Page 99 of The Dragon Warlord
“I did, Alpha. I won’t deny it, but I wish that I was enough to rile you on my own. I don’t know how you brat so much with your men. Both things I did were anxiety-ridden.”
I pull off him to stare into his eyes. “Does it look like you have to do a whole lot to garner my attention? I’ve just been earning myself a medal in self-control.”
Self-control that’s waning fast.
“I have a suggestion,” he says.
“Oh?”
“What if we just … tried? It doesn’t have to be official until you want it to be or never if you don’t. If there’s any point you think we should stop then we stop. We tried the other way for half a decade, and you still don’t have your answers as to how much the bond plays in our true feelings for each other. Maybe we try leaning into the bond and find out?”
“I won’t be able to stuff it back in the box, Riv. I know that much.”
He opens his neck for me, a not-so