Dragon Fever (4 page)

He flashed white teeth in a quick smile. “That makes you a guest and definitely puts you on my list.”

She lifted her chin. “Your list. Like taste-testing a small South American wine?”

His smile deepened, bringing out a dimple in his cheek, and his eyes gleamed like pure glacier ice struck by the sun. “It’s rare enough that I might need more than a taste.”

Oh boy. The quiver in her core sank right between her legs. She’d been working the dating apps off and on—mostly off because who had time for that? Now the long dry spell was trying to end itself in the dampness of her panties.

She crossed her legs in her polished denim skirt as if she could strangle the sensation. She was just having a drink, not socially lubricating a one-night stand.

The server whisked back with the wine bottle and two glasses balanced high on a tray, pristine white towel draped over her arm. The cheerful smile was gone, replaced by a serious furrow as she presented the bottle. A twinge of sympathy made Piper forget her lust for a moment. More than once, she’d been the lone female in a room of skeptical men.

She scowled at her companion, peeved—unfairly perhaps, but whatever—that he was making the would-be sommelier nervous. He arched a mocking brow at her, as if he could read her mind in the same way she and Esme and Anjali used to do.

He cleared his throat and said, “Does look intriguing. Let’s open her up.”

If only… Piper wrapped her ankle one more turn around her other leg, clamping her thighs tight against the renewed flood of sexual awareness.

With the first glass poured and approved, the server filled both glasses equally before letting out a relieved sigh. “Enjoy.”

After she bowed her way out, Piper said, “She gets the job.”

“You haven’t even tried the wine yet.” He handed the second glass to her on a waft of earthy, fruity fumes.

“I don’t know anything about fine wines anyway. But I know she’ll bust her ass for you.”

He studied her with a touch of the same chilly contemplation he’d given the server. “Such a fierce champion.”

Piper flushed and looked down at her glass. “Doesn’t everybody need one of those?” Then she darted a look at him. Someone like him—wealthy, handsome, confident—probably hadn’t ever needed a champion. People would throw themselves at his leather wing-tipped feet without him even asking, much less saying thank you.

He lifted his glass. “To—”

“I’m kind of done with cheers tonight,” she said. “If you don’t mind. Maybe you could just tell me your name.”

“Rave.”

She pursed her lips. “Mr. Dorado. Golden in Spanish. Seems an appropriate name for a guy in a casino.”

“My clan…my family took the name when we came here.”

She perked up. “Immigrants?” She’d always been a sucker for a good American Dream story.

“More or less. And yours?”

“Proud first generation,” she said.

He smiled. “I meant your name.”

She ducked her head with a chuckle. “I’m Piper.”

“I hear music in that name.”

“Is there madness in yours, Rave?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. A weird trick of the flickering lights made it seem as if a bolt of lightning shot across his irises. “Yes.”

She tamped down another surge of the inexplicable attraction. She’d never gone for dark and dangerous guys, but… She shrugged with more devil-may-care insouciance than she really felt. “If this bottle is any good, maybe I’ll sing for you later.”

“If not, there are hundreds more bottles where this one came from.” His gaze never left hers. “We can go through them all.”

He
wasn’t stark raving crazy,
she
was if she thought this was going anywhere but straight to her head. And to her pussy, of course.

But maybe that was enough.

She’d give Esme and Anjali a chance to bitch about her and get some sleep. Then she’d crawl back and beg their forgiveness. At the rate she was going, by tomorrow morning, she’d have a lot of sins to her name.

***

Rave tipped the glass to his lips, watching as Piper did the same. Despite the lush aroma of the wine—yes, it was too dark and too smoky and very,
very
intriguing—all his predatory senses were focused on the woman across from him.

He shouldn’t be here, didn’t even understand why he was. He narrowed his eyes, trying to puzzle out her allure. He had never been drawn to human females. They were too breakable. Piper had a raw vulnerability to her that made her seem fragile, but on the flipside of that was a boldness that brought him to the edge of his seat, wanting to reach across the table to put his fingertip where the glass was. To brush his thumb over the pouting curve of her lower lip while cupping his palm under the soft line of her jaw, risking the sharp nip of her teeth when she defied his natural dominance. She was a champion at heart, a protector of the innocent.

