Текст книги "The Dragon's Favorite Strays"

Автор книги: Ruby Dixon

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

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CHAPTER 73

DAKOTA

My head is my own worst enemy. I can’t stop stressing over the differences in our bodies as Murr goes down on me. Is he going to find me too hairy? Too pale? Not muscular enough? My arms and legs are covered with a variety of tiny scratches from hunting, from kittens, from whatever, and a lot of them have left small scars. I haven’t shaved anything in years. I’m comfortable in my own skin, but what if he doesn’t like what he sees? So my brain frets and stresses as he kisses between my thighs, and it’s hard to really let go and enjoy myself.

But I don’t want him to think he’s doing a bad job, either. So I give him a bit of direction.

That’s all it takes.

He eagerly feasts on my clit as if I’ve given him the keys to the palace. He sucks and laps at it with abandon, and it’s impossible for me to remain stuck in my head. All my worries disappear under his enthusiastic mouth, until I’m clenching and grinding against his face, on the precipice of an orgasm. Murr drags his tongue over my clit with long, sweeping strokes, and I whimper with each one. It’s almost enough. Almost. Almost. Almost…

“Fingers,” I wheeze. “Give me your fingers. Inside me.”

He pushes into me with one finger, then two, shuttling them like he would his cock. I want to tell him to crook them, to hit my G-spot, but before I can, his mouth is back on my clit, and he’s working me with both hand and mouth.

It’s enough. I shatter with a hoarse cry, my body clenching with the force of my release. Murr continues to lick and pump his fingers into me, dragging the orgasm out in the most delicious way, until I’m squirming against his mouth and ready for him to stop. I push at his forehead with a low moan, and he chuckles, giving my inner thigh one last kiss. “Bossy good.”

I laugh at that. I feel spent, gasping for air, but loose and relaxed in body. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a really good, toe-clenching orgasm. I haven’t been with a man since the Before, and while I have a few toys furtively stashed away in my bags, finding the privacy is another thing entirely. This was very needed, and very, very enjoyable. I caress his face with one shaky hand. “You’re amazing, Murr.”

He grins, chasing my fingers and nipping the tips. While I recover, he keeps kissing me, leisurely roaming over my thighs and belly, pressing his lips to my skin. It makes me hungry for more, and when he moves up to kiss my mouth, I fling my arms around his neck and lock my legs around his hips.

“Inside me?” I ask, rocking up against his body suggestively.

Murr kisses my mouth again, tasting like me. His hand moves between us, touching my core briefly before he shifts his weight, his body surging upward. Then he’s pressing into me, filling me with his length, and it steals the breath from my lungs.

I knew he was big, but I didn’t realize how big. It’s not painful, just startling enough to make my tongue glue to the roof of my mouth. He lets out a hiss as he sinks into me, and I touch him. “You ok?”

“Amazing,” he grits. “Incredible. Life…” He trails off, forgetting the rest.

I clench tight around him, just because I can. “Good.”

He groans, drawing back and then surging into me again. It feels incredible, deep and marvelous and scratching that itch that only truly deep penetration can reach. I hold onto him as he starts a rhythm, moving in and out of me with slow, sure motions. He’s so big, his skin so warm that I can feel the heat of him shuttling in and out of me. The ridges that adorn his cock make every motion exquisite, and it doesn’t take long before I’m matching his movements, lost in the need for another orgasm.

“Please,” I breathe, arching up to meet him and to increase the friction. “Please, please. Oh, Murr. Please.”

His thrusts grow deeper, picking up in intensity, and he grips the back of my neck as he pounds into me, as if he’s pinning me in place. I love that possessive hold, and when another, smaller orgasm ripples through me, I’m not surprised in the slightest. I want to live in this moment, bathe in it, revel in the feel of his powerful body claiming mine.

When I start to come, Murr immediately pulls out. I make a choked sound of protest, but then his mouth is on my throat, clamping down on the bite mark. Heat floods my thighs, and he’s coming on the blanket, not inside me. Just as we’d agreed. He drags his teeth over my throat, holding me there, but not biting through the skin, and I clutch him against me, wrapping myself around him and reveling in this moment.

Our breathing mingles, my deep gulps of air in harmony with his rasps. We smell like sweat and cinnamon and the musty, dusty bank.

And I can’t stop smiling. I laugh to myself, holding my lover tight. “My husband. My Murr.”

“Hus-band?” Murr’s head lifts and he gazes down at me with a hint of confusion. “Explain.”

A horrible feeling uncurls in my belly.

Please tell me this wasn’t all a big misunderstanding…

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CHAPTER 74

DAKOTA

There’s dread in my gut like a heavy brick. What does he not understand? He’s been calling me wife, asked me to be his…how can he not understand? What if he didn’t want to be with me at all and I’ve grossly misunderstood…everything?

