Page 53

Chapter Five

C orey’s chest burned, conflicting emotions warring inside him.

Yes, he wanted Racha, but that wasn’t enough to compromise his principles.

In another time, perhaps he might have gone through with it, but not now.

Not after everything he’d been through with Jill and his failures with women after her.

He was grateful Erika had seemed to see that damaged part of him and steer clear in spite of their attraction.

Hallie had tried, but both of them had known it wasn’t meant to be.

Racha shot one last beseeching look at him, her bright green eyes brimming with tears, then nodded and turned toward the bed.

Somehow Corey knew the tears were real and not some ploy to manipulate him into changing his mind.

Why did that understanding make him suddenly feel like crying too?

He could do this thing she asked. Bind her to her bed and try to give her some comfort through her ordeal.

Company was something he could offer her, at least.

He followed her, watching the sway of her hips and the ripple of her gauzy gown where it draped alluringly over her curves.

Abstractly, he thought a woman more perfect for him probably couldn’t exist, at least in terms of features he preferred.

Petite and beautiful, with just the right amount of muscle mass relative to her contours.

He could easily picture gripping her round bottom while she rode him and those intense green eyes looking into his, her lashes fluttering with pleasure while he …

Get her out of your head, man. You don’t even know her!

Maybe after he got her through this, they could talk more. Maybe something could work out for them both. It was just way too soon for him to lose his mind over a woman because of sex. He wanted a clear head when he decided whether or not he could love her.

Her skin seemed to pulse with an internal luminescence as she crawled onto the bed and lay down in the center.

Corey had to climb on after her to reach her. He did his best not to look at her while he found the ropes that were already fastened to the green jade columns of the bedposts.

Racha silently raised her arms. When Corey stole a glance at her face, her eyes were closed, her cheeks still streaked with tears.

“How long will this take?” he gently asked. The rope slid silkily through his fingers as he secured one of her wrists deftly in a sailor’s knot, then moved to tie the other.

“I don’t know. I think it happens instantly when the sun rises, but I can feel the power pushing to get free already.”

Corey glanced at his watch. Sunrise was only a short while off, by his calculations.

“Should I tie your feet too?”

“Yes.”

“What does it feel like?” he asked while binding her ankles to the other two bedposts.

She let out a soft moan and shimmers of pale light traced up the skin of her feet and legs where Corey held them. The barest texture of greenish scales was visible as the light traveled up her lower legs.

“It feels pleasurable sometimes, but others …” Racha’s words halted with a strangled cry and her back arched violently, limbs straining at her bindings.

Her free foot kicked away from his grip and Corey barely managed to dodge it before it smacked into his jaw.

He gripped her ankle and quickly secured it with the rope.

Corey moved up beside her once the spasms subsided.

Racha lay panting, her chest heaving from the exertion. Her brow shimmered with green-tinged sweat.

“Shh,” Corey said. “I’m with you. I won’t leave you until it’s over, I promise.”

Racha gave him a weak smile that disappeared when another ripple of light passed across her skin. Her lips parted and her brow creased as though she were bracing herself for the next painful episode.

The spasm began and she let out a strangled cry. The sound rose in strength, becoming a deafening roar incongruous with the petite form it escaped from.

At a loss for what to do, Corey rested one large hand against her shoulder and squeezed in an effort at comfort. Her skin felt feverish to the touch.

The bed shook, and her skin rippled not only with light, but with undulating waves of motion.

The barely-there slip of a gown she wore faded away like dissipating fog. Translucent green scales replaced it, covering her arms, legs, and torso. Only her creamy-white breasts remained bare and pristine with small, erect pink nipples.

Her body collapsed back against the bed, limp and panting.

Corey slid closer to her and carefully leaned on one elbow so her cheek rested against his chest. With his free hand, he brushed sweat-drenched curls off her brow and caressed her temple.

“You’ll be all right.” Impulsively, he bent and pressed his lips against her forehead.

“T-Tell Kris that he and Issa have my blessing.” She slurred the words out in between harsh pants to regain her breath.

Corey kept ahold of her through the next series of seizures that wracked her body from head to toe.

“Tell them yourself when this is over” he said gruffly. He was so tense with worry for her he’d entirely forgotten the previously persistent discomfort from hours of aching arousal. In fact, he was pretty sure his cock had gone on vacation.

Her fever grew with each body-wrenching spasm. During the next one, large, coiling horns emerged from her forehead and tangled up with her sweat-drenched curls. Her eyes glowed with emerald fire and a forked tongue darted out to lick her dry lips.

Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks and Corey reached up to brush them away with a thumb.

She shook her head, nearly delirious. “Corey, thank you for staying. You would have been a fine mate. I am sorry.”

Her words had the weight of the words of a person in the throes of death. Corey struggled to suppress an irrational panic that solidified like an icy stone in his belly. She hadn’t said what would happen, had she?

“Do I need to get Kris? Can someone else help?” He feebly grasped at ideas. Something wasn’t right, but she hadn’t told him anything. He had been right not to trust her, but for the wrong reasons.

Her gaze latched onto his, wide and terrified, but also resigned to her fate. Her entire body shook against her restraints.

