Page 29 of Drawn by Dragonblood (Blood Born #1)

Jonathan

I hopped in the shower knowing time ran short, and I didn’t have a spare minute to relieve the ache in my balls Elijah had caused from a mere three minutes in his presence.

How the hell was I going to work with him every day for the next four weeks without giving in and dropping to my knees to beg for more? The temptation to deny my lips after tasting him, to keep from feeling his cock swell in my hand, the squeeze of his hand on my dick?

Goddamned torture.

Sating my lust last night had only made me want him more. A mistake, for sure. The three of us together, even if we hadn’t fucked, had been the single hottest night of my life, and it could be even better if I gave in to my body’s strange, sudden needs.

But initiating would cause issues with my employment. Never mind weirdness and jealousy would eventually come into play and fuck up my marriage—and my job. Couldn’t live without the one person who loved me as-is. Definitely refused to put that at risk.

But fucking hell, my body yearned to crawl to him—hell, I would pay to kiss his goddamn feet and suck his toes if meant I had his devotion in return. I wanted the same for Dakota too.

I should have been behaving like a possessive lunatic considering how I’d responded to my ex-best friend requesting a taste of my wife, so why the fuck was I thinking this shit about my new boss?

My body sure knew what it was after. My head? Not so much.

I’d studied Elijah doing his fancy yoga-still-my-mind-shit for a full minute before I noticed my wife on the veranda below capturing him on camera.

How long had she watched him? The thought she’d gone to drink her fill with her eyes rather than wrap her lips around my cock like she’d been doing every morning didn’t even nudge the sleeping green beast inside me. Why wasn’t I jealous? Any other man would be raging.

She walked into our room as I dressed, and I could literally feel the tension radiating off my wife as she stripped to get in the tub. Lust or unease? I couldn’t decide, so add that shit to the fucking cluelessness making a mess of my thoughts.

And I needed clarity for the new job I was about to start.

I pulled my wife into my arms before she stepped into the water, her curves melting against me, same as always when I held her.

“Love you so goddamned much,” I rasped, my throat attempting to close off. Didn’t deserve her though. Elijah could better provide and probably be able to plant that baby in her belly I’d failed to?—

I shut that shit down and kissed the top of Dakota’s head, eyes closed, thankful as fuck to have another day with her even if it hadn’t started out the same as it had the previous three.

There didn’t need to be dick sucking or fucking for me to be content with our relationship.

But lately?

Something seemed to be missing.

A specific someone.

“You’re going to be late,” Dakota whispered even though her hands clung to the T-shirt she’d washed for me that still smelled of Elijah.

My cock twitched at the truth I wore his scent.

“Yeah,” I muttered, torn on whether to stay or go.

“Get a move on.” Dakota slapped my ass and pulled away from me. “Go show that man your mad skills with a keyboard and controller, and I promise he’ll give you a raise after this four-week trial is up.”

Her confidence boosted me, same as her making the decision for me to take a step when usually shit was the other way around.

“Fucking love you,” I swore.

“Love you more.”

I doubted that, but whatever.

Grinning and second cup of coffee in my hand a few minutes later, I took the stairs down to the cavern’s lower levels. I didn’t need anyone to tell me Elijah had already gone below. His smoldering, fiery scent swarmed my nose the deeper into his lair I travelled.

Lair.

I chuckled at the word my brain had chosen. His cave-home felt like that exact thing, and I was the unsuspecting victim falling prey to his pheromones. Dakota would get a serious kick out of my brain right now.

She’d sat in the sunken tub surrounded by bubbles when I’d left our room.

Had she touched herself yet? Taken care of that sweet pussy I had shared with Elijah?

He’d been the only other man to taste her.

The idea of anyone but him putting their hands on her had me clenching my jaw against a sudden growl rising from my chest.

Surprised by the animalistic noise, I coughed it away.

Was I turning into a beast, for fuck’s sake?

I reached the flanking doors—the dungeon I’d jerked off in and the computer lab, I realized while peeking into the wide-open door to my left.

Screens lined the far wall, showing feed from the cameras I’d located throughout house, and a quick glance revealed every room but the bathrooms. And the dungeon across the hall. He must have watched us, just as I’d suspected, but I needed to know.

“Get live feed on your cell?” I asked, lifting my coffee cup for a sip.

He turned, glancing over my clothed form with heat in his eyes, causing my dick to twitch beneath his perusal. “I do.”

“Did you enjoy your daily and nightly shows while in New York?” I asked without a hint of anger over his Peeping Tom antics without our consent.

“I did.” The dude didn’t even have the grace to glance away, blush, or apologize. Those pale eyes of his stared at me, so light blue they twinkled like a diamond.

Fucking fanciful mind.

A grin popped my dimples. “My wife is hot.”

“As are you.”

Well, fuck.

My cock swelled further, but I was determined to focus and start off on the right foot because this job was important as fuck. I cleared my throat. “So. About that contract.”

A corner of Elijah’s lip quirked, and he turned away. “Please have a seat, and we’ll go over what I had my legal team draft overnight.”

