Forbidden Embers Read online

  “I’m going to kiss you,” he answered, and her heart jerked painfully.

  She closed her eyes again, tilted her face even more. And still he didn’t do it.

  “What are you waiting for?” she demanded, her eyes opening for a second time.

  “For you to want this as much as I do,” he growled.

  “I do!” she all but wailed, her nails digging into his heavily muscled back. “I need—”

  She never finished. His mouth slammed down on hers and she nearly screamed at the heat of it. The sexiness of it. The downright deliciousness of it.

  He tasted like he smelled—of rich, tangy peppermint candy and an untamed Irish sea in the middle of a powerful storm.

  He tasted of sex and satin sheets and long, sultry nights.

  He was delicious and she wanted more, so much more than the meeting of their mouths could give her.

  Her hands crept up his neck to bury themselves in his cropped hair. It was cool and silky against her fingers and felt so good she couldn’t help grabbing on. Tugging a little, so that his lips were pressed even more firmly against her own. And then she surrendered completely, giving herself over to the lightning flashing between them.

  It was nothing like what she thought kissing him would be like, nothing like anything she had ever experienced before. Though she hadn’t kissed that many men, she had dated a few. Had let them kiss her and hold her, even if she hadn’t given them her virginity, and never had it been anything like this.

  This was wicked and wild and so wonderful that she never wanted it to end. His lips were hard against hers, firm but just a little out of control. And his tongue . . . It was everywhere. It swept over her bottom lip, nuzzled at the corner of her mouth before darting inside and stroking against her own tongue. Back and forth, over the roof of her mouth, down her cheek, along the inside of her upper lip before delving deep to explore her most hidden recesses.

  She gasped, and he pulled back a little, a questioning look in his eyes. But she refused to let him go—not yet, not now when she had barely gotten a taste of him and the pleasure he could bring her. Instead, she pressed her advantage and sucked his lower lip between her teeth.

  He groaned, and the hand at the small of her back slipped lower to cup and knead her ass. It was her turn to moan, and as she did, he lifted her with one strong hand until the bulge of his cock brushed against the thin fabric of her jeans, barely separating him from her sex.

  She saw stars—there was no other word for the blinding flashes of light that pulsed behind her closed eyelids—and her hands slipped down to clutch at his neck, his shoulders, his back.

  Being held by him was unlike anything she had ever felt before, and she never wanted it to stop. Wanted to stand right here in this little copse of trees, the only sounds their heavy breathing and the waterfall behind them, forever. Wanted to forget about the mess her clan was in and the duty she had to somehow steer them through it.

  The sudden reminder of her clan was like cold water dumped over her head. She couldn’t forget them, couldn’t hide away like she always had. They needed her down there with them, not up here with the hottest dragon shifter she had ever seen, let alone kissed.

  She pulled back reluctantly, and for a second she wasn’t sure Logan was going to let her go. His hands tightened, squeezing her more firmly against his very aroused body.

  “Logan, stop.” She whispered it, and even though a part of her knew the last thing she wanted him to do was stop, she forced her hands to let go of him and push against his chest.

  He relinquished his hold on her instantly, stepped back and shoved his hands in his jean pockets. She did the same, figuring it was safer, as the look on his face was so aroused, so intense, that she wanted nothing more than to latch on to him again and pick up where they’d just left of.

  Only common sense kept her rooted to her spot. That and the knowledge that if she kissed him again, neither of them would stop until they were naked and rolling around on the ground. It was a strange thought. Highly arousing, but still strange, as she’d spent her entire existence thinking of her sexuality as some entity completely separate from herself.

  She’d had to, if she’d had any hope of surviving. Like most other shifters, dragons were highly sexual creatures. But while her girlfriends had indulged themselves after they’d reached a certain age, steeping themselves in sex with young, sexy males of the clan, she’d been stuck in her father’s house, her virginity bartered like that of a highborn lady of old. Except bartered wasn’t exactly the right word, was it? Not when her father had refused to ever relinquish her to anyone, instead holding her up as a prize that he would give away to the man who most impressed him.

  The result was that she had gone through her life without ever being touched. Alone and lonely and sometimes aching so badly that she could hardly stand it.

  I can change that right now, a little voice in the back of her head told her. Logan was ready and willing, and judging by the hard bulge in the front of his jeans, more than able. Her knees trembled at the thought, and for a second she fantasized about what it would be like to reach out and touch him there. To have the right to stroke his aroused cock with her hand, her body, her mouth.

  Heat slammed through her, and Logan made a sound halfway between a groan and a laugh. “No offense, Cecily, but if you want to call a halt to this, you need to stop looking at me like that.”

  “How am I—” Her voice broke. “How am I looking at you?”

  “Like you’re a kid on Christmas morning and I’m the last candy cane on the tree.”

  She thought of his peppermint scent, of the warm, fresh peppermint taste of him, and felt everything inside her melt. Does he taste like that everywhere? she wondered. Or are there other amazing tastes in store for me as I explore his body?

  Her breath came out in a strangled gasp, and his laughter changed to a growl that shot straight through her. “I’m serious, Cecily. You need to stop, or I’m going to end up taking you where you stand.”

