Page 13 of Dragon Rivals of New York (Dragons of New York #3)

Chapter 13

Jethro

S ora’s ex isn’t entirely a mystery to me. After I met her last year, I did my research on the man. He cheated on her repeatedly. He’s also cheating on the woman he’s seeing now. My fist tightens in her hair as I think about the scumbag.

But I’ve always had the impression that he did more than just cheating. Sora’s loyal to a fault and she grew up in a very conservative environment. I’m not sure finding out about the cheating would have been enough to get her to kick him out and file for divorce. It should be enough, but I have a hard time imagining that it would be under the circumstances.

I turn the tap back on, fill a clean cup I keep near the bath for this purpose, and pour the clean water over Sora’s hair, rinsing out the soap.

“Will you tell me about him?” I ask, worried I might spook her.

I’ve watched her and learned enough about her over the past year to know she doesn’t like opening up. Especially not to men. She has the occasional one-night stand, but never sees the guy again. With the exception of our night together, her affairs always happen at the guys’ place. Every time she went home with someone, I had to have Cyrus spar with me to keep me from going barbaric. He understood, having watched his own mate date someone else for years.

Sora’s quiet for so long, I wonder if she heard me.

“What do you want to know?” she asks, voice low and quiet.

“Why did you split up?”

I hold my breath, wondering if she’ll tell me.

“He was cheating.”

The pat answer. The safe answer.

I pour some conditioner into my palm and work it through her hair.

She dips her head under the water, rinsing out the conditioner. I wait for her to go on, hoping she will.

“I didn’t catch him—I should have." She pops a few bubbles with the tip of her finger. "I should have suspected something. But I didn’t. I was na?ve and too trusting.” She scoops up a pile of bubbles and closes her fist around them. “He told me. Came to me, confessing, told me he was sorry and it would never happen again. And I believed him. I told him it was okay. We would go to counseling and work through it. But then…” She shudders. “I should have just left as soon as I found out. But I thought… when my parents talked about marriage, they always said, ‘divorce isn’t an option.’ That was why they were married. They’d laugh about it, but there was a darkness under the laugh. My father wasn’t kind to my mother. She wasn’t much better to him. He’d had an affair, and she’d forgiven him. Or said she did. But she never stopped making him pay for it. I thought it was normal.”

“It’s not normal.” I pull her against me and kiss her neck. “What happened, lovely?”

“He tried to kiss me, and I told him I needed more time. The next few days were tense. I kept asking when we could schedule an appointment with a therapist, and he kept telling me he was too busy at work. I asked if he’d really broken off the affair, and he got angry. He broke my phone. He told me he took it somewhere to get fixed, but I never got it back. I think he got scared I was going to leave. It would have ruined his reputation in our community, and that was more important to him than anything, so he locked me out of our bank accounts. I tried talking to my parents, but… you can imagine how that went. He was my husband, the head of the ho usehold. If he wanted to control our finances, he could.”

“That’s horrible.” I wrap my arms around her and squeeze.

“I would have stayed if it was just that. I planned to.”

For a long beat, multiple minutes of silence, she doesn’t continue or elaborate.

“It’s okay, lovely. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

She twists around in my lap and hides her face against my chest. I wrap my arms around her, just holding her.

“By the end of the third week, he was… upset that I wasn’t over it yet. He…” She pauses and looks up at me. Her cheeks are damp, and I don’t think it’s just from the bath. “I’ve only ever told my therapist this. Not even Finley knows.”

I nod, acknowledging the weight of what she’s about to say. She turns her face away again, cheek resting on my sternum.

“He wanted to have sex.” Her words come out so fast they nearly run together. “I told him I wasn’t ready. That I needed more time. But he…he…”

“Breathe, lovely.” I smooth a hand over her head, stroking her hair.

She inhales slowly, then presses on. “He said it was my duty as his wife. That I was his . He…”

My world tilts, and I see red. “He raped you.”

“It felt like it.”

“It didn’t feel like it. It was it.” My voice is too harsh. She flinches. “Sorry.” I blow out a breath.

“I know. And you’re right. It’s just… my whole life I was told that my virginity was a gift I gave my husband. It was his after that. I was told I was responsible for keeping him sexually happy. When couples got divorced in my community, people whispered about how the wife wasn’t meeting the husband’s sexual needs, and it was her own fault that he strayed. My own parents said as much to my face when they found out about Manny’s cheating. I thought… I thought it was my fault. So, I didn’t fight it. But the whole time, all I could think about was how he’d been inside someone else. I felt sick. Used. Afterward, I went into the bathroom and threw up. He could hear me. He knew it was happening. But he just got dressed, got a beer, then stood in the doorway and asked what I was making for dinner.”

My teeth grind. I’ve never wanted to kill someone so much in my life. I’m not the killing type. The few times I’ve done it have been to protect my horde, but this… even though she’s already divorced and safe now, I want to burn him to a crisp where he stands. If Kyro was here, I know he’d already have le ft to do just that.

“Once he was asleep, I left. I wasn’t even sure I was leaving for good until I got to a friend’s house and used her phone to call Finley. She convinced me fill for divorce, hopped on the first flight back to New York, and got me in to see a therapist the next day. I owe her everything.”

Kill Manny. Buy flowers for Finley. Tomorrow’s to-do list. But right now, I just want to take care of my girl.

I tilt her face and study her eyes. “None of that was your fault. And you didn’t owe him anything.”

