Free Vampire Dragon by Annette Blair Page A

tried to step away from Darkwyn, but he wouldn’t let go of her hand. “Neither is Sanguedolce,” she said. Neither was she.
    “I know four places, Rome, Scotland, an uncharted island a million miles away, and Salem, Massachusetts, for nearly a week.”
    She stepped closer. “Name your island.”
    “The Island of Stars. Who is Sanguedolce?”
    “Never speak his name.”
    Darkwyn took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You spoke it first. I am going to kiss you now.”
    Her amusement was lost to the supremacy of his kiss, his cool lips authoritative, his open mouth ravenous, his hands and body vigorous and greedy for hers.
    She didn’t know him, she reminded herself. But she wanted to.
    “You know me,” he said, devouring her lips, scary appropriate in his response. “You are my missing center.” He lifted her in his strong embrace, and she wound her legs around his waist, mostly so she wouldn’t fall when she fainted, and he crushed her in an openmouthed kiss so wild, so filled with rapture, that she became more helpless to resist.
    As they stepped into her bedroom off the balcony, Lila and Scorch raised their sleepy heads, quick to observe her riding Darkwyn like a breathless spider monkey. “No man has ever stepped foot in this room.”
    “No man belongs here, but me.” He shooed the cats out with a directive hand and they obeyed.
    She placed her head on his shoulder as he carried her—all parts touching, flawed or not. She breathed deeply for the room to stop spinning before she could speak. “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
    Disproving her theory, he had a one-handed fight with the bedroom door, mumbling something she didn’t quite catch. “Jagidy?” she asked. “Who’s Jagidy?”
    “Imaginary friend. Don’t want him watching.”
    “Have you seen a shrink?”
    “Shrink. I looked up this word. Vivica said I needed one. It means to make smaller. But tonight, since I saw you from outside, I have experienced a continued enlargement; no shrinkage at all.”
    He lowered her to the bed so she lost interest in word games, though she got his meaning loud and clear. How could she not, given its pulsing presence? She kept her legs around Darkwyn when he would straighten and yanked him down on top of her. She could tell from the befuddled look on his face that he hadn’t expected to lose his control or his breath.
    “Bemusing Bronte, you’re quite the seductress.”
    “What? My clothes didn’t give me away the first day?”
    “I saw only your heart.”
    “Hah! Tell me another.” She shoved his shoulder. “Before we do anything,” she said. “We do have a couple of big problems.”
    “No, I have only one. If I had two, I might not have come here tonight. Would two feel twice as good, I wonder? Or would the extra just get in the way?”
    Bronte raised herself on her elbows. “What?”
    He seemed to come back to himself. “Oh, you think you have problems?”

TWELVE
     

     
    “I do have a problem,” she said, “and it’s a biggie.”
    Darkwyn didn’t care. “Is it because you’re ugly? I mean, I don’t care, but—”
    Like being splashed with ice water, she rose on her elbows. “You think I’m ugly?”
    “I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the universe, but you wear a mask, so either you are scarred or you think you’re ugly.”
    She shoved him so hard he fell from hovering above her to bounce against the red striped wall beside her bed. She hoped he sprained his perfect head.
    “I’m not ugly,” she snapped, getting up. “I’m old . Years older than you, more than a decade, maybe fifteen years older. You’re about twenty-three, right?”
    “Give or take a millennium or twenty.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her down on top of him, then he tilted his head to nibble and lick that spot low between her breasts. “A decade is ten years, yes?” he confirmed, peeking up at her.
    He’d come up for air when she least wanted him to, leaving her nipples