her answer. Her permission.
For an interminable beat, she searched his eyes, for gods knew what. “You won’t hurt me?”
The dragon in his head made a sound close to a purr. She was going to give in. Levi grinned, watching her through half-closed eyes. “Only if you want me to.”
Deliberately, he crooked a finger, feeling for that spot inside her that would make her shudder. Ah, there it was.
A whimper escaped her lips.
“Agreed,” she said softly, that husky voice of hers wrapping around him as effectively as a fist around his cock.
Everything inside him stilled. Bright relief spiked through him at odds with the moment, bigger than what he’d expected. Only he was far from confident that the surrender she was giving was anything more than her body.
“Are you sure? I won’t ever take advantage of you. I’ll take care of your every need. Your. Every. Fucking. Need, Lyndi. But you need to be sure.”
“I’m sure.” She wiggled, as though trying to kickstart him back into what he’d been doing.
Instead, he pulled his fingers from her.
“Hey—”
“I’m in charge,” he reminded her.
She snapped her mouth shut with a glare but said nothing more. With a nod of satisfaction, he carried her through to her bedroom.
Pausing on the threshold, he took it in, never having dared invade this space. Lyndi had eclectic taste. Plain black T-shirts and jeans were her usual mode of dress. But in here, she’d decorated full-on old-school with a massive fourposter bed human kings and queens of the Renaissance would have envied. Heavy red velvet curtains hung from the ornately carved wooden canopy, tied back with silky ropes of the same color. The carving was of dragons, undulating together, a beautiful depiction of what he was about to do to her. Giving him ideas.
With a grunt at the images flooding his mind, he strode to the bed. There he lowered her feet to the ground and stepped away, backing up until he put the full distance of the room between them.
This would be about taking the control she’d just given him and earning her trust. He’d worry about tomorrow—and everything else he wanted from her—later.
Chapter Three
She’d always thought it would be her. That she would have to leave. That she’d be “assigned” a mate and forced to go off and start a new life, back in Everest most likely, where the High King needed her to politically tie someone down or lift them up. Most likely the latter. Only another red dragon would do for the King of the Red Clan’s cousin. But never this. Never Levi going to fight.
The news had hit her with all the subtlety of an atomic bomb, and any control she’d had over her reactions to him had flown right out the damn window like shattered glass. She knew they had no time, no future. But they could have this. This one moment together.
Lyndi didn’t try to control her racing heart, didn’t want to, even though she knew Levi would be able to hear it with ease. She wanted him to. Wanted him to know that what he was doing was turning her on, because she’d never allowed herself to be that free with him. Not ever.
He wanted to be in charge?
She shouldn’t be surprised. He was always trying to boss her around. But out there, that annoyed the shit out of her. In here, damned if surrender wasn’t exactly what she wanted to give him. She spent her days proving herself, fighting to be heard, making tough decisions, guiding her boys, and generally being the adult who cleaned up the mess behind everyone.
To be able to let go and let him determine her pleasure and his…
They were still a complicated mess she didn’t want to contemplate, with a time limit now, and he tended to frustrate the hell out of her, but one thing was for certain…she knew he’d take care of her. Implicitly.
Lyndi took in his expression—intense, blazing, with an edge to it that whispered of danger and sent wet, silky heat dripping from between her legs. Like she’d unleashed the animal within him.
Holy hells. Where had this Levi come from?
Her dragon purred inside her head, a guttural sound she’d never made before.
Quivering with craving, hardly able to keep her legs under her, she stood before him, unashamedly naked, reveling in the way he watched her, the slash of color across his cheekbones telling her he liked what she was offering. With slow, deliberate moves, never taking his eyes from hers, he