The shadow that crosses her beautiful features is fleeting, but it’s there. Despite how badly I want to kiss her, comfort her, tell her over and over all the truth she never heard, I just hold her gaze, knowing she needs to come to it herself, knowing the best I can do is help her see her worth and give her the autonomy she needs. I won’t try for anything more right now.

It surprises me when she scoots up and kisses me. Holding myself back, I meet her lips with soft tender kisses. But she’s insistent, trailing the seam of my lips with her tongue. When I part for her, she devours me.

I’m trying really hard not to get an erection right now, but the longer we kiss, the more I lose the fight. My beautiful mate is naked, in my arms, in the bath, kissing me like her life depends on her lips touching mine. Like it’s all she wants in the world. How can I not get hard?

Delightfully, deliciously hard.

I moan when she rubs herself along my cock, throbbing with an ache so deep I feel it in my balls and all the way down to my toes.

She still needs to sleep. And eat. And when was the last time she had water? I should be taking care of my mate. But with a little wiggle, she lines us up perfectly and sinks down my shaft. My mouth opens on a silent groan and my eyes roll back in my head.

How did I forget how perfect she feels?

I haven’t been with anyone else since that night a year ago when I was with her. I’ve had nothing but my hand and my depraved fantasies. Okay, a few times when I was really hurting, and my fantasies weren’t enough, I watched… “I’ve been stalking you.”

“What?” She stops, pulling her lips away from mine.

“I shouldn’t have done it, but sometimes when I was feeling lonely, or needy,” I wiggle my eyebrows to lighten the mood, “I would watch you. Follow you from the sky in my dragon form. Perch outside your window and hope for a glimpse of you. I know it was wrong, but you have your hooks in me so deep, I couldn’t be without you for too long. I just needed to see you. Don’t hate me for it. Please.”

Her laugh is like the pop of the bubbles in the bath.

“What’s so funny?” I tickle her, which has her rocking her hips in a way that makes us both groan.

“You think I didn’t know that?”

“You knew I was watching you? How? I’m a dragon. I can make it so humans don’t see me if I don’t want them to.”

“Yeah, well, I could still sense being watched. And there was more than one time we just happened to run into each other in a way that made me suspicious. I was freaked out at first, but then Finley told me about dragons and dragon mates, and I kind of understood. Doesn’t mean I condone it, but yeah, I knew.” Her smile is a little mischievous. “I even left my window open one time.”

I know exactly the time she’s referring to. It was about a month ago and she stood right in front of her window as she took off her top and then slid her hand into her panties. “I almost left. It didn’t feel right to watch and listen to you pleasure yourself when you didn’t know I was there. But…”

“You stayed.” She smirks. “Does it help to know I knew?”

“Goddess, yes.” I kiss her.

She rolls her hips. “I knew. And I… li ked it.” She says it like she’s confessing something she shouldn’t.

“Oh, lovely, we’re going to have so much fun, the three of us.”

If I can just get Kyro on board, our girl will always have someone to watch. If they aren’t pleasuring her, too.

“Let me watch you, now,” I say, leaning back, with my hands behind my head. “Touch yourself while you ride my cock.”

“Really?”

“You’re in control, lovely.” I take her hand and move it down to the bundle of nerves just above where our bodies join. “Take what you need. I love watching you come.”

She starts slow, little swipes across her clit as she rocks forward and back on my cock. I encourage her by shifting partially, growing inside her. She gasps, eyes widening. I smirk and relax under her in the warm water.

As she becomes more comfortable, she gets more into it. Her hands travel over her body and up to her breasts before one drops back down between her legs. She closes her eyes.

“Look at me.” When she complies, I smile. “That’s my one request. I want you looking at me when you make yourself come on my cock.”

She swallows and nods, movements becoming more frantic, muscles tensing. Her eyes fight to close, but she keeps them open and on me, just like I asked.

“There’s my girl.” I smile.

When she comes, I don’t have the luxury of letting her come down slowly or dragging out her pleasure, because the clenching of her muscles sends me over the edge. I yank her up and pull out a second before I spill thick ropes of cum into the bath water.

She stares at my dissipating release like it’s something she’s never seen before.

“You pulled out,” she whispers. “Why didn’t you come inside me?”

“We hadn’t talked about it, so I didn’t know if you’d want me to.”

She’s lost in thought as I stand. I get a towel, then help her out of the bath and wrap her in it.

I’d planned a full-day excursion for us in the city after Kyro split up our days, but right now, I know that’s not what she needs. Today, she gets to choose what we do.

“What sounds best, lovely, breakfast or nap, or is there something else you want to do today?”

She bites her bottom lip. “I am hungry and tired. Could we… ”

I wait for her to finish, but when she just looks down at the floor like she’s wrestling with herself and what she wants, I say, “How about breakfast in bed?”

“You don’t mind messing up your beautiful bed?”

“For you? Not at all. I’ll eat breakfast in bed every day for the rest of our lives, if that’s what you want.”

She twists the towel in her hands, a crease forming between her eyes. “But what do you want? It’s clear you like keeping things neat and tidy. I don’t want—”

“You want breakfast in bed, you get breakfast in bed. If I want a clean bed, I’ll just change the sheets after. It’s not a problem.” I rub up and down her arms, drying them as I comfort her.

“Okay,” she whispers.

“Wonderful! Breakfast in bed it is. Can I make just one adjustment to the plan?”

“Of course. What’s that?”

I grab the towel and tug it off her with a wink. “Naked breakfast in bed.”

She laughs, and it’s the most glorious sound in the world.