Dragon Fever (5 page)

They rushed through the huge atrium, dodging gamblers and groupies and gawkers.

She craned her neck to stare up at the walkways crisscrossing the upper stories and the balconies outside of the rooms that looked down into the atrium. “Is this the heart of the Keep?”

“No. This is its grasping jaws, always open for more.” They rushed past the restaurants and shops and plunged into the quieter chaos of the game rooms where craps and blackjack and roulette tables were stacked high with chips.

“Is this its heart?”

“No. This is its big, hungry belly.”

He hustled her past the greedy display, knowing his own greed was worse, much worse. He wasn’t content with all the sparkling trinkets in the shops or the feasts at their five-star eateries or even the fortunes to be had at the tables.

His dragon had roused and it wanted her, only her, all of her.

And it would have her.

He led her through the confusing labyrinth that made the passage of time or money irrelevant in a casino and finally pushed through an unassuming door tucked in a back alcove. The door opened to blackness.

“Where…?” She caught her breath when the sconces flared to life. “Those flames are real,” she said, a hint of accusation in her tone. “Someone could get burned.”

“Nobody would be so curious and disbelieving as to touch it,” he chided. Then he gave her a long look.

She returned his gaze under lowered brows, nibbling at her lip uncertainly, as if she wasn’t sure whether to confess or accuse him of spying.

He didn’t bother waiting for her to decide and just tugged her onward.

The wide stairs spiraled down, the gold veins in the black marble glittering in the restless flicker of the sconces. Piper wouldn’t be able to see to the bottom with her human eyes. Even his dragon-sharpened senses strained to pick out the way ahead.

Her hand tightened in his, and he felt the flutter of her pulse. From their headlong rush? From fear?

From excitement?

At the bottom of the stairs, one last sconce pointed the way, and he pushed through the gleaming yellow gate baring the passage.

“Is that—?” She slowed and glanced back over her shoulder as they passed.

“Gold,” he said.

“You know that’s crazy, right?”

He thought about it for a moment. “No.”

She laughed a little breathlessly and then she was at his side again.

Just as they broke out into the heart of the Keep.

***

Piper felt she’d been gasping in awe and struggling to catch her breath ever since she’d climbed out of that stupid limo onto the grounds of the Keep. But this…

It was a garden—half formal and stylized with geometric plantings, half wild as if no one had been taking care of it—but at the bottom of a deep well. She knew they’d gone down and down the stairs, but she hadn’t realized how far. Despite the low braziers flickering with real flames and a profusion of twinkle lights in the leaves, a tiled pool reflected only darkness, and she looked up and up to see the open night sky high above.

Unlike the atrium, there were no crossing gangplanks or overlooking balconies. The walls of the garden were perfectly smooth like the impossibly seamless marble of the stairs, though a few optimistic vines were creeping up the sides, softening the stone. Her head spun as if she were looking
down
at a long fall instead of up.

She swayed.

Rave steadied her again. “This is the heart,” he said softly.

“It’s beautiful.” In the circle of his arms, she felt safe enough to look up and spin slowly. It was almost as if she was flying up into the night…

Rave stopped her when she was standing with her back to him. He pulled her against the broad expanse of his chest, his arms crossed in front of her. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured into her hair.

She leaned back into his strength. “Everything here is beautiful. You’ve made a dream world. I didn’t think I’d fall for it, but I guess I did.”

“I’ll catch you.” His words, scarcely louder than his breath, teased her ear, and she shivered.

His arms tightened possessively. “Are you cold?”

She shook her head. “Even though I can see the stars.”

“Geothermal heat and angled mirrors keep everything alive.” A note of diffidence crept into his voice. “Even things that shouldn’t be here.”

She plucked the wine bottle from his lax grasp and took a long swallow. Yet another gasp as the reckless rush of wine swirled through her.

She turned within the confines of his embrace and held the bottle to his mouth. “Maybe these things
shouldn’t
be here, but they
want
to be here,” she said. “Drink.”

His pale blue-gray eyes half shuttered, he let her tip the wine and drank deep. But the angle was awkward and when she pulled back, a droplet of wine stained his lower lip, gleaming in the firelight.

