Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [82]
I groaned when Gabriel bit my ear, his ragged breath the sweetest music I’d ever heard. His body was tense and hard, and I knew he was just as aroused as I was. Dragons, I remembered, had an overwhelming need to claim their mates when they had been separated, a policy I wholeheartedly embraced. I tried to peel myself off Gabriel so we could at least go to my room, but his scent, that woodsy, earthy, primal scent that made my soul sing, set me alight. I reared back, my legs still wrapped around his waist, and ripped the black raw-silk shirt right off his body.
“I missed you so much,” I almost sobbed, kissing a hot line across his chest. He moaned, his fingers digging into my behind as I took one adorably pert little nipple in my mouth, and breathed fire on it.
The dragon shard demanded I give in to it, to do things to him that would be impossible in human form, but I was determined to be in control.
“Mate, you must stop or I’ll take you right here on the stairs,” Gabriel managed to say, his voice almost hoarse with desire. His body was urgent against mine, a thousand little touches speaking wordlessly of his emotions, of his needs.
I unlocked my legs and slid down his body, panting with the effort, allowing my eyes to feast on him. He was so beautiful, so uniquely wonderful, it made me want to weep with joy. He was mine, all of him, every last little bit of him, everything from those glittering argent eyes to mobile lips that were the sweetest on earth, right on down his body, every single part of him made to satisfy me.
“I must have you now,” he said roughly, picking me up and leaping up the stairs. “I can’t wait, little bird. You were taken from me—I can’t wait. Which room are we in?”
“Third floor,” I started to say, then remembered that although Drake had removed Fiat to a secured room downstairs, he had left Magoth lying across my bed. “Dammit! Magoth is there.”
Gabriel paused at the head of the stairs, turning first one way, then another. “There must be a room we can use. Sitting room?”
“Too public. Jim tends to wander at night.”
“Drake’s study.”
“Drake is often up at all hours fetching something for Aisling.”
His fingers tightened on me. “Kitchen.”
“István and his girlfriend sleep right off the kitchen. They’d hear anything we did there—”
He growled, actually growled. “There has to be somewhere!”
“There’s the pool, but I think Cyrene is going to be there for a very long time.”
“Gah!”
I slid out of his arms, the emotions and images pouring out from the dragon shard finally too much for me. I took a step back from him, my fingers curling into fists, the sharp claws biting into my palms as I looked away for a moment, trying to gather the strength I would need.
“I will ask Aisling,” Gabriel started to say, but as he walked past me, I slid a hand down his back. He froze, half-turning toward me, his eyes so bright they warmed my soul.
I leaned toward him as if I was going to kiss him, pursing my lips to blow a breath on his mouth, instead.
His eyes widened as he realized what I was doing. “Mate?”
I turned my back on him, walking to the stairs, the dragon shard cheering within me.
“Mate,” he said again, his voice an octave lower, the word so full of sexual intent I almost climaxed right there.
Halfway down the stairs I threw a look over my shoulder. He was still standing in the same spot as if rooted there, his body taut, his eyes aglow, a small ring of fire around his feet. I smiled.
He sucked in his breath.
“I love you,” I told him just before I spun around and leaped down the last of the stairs.
A challenging roar echoed through the house as I raced down the darkened hallway, driven by the urges of the dragon shard, but for a change fully in control of it. It wanted me to play with Gabriel, to treat him as if I were a dragon, to initiate love play, and so I would—but on my terms. Dragon play, I had learned over the last few months,