Free Lord Dragon's Conquest by Sharon Ashwood Page B

She eased away from his touch, resettling herself until she just grazed his tip with her heat, but no more. A rumble escaped his chest, and he gripped her by the waist.
    She leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Now you know what it’s like to be at the gates of paradise and be allowed no further.”
    He flipped her over, pushing her down into the fragrant boughs. “Do not tease a dragon.”
    “Then don’t tease me.” The plea went beyond the moment. She was losing her heart to him.
    “I won’t,” he murmured back. “I claim you, Keltie.”
    Then his mouth was on hers, and he eased himself inside, letting her take the fullness of him slowly at first, then plunging with a greedy force that brought a cry of satisfaction from deep inside her. Something released in the core of her, as if her body knew this was exactly right, and she abandoned herself to pleasure.

Chapter Eight
    Keltie drifted back to consciousness, her head pillowed on Larkan’s chest. Sunlight played across the greens and golds of the leaves piled around them, a light breeze stirring against her cheek. At first she didn’t want to move. She could have remained nestled in the warmth of furs and skin, listening to Larkan’s strong, steady heartbeat for an eternity. But then she remembered why they were there. Memories of the festival and the angry queen brought her fully awake with a start.
    Larkan stirred, stretching his long limbs. Keltie tried to reconcile the man with the great dark dragon. Oddly, the task was easy. Man and beast had the same power and grace. Both possessed an alert readiness that reminded her of the cats she’d seen patrolling the high mountain places. A shiver skittered down her backbone, a mix of fear and pride that such a being had chosen to be with her, even for a night.
    “Good morning,” he said, his voice thick with sleep.
    “Good morning.” Keltie craned her neck to kiss his rough, dark cheek.
    He caught her and kissed her properly, nearly plunging them back into the maelstrom of heat and desire, breaking away only as Keltie felt herself losing her grip on reason. She reached up, her palm cupping his face and her thumb tracing the curve of his mouth. Something flashed in his eyes, a fierce energy as hot and bright as dragonfire.
    “I can’t let you go,” he said simply.
    The declaration struck with a soft pain. “And I want to be with you.”
    “Then we shall be together.”
    Keltie’s breath caught, but she snatched her heart back before it could fly free. She had to face facts, though the weight of them crushed her into the mountainside. “I can’t hide in your cave forever. Nadiana knows I’m around, and she’s not very happy with me. It might have been the ax.”
    The corners of his mouth quirked as he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “You got the best of her.”
    “Almost,” Keltie said, her tone dry. “I doubt she’ll let that happen again.” With that, she rose and snatched up her shirt from the heap of leaves beside them.
    “Keltie,” Larkan protested softly.
    She wanted to lie down again and curl into him, but worry chafed her. She would leap over most obstacles for the sake of a relationship, but she wasn’t getting them both killed in a mountain filled with angry dragons. “We have some decisions to make, and I’ll need my clothes on to think.”
    Larkan muttered in his own language, and then he got up and began dressing himself from a stash of clothes bundled at the back of the cave. His were drier than Keltie’s. Dew had soaked anything dropped outside the shelter of the rocks, but she was too preoccupied to care.
    Until Larkan’s hand fell on her shoulder. She finished lacing her boot and looked up to see the outline of a dragon rapidly blotting out the sky. She recognized Rand, the great bronze dragon, at once. She rose, instinctively stepping closer to Larkan, but the dragon landed and transformed at once to the tall, fair man Keltie remembered from the