  Though it was the last thing she wanted to do, she forced herself to back away slowly. Much as she wanted Logan, much as she wanted him to make love to her and melt the frozen core that had been within her for as long as she could imagine, she knew that she couldn’t let that happen.

  Not when she was trying to get her clan back on the right path.

  And not when she might very well have to marry one of her father’s Conseil members to do it.

  “I need to go,” she whispered, but from the way his eyes turned almost black, she knew he’d heard her.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to convince her to stay, and a little part of her smarted at the omission. Not because she would have been able to stay with him, but because she wanted to—and wanted him to feel the same way.

  “I guess I’ll see you around,” she said with a shrug, and started backing up the trail. She wanted to turn around and flee, but years of experience with Julian and Acel and Remy had taught her not to turn her back on a dragon with that pissed-off look on his face. Not that she thought Logan would really hurt her, but sometimes it paid to be careful . . .

  He was beside her in a flash, so fast that she wasn’t sure she’d even seen him move. He didn’t block her path as Julian might have, didn’t try to bully her or use their obvious attraction to get her to stay. Instead, he just walked beside her back to the clearing where she’d first seen him.

  “Will you come again?” he asked, and she wasn’t sure if the impatience in his tone was for her or for himself.

  “If you want me to,” she answered.

  He brushed a hand down her cheek. “I want you to.”

  “Okay.” She cleared her throat. “How long are you going to be staying up here?”

  “A couple of days. Maybe a week.”

  “All right, then. I’ll try to come back tomorrow or the next day.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.” His smile was surprisingly gentle, considering the fire lurking in the
back of his eyes. He leaned down to kiss her again and she raised her lips, waiting for the spark to consume her one more time.

  She expected the heat, had braced herself for it, in fact. But what she got was so much more—and less—that she didn’t quite know how to process it. His lips brushed softly, sweetly against hers before sweeping up her cheek to her forehead. Once there, he pressed a kiss right above her left brow, then dropped his hands and let her go.

  “I guess I’ll see you around, then,” he said with the cocky grin she had first seen from him.

  “I guess you might,” she answered, then watched as he turned and headed back into the forest he had come out of right after she’d landed. As she watched him go, she told herself she should be grateful that he’d taken the initiative and walked away. Because after the tender way he’d just kissed her, she wasn’t sure she would have had the willpower to do the same.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Wat the fuck had just happened? Logan stared after Cecily for long minutes, wondering how he’d gone from thinking about using her to just thinking about her so quickly. It was crazy, but from the second he’d touched her, he had forgotten what he’d come here to do. Had forgotten everything but the way she felt in his arms.

  Jesus, he really was an asshole. If Cecily hadn’t called a halt to it, they would have had sex. Hell, what was he thinking? They would be having it still. If she hadn’t stopped him, he would be balls-deep in her right about now.

  The thought only made his already-hard dick harder, especially as he imagined what it would feel like to be inside her. She had tasted so fucking sweet—like strawberries and caramel and fresh, rich cream—that he had wanted to devour her.

  His beast had clawed at him from the inside, raking sharp talons down his skin in an effort to get to Cecily. To feel her and touch her and taste her. God, he’d wanted to go down on her, to thrust his tongue deep inside her and see if her pussy tasted half as good as her mouth.

  Somehow he knew it would, which only made the fact that she had left him a million times worse.

  Trying to shake off the desire that was a knife in his gut, Logan grabbed a shirt and pulled it on. Then he started hiking down the steepest side of the mountain, figuring if he couldn’t exhaust himself with sex, he could at least do it with another, less pleasurable physical exertion.

  But fifteen minutes into the hike, he knew it was no use. He didn’t want to climb up and down a mountain. He wanted to fuck, and for the first time in his very long life, not any woman would do. He wanted to fuck a specific woman. He wanted to fuck Cecily.

  Shaking his head as he scaled down a particularly sharp cliff face, Logan called himself every name in the book. And then made up a few for good measure. It worked, and by the time he’d made it to the bottom of the sheer rock drop, he was feeling almost like himself again. Except, of course, for the raging erection that came back every time he thought about Cecily.

  He’d have to get that under control—get himself and his dragon under control—because meeting Cecily had been a gift from the gods. Oh, he’d had a few ideas on how to get inside the Wyvernmoon compound, but none of them were without risk of discovery. Not of his actual presence, because, really, being accepted as a guest of the clan had been the whole point. He couldn’t do what he had to do by spending months skulking around in the dark.

  But presenting himself to the clan council, asking for amnesty for a while—that came with certain risks, especially because the Wyvernmoons were bound to be more paranoid than other clans, considering what they’d been up to.

  Being invited in without asking for an invitation, however, would be a huge plus in his favor. He had already figured that out before he’d met Cecily, but talking to her—kissing her—had only solidified his plans. If he played his cards right, the princess herself would be his ticket into the compound. And once he was in and an accepted escort of the princess, it would be a hell of a lot easier to destroy the clan.