His kind ate her kind for breakfast.

It was still quite a few hours until breakfast, but he was already hungry.

So he might as well start now.

Though the wine couldn’t slake his thirst, he took a mouthful, letting the loud but complex flavors swirl over his tongue.

She’d be like that, if he took her. Judging from the dusky cast to her skin and the width of her cheeks—now flushed brighter than her sweater—at least some of her ancestors had come up from the slow, warm lands to the south where these ancient grapes now thrived. Her thick, black hair looped loosely around her shoulders when she tilted her head to take a second sip.

She let out a soft hum of pleasure that speared him square in the loins. He hadn’t missed the scent of her arousal earlier, but he’d put the blame on the trio of cocktails she’d tossed back. Now
his
cock wanted a chance to wring that sound from her.

When was the last time he had stirred down there? The stone blight had affected him more than he realized, leaching away even the desire for desire. Until now.

The wine slipped down his throat with a finish that had more than a hint of the char marking the barrels where it aged but still bright with a tart sweetness that lingered on his breath.

Oh yes, he would drink that again.

He waited until she lowered her glass after a third mouthful then gave her an impatient look.

She licked her lips, a move that sent a surge of blood, thicker than any wine, to his groin. “I like it.” She shrugged. “That’s all I really know.”

“That’s all you need to know.” He topped off her glass. “I like it too. I’ll make a note to buy out the winery’s stock.”

“Must be nice,” she muttered.

He paused. “I thought we both liked it.”

“Not the wine. I meant it must be nice to just…get whatever you want.”

He gave her a hard look. “It’s not always that easy.”

She snorted. “Says the guy who just bought out a winery.”

He took a drink, still watching her over the rim. “Not everything is for sale.”

She smirked, and he realized no one had ever smirked at him. Except Torch, of course. “Oh yeah,” she drawled. “Tell me one thing you’ve wanted that you haven’t been able to buy.”

“My brother’s life.”

The moment the words left his lips—souring the pleasurable tang of the wine—he wanted to choke them back. Hell, how high was the alcohol content on that Carmenère?

As appalled as he was at his own slip, he was even more shocked when Piper reached across the table and touched his white knuckles clenched on the stem of the wine glass.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “That was rude of me, and mean. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Her hands were square and sturdy, the somewhat short fingers decorated only by clear nail polish and one ring on her right middle finger. As if the warmth of her touch had thawed something inside him, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. His greatest fear just leaked right out. “Bale isn’t dead, but he’s…very sick.”

And she should be running away by now, screaming, sensing the beast in him through the barest connection of their fingers.

Instead, she wrapped her fingers into his with a light squeeze. Her expressive eyes wrinkled at the corners as if she felt the pain he refused to acknowledge. “That must be hard for you, watching when you can’t do anything.”

How could she…? “You know,” he said softly, testing the unexpected connected between them. “You’ve gone through it too.”

She nodded. “My father fought through two bouts of cancer. He was a farm worker, made his way up to crew leader in pesticide application. He kept going back to work because we needed the money. But the third time got him.” Her voice cracked.

Rave couldn’t stop himself from threading his fingers between hers. “Did it ever get easier, knowing what was to come?”

After a moment, she shook her head, her eyebrows peaking as if to hold back the sheen that turned her gaze to deep, dark pools. “I think it was worse. But I was glad to be there with him at least.”

A cold fury swept through Rave’s body, spreading out along limbs that didn’t exist when he was in this shape. He didn’t want to “be there” while Bale turned to stone. He wanted to stop the petralys, even if he had to ignore his liege’s commands, even if he had to drain Torch to the second-to-last drop of ichor.

He knew he was holding Piper too tightly. If he’d been merely a human male, he would scare her with this intensity. And if the dragon was rising in him…

But Piper returned the ferocity of his grip though the gentleness in her dark eyes never wavered. “Some things you can’t fight. I’d kind of forgotten that myself.”

