollen, against the abrasive texture of the velvet chaise. I made one half-hearted attempt to move, but the resulting growl of refusal came not from his throat, but from deep in his chest, and I knew that the hold he had on my shoulder was his way of keeping me submissive. I've never been one to take pleasure where I couldn't give it, as well, but I was too overwhelmed by Drake's possession to complain. He seemed to sense my compliance because he became more forceful, licking my shoulder and neck, his body pumping hard and faster into mine, stretching me, filling me, pushing me beyond what I though were normal human limits of tolerance, and into a realm of flame-licked ecstacy.
Just as I trembled on the edge of an orgasm I knew would be unlike anything else I'd known, Drake tilted me to the side, his mouth on my collarbone as he rammed into me with enough force to knock the remaining pillows to the floor. My body exploded in a conflagration of heat and rapture, mindless of the burning flame that seared my flesh beneath Drake's mouth. His shout of triumph rang in my ears as we burned bright together, for a moment seemingly made of fire rather than flesh and blood.
I drifted for a while after mat, not quite sure whether I wanted to come down from the high he had driven me to, -but eventually I remembered how to breathe, and my brain decided to go back to work again. I opened my eyes and found that I was draped across Drake, the dampness of his chest and ragged nature of his breath a testament that he had enjoyed himself as much as I had.
I pressed a kiss to the center of his chest, then slid off him, scooping the satin of the nightgown up from where it had landed on the floor with the pillows.
Drake's eyes opened as I pulled it on.
'That was truly the most amazing thing I've ever experienced," I said, leaning over to nip his bottom lip. "It goes without saying that you have fulfilled every wild fantasy I could ever imagine. Thank you, Drake."
A slight frown wrinkled his brow as he rose from the chaise, starkly masculine even in his resting state. "It will always be this way between us. You are my mate."
"I'm not sure what I am other than sated within an inch of my life. No wonder you guys are immortal—if this is how sex is normally, you'd die of extreme pleasure if you weren't. As much as I'd like to stay and see if I can't rustle up another fantasy, I have to let my brain get some sleep so it's nice and sharp tomorrow. If you recall, I do have a murder to figure out. I don't suppose you'd care to offer me any advice about how to find the person responsible for drawing the circle and killing Mme. Deauxville?"
"I have answered three questions tonight, and that is all you are allowed," Drake said, tugging me against his body. I melted against him, my curves cushioning his hard lines, his hands pulling me up against proof of his renewed vigor. The dragon fire swept through me, threatening to consume me until I returned it to him.
He pulled his mouth from mine, stepping backwards away from me, and I would have followed him and claimed another one of his mind-searingly wonderful kisses, but he slid back into the shadows, the green of his eyes glittering from the blackness for a moment before it dissolved into the night. "Look to the circle, Aisling. The answer you seek is there."
I awoke to the echo of his darkly sexy voice in my head, my heart beating madly as if I'd just run up all five flights of stairs, the taste of his burning kiss still on my lips, my body still humming with pleasure, deep, secret parts of me still quivering from the memory of his invasion.
"It was just a dream," I told myself, trying hard to push down the desire to call him back. "A really, really erotic dream, but still just a dream. Nothing more. Not real at all. Just a figment of your oversexed imagination."
My voice was reassuringly solid in the gray light of the dawn.
"Just a dream," I said again as I flipped my pillow over to let the cool linen dampen my dream ardor.
When I woke up two hours later, I was wearing a cream-and-lace negligee that I didn't remember buying.
Here's a little hint for those of you planning on summoning a demon: Don't stint on your supplies. If you don't invest in quality products, you run the risk of getting one of the lesser demons. Think runts of the litter.
Being in a frugal state of mind, when I arrived at Amelie's shop the following morning with the sheets of instructions on demon-summoning that Beth had faxed me, I scorned the more expensive items and settled for what I was sure would be equally viable (and much cheaper) substitutes. Amelie didn't question me at all on my purchases until I piled them on the counter.