  The thought grated a lot more than it should; he should be overjoyed that he’d hit on an almost-foolproof entrance to the clan. It was stupid to be worried about it, stupid to feel that niggling bit of guilt at the thought of using Cecily so blatantly. Yes, she’d been nice—a lot nicer than he had ever imagined she would be. But that didn’t mean anything. A lot of people had different faces. It was more than possible that she had been involved in the Wyvernmoon attacks but could seem like a genuinely nice person on the surface. Look at how many sociopaths were able to fool the people in their lives for so long.

  Not that he was calling Cecily a sociopath, but he couldn’t help wondering if she was amoral. How could she not be if she sanctioned the vicious, bloody, terrible massacre of innocents with that stupid virus? How she could be anything but a coldhearted bitch if she had anything to do with what the Wyvernmoons had been doing to his clan?

  And, not to put too fine a point on it, what the fuck did it say about him that he could still want her when he believed that she was somehow involved in destroying his clan?

  Even if he gave her the benefit of the doubt, even if he tried to tell himself that it was her father and brother who had spearheaded the whole viral attack, they had both been dead for a number of months. Someone had to be carrying on the work in their stead, and if it wasn’t Cecily, then it was someone close to her. And if she really didn’t know, well, then, she was a lot stupider than she’d come across today. Because the woman who had met him quip for quip, who had stared at him out of those shrewdly sexy purple eyes, had been anything but stupid.

  Still, he could use the desire he felt for her to his own advantage. Could play on the desire she felt for him just as easily. And if he ended up in bed with her . . . His cock jumped at the thought, telling him that ship was already headed for port. So, fine. When he ended up in bed with her, it would just be sex. Not pure, not simple, definitely not uncomplicated—at least not with the agenda he was determined to push forward—but it would just be sex. He just had to get a grip on himself and on Cecily, and then everything would be fine.

  He would get into the compound.

  Destroy the lab and the virus.

  Find a way to bring the Wyvernmoons down once and for all, and then get the hell out of Dodge.

  He couldn’t afford to take his eye off the ball, not at this late date. Dylan and the other Dragonstars were counting on him. It wasn’t in him, after everything they’d done for him through the years, to let them down. Not for anything.

  Happy now that he’d worked things through to his satisfaction, Logan started the long climb back up the mountain. This time, with his mind relatively settled, he could focus on the beauty of his surroundings instead of on the maelstrom of thoughts and feelings that had been whipping around inside him on the way down.

  South Dakota was beautiful, or at least the Black Hills were—a lot more beautiful than he had anticipated when he’d been walking his desert back at home. Oh, the sunrises and sunsets were different here, the landscape nowhere near as barren and mystifying as what he looked out at every day in New Mexico, but it had its own brand of charm.

  The trees were gorgeous, full and green and towering much higher than anything in the flat deserts of New Mexico. The hills themselves were rocky and filled with colors ranging from gray to brown, red and gold. And the lakes . . . Coming from a state where water availability was a huge deal and where they could sometimes go years without a good rainstorm, it was amazing to know that there were lakes and rivers and waterfalls around many of the twists and turns of these mountains.

  Still, they weren’t all that tall compared to the Colorado Rockies that he, Shawn and Ty liked to climb at least once a year, just to prove they still could. Logan was at the top of his mountain—Cecily’s mountain—in no time, without even having broken a sweat.

  Still, Cecily’s unexpected arrival had forced him to skip the dip he’d planned in the lake earlier that evening. Though it was getting dark—or maybe because of it—he thought now might be a great time to
remedy that. None of the wildlife up here would bother him. His dragon was by far the fiercest, biggest thing around, and local predators were usually smart enough to recognize that, even when he was in human form.

  He took a quick detour through the camp he’d set up after a visit to one of the local camping stores. Stripped off his shirt and grabbed a towel out of his pack before heading down to the lake he’d been dying to try since he’d first found it.

  Once there, he stripped down and dived in. The water was cold—freezing, really—but he’d been expecting it. This was South Dakota, after all. And it was fall. In a couple more months, right around the time of the first big snowstorm of the year, he figured he’d be longing for the warmth of this water.

  He’d been in the water about fifteen minutes, had swum a few laps across the small lake and back, and had just started lazing around under the waterfall when he felt her creep into his mind.

  Slamming his feet down onto the rocky floor of the lake, he stood up and looked around, letting the dragon peer out of his eyes. Using his beast’s sharp eyesight, he studied every inch of the shore around the lake, looking for her. His beast growled with pent-up sexual frustration. If she’d come back, he was going to take her here and now. To hell with guilt, to hell with his plan, to hell with everything about the Wyvernmoons. He wanted inside her in the worst way, and he was going to get there.

  Except after a few minutes, he figured out that Cecily was nowhere to be found. Somehow, some way, his mind had managed to connect to hers over a pretty decent distance. And while he’d always been able to do that with the Dragonstars, he’d never been able to pick up on the thoughts of anyone else miles away before. At least not without some serious effort.

  Not sure what was going on but determined to figure it out, Logan settled down to listen to whatever it was Cecily wanted to tell him. Which, as it turned out, was a singularly bad idea. Because within two minutes of eavesdropping on her thoughts, it was like the hike and the swim had never happened. He was back to being hot and hard and raging for release.