“I’ve always fought.” As he said it, he heard the weariness in his own voice. When dragonkin had gone underground, out of human memory, he’d fought to keep the Nox Incendi secret. He’d fought to keep them alive. But he was failing.

Sometimes he couldn’t even remember why he was fighting, his dragon all but forgotten.

“Maybe we both need to let it go,” she said softly. Her thumb skimmed across his taut knuckles, light as a butterfly skipping over clouds. “Just for a little while.”

His half-hard cock understood her before his brain did and thumped up against the fly of his jeans. He let out a short, sharp breath. “Piper…”

She tugged her hand out his, and in his surprise, he let her go. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”

“No.” He reached for her and grabbed her wrist before she could rise. “No more please and thank you and polite words. Just…fuck yeah.”

Her gaze jumped up to his, and she let out a little laugh. There was the smallest gap between her front teeth, and he found himself helplessly charmed.

This must’ve been how virgins had slain dragons back in the day.

But Piper Ramirez wasn’t going to slay him. She didn’t even know what he was. They were just both tired of fighting: fighting the passage of time, fighting for the lives of others and losing. But their mystifying mutual attraction was one fight he would willingly lose.

For whatever reason, she didn’t fear him. Maybe the flavor of old fire in the Carmenère had buried the natural—and entirely reasonable—fear of getting burned.

Whatever it was, this was one night he would take for himself.

And tomorrow, he’d be back in the fight.

Chapter 4

Not letting go of Piper, Rave grabbed the wine bottle in his other hand. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Into the heart of the Keep.”

A wildness filled him, almost like the moments of shifting into the dragon, when his whole being seemed to expand with light—air and fire changing every molecule of his being.

As if the same wildness drove her, Piper slid from her seat, almost falling into his arms despite the heavy clogs. He looped one arm around the nip of her waist to steady her, and the wine bottle still in his grasp bumped against the shiny denim sleeked over her luscious ass.

Such dizzying dips and curves she had, hidden by her clothes, like air currents he couldn’t touch while in this upright shape. But he was touching
her
, all over. The heady perfume of her—cinnamon and sweet raw honey, as vibrant as her fiery sweater—swirled around him. He tightened his hold on her waist, drawing her closer. Their other hands were still clenched tight, as if they were about to dance.

Surely now she sensed she was caught by a monster out of myth. Surely now she would run…

Her dark gaze dropped to his mouth, and her little pink tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

Ah hell, he’d willingly lay down for the slaying if she’d first let him drink the last of the Carmenère from the small of her back.

He tilted his head and brought his mouth swooping down on hers. The perfume of the wine, earthy and heady, all but flamed between them. He wasn’t going to let anyone else touch the Carmenère, no matter how many bottles he found. It would be the flavor of her, forever, only his to savor.

She was shorter than him, enough to be awkward, but she strained up on tiptoe to meet his hungry kiss, and her lips parted to take him in.

Thank all the dragon-slaying saints, she was no virgin. She knew what she wanted, and she wanted his tongue tangled around hers.

Now that he thought about it, maybe
that
was how virgins slew: by withholding their sweet, chaste kisses.

Fuck that.

He slanted his mouth hard across hers at the same time he yanked her hips flush to his upper thigh, wedging one knee between hers and stealing her aroused gasp like the treasure it was.

His, all his.

When he finally lifted his head, her lips were red and swollen, her dark eyes glowing.

“I thought you said we were going somewhere,” she said.

“Temptress,” he growled. “You made me forget myself.”

Red lips curled. “That sounds like exactly what I want.”

He spun her away from him and strode toward the door.

“Wait.” She tugged at his hand. “I didn’t pay for our drinks yet.”

“I got it,” he said.
I got you.

The bone-deep certainty made his pulse fly through his veins, as if his very blood wanted to pour out at her feet.

After that, her thumping clog steps were as quick as his, and a little stumbling, like his, although he’d had only one measly glass of wine.
She
made him feel awkward and strange, as if he didn’t know himself anymore, as if his body had somehow changed. And he was used to changing, so what had she done to him?