She surfed up his chest to lick the blood-red bead from the soft flesh. When she lowered herself, other parts of him were
not
so soft.

She stared up at him wonderingly, feeling a little cross-eyed. “This is a secret place, isn’t it?” The cathedral silence, unbroken except for the muted splash of water, made her whisper the question.

“Yes.”

“Why are you showing me?”

“Because you came.” He scowled as if that answer didn’t satisfy him any more than it did her. “Because you let me take you.”

“Oh.”
Yes, take me
. She wanted to say it aloud, but apparently there were limits to how far even a bottle of wine on top of three cocktails could take her. She gazed up at him, forcing her eyes to focus on his, hoping he would see what she couldn’t say.

Gently, he pried the bottle from her hand and set it aside on the tiled rim of the pool. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to do the same to her. But then he put one finger under her chin and tipped her head up. Above him, the night sky was a perfect circle of blackness and stars, and nearby, something was blooming with the wild fragrance of a hothouse flower that didn’t care about seasons and demanded to be indulged and admired.

Indulged like Esme, admired like Anjali. Meanwhile, Piper had always been the weedy daisy, struggling to grow on the side of the road. But for once, she was in the beautiful, secret place with the gorgeous, mysterious man.

This sort of thing never happened in her organic chem and statistics books. This was a fantasy romance, pure and simple as water.

Rave brought his mouth down on hers as gently as the warmth steaming up from beneath their feet. When he deepened the kiss, the heat between them rose, as if they were falling to the center of the roiling, molten earth.

She clung to him, her fingers wrapped tight around his biceps. Through the thin linen of his expensive dress shirt, she felt his muscles tighten, as if it was everything he could do not to grab her.

She wanted to be taken. The wanting burned in her like a fever, spiraling ever higher.

She transferred her grip to the front of his shirt. The buttons were tiny, so tiny, and her eager—okay, and drunken—fingers only got the first one undone before she lost all patience. She gripped both sides and wrenched the fabric apart, sending those tiny buttons popping.

“Piper…”

Was that a gasp from him this time? At least she wasn’t alone in that. “Yes,” she breathed out the word. “Oh yes.”

She ran her hands down the skin she’d exposed. Under her wandering fingertips, his pecs bunched and the washboard muscles of his abdomen clenched.

He let out a long, anguished hiss, and she glanced up uncertainly.

“Rave…”

“Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

She pushed the linen back from his shoulders, and the writhing muscles were even harder there. Good heavens, did he carry all the wine from South America himself?

She leaned forward to brush a kiss along the flexed musculature of his chest. And with his flushed, heated skin just a few inches from her nose, she noticed…

“You’re shining.”

He cupped the back of her head. “You’re killing me. Don’t stop.”

“What? No, I’m serious. What are these?”

“Nothing. Tattoos. They’re nothing.”

She stripped the shirt entirely off him. The fine linen drifted silently to the stamped tile beneath their feet. Tracing her fingers over him again, this time more slowly, wonderingly, she followed the lines of all the tattoos.

“Wow,” she breathed, struggling to focus her vision. Flowers, moons, a mountain range, a butterfly?, something with rather scary fangs, a bunch of chemical symbols she knew from her own work and other symbols that seemed familiar and yet not. Despite her effort to concentrate, her vision seemed to whirl even more, blurring the lines in a way that made them come weirdly alive. In the twinkle lights, the ink seemed to fade then brighten as he moved restlessly under her hands. “So many. So different.”

“So not why I brought you here.”

She wrinkled her nose at his rudeness. “Why? Are these supposed to be secret too?”

After a moment, he jerked his head in a brusque nod. “Most people…don’t notice them.”

“I suppose not with your shirt on.” She gave him a wry grin.

Another long moment, then the harsh set of his lips softened. “Oh yeah. Forgot about that.”

“Is it, like, blacklight ink?”

“Sort of. But really, it’s—”

“Nothing. Yeah, I heard you. But they are beautiful too.” She circled the one place on his chest that wasn’t marked, just above his heart. “Missed a spot.”

“I’m…waiting on that one.”

Something in his tone made her finger curl away as if she’d almost burned herself. Again. But she knew all about keeping some places untouched.