It was obvious the guy had money, but to keep lawyers working late into the night for a three-page agreement to entice me to sign on the dotted line?

As if my ass hadn’t already known the truth of his wealth once I had seen the helicopter and the mad technology that allowed him to hide it deep inside a mountain.

Nothing about my first read through of the papers in front of me suggested Elijah had any intent to swindle me. Nor was he a cheap bastard. Full benefits. Sick leave. Retirement fund. Bonuses. Maternity leave should Dakota and I ever have a child.

An ache raced through me over how I’d failed to give her the world in that regard.

A slower, second read confirmed nothing lay in fine print that would fuck me over. No red flags waved, and when I’d brandished Elijah’s pen, that sense of rightness I’d been feeling too often lately rushed through me.

I signed my name without hesitation, no usual instinctive wariness creeping over my skin.

For two agonizing hours afterward, I sat in one of the kitchen chairs beside my new boss. He said he’d get another office chair on the next trip to New York in a couple of days, but I didn’t even notice the discomfort of the hard back and wooden seat.

Elijah was an AI god who built robots.

Like, fucking real-life humans, two legs, arms, ten fingers and toes.

And I held a controller in hand, moving one of the high-tech models around in a huge laboratory all the way down in his New York office.

Three-hundred some miles away, and I had the fucking thing sprinting, leaping, and spinning like a world-class gymnast, its motions fluid as though blood pumped through muscle beneath the fake skin covering the frame.

“Holy fuck, this is cool.” I stared at the monitor, my mind blown. His invention appeared more lifelike than any robot I’d ever seen, unsexed, but with agility enough to make me think the damn pile of metal and plastic was a human.

Elijah’s on-site employees had set up a dozen obstacles to test my ability to control the robot. Once I got the hang of how quickly the limbs responded, I raced that motherfucker around the lab like he owned the place.

A smaller remote controlled the hands, and after a few dexterity tests, I dismantled a fake bomb, snips and all, just like in the movies.

“Well done.” Elijah’s murmur after I completed the final test warmed me through.

“Coolest fucking shit I’ve ever played with.” I put the remote controller on the desk and sat back, watching as the New York staff in their white lab coats and bootied feet began checking the robot over.

“I have a dozen other prototypes?—”

“Shit.”

“—but this is the one the American government decided on.”

“How much does it cost to build one of those?”

A wry smile twisted his lips. “Too much, but if they will save lives while not endangering others…”

“Damn worth it,” I said, glancing once more at the creature he had created. “Are they going to clothe the damn thing or let it run around naked?”

“There’s armor which you’ll be testing various designs to see which best suits each prototype.”

Grinning, I tipped the chair onto its back legs, hands behind my head. “When do I get to see these in real life?”

“I have to go to New York in a couple of days.” Elijah flicked a few buttons and spoke into a mike, telling the lab tech to outfit the robot in the first suit of armor.

“You’re welcome to come along with me if you’d like,” Elijah said, returning to our conversation.

“I’m sure you’ll be wanting more of your belongings from your apartment—if you’re still planning on staying here with me for the four weeks we agreed upon? ”

The contract I’d signed hadn’t even hinted at living arrangements. “Better fucking believe it.”

My gaze snagged on his lips as he turned to face me. Full, perfectly bowed, sexy as sin and so fucking soft...

I sucked in my lower lip, remembering how he’d owned me with that mouth. The slickness of his tongue fucking mine, the sweet scent of his breath filling my lungs when I’d expected the tang of embers.

“Jon.”

“Hmm?” I tore my gaze off his mouth, and my dick jerked fully to attention at the hunger in his eyes.

“Last night...” He glanced away, his brow furrowing.

I waited, my body tense, jeans trapping my hard cock that throbbed for his touch. “Last night, what?” I pushed when he didn’t continue.

Elijah heaved a breath and stood. “Run the same course with that armor,” he said, nodding toward the monitor. “I’ll return in a few minutes.”

My gaze trailed after his backside—his tight, round ass in jeans I wanted to rip off his body.

“Fuck.” I growled under my breath at the lost opportunity and picked up the remote, my knee bouncing while the lab techs strapped on black, scale-like armor. The breast plate glinted in the lab’s light, sending a shimmer of rainbows across its surface.

A tickle of a memory shifted in my mind, but I couldn’t bring clarity to what it was my brain tried to tell me.

I leaned forward, mesmerized by each piece of material the lab techs strapped to the robot. They looked like scales. Black, fucking dragon scales like my make-believe friend—exactly like those on the cross I’d been dreaming about being shackled to.

“No fucking way.” I actually touched the screen, my fingertip trailing over the robot’s body.

“Whenever you’re ready, sir.” The tech’s voice came through the speaker, jerking me back to the present rather than flying through the skies like I’d done in my mind as a child.

I cleared my throat. “I’m ready.”

For fifteen minutes, I set the robot through the course, only slightly hindered by the armor they’d added. The techs took over, readying the next suit of armor, and Elijah still hadn’t returned.

I stood and stretched the kinks from my neck and back. Without meaning to, I strode up the hallway, drawn as though tethered to a life-giving energy I couldn’t escape—and had no wish to.