I will pull this blanket over my head and just die.

Trying not to panic, I give his shoulder a pat. “Explain what part? You’re my husband. I’m your wife.”

His mouth flattens as he regards me. “Murr not wife? Wife not…” He lifts both index fingers and then places them side by side. “Together? Family?”

I burst out laughing in sheer relief.

At his wounded look, I cup his cheek. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because…well, I thought you changed your mind. Wife is me. I’m the wife, the female partner. Husband is the term for the male partner. They’re gendered, which really doesn’t matter. You can be my wife if you want, as long as we both know what it means.”

He digests this, then nods. “One…thing for ‘wife,’ drakoni.”

“Your people only have one word for it?” I grimace, because we’re diving into more about how tricky our language can be for him. “We have lots of words. Married couple, partners, mates, spouse, other half…”

“What word?” he asks, his expression one of patience.

An excellent question. I want to use something that can be interchangeable, to honor the way his people think about things. If they don’t have specific words for which partner is which, we shouldn’t either. “Well, ‘spouse’ is more clinical, I think. ‘Partner’ is nice but makes me think of cowboys. ‘Mate’ is a little sexier, but it’s also used for other things.”

“Mate?” he asks. “Explain all.”

“Well…your shoe can have a mate, for example. It means one it’s meant to be paired up with. And then there’s ‘mate’ as a verb, which means…what we just did. Have sex. Mates mate.” I don’t want to go into the British or Aussie slang of calling a buddy a ‘mate’ because it might just fry his brain to realize there are more versions of English than just the one I’m teaching him.

“Mate,” Murr repeats. “I like. Go together perfectly. Murr, Dakota.” He reaches out and brushes a knuckle over the tip of my breast. “Dakota mate.”

My mouth goes dry, and it’s evident he’s not tired in the slightest. “Mate it is.”

He pulls me in close, tucking me against him and lightly running his fingertips along my side. “Dakota happy?”

“Did I enjoy myself? Yes. Yes, I did.” I slide my hands over his gloriously warm body, touching him everywhere I can. “Of course I did.”

“Murr…touch wrong? Dakota bossy…then Murr touch right?” He eyes me with a sly expression.

I sputter. “I wasn’t correcting you. You were doing just fine. It was just…”

“Just?” he nudges.

Did I hurt his feelings? That’s the last thing I want. I kiss him, wanting to reassure him. “I just didn’t want you to stay down there forever because I was overthinking things. I figured I wasn’t going to come if I didn’t say something. I didn’t want you to waste your time. I’m sorry if it came across poorly.”

His eyes flicker with something unreadable. “Waste time?” He moves his hand between my thighs, where I’m still wet and my thighs are sticky with his release. “Here is waste time?”

“No, no. I just didn’t want you to take too long.”

“Explain.”

“It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

He blinks, clearly not following.”…explain. Why not fair?”

Flummoxed, I struggle to word it properly. “I guess because it’s too much effort.”

Those are the wrong words. Murr gives me an incredulous look. “Too much effort?”

“Yes!” I can feel my face getting hot. “The longer you’re down there, the more I think about how long you’re down there, and then I just can’t stop thinking, and then I won’t be able to come at all. I don’t want you to feel like making love to me is some hour-long chore⁠—”

“Dakota,” he interrupts with another shake of his head. “No.”

“No, what?”

“No effort,” he says, his hand drifting between my thighs again. Murr gentles his voice, his fingers finding my clit and rubbing again. “No chore. Long time here, good. All good. Perfect. Yes?”

For a man with a limited vocabulary, he’s pretty great at making me feel better about myself. “I’m sorry. I won’t give directions again.”

“Directions good,” he clarifies, rubbing his nose against mine. His fingers stroke through my wetness, easing my thighs apart again. “Bossy good. Murr want Dakota come. Yes?”

“Yes,” I whimper as he eases a finger into me.

“Dakota come for Murr,” he tells me between soft kisses. “Long time, short time, all good. Yes?”

“Yes.”

He does make me come again. It isn’t instant, but it’s not hours, either. He happily demonstrates to me that he’s willing (and thrilled) to be between my thighs for as long as it takes.

With his enthusiasm and his tongue, however, it doesn’t take long at all.

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CHAPTER 75

DAKOTA

It’s so hard to crawl out of our makeshift bed the next morning, knowing that I have to return to my life. It’s not that I dislike my life. I actually love it and love my daughter to pieces…but it’s been so nice to have a reprieve for a few hours. To think about nothing and no one except for the big, golden man currently nibbling on my shoulder, edging towards the bite mark.

“We should probably go soon,” I tell him.

“Soon,” he agrees, and kisses my throat.

