To Tame a Dragon - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,39

was hidden, her eyes sparkled with something new, something he hadn’t seen in them yet. Was it…mirth? He lowered her hand to find her lips curled into a smile. She’d smiled a few times in his presence, but each of them had been different, each had been unique. This was the first to contain a touch of playfulness.

“Do you find something amusing, human?”

“You.” Elliya’s smiled faded. “But I do not understand. Why now?”

“Because I am”—he released another huff through his nostrils, just barely keeping it from coming out aflame—“stubborn, arrogant, overbearing, rude… I’m sure there are more I have missed, but you undoubtedly have an idea of the rest.” He stroked his thumb over her wrist. “And I have felt the distance between us widening. I do not like that feeling.”

“Oh.” The corners of her mouth turned down, and she turned her face away. “It is the bond then.”

Falthyris lifted his free hand to her chin, which he took between his fingers, and forced her face back toward him. “It is me. I am not a slave to this bond, Elliya. It compels me to be near you and nothing else. I want to do better. I want to know you better. You are small, and soft, and weak…and human”—her expression hardened, but he continued—“but there is a strength in you I cannot fathom. There is beauty in you I have never imagined possible.”

He slid his hand up from her wrist, trailing it slowly to her shoulder. The soft scales on his palm rasped over her softer skin. As that hand moved, he shifted the other to brush the pad of his thumb along her lower lip, taking care with his claw. “I wish to know all of you. Every little piece, every aspect, no matter how small. Mind, body, and soul. I want it all, Elliya.”

Her eyes darkened, and her breath quickened. Falthyris grazed the tips of his claws along her collarbone, so close to her delicate throat—just close enough to feel her fluttering pulse.

“If you want all of me, what do you offer in return?” she asked.

Falthyris lowered his hand until it covered one of her chest mounds. He slid his fingers around its curve until he found its little hardened peak, which he took between forefinger and thumb.

Elliya gasped. His chest rumbled in response, and he gently squeezed her mound, savoring its softness, rolling the hardened bud between his fingers. She swayed toward him.

He leaned close, until their lips were a hair’s breadth away. “Everything, Elliya.” Dropping his thumb from her lip, he cupped the underside of her jaw, tilted her chin up, and flicked his tongue out to lick her neck. He grazed his lips down her skin as he spoke. “My protection, my devotion, my life, my heartfire is yours. You have not stolen it. I give it all freely to you. My mate.”

Speaking those words aloud brought him an odd sense of relief—but stronger than that was a feeling of completeness, of wholeness, like a piece of himself he’d never noticed was missing had been returned. The mating bond intensified, curling even tighter around his core, but it was not painful or restricting. It was right.

The weight of centuries of solitude fell away in an instant. He had companionship—he had Elliya—but she was not something he could take for granted now or ever. She was not owed to him, she was not something he deserved by virtue of having been born a dragon. She was a gift, a treasure, something to be cherished above all else.

And he intended to start now.

He dropped his hands to her hips, pulled her closer, and bent down to capture one of those dark peaks between his lips, sucking it into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue.

Elliya’s breath hitched, and she delved her hands into his hair, clutching it between her fingers. “Falthyris,” she rasped.

The ache in his loins intensified, and his heartfire poured heat into his veins. That was the first time she’d said his name, the first time he’d heard it from her lips. And he would do all he could to ensure it was merely the first time of many.

Falthyris growled and sucked that little bud harder, caressing the tender flesh around it with his lips. Lifting his head, he switched to the other mound, sucking and teasing it in equal measure. The taste of the river lingered on her skin, but it could not mask her true flavor.

Yet there was another flavor he’d