Matching Dragons Chinese Zodiac Romance Series Book 6 (5 page)

She gripped the iron key, the metal filling her palm. Rescuing the princess wasn’t going to be a problem. No, her problem was right here, staring at her. Lok. How the hell could she get rid of him and this freaking chain?

He didn’t act like he’d overheard anything, and she’d been careful to firmly close the door, keeping her voice low. Still… “How much did you hear?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Enough.” He tilted his chin toward the key. “What do you plan to do with that?”

“Consult my contact.” The rigidity in his stance told her he wasn’t going to let her take off anywhere without him. “Shall we?”

She might have resigned herself to him tagging along, but that didn’t mean she’d trust him with any of her secrets.

He’d probably believed her promise to return to the League with him. She hadn’t enjoyed lying about that, but what other choice did she have? Who knew, maybe once Mel was well again, she’d consider becoming a Lotus.

Kadence led them through the halls, stopping at the office Han had directed her to. Inside, she accessed the computer and messaged her contact to send the sailboat to dock at the shore. Han had rattled off the princess’s coordinates and surprisingly, she wasn’t too far away. The whole time, Lok watched her like a hawk stalking its prey. There was probably something in this room that could remove the chain, but she had other concerns at the moment. A good night’s sleep, and tomorrow morning she’d set off to rescue a dragon princess. How bizarre was that?

“May I?” He jerked his chin toward the email she’d written. Eyeing him, she nodded and nudged the keyboard toward him.

The keys clacked as he typed and a few minutes later, he’d sent off the message. “All set.” He grinned, cracking his knuckles. “So, we’ll leave tomorrow morning?”

“Ah, no. This is a solo vacay.” She hoped he caught the sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“Well, you’ll have to make room, because where you go, I go.” Still smirking, he strode from the office.

She followed him inside “their” room, and shut the door before resuming their argument. “What the hell, Lok—” Her protest stuck on her tongue.

Lok lifted his shirt over his head, baring those broad pecs and carved abs. “You’re my ticket, Kadence, and I’m not letting you out of my sight. Get used to it.” The steel in his voice vibrated to her toes, curling them. Oh yeah, she bet he liked to make all kinds of demands…

“…pack your things and be ready to leave at dawn.”

Huh?
Had he been speaking? She blinked, ogling his bare, bronzed chest, and his shackled wrist. Once again, he’d successfully diverted her attention. Damn, he was good. Her fingers twitched in her desperation to touch him. Had she imagined that spark yesterday? Chemistry was one thing, but electricity? Yeah, right.

The room had grown quiet.
Am I still gawking at him? Crap.
Kadence jerked her gaze upward. The cocky curve to Lok’s lips shot heat through her core. The air around her condensed, the walls seeming to close in, the space getting smaller.

Lok prowled forward, his head tilted and his eyes swirling with intensity. “Do you know why you’re attracted to me, Kadence, despite your every attempt to fight it?”

His voice was low, deep, and rumbled through her bones. “You have no idea what you are…what you are to me.”

He halted in front of her, bending to inhale against her hair. His lips feathered across her skin, sending burning shivers dancing down her spine. Her legs grew weak, but her insides, they melted.

What is he doing to me?

She tried to blink away the haze, but all she sensed was Lok’s warmth, his spicy scent, the low timbre of his voice. His words fuzzed in her ears, though he was definitely still speaking to her. His chest rose and fell as he drew back.

No. Closer.

She snapped her hands out and snared his head, tugging his mouth onto hers. Warm, firm pressure moved against her lips, and then a rich taste swept across her tongue as he claimed her mouth. Kadence moaned, opening to his kiss, her fingers tangling in his curly locks.

Kissing him didn’t ease the attraction. It made it worse, far worse. Frenzy consumed her insides, a desperation for connection she’d never experienced. She wanted him. Lok. Enveloping her, inside and out. Like he was the cool water that quenched this fire. That soothed the ache building in her sex.

