"A deal is a deal," he said quietly, his hands sliding down her back to cup her bottom.
"You taste like salt," she said with a soft sigh. "It has been so long... skin," she said, allowing her fingertips to trace his brows and then luxuriate themselves in his hair. She kissed his eyelids. "You pronounce it, Ze-hir-ah-dan-gra," she whispered sexily into his mouth. "You won't forget me?"
"Not likely," he chuckled. "But I'm in big trouble already and this is only gonna make my domestic situation worse."
"She is jealous?" The hybrid beauty looked at him seeming confused.
Carlos nodded and smiled as he dragged his nose along her neck and watched the energy in her skin ripple. The slight caress made her thighs clench around his waist tighter in a rhythmic pulse that woke up his nature.
"If you come through the barrier, you'll have to get acclimated quick, then be on your way. My woman is a little on the crazy side, and also wields an Isis blade, comprende? She don't play, and has taken down more than dragons, all right?" He pulled back and stared at her to be sure she understood. "On the other side, it's real territorial, and you seem like a real cool sister, but she ain't having it. We clear?"
She nodded and touched his mouth. "Your eyes," she whispered, hers beginning to slide closed, "are beginning to turn." Her pelvis pressed against his harder. "May I?"
He hesitated. A throat strike from a dragon? "Ah... I don't know. What's the mix do to a brother on the other side?"
She was practically panting and he could see an opalescent sheen beginning to cover her brow. Her nails were beginning to gouge into his shoulders as she held him tighter.
"Could possibly help your flight patterns, improve navigation in the air... allow you to walk on mist," she whispered, "and to disappear at will." She offered him her throat. "You will not come out of this breathing fire... unless you want to."
While what she'd told him didn't seem all that far removed from his current skill set, still, there was the not so small matter of Damali being truly pissed off. Although he could fully explain how this was a necessary evil to get him back on the other side, lately Damali hadn't been very reasonable at all. Plus, with Cain just waiting for him to mess up, and Damali being so outdone about the whole Juanita thing... if he came home with a dragon bite... decisions, decisions. But it was not about staying here.
Before the beauty in his arms could draw another breath, Carlos leveled the sudden strike first. Her shriek almost shattered lair marble. He'd forgotten about the dragon's voice as artillery before flames. But he kept the siphon hard and strong. It was either mark her or get marked himself He was not going home like that, sexy as she was. This had to be a one-way kinda thing--let her get off, then he'd go home, take a shower, and explain it all later.
Oddly, as he drew what had the consistency of blood into his mouth, and played with the tasteless substance on his tongue, he could feel himself getting stronger as she scrabbled at his back, arched, and ground her h*ps in a frenzied circle against him. Natural instinct kicked in; he knew what she wanted. Problem was, how to give her that and still have a valid alibi when he got home.
He pulled out of the siphon, found the front of her gown, and slit it with a fang as he held her steady with one arm around her waist. His mouth immediately covered the hardened tips of her br**sts, sweeping them with his lips, as his free hand drifted along her backside to find and enter her valley.
Her response was an elongated wail of ecstasy. He almost looked up to see if Cain was crossing the floor with a long blade. Shit... this was not the place for a man to get caught with his pants down. He didn't care what she said about the brother being cool. As she began working on his zipper, nearly ready to rip his jeans, he made another fast decision without time to weigh the consequences.
Now it was true, he'd never mind locked with a dragon before, but there was a first time for everything, he reasoned. He pulled his hands away from her body, held the sides of her face, gripped her mind as tightly as he could, and then found her opening again as he mentally entered her.
She nearly passed out in his arms and her nails dug into his shoulders. This time when his hand slid against her mound, it was wet and not his imagination. He pushed her against the side of the pool for leverage, almost forgetting that the seduction was supposed to be phantom. There was something about a woman's voice hitting that decibel that fractured a man's reason. When she bit him, he saw stars. Her siphon dredged a deep moan up from his diaphragm and made him blanket her against the marble pool-side. He'd forgotten how good a real plunge felt. Carlos quickly glanced over his shoulder, waiting to hear the chime of a blade being unsheathed, but immediately brought his attention back to the woman writhing beneath him as he moved against her.
"As soon as we're done, you have to take me to the barrier," he said on a heavy exhale. "Your man is about two seconds from rolling in here."
"I don't care," she said, panting with her head back. "He could behead me now, and I would not care!"
Okay, somebody had to get rational. His primary question had been answered. Cain, like all men, didn't play this bullshit, no matter what their women said. That reality seriously dulled the throb in his erection. A strategic bite, a mind thrust, she released so hard she'd bitten her own tongue--he was out.
"C'mon, baby, I know you're still floating in the aftermath, but you gotta take a brother to where he can live and not die."
She pressed her face to his chest and sobbed. "I'll take you anywhere you want to go, oh, sweet Neteru."
Carlos rubbed her back, looking over his shoulder. "All right, all right, baby," he said, kissing the top of her head.
"You had not even entered me," she whispered, and began sobbing again.
"I know, I know, baby. Next time. On the other side. Let's both live so that can happen, cool?"
"You are wise," she whispered, covering his mouth with a slow deep kiss that he didn't have time for.
But he obliged, and lifted her down off his waist with care. "Okay, now, you have to pull yourself together so we can get out of here."
She nodded and wiped her glistening eyes. "But you did not have a chance to fully satisfy yourself. How could I deny you--"
"Baby, I'm cool," he said, holding her upper arms. "This time was all about you, okay? So, the door--"
"Such selfless sacrifice," she wailed, holding him around the waist. "Never in all my--"