Forbidden Embers (19 page)

He shifted as soon as his feet hit the forest ground, then began the trek back to his campsite. He’d left his pack at the campsite without bothering to get dressed. It wasn’t like there was anyone out there to see him, and he was too tired, hungry and completely out of sorts to worry about clothes. His conversation with Shawn had put him in a lousy mood, one he figured was going to linger for quite a while. Damn it.

The worst part was, he knew Shawn was right. He was letting himself get too interested in the dealings here, letting himself think far too much about Cecily. If he wanted to do the job he’d come to do, then he needed to remain unemotional. Uncaring. Blank when it came to things like the clan children—or its princess.

He also needed to stop dwelling on the future. He’d set his course, had decided on his goals, and he wasn’t going to let anything shake those up. Not his weird attraction to Cecily Fournier, and not his desire to return to the Dragonstars someday.

He sighed at the thought, started to run a hand through his hair before—once again—remembering that he had cut it all off. Fuck. When was he going to adjust to this new role he had decided to play? When was he going to remember that the Logan Kelly, who had lived with the Dragonstars for the past hundred years, was going to cease to exist after he did what he’d come here to do? There was no way Dylan was going to let him back into the clan after he’d so blatantly defied orders, and there was no way he’d be able to look the other sentries in the eye, anyway.

Oh, Shawn understood where he was coming from, but, then, Shawn was different. He had a past even darker than Logan’s, and he understood that sometimes it wasn’t enough to just send a message to your enemy. Sometimes you had to crush them so completely that it never again occurred to them to come after you.

Lost in thought, he was only a few hundred yards from camp when he felt the intruder. Freezing where he was, he did a quick scan of the surrounding area, trying to figure out where the other dragon was lying in wait for him.

He didn’t feel anything threatening coming from the surrounding trees or any of the other areas he had scouted when he first decided to set up camp here. Didn’t feel any malice directed at him at all.

Which was strange, as he knew someone was up here with him. He could sense the other dragon on a psychic level, could feel him or her on a physical level. Worse, everything inside him shouted that the intruder was Wyvernmoon.

For the second time that night, he unsheathed the dagger he always kept strapped to his thigh; then he took a few more cautious steps toward the clearing where he’d been sleeping. The presence of the other dragon grew stronger, though he still wasn’t picking up on any desire to kill him.

Suspicious, annoyed, determined not to be caught unawares, he took a long, slow sniff of the air. As he did, every muscle in his body stiffened.

It was her. Cecily. She had come back to him. She’d promised him that she would, but after what had passed between them the night before, he wasn’t sure that she’d have the nerve to follow through on her promise. But here she was at his camp. He would recognize the sweet, caramel scent of her anywhere.

His dragon burst back to the surface at the thought, its scales rippling along his skin as it fought to get out. Fought to get to Cecily and her own beast. He was a little surprised at the thing’s reaction, if he was honest. Tired from the long flight, it had curled up inside him and started to snooze the second he shifted back to human form. But one sniff of Cecily, and it was suddenly wide awake and raring to go.

Much like me,
he acknowledged ruefully, his dick so hard that he was going to have trouble walking if he didn’t get into that clearing soon. It was a good thing he’d sped up the second he realized it was her. He needed to see her, to touch her.

His beast roared its approval, and Logan nearly stumbled over his own feet in his haste to cover the last few yards between him and the clearing. Though it took only seconds, it seemed to take forever as his head filled with all the things he wanted to do with her. To her.

He wanted to run to her, to rush to her, to grab her and bend her over the closest rock and fuck her from behind like the animal he was.

He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and caress every part of her, to kiss and lick and nibble at her until she melted for him with a soft sigh of surrender.

He wanted to stretch out on the ground with her on top of him, to cup her full, beautiful breasts in his hands and toy with her nipples as she rode him hard.

He wanted her so badly that his hands were already shaking. It felt strange—he’d never been this aroused before with so little provocation. But, then, Cecily’s existence, her proximity, the passionate nature he had discovered in her the night before, were provocation in their own way.

He had enough brain power left, barely, to force himself to stop at the last tree before the clearing. This could be a trap, after all.
She is the enemy,
he reminded himself, no matter how much he wanted to fuck her. She could slide a knife right between his ribs and smile at him while she was doing it.

He didn’t think she would, but he’d been wrong before about his enemies and his women. He couldn’t afford to make that same mistake with Cecily. Not now, when he was finally so close to getting the in to the Wyvernmoons that he’d been scheming and waiting for.

He scanned one more time and came up with nothing. Dropped all but the innermost layers of his mental shields and still came away empty-handed. She wasn’t really thinking about anything, was just lying there in his sleeping bag, in a dreamy, half-awake state that he longed to be a part of.

Finally, as certain as he could be that she wasn’t there for any reason beyond the obvious, he stepped into the clearing. Both man and dragon preened at the sight of her there, waiting for him on the closest thing to a bed that he currently had.

He walked over to her slowly, making no effort to disguise his approach. He didn’t want to startle her, after all. Not now, when he was so close to his goal. But Cecily didn’t move, even when he stood over her, and a little spurt of alarm worked its way through him. Had his scan been wrong? Was she hurt somehow?

“Cecily.” He called her name as he crouched over her, reached out a hand to stroke her cheek. The skin was warm, supple, and his beast—coiled to attack at the threat of her being hurt—relaxed at the feel of her.