Her hands skimmed across his shoulders, down his chest, nails grazing a path toward his waist. His skin was smooth and hot, definitely other than human. Steel-cut muscles jerked while she teased her fingers lower, snapped open his jeans, and gripped his rigid—and enormous—length.

Whoa.
A growl vibrated in his chest. She grasped him in both her hands, his cock filling her palms.

He seized the back of her head and slammed her against the wall, his hips shoving his shaft harder into her hands. Every inch of his body pinned her. Demanded her submission. No,
commanded
it.

Her panties grew even wetter as he ground against her, nipping and thrusting his tongue inside her mouth suggestively.

Yes.
Every inch of her was drawn toward him, toward this connection—a magnetism unlike any other. This wasn’t lust, though she was horny as hell.

This was more. Something in him called to something in her.

It was time to find out what.

***

Kadence’s slender hands gripped him as Lok pumped himself into them. Just one taste. One glimpse of the power inside Kadence and he would be satisfied to wait.

The compulsion to join with her clawed at him, threatening to tear through every shred of his control.

A century—a hundred bloody years—of burying his true nature and for one moment with Kadence he would risk it all.

No. He wrenched his mouth off hers, off those red, swollen lips that begged him to pleasure her.

Chest heaving, he clunked his head against the wall beside her, resting his forehead on the stone. The stinging in his flesh sliced through the fog clouding his focus.

Fuck. He’d told her everything. He’d whispered to her, not sweet, sensual nonsense, but the truth of his identity, of hers.

And then she’d kissed him. The last reaction he’d anticipated, and he hadn’t been prepared for his response.

She fondled him, her sexy body writhing against his.

He could lift up her skirt and thrust inside her right now, and she’d welcome him.

Dammit, no. Not like this.
Not on the verge of losing his control, when he was certain that being inside Kadence would throw him over the edge.

It was more than protecting his identity, than coveting what was inside her.

He needed to… Lok frowned. He craved more than this from her, but she wasn’t his. She was a human. Complete with free will and feisty temperament.

Right.
Lok shoved off the wall. His cock jerked at being wrenched from her sweet warmth, but intimacy between them wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

He stuffed himself back inside his jeans. Kadence’s sweet panting filled his ears. Something had overcome both of them, a powerful connection, but he was powerful too.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want you…like this.” The mumbled words didn’t seem like enough. Kadence sank to the floor, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs.

Only a crazy man would reject her, and he certainly wasn’t enjoying the insanity.

“I didn’t mean to take it that far.” Crouching beside her, he searched for a way to fix this mess. He’d sought Kadence’s trust, and desperately hoped he hadn’t fucked that up.

“Kadence?” She was gazing blankly, not focused on anything. He leaned forward and brushed aside a lock of her flaming hair. She didn’t move, not even a jolt at his contact.

This wasn’t good. Though he’d been able to withstand the haze, she’d obviously succumbed to it. He hadn’t wielded his powers over her, so that left only one explanation:

Kadence did this. The energy inside her had seized control, drawing them together like two electric charges desperate to create a spark together.

Hell, they almost had.

Better to sleep it off. He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Tucking the blanket around her, he sighed and headed for the armchair.

Not supposed to be like this.
The nagging thought wouldn’t leave him be. He’d never owned a flaming pearl, but he’d seen them before. Had surveyed them with their masters, with more than envy in his perusal.

Once a dragon claimed his pearl, and it accepted him as its master, the bond could never be broken. That was the only thing preventing dragons from killing each other over the treasures.

A flaming pearl embodied in a human was an entirely different conundrum. Dragons didn’t take mates.

Humans did. If Kadence accepted him as her master, his entire future would be altered. After sampling her sweet taste, he couldn’t imagine sleeping with anyone else, but as a dragon…

Monogamy just wasn’t their thing.

Neither could he continue on if he forsook her to another. It would only be a matter of time before another dragon came across her and claimed—

Fuck no. His fists clenched, his skin bristling.

Kadence is mine.

