quickly. Now that he was near, her heart was pounding harder than ever. The absence of his touch was almost excruciating.
“How much do you know about dragons?” he asked.
She blinked at him, not expecting the question.
“Do you know anything about how dragons mate?” he asked more gently.
Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. It hadn’t occurred to her that their mating would be any different from making love with a Terran.
But something about it sounded familiar - like maybe she had read about this a long time ago.
“Let me explain,” he told her gently. His voice was softer now. He took her hand and laid it in his palm.
For a moment they both looked down at their hands touching. She felt a wave of longing, and something deeper.
“Dragons mate for life,” he said softly. “We can couple for pleasure before then, but once a dragon finds his mate, it’s forever.”
She looked up at his face, trying to understand.
But he was still studying her hand. It looked so small in his larger, scarlet one.
Somehow, she knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“You are my mate, Liberty,” he told her.
“I was married,” she said automatically.
“And now you are my mate,” he said. “Nothing in your past can change that.”
He was telling the truth. She felt it in her bones. But that didn’t make it any more believable.
“This is hard for you to hear,” he guessed.
She shook her head slowly. “It doesn’t seem real.”
“Does it seem like a bad thing?” His tone was light, but she could see the fear in his eyes.
She reached for him, pulling him close, pressing her forehead to his, feeling the pull between them, like an elastic band that only eased when he was near.
“It’s a strange idea,” she murmured. “But no, it doesn’t seem like a bad thing.”
He pulled back and her heart stuttered as if it had been unplugged from its power source.
“You will need time to accept me,” he said gruffly. “Until you welcome our bond openly - body, heart and mind - I cannot claim you.”
“You cannot…” she echoed and trailed off when she realized what he meant.
She almost whined in frustration, but managed to keep quiet.
He chuckled. “I know.”
“Did you… hear me?” she asked.
“The bond is tightening around us, though we haven’t sealed it yet,” he told her. “Believe me, little one, I feel the same. Listen.”
He closed his eyes.
She felt a wave of his need crash into her own.
“Wow,” she whispered.
He took her hand and placed it against his rough jaw.
She felt her own response and his at once.
“Imagine what this is like for me,” he told her, bending to press a kiss to her collarbone.
Tingles of awareness shot down her body, her nipples tightened and pressed against the towel.
Odin groaned and slid his finger under the top of the cloth, releasing her breasts.
“I can feel everything you feel,” he whispered against the tops of her breasts. “Every shiver, every ache.”
She gasped as he licked one nipple into his mouth and moaned around it.
She was melting, her whole body screaming for his touch. She arched her back, desperate for more contact.
He growled and fed on her breasts, abandoning one to ravage the other and then back again until she was whining with need.
He pressed his lips to her belly, her hips, he licked and nipped at her inner thighs.
Liberty squealed and let her legs fall apart for him. Surges of his own frantic desire shot through her and she lifted her hips to get to his hungry mouth.
The first touch of his tongue on her sex almost made her scream.
“Easy,” he murmured against her, the rumble of his voice sending more sensation back and forth between them. “Gods.”
But he didn’t go easy at all. Liberty lost track of her own sounds as he devoured her sex, cleverly finding her most sensitive spots and teasing her until the world disappeared and there was only his mouth and her desperate need.
“Please,” she moaned at last.
Odin growled and flicked his tongue rapidly, easing a big finger just inside her.
Liberty was flying, her pleasure lifting her up and then pulling her down in wave after wave of helpless ecstasy.
20
Odin
Odin crawled up beside his trembling mate and pulled her close.
He had felt every pulse of her pleasure as it washed over her, and his own need pierced him like a knife.
But he would take no satisfaction tonight. He would not seal the bond until Liberty made her decision without the