“The energy will consume me alive like this. But it was … the only other way to give it to them. They must awaken. If I have no release by my mate’s touch, the power will still find a way out. It is my burden … and my honor.”

“No! There has to be some other way!” Had it really come to this, because of his own ridiculous sense of propriety? What a goddamned hypocrite he was. Yeah, man, when the dragon queen asks you to fuck, you say, “How hard?”

Racha shook her head. “Too late …” she murmured just before another spasm gripped her body, forcing her head and feet to dig into the bed and her torso to wrench.

He’d been such a fool not to read the signs. The resignation, her nearly exhausted look when he tied her, the tears. She wasn’t such a weak woman to respond to rejection by crying. Her tears had meant something completely different, and the understanding chilled him to the bone.

The light from beneath her skin became nearly blinding, pulsing from every velvet scale. Corey hurriedly stripped and waited for her body to sink back to the bed again.

“God help me,” he said. He hoped it wasn’t too late for her. She had said she would shift, and the transformation was clearly occurring, but had only gone partway so far if what he’d seen the other dragons do was any indication. Perhaps there was still time if he hurried.

When she relaxed again, he wasted no time.

He pressed his mouth to hers, tenderly at first, then harder when a moan escaped her lips and she raised her head to kiss him back. The wet, velveteen sensation of her alien tongue filled his mouth. Within only a few seconds, he was rock-hard again.

He pulled away, breathless, whispering, “I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me it would kill you?”

Her nipples had turned a verdant shade, but the color didn’t faze him now. Not the way their hard, pebbly texture felt on his tongue.

“Please don’t stop,” she gasped, her chest now arching to meet the teasing suck of his mouth on her breasts. Fuck, she tasted amazing. Refreshing to his heated arousal, in spite of how much hotter her skin was under his tongue. He had no time to pause and savor her now, though.

Corey cursed himself for tying her. Had he known … what would he have done? Bedded her in a more proper way while still resenting the fact of doing it? Taken his selfish time to gain his own pleasure from her body?

Now he had no choice—make her come or watch her die, likely in a brilliant show of fireworks that would rival Kris’s.

“Racha, baby. I’ve got you. I’m going to fuck you now. You’ll be okay soon.”

He pressed fingers between her spread thighs. The wet heat that he encountered sent his head spinning. She was slick and ready and so hot.

Her bindings made the position less than ideal, but she tilted her hips up into his touch as far as she could. He met her desperate gaze as he moved to lay atop her, holding his weight off her body with one arm while he used the free hand to guide his throbbing tip between her folds.

“Please hurry,” she said through green-tinged lips. The telltale surge of illumination began to glow beneath her skin again, beginning at the tips of her horns and running southward.

She is even lovelier like this, he thought as he slid deep inside her with one quick thrust.

Racha’s head pressed back against the pillows and she cried out.

She’s a virgin, you asshole!

Corey hesitated for a split second until he saw the smile on her lips that widened just a bit when he slowly pulled back out. He thrust again, more gently the second time, then again, encouraged by her soft sigh and the press of her naked torso up against him.

His body rejoiced at the sensations of her skin against his, her tight sheath gripping his cock while he buried it over and over inside her.

Yet this wasn’t about his pleasure now. While he knew the tricks of many women’s bodies, he’d never been with this particular young woman.

She felt more heavenly beneath him than anyone else in memory.

Would her body have the same response to him as his did to her?

Sensing her urgency from the intent look on her face, he reached between them and pressed his fingers against the swollen nub between her thighs.

After just a few circular strokes, she cried out and her slick muscles tightened around his cock. The intense squeeze overwhelmed him and he struggled not to lose his pumping rhythm before she was ready. It was an effort to hold back, but he didn’t have to restrain himself for long.

At that moment, her back bowed and she let out a harsh, gasping cry. The light within her coalesced into a hot, white ball of ecstasy between them. It grew in brightness and intensity until it encompassed them both.

An electric buzz passed through Corey. He lost strength in his arms and almost fell atop her. At the last second, he reached up and gripped her hands above her bindings, entwining his fingers with hers while they rode the currents of power that rocketed through them, pushing ever outward.

The heat of it reached searing proportions.

The resonance of a singing chime filled Corey’s head as intense as both their cries.

Electric vibrations coursed through his body, from the point where they were joined to every extremity.

Visual pulses of light shot out from them both and he could feel each one taking a piece of him with it.

He was about to die here with her, from the pleasure of her contact and the explosive release of his soul in one complete and glorious moment.

And he had no regrets. Not even this. Especially not this.

Just when he believed the power would tear them both apart, it exploded, the energy rolling out and away from them, surging through the walls of the chamber and making everything it its path glow and pulse with power in rhythm with their own orgasms.

With the departure of all that immense power went the remains of Corey’s own energy. Nothing was left behind but two sweating bodies, their panting breaths echoing starkly in the chamber.

Corey struggled for a moment to keep himself up. He had just long enough to look into Racha’s eyes to ensure her continued consciousness. He was incapable of speech himself, but hoped his own expression would convey the magnitude of what they had just shared.

When their gazes met, he registered an expression of unrestrained gratitude before he finally gave in and collapsed, breathless, beside her.