***

Kadence moaned and flipped onto her stomach, nuzzling her face into the plush pillow. A tingling fluttered through her veins, making her shiver with…lust?

Whoa.
She shot up onto her elbows, scanning the room. No morning light crept through the slit in the drapes. Darkness enveloped the room, but she spotted a figure asleep in the armchair.

Lok.

Heat flushed her body, stealing her breath. Why was he such a gentleman, taking the chair instead of insisting on sharing this comfy bed? She snorted.
Don’t care.
And yet… Her tongue swiped across her lips, a heat lingering on her skin, almost as if—hell no. Lok hadn’t kissed her, or well, she hadn’t kissed him.

Or groped his massive—

Nah-uhn.
That definitely hadn’t happened. Right? If it had, he’d be in the bed beside her. Because what kind of man would reject her so very obvious offer?

Lok, that’s who. Ugh
. Kadence groaned and pounded a fist into her pillow.

I don’t want you…like this.

His words echoed inside her head. What the hell did that mean? Exactly what had overcome her in Lok’s embrace?

It was as if something deep inside her had taken the driver’s seat, and didn’t even invite Kadence along for the ride. His words jabbed at her mind.
Like this.
Lok must have recognized whatever had happened to her. He’d been chained to her the whole day, so he knew she hadn’t been drunk.

Not from alcohol. The buzz singing through her veins hadn’t abated yet. When it did, would she crash, hung over from one taste of Lok’s lips?

A cry yelped from the direction of the armchair. Lok twitched, his arm flinging to brace against an unseen attack.

He’s dreaming.

He grunted, almost whimpering.

A nightmare, then.

Kadence bit her lip, but Lok twisted again, his breathing strained, so she slid off the bed and padded to his side. “Hey, it’s okay.”

He didn’t respond, not even as she grasped his arm and rubbed her hand up and down his smooth skin. The pull of his dream was deep. Bolder, she gave his cheek a light slap. He grunted but didn’t open his eyes.

A moan echoed in his chest, and his shoulders shook. Almost as if he was…weeping?

Oh. This wasn’t a dream. Or a nightmare. Lok was reliving some tragic episode from his past. From the agony etched into his drawn brows and grimacing mouth, it had to be horrible.

“You’re safe now. It’s okay.” Before she reasoned against it, Kadence climbed onto his lap and rested her head against his chest. She snared his hand and squeezed it between hers, hoping some of her reassurance reached him in this dream-state.

Mel had nightmares too, and the only thing that ever soothed them was Kadence climbing into bed with her.

After their mom had remarried and had other kids with her new husband, the two girls had become something of an afterthought for their mother. Kadence hadn’t missed the look of relief on their mom’s face when the girls had moved out on their own. Far away too, from Canada to Thailand.

It wasn’t an intentional kind of dismissal, but ever since their dad had died from stomach cancer when Kadence was seven, her mom had never looked at her or her sister the same. As though her two daughters were too painful a reminder of her loss.

Their dad had left them with quite the inheritance, so Kadence had set Mel up in private care in their home in Bangkok. Since they hadn’t spoken to their mom in years, Kadence hadn’t bothered to inform her of Mel’s illness. Besides, Kadence was going to save her sister.

Lok groaned, jerking to the side.

“Hey there, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here,” Kadence murmured in soft, soothing tones, stroking her fingertips along his arm. A few beads of sweat condensed on his forehead and his breath puffed out in shaking tremors.

Poor guy. Whatever he’d experienced, it must have been terrible, for him to suffer like this.

Still, she was kind of glad to witness his streak of humanity, even though she’d begun to doubt Lok was entirely human. That cocky grin was, for once, missing from his features. A vulnerability she was certain he wouldn’t reveal when awake.

Don’t do it. Don’t fall for him, Kadence.

Her good sense kicked in. This was not the time to be swooning over sexy, tortured men.

Maybe, once she retrieved the cure for Mel, she might decide to keep her promise and return to the League. With Lok as her partner.

She rested her cheek against his chest, his breaths evening out.

Yeah, she might like that.