“Soon” ends up being more like “noon,” but when my stomach growls for lunch, I know we need to return. With my canteen of water, I clean up all my bits as best I can, because I don’t want to return to the others reeking of sex. I share with Murr, who mops himself with an amused look.

“Want fly river? Lake?” he asks. “Swim? Big clean.”

I’m tempted. Rabbit would love to see a lake, and fish sounds nice after a steady diet of red meat. I am not complaining about the red meat, though, because I’m just thrilled to have a full belly. “Maybe tomorrow. We need to check on everyone.”

Murr nods thoughtfully. “Feed everyone.”

“That, too.” I get to my feet and pull my worn jeans up over my legs. “Feed everyone, check on the supplies, check on the puppies, make sure we’ve had no visitors…”

Just thinking about all of it is making me nervous. Now that I’m on the other side of the night of pleasure, I feel guilty for leaving the others for so long. Was it selfish of us? I squash the feeling and hunt for my sports bra, tossed into a nearby pile of junk, and brush a few dead leaves off of the sweat-wicking fabric.

Murr just watches me with amusement. He shifts his leg, tapping my foot with his big toe. “Dakota good?”

“I will be once I know everyone’s fine.” I shove my shirt over my head. “You should get dressed too. You’re coming home with me, right?”

He gets to his feet in one big sinuous motion that makes me think he could have been a dancer in another life. I hold his loin wrap out to him but he ignores it, cupping my face and planting another long, thorough kiss on my mouth. It leaves me dazed and blinking, and he grins down at me. “All good. Dakota need…” He searches for the word and then takes a big, exaggerated breath.

“I am breathing. I’m calm. I am. I just want to make sure everything’s all good. It’s my first night away from home, that’s all.” I try to laugh as if he’s being silly, but it comes out a little higher pitched than I’d like.

Murr kisses me again. “All good,” he says softly, giving me a gentle squeeze at the base of my head. “No scents.”

He can’t smell any intruders, and he’s trying to reassure me. It’s sweet, but given that I can smell nothing but sex in the air, I’m not entirely sure his nose isn’t malfunctioning at the moment. “I know everything’s fine. This is just the longest I’ve ever been away from Rabbit.”

The big dragon-man nods to reassure me. He takes the wrap from my hands. “We go.”

When we get back, it’s like they didn’t even miss us. Aggie’s got a Dolly-Parton-esque wig on her head, and she’s holding a cat while Rabbit medicates its eyes. Dottie has her knitting in her lap, her needles clacking away.

“’Bout time,” is all Dottie says, a smirk on her face.

I stick my tongue out at her like a child, heading straight for my daughter and obsessively looking her over like the helicopter mom I’m trying not to be. “We’re home,” I announce unnecessarily. “How was everything? All quiet? What did you eat for dinner? Did you sleep all right?”

“Everything was fine, Mom. You guys weren’t gone that long.” Rabbit barely glances at me as she gently massages the medication onto the squirming cat’s eyelid.

It launches itself free of Aggie’s grip and howls a protest, heading straight for Murr. He scoops up the cat and holds it against his chest, scratching at its ears. Aggie shoots me a look as if I’m the one that made her release the cat. Dottie doesn’t even look up. It feels…deflating. Here I was, worried about these three, and they don’t give a flying fart.

“I got you a postcard,” I tell my daughter, feeling lame.

She wipes her hands clean. “Cool.” Rabbit gets to her feet and eyes the cats milling about. There are a few sprawled on the pavement, and more are inside, but none of them seem to make her happy. “Where’s Beaker? He was squinting yesterday. I want to get a good look at him.”

“Which one is Beaker?” I ask.

“The big orange.”

“Half of ’em are orange,” Aggie grumps. “Gonna have to narrow it down.”

“The one that’s squinting,” Rabbit says, unbothered. “I’ll go find him.”

“You don’t want your postcard?” I ask, feeling needy and unneeded at the same time. In the past, Rabbit’s always been beside herself with excitement over a new postcard for her scrapbook, but now she doesn’t even want to look? I get that cats are more interesting than a piece of paper, but…damn.

I don’t like change, and this feels like change.

Rabbit tosses me a sideways look. “I’ll see it when I get back!” Then she’s off, heading across the parking lot and pausing to check under cars.

Murr touches my shoulders and pulls me in for a kiss on the cheek. “Murr hunt food. Yes? Big meal for all.”

“Yeah, sure.” I manage a small smile for him and take the loin wrap he hands me. He flies off and I watch him, feeling disgruntled. Surely I can have both alone time with my new husband and a daughter that acts like I exist, too?

Aggie gets to her feet, stretching slowly and putting her hands behind her back. “Well, now that you’re back, I might as well show you something.”

“Oh god.” Here we go. The other shoe is about to drop.

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CHAPTER 76

DAKOTA

Aggie’s casual statement makes my heart stop in my chest. “Show me? Show me what? What is it? What’s happened?”

She shoots me a dirty look and waves a hand, dismissing my concerns. The elderly woman turns and heads for the doors to the bookstore, forcing me to follow after her. “You’re being ridiculous, Dakota. You think if something happened, we wouldn’t have led with that? Calm the fuck down.”

“I’m calm. I’m totally calm. It was just an ominous statement.”

“Asking you to look at something is ominous? Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” Aggie shakes her head, her wig’s waves bouncing. “You’re still wound up tight even after a night of fun.”

Am I? I bite back a retort, because I feel it’s perfectly normal to be anxious after leaving my teenage daughter with two elderly troublemakers for a night. “Just show me the problem and we can figure out how to handle it.”

Aggie starts laughing. She shakes her head at me as she walks slowly through the store, leaning on her cane. “All right, but promise you won’t get mad.”

Her words make a pit form in my stomach. I follow on Aggie’s heels, not paying attention as much as I should be. Of course I won’t get mad at whatever happened. We’ll just handle whatever has happened. Is that why Rabbit didn’t say much? She’s letting Aggie deliver the bad news? I should have known better than to leave. She⁠—

Aggie stops and gestures ahead of her with her cane. “Here it is. We made a room for you two.”

They what? I stare ahead, noticing just now that the shelves have been moved, stacks of books cleared. My things have been neatly stacked in one corner, and in the center of the “room” is a queen-sized mattress on the floor and a bed adorned with thick blankets and two pillows. There’s even a framed picture on one of the shelves, and it’s of an old book cover with a golden dragon.

They made us a room. My voice comes out squeaky with surprise. “You…did?”

“Yeah. You wanted to know if there was a problem. There is. The problem is how do we get you to calm down already? Sheesh.”

I feel like a jerk. Here I’ve been convinced they got up to trouble, and they were making something special for us. “I’m sorry, Aggie. It’s the first time I’ve left Rabbit since I found her. I just worried.”

“It was your daughter’s idea,” Aggie says mildly. “She wanted to do this for you. Thought you might like to have a little privacy with that man of yours. And me, I thought it was a good idea. You’re so damned anxious about everything that I thought it would be one less thing on your plate.”

“I’m not anxious,” I protest, feeling even more guilty.

“Girl, please.” Aggie gives me a wry look as she shuffles inside the “room.” “You give me anxiety just watching you. Anyhow, no need for you to keep your man at arm’s length around us. You’re allowed to be a woman and be a mother at the same time.”

“Yes, but Rabbit comes first.”

Aggie leans on her cane, glancing around the quarters set up for us. “We set you up at the back of the store, so you can feel like you have a little more privacy. Rabbit’s moving her room all the way to the front, by the windows. She says it’s because Kermit doesn’t like to go deep into the store, but I think she wants you to have space. I told her to go into that sporting goods store and find that man a pair of shorts. She did, too. Got three pairs and a backpack, though I don’t know what he’s gonna do with the backpack.” She waves a hand at the surroundings. “Anyway, it’s in here somewhere.”

I’m speechless, but I know Aggie wants—and deserves—words of praise. So does Rabbit. “This is really special. You guys are very thoughtful to do this for us. I hope it wasn’t too much work.”

“It was far too much work,” Aggie tells me, a gleeful smirk on her face. “I mostly sat in a chair and directed while Rabbit did all the heavy lifting. She’s a good kid.” Her expression changes to something a bit more severe. “She’s a big girl, too. Knows about the birds and the bees. She wants you to be happy, and if you keep acting like an anxious idiot, you’re going to make her upset.”

“Acting like an anxious idiot is what I do best,” I joke.

“I noticed.”

Ouch. I gaze around the sweet little room, thinking about everything she said. Rabbit and Aggie worked on putting the room together for us. No mention of Dottie. I think again about her out-of-character nap yesterday. “How’s Dottie feeling today?”

She shrugs. “Fine. Just tired.”

“You’re sure? Nothing more?”

“Nothing more. Let it go.” She glares at me. “If she wanted us in her business, she’d say so.”

I want to press for more details, but maybe I am being too anxious. Dottie’s old and maybe she’s just tired. Not everything is something to worry over, I have to remind myself. I decide to change topics. “Well, this room is amazing and I can’t thank you guys enough. How are the puppies?”

Her wrinkled face lights up, and she nearly knocks her wig askew with excitement. “Squirmy and adorable! Come look at ’em!”

You’d think I didn’t look at them yesterday just before I left. But who in their right mind turns down a chance to look at a bunch of adorable, squirming puppies?

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