“What?” She asked, leaning against her pillow. “Are you insinuating I haven’t delivered the best orgasms of your life?”

“My dragon wants to mark you.” He grit out.

This made her sit up straight. She knew what it meant. If the sliding of her eyes to the doorway wasn’t a big enough clue of her fear of it, the sharp increase in her heart rate was.

“So yes, you’ve given me orgasms I hadn’t even dreamed of one day experiencing. But that is no longer enough.”

It was only a moment of sadness that passed through her eyes before it turned to fierce rage.

“If you think the only thing I can offer is amazing sex, you’re mistaken about who I am, Dragon King.” She invaded his space and wrapped a piece of his hair around her finger. He growled when she tugged at it with a force meant to hurt. “But you’re right, it’s probably too much to ask for you to express any control over your beast.”

Her eyes locked around his hand, which had encircled her wrist with a grip that would bruise.

“You’re playing with fire.”

“I don't mind a little heat.” She snarled and used his forearm as leverage to reach his lips.

Her warmth pressed against his front, clearly as desperate as he was. Did she not realize she was in this as deep as he was? Or did she just not care?

He spun them so it was her back against the dresser as he fell deeper and deeper into the kiss. His promise to keep his distance was a memory from another lifetime.

Their tongues fought for dominance, as if the unruly specimen known as Rowan Dahl could ever truly be dominated.

“What do you say, then? One more for the road?” She backed away long enough to ask.

“Only one?” His hands were already pulling her shorts off as he backed her to her bed, her wings providing space for her to nestle into.

“How greedy.”

“Ever known a dragon to be anything less?”

Unlike their first forays into the land of lust, he was moving languidly and slow. She bucked against him with her impatience, but he gripped her hips firmly in fair warning. “Patience, little elf. It doesn’t have to be fast and hard for it to be pleasurable.”

Her nose flared. “Is that what we're doing? Pretending? I've had enough of pretending to last me three lifetimes. Give me what I want. What I know you want.”

His hand wrapped around hers as she tried to unzip his fly. “What you want is to feel good. Have I disappointed you yet? If it’s going to be my last time in your bed, you’re going to have to compromise. This is about both of us getting proper closure, isn’t it?” He kissed her forehead, and he watched as color flooded her cheeks. A smile curled on his face. “Unless you can’t handle a little intimacy.”

“I’m not the one who can’t handle their emotions.” She huffed before relaxing against his hold. “Fine.”

Through the cracks of her windows, bronze dawn sunlight crawled into bed. He watched as it caught in her hair, then in her eyes. The sun lit her up as if mocking him. He could never get inside her like it could.

He moved her to the shade as his hackles rose at the thought. He leaned down once more to recapture her mouth, one hand resting at the curve of her back, the other curling around the curve of her ass, down the underside of her thigh and hooking underneath her leg to bring her opening in line with his still clothed cock.

Her skin heated under his palms. Anticipation had her fingernails digging into his still clothed back in a delicious lick of pain as he deliberately took his time undoing the zipper of his pants.

She left the kiss, her mouth traveling to the spot under his ear that drove him mad.

His groan when she took the smallest bite was unbidden.

Did she know that if she went just a few inches lower and found purchase when his neck met his shoulder that she would claim him? Like he ached to claim her?

“This is torture.” Her lips brushed the shell of his ear with her whisper.

Torture?

Yes.

She was.