So she traced down his midline. Each muscle rippled behind her stroke, and his breath roughened. When she arrived at the button of his jeans, she paused. “I don’t think I can rip this one,” she said sadly.

He huffed, not quite a laugh. “You could ask for my help.”

“Nah. I’ll muddle through somehow. I got this.”

“You do,” he said softly.

She looked up at him through her lashes, wondering what was going on inside him. Well, not inside his jeans; she could figure that out well enough.

Why had he chosen her? Why had he brought her here when any old room would have been fine by her?

Very carefully, she undid the button of his fly and eased down the zipper. Each tick of the zipper teeth made his breath hitch. Her own muscles ached with the urge to hurry, before this odd, sensual encounter ended like a dream. But she refused to squander the chance, lingering over each millimeter of revelation, inhaling the spicy fragrance of his warming skin.

“Commando?” she murmured. “You must trust me.”

“Trust you? You know you’re torturing me, right?” His voice was strained and his hands were fists at his side.

She leered up at him and slid her fingers past the zipper. “I’m sort of getting the impression you like it.”

“I want you to know
you
can trust
me
,” he said hoarsely. “You’ve seen all of me.” He hesitated. “All of me that matters.”

“Not quite all…” She pushed at his waistband.

With a quickness, he kicked out of his jeans, wing-tips and socks going too. Then he stood before her gloriously naked.

She let out a long, slow breath. Never mind the one-armed bandits upstairs, she’d hit the jackpot down here. How had she gotten so damn lucky?

The width of his heavy shoulders narrowed to lean hips and a triangular thatch of dark hair that framed the thick shaft of his erection thrusting upright to his navel. The soft foliage of the garden behind him and the exotic tilework only made his utter maleness more enticing. Piper licked her lips in anticipation and blushed when his cock swelled up another degree.

“Oh,” she said faintly. “
Por el amor de Dios
…”

“You’re not going to run off now, are you?” When he put his fists on his hips, the blunt head of his penis waggled in disapproval.

“Not hardly,” she said.

“Very hard,” he countered.

She giggled. Maybe a little hysterically. She put her fingers over her lips and stared at him.

“Come here.” He crooked his finger at her and she felt it like he’d touched her mouth. No, she felt it like he’d roped her whole body and soul and was slowly reeling her in. “I want to see you too.”

Step by step, she closed the distance between them. The heat of his bare skin all but scorched her, right through her clothes. If she was naked too…

She looked up at the stars far above. “Can anyone else see?”

He reached out and wrapped his hand gently around her throat. “Do you want others to see us?”

She gave a little shake of her head, as much as she could against the confines of his grasp. “No. No one else.”

“That’s good,” he murmured. “Very good. Because I should warn you: I don’t share. What’s mine is mine.”

An irresistible shudder wracked her, and she felt as if only his touch was holding her upright.

He tilted his head. “You’re shy.”

“No. I…” She swallowed against his palm. “I’m just not good at this.”

He stroked his hand up the column of her throat to brush his knuckles over her cheek. “You are perfect at this.”

A strange heat followed his touch, and she leaned into him. “It was the wine.” Which had worn off long ago, she realized, burned away like morning fog. “Where’s the rest of it?”

He tsked. “I don’t want to fuck the empty bottle. I want to light you up.” His glittering gaze raked her. “But where to start…”

She swayed, lightheaded not with booze but with lust. “Rave,” she whispered. “I need you to touch me. All over. Make me burn.”

With a strangled curse in some language she didn’t know, he stripped her bare, skirt and sweater banished, Danskos landing somewhere behind her with a clunk. His hands were everywhere, and still she wanted more. Sparks and lightning and full-on bonfires bloomed everywhere he touched, and her cleft was drenched with dampness, as if trying to put out the flames. But she wanted the fire as she’d never wanted anything before, with a pure and simple desire for pleasure.

He was teasing her, she knew, though his jaw was tight with the effort of holding himself back. When he was done, he stood back, eyeing her. Her skin prickled everywhere his gaze passed, each tiny hair rising and falling in a wave as if at his wordless command. But she didn’t feel exposed, she felt freed, like Eve wandering the garden before the Fall. And she already knew where the snake was…