Page 19 of Dark Fire Kiss

But he had every right to preen. He was a beautiful creature—all silver and blue. His scales rippled with various shades of the two colors, ranging from shimmering argent to deep indigo. Rows of black horns ran from his head to his tail, which sent sparks trailing over the water.

He dipped his talon below the surface again, then pumped his wings, propelling his body into the air before wheeling and shifting to shadow form. For a split second, a black, dragon-shaped cloud hovered above the loch. Then it tightened into a column and streaked toward the castle.

I stepped back just as it streamed through the window and shifted into a nude Fergus. “Where have you been all day?” I demanded.

He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing the windblown waves. “Oh, here and there.” He looked toward my desk in the corner of the suite. “I left a note.”

“It said you were going for a walk.”

“And I did.”

“For eight hours? If you haven’t noticed, our mate won’t speak to us.”

He rested his fingertips on his waist—a pose that, given his nudity, should have made him look ridiculous. But it didn’t, and my nape heated at the sight of his sweat-sheened muscles and rippling abs. My gaze wandered lower, and desire struck like a whip. Like all our kind, he was smooth between his legs, giving me an unimpeded view of his thick shaft and the heavy sac nestled underneath.

“It’s daytime,” he murmured.

“What?” I asked distractedly. I pulled my gaze up to find his eyes alight with something suspiciously close to humor.

“Our mate is a dhampir,” he said, exaggerating his words as if he spoke to a small child. “They sleep during the day.” He moved past me, his rounded ass drawing my gaze like a lodestone. “Really, Bram, I expected you to know that.”

I clenched my jaw as he walked toward the bathroom. “I do ken that. Where are you going?”

“To take a shower,” he said without turning around.

As if he didn’t have a bathroom of his own, I thought as he disappeared. In fact, his was far nicer than mine. He’d remodeled it several times over the decades, upgrading whenever new technology appeared on the market. His latest gadget was a Japanese bidet that worked with an app and could probably communicate with the space station. “Fucking glorious,” he’d declared it after dragging me into his bathroom so he could demonstrate all the settings. “Beats taking a shite in a chamber pot, I’ll tell you that.”

So it made no sense for him to invade my space. It was almost like he was daring me to—

“Follow,” I murmured, my fingers going to the buttons of my shirt. I shed my trousers and boxer briefs as I crossed the suite, and I was nude by the time I entered the bathroom.

Fergus turned as I opened the shower door and stepped inside. “Took you long enough.” He faced the spray again and tipped his head back, letting water course down his chest.

It coursed down his back and ass, too, and I bit back a groan. He was perfect. Fucking perfect. When we were first mated, I’d thought my attraction would…not wane, exactly. More like evolve. I’d expected that first rush of passion to mature as we did.

But it hadn’t. Even now, it was all I could do to keep my hands off him.

So I didn’t.

With a sigh, I stepped close and grasped his hips. “You could have just asked me to join you,” I said, kissing the spot where his neck met his shoulder.

He released a sigh of his own. “Now what would be the fun in that?”

A typical Fergus answer. He sought fun in everything. Enjoyed life more than anyone I’d ever met. The French called it “joie de vivre.”

I called it “Fergus.”

I pressed my hips into his ass and slid the length of my shaft up and down his crease. “I can think of several other ways to have fun.”

“Oh?” He tipped his head to the side as I nuzzled his neck. “You want to share with the rest of the class, or is this something you’re keeping to yourself?”

I reached up and angled the shower head away so it didn’t blast us in the face. Then I grabbed his shoulders and spun him around. “You tricked me into coming in here,” I said, pushing him against the tiled wall and bracing myself with a palm next to his head. I had three inches and about fifty pounds on him, and I used both to my advantage now, pinning his body in place with mine.

His silver eyes gleamed with anticipation. Water droplets clung to his lips and eyelashes. “Aye, I did. You’ve been a cranky bastard for days. It was either fuck you or fight you.”

“And you chose fucking.”

Humor—and a hint of a challenge—gleamed in his eyes. “You complaining?”

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