Her eyes opened slowly, dreamily, and she looked so inviting lying there, her long blond hair spread around her like a halo, that it took all his willpower not to jump on her and take her like the starving man he suddenly was.

“Logan.” Her smile was soft and sweet, as was the hand she reached up to brush against his chest. “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” he agreed, his voice hoarse. “And so are you.”

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I can see that.”

She flushed a little, her skin turning that same milky pink it had the day before. It made him want to lap her up one slow lick at a time. His dragon roared its approval, and, unable to resist, he leaned down and nuzzled the silky skin beneath her ear as he pushed the unzipped sleeping bag out of the way.

Her breath caught and her hands came up to clutch at his head, to hold him in place. Logan grinned at the thought, more than happy to stay exactly where he was for, say, the next century or so. He nuzzled her again, then swirled his tongue behind her ear.

She gasped, arched, and her hands trembled in his hair. His arousal shot through the stratosphere at the obvious signs of her arousal. She was incredibly responsive, even more so than she’d been the night before, when he’d used his mind to bring her to orgasm, and he was dying to get inside her. To see how she reacted when he was actually making love to her.

At the same time, though, he wanted to take things slowly, to explore every part of her that he could. To find every sweet spot on her body and make her as crazy for him as he was for her.

He pulled away reluctantly, gratified by her small whimper and the way her hands tried to hold on to him. “It’s okay,
A stor
. I’m not going anywhere.”

He shifted, lowered himself to the ground beside her, then stretched out on his side so that he was facing her, their bodies only inches apart. She smiled at him, a tremulous curving of her lips that worked its way inside him and melted his heart just a little, when he would have sworn such a thing was impossible.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come back,” he said, then immediately regretted the impulse. What was wrong with him? He was supposed to be exploiting her vulnerabilities, not showing her his own.

But she didn’t move to take instant advantage of his admission, didn’t do anything but reach out and stroke a hand over the roughness of his chin. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and suddenly he wished that he had. He didn’t want to scrape her sensitive skin with his stubble.

“I couldn’t stay away,” she answered, rubbing her knuckles against his unscarred cheek.

“I could shave,” he offered. “If it’s bothering you—”

“Are you kidding? I love the way it feels. I want to feel it against—” She broke off, her eyes shifting away shyly, and his temperature skyrocketed.

“Where?” he demanded, grabbing her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilting her head until she was once again looking him in the eye. “Where do you want to feel it?”

She shook her head, her little white teeth biting down on her lower lip in embarrassment or nervousness or some other emotion he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Cecily,” he asked again, and this time even he could hear the dragon in the deep gravel of his voice. “Tell me.”

“I can’t.” Her voice broke. “Don’t make me say it.”

He swore at the vulnerability in her eyes, at the shyness that was so shocking in another shifter. He must have spent too much of his time in recent years around dominant, confident females. He’d forgotten what it was like to be with a woman who wasn’t clawing his back as she told him exactly what she wanted from him.

Before Cecily, he would have sworn that was exactly what he liked in a woman, but there was something about her reticence that turned him on harder and faster than any woman ever had before.

“I’m sorry,
A stor
.” He brushed a soothing kiss over her forehead. “I didn’t mean to push so hard.”

She shook her head. “Don’t apologize. I’m the one who—”

He stopped her with a kiss. And though he wanted to devour her, to thrust his tongue into the honeyed recesses of her mouth and take everything she had, he kept it soft, sweet, and, he hoped, a little comforting. She deserved that much after the way he’d come at her the day before down by the lake—and, later, in her thoughts.

He’d been a selfish asshole with her, he realized, as he soothed her nerves away with tender kisses to her cheeks, her forehead, the corner of her mouth. He’d been so caught up in his own needs and desires that he’d forgotten what the instant attraction between them must be like for her.

She was young, less than an eighth of his age, so she had to be relatively inexperienced sexually—at least compared to him. Which meant that for her to give her body to him—a man she didn’t know very well and who wasn’t of her clan—was probably already stretching her comfort zone. He needed to take it easy with her.

But it was hard to remember that and even harder to do it when her body arched against his and he could feel the heat rolling off her in waves that called to him and to the beast inside him. Her breasts pushed against his chest, and he could feel her hard little nipples digging into his muscles there. It was making him crazy with the need to be inside her.

Her needs aren’t the same as mine,
he reminded himself viciously.
At least not yet.
He needed to pet her and tease her and take it slow if he had any hope of raising her desire to the fever pitch his was already at. Reining in his need—and the dragon that was prowling just beneath his skin, watching, waiting for its chance to get to her—Logan took a deep breath. Then reached for her, praying his control was as good as he thought it was.

T
rough she knew it was silly to be so nervous, Cecily trembled at the dark intensity in Logan’s gaze. He’d been nothing but gentle with her, nothing but tender and sweet and respectful, and still she was shaking so much she was afraid she’d come apart in his arms. Which was stupid, because she wanted this. Badly.

She was the one who had come to him, after all.

The one who had sought him out.

The one who had climbed into his sleeping bag wearing absolutely nothing.

So why, when he was giving her exactly what she knew she wanted, was she suddenly so close to losing her nerve?

He reached for her and she braced herself, expecting him to grope her like all the men who’d come before him. She hadn’t had many dates in her life, and most of those had been spectacularly unimpressive. So unimpressive that she hadn’t even let the men kiss her good night. But there had been a few she had liked enough to kiss and let them touch her. Every single one of them had gone straight for her breasts, squeezing and pinching until she’d felt bruised with their attentions.