Stealing the Dragon’s Heart by Kiersten Fay

39

With Caryn showing a little more color in her cheeks, Aidan managed to convince Onnika to take a break from her bedside vigil, leaving Lear and Asher to watch over Caryn. He was still working to shrug off the terror that had gouged him when he believed he’d lost her. It lingered like an illness, ramping up moment by moment his need to touch her, pull her close. But he held his distance, sensing she needed space. She was processing too much to worry about easing his anxiety.

When he could stand it no longer, he took her hand, rewarded with a zing of pleasure when her fingers closed around his. She glanced up at him, and the simple, if small, smile on her lips caressed his heart.

Because he thought it might make her feel better, he brought her to see Zeek, who refused to rest as ordered. Instead he was camped out in the rec room, watching highlights of The Gauntlet like he was studying for a test.

At seeing this, Onnika tensed. “He’s not planning to run it, is he?”

No way would Aidan allow that. “I’ll chain him to his bunk before I let that happen.”

“Who better to run The Gauntlet than me?” Zeek exclaimed, having overheard them. “It’s just a large puzzle, and I’m not all that injured.” But then he winced in pain, effectively negating his claim. “Hi, Onnika. Glad to see you’re all right. How’s Caryn doing?”

“She hasn’t woken up yet,” Onnika sorrowfully replied.

“But she seems to be improving,” Aidan added hastily.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Zeek smiled, then flinched when a cut on his lip split open. He reached up to softly pat away a bead of blood with his fingertips.

At the sight, Onnika burst out, “I’m so sorry, Zeek!”

Laboring to stand, Zeek limped over to give her a one-armed hug. Aside from his swollen cheek, lip, and matching black eyes, the only other evidence of his beating was the brace on his left arm. But Aidan knew that Zeek’s clothes concealed welts and gashes all up and down his body, and he had several broken ribs. “Sorry for what? That I’m such a screwup? Everyone’s sorry about that. Especially me.”

“This is all my fault,” she cried.

He stepped back. “It’s no one’s fault but the assholes who invaded us. Besides, now I have a good story to tell my kids…if I can still have any.” He surreptitiously adjusted his crotch. “They’ll probably come out horned and cross eyed, which, let’s be honest,” he gestured to himself, “would be an improvement.”

Obviously, he was trying to make Onnika laugh, but she wasn’t in the mood for humor. “Promise me you won’t run The Gauntlet,” she demanded.

Flippantly, he shrugged.

“Please,” she begged. “There’s no reason to. We’re out of the race.”

“Not if Vin can scrounge enough parts.”

“There’s too much damage,” Aidan informed him. “We’d need to scrounge up a whole new ship. And even if we could, I’ll not let us continue. The danger is too great. We nearly lost...everything today.” He glanced at Onnika as the terrifying realization washed through him anew.

She took his hand, instinctively understanding his sudden need for comfort. For her.

Back in the hall, she said, “Fifty-fifty chance he does it anyway. For no other reason than to see if he can.”

“You know this for sure?” Aidan asked, picking up on the firm note of confidence in her tone.

She shrugged, looking a bit miserable and evasive. “Just a hunch.”

He strongly suspected it was more than a hunch. “I knew a Faieara once who could read the future of others.”

“Really?” Onnika replied airily, but her sudden tenseness told him she was wary of the subject. “Bet that would make life much easier.”

“Not really,” he said. “She’s not able to control it how she’d like and must make physical contact with someone before she can even catch a glimpse of their future.”

“Hmm. That would complicate things, I suppose.”

“Is that how things work for you? Does your magic require some sort of physical contact?”

“Are you trying to guess what I can do? I suppose there’s no reason to deny it any longer.” She surprised him by shooting him a sly grin, a bit of her misery falling away. “Well, go on, then. Let’s hear your theories.”

He smiled, delighted the topic wasn’t off limits. “Okay. You told Caryn you should have seen Tag coming, which makes me think you might receive visions of the future. Perhaps just your own?” He raised a quizzical brow.

“Nope.”

Undeterred, he continued the guessing game as they entered his room. “Can you sense people, like if they’re near?”

She perched stiffly on the edge of his bed, facing him. Her expression was a bit drawn and wary, but she seemed resigned to answer his questions. “I suppose in a way, but that’s more of a byproduct. And I’d really have to know the person and be looking for them specifically to be able to know if they’re near.”

Though he initially intended to give her space, he was pulled closer by the sight of her sexy form on his mattress. She’d changed into one of those thin fabric dresses that exposed her mouthwatering legs. “Hmm. Let’s see. You freaked when we were about to go into the wormhole, nearly breaking my nose.” Now he realized her actions had something to do with her or Caryn’s magic. She’d never been working with Tag at all.

She cringed in contrition. “Sorry about that.”

He sat down next to her and drew her hand up to his mouth, planting a light kiss on her knuckles. “It could have been worse had we made it through. If you can’t see the future, how did you both know to avoid it, I wonder?” She didn’t enlighten him, simply gave him one of those secret smiles that affected his whole body. He tried not to let it distract him, endeavoring to run through all the clues he could recall. Looking back, every action she took was suspicious. “Your timing always seems to be impeccable. The two of you delayed us at the very start of the race, which saved us from an unprecedented battle that could have crippled us early on.”

Her brows shot up at that. Apparently, she hadn’t seen the replays. Her reaction was somewhat telling, yet made the mystery of her magic that much more perplexing. She didn’t always know when her and Caryn’s actions had saved them from calamity.

“You guessed The Condemned and Armada might be working together, and after our encounter with them, I’m inclined to agree.” He flipped her palm over and kissed the tender flesh at her wrist. Her breathing turned slightly uneven. His gaze followed the curvy lines of her body, and she allowed one strap of her dress to slide off her shoulder. An audible sound rattled in his chest, and he dipped his head to run his lips along her silky exposed flesh.

The little minx knew exactly what she was doing to him. And the effort, so paltry and effective, should have been embarrassing. Instead all he felt was carnal delight.

His voice became hoarse. “When we were looking for parts for the ship, you knew which merchant was a con artist, and you predicted that wallet thief like you were directing him yourself.” He paused, growing alarmed. “Can you read people’s minds? Can you read my mind?”

Onnika grinned, wanting to let him sweat it out a little. She could tell the idea disconcerted him. And she only had to look at his heavy-lidded eyes to know where his thoughts were leading. Whatever was in his mind right now was lurid, salacious, and carnal. Hers were running along the same vein. But they needed to see this discourse through before succumbing to the temptation of losing themselves in each other’s arms.

Slowly she shook her head. “Not exactly.” But he was inching toward the truth, and that gave her a strange mix of both trepidation and anticipation. She wanted him to know her. She wanted to tell him everything. At the same time, there was too much amusement in letting him speculate.

Frustration creased his brows. “Not exactly? But that’s close, isn’t it?” He kissed the soft skin of her inner wrist once more, and then a little higher on her arm. The delicate sensation made her shiver. “Right now, you know what I want, don’t you?”

She bit her lip, and his gaze snapped to the action. “I think it’s obvious.” She lightly laughed.

His eyes lit with astonishment. “That’s it! You can tell what people want.”

“Perhaps you’re just easy to read.” She reached out to cup his handsome face and guided his lips to hers. At first the kiss was light, warm, gentle, but in a flash, it became something forged in fire. He crushed her to him, molding his lips over hers with desperate urgency. His hands cradled the base of her neck as he held her in place for his lust-fueled kiss. She sighed as a thousand tiny knots seemed to unfurrow within her all at once. They were supposed to talk but, in truth, this was what she craved: The unbridled passion they sparked in one another…the sense of connection whenever they touched.

In a lightning-fast move, he gripped her by the hips and dragged her under him on the mattress, deftly nestling himself between her legs. “Tell me what I want,” he demanded, his gaze searching.

Her mind was a muddled mess, drunk on passion, but she pushed past the fog to assess him with her magic. There was true vulnerability in the probing depths of his eyes. He wanted her body. He wanted her passion. He wanted…She gasped. “You want…you want everything.”

“You’re goddam right I do,” he snarled, and then he kissed her hard, scalding her with the heat of his unyielding desire until she felt branded by it. Her mind swam from the intensity of his ravaging lips.

His hand ran up her thigh and under her flimsy dress to grip her waist as he rocked his hard body into hers. Though they were both still clothed, the pressure of his weight caused delicious pleasure to ripple up her spine. She broke the kiss to moan, ready to beg for more, but it wasn’t necessary. With eager movements, he stripped off her panties and his head delved between her legs like a ravenous beast, taking her swollen clitoris between his lips. Pleasure came fast, and she cried out. He groaned, latching his tongue to her tender flesh.

As he laved her relentlessly, his arms clamped her thighs in place, as though she might try to get away from his carnal ministrations. She writhed, trapped by his grip, the pressure building, building, until sparks of burning-hot ecstasy exploded through her every cell. A scream tore through her lungs as waves and waves of pleasure swept over her. While she continued to quiver with rapture, he stood to remove his shirt and trousers, freeing his engorged erection.

The man was a magnificent display of muscle and power.

He intended to take her now, could hardly wait to be inside her, but she had other plans. “It’s my turn to taste you.” She went to her knees and called him onto the bed with the crook of her finger. His desire quickly shifted at her directive, and he obeyed her silent command.

He watched her with feverish greed, filled with curiosity and excitement as he relaxed onto his back and she crawled over him. “My God, you’re a stunning sight.”

She smiled at the compliment and ran her fingers over the rippled length of his torso, delighting in every slope and valley. She drew lower, watching as his eyes grew heavy with lust. When she gripped the base of his shaft in her palm, his hips jerked slightly and his breath faltered. When she leaned down to tease the tip with her tongue, he hissed as though in pain, but she knew it was only intense pleasure he felt. So she did it again, pulling a groan from him. Finally, she brought him fully into her mouth, letting the steel satin of his hard flesh slip along her tongue. A low growl rumbled from deep in his chest. She relished the unintelligible sounds he made as his hips gently rocked to the rhythm she set, the subtle way his muscles shook.

“You’re going to bring me to completion before I’m ready,” he muttered.

She simply chuckled as she drew him deeper.

In another lightning-fast move, he had her on her back underneath him. She yelped as he loomed over her. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?”

She laughed and bopped him on the nose with her finger. “I never saw you coming.”

Oh, he liked that answer. As he covered her lips with his, he prodded her sex with his engorged shaft. In one perfect thrust, he entered her, and they both cried out with bliss, delirious with euphoria. The moment felt like a paragon of fate, their bodies connected, their souls united, their love intangible, yet dense and consuming. Onnika felt tears form in her eyes, the sense of euphoric bliss overwhelming her.

Their passion turned ferocious, their bodies demanding release. His glistening muscles heaved as he drove into her. She nuzzled his neck, flicking her tongue to taste his salty flesh. His shaky groan vibrated through her and he surged forward, swelling inside her. The friction was maddening, driving her toward the edge of release. Again, the pressure began to build, coiling in her loins. Her back arched. Her head thrashed. Then bewildering pleasure slammed through her and she cried out. “Ah, Aidan!”

He bellowed, his hips surging one last time before his release followed.

Breathing heavily, clinging to one another, they basked for long moments in the paradise of dizzying satisfaction. Then he lowered his head to just inches above hers. “I never saw you coming, either.”

Her lips spread into a wide grin. “No one ever does.”

Chuckling, he rolled onto his back and pulled her against him. She laid her head on his shoulder, snuggling closer. Her body was sated, her muscles fatigued in the most glorious way, but she was too wired to sleep. Lear and Asher had been instructed to alert her the moment Caryn awoke. It would be less stressful for Caryn if Onnika were the one to tell her their secret was out, and that Aidan and the others could be trusted.

That twinge of doubt snaked through her mind, but she beat it back. If Aidan didn’t deserve her faith, no one in the universe did.

She tilted her head to look up at him. He glanced down at her with a blissed-out expression. She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, then admitted, “I can read people’s intentions.” She bit her lip, waiting for his response.

His lips curled into a lazy smile. “Well, isn’t that a son-of-a-bitch.” He rested his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. “You’re a Faieara with white hair and the ability to read intentions. Next I suppose you’ll tell me you’re related to Ethanule.”

She shot upright. “Ethanule? I have an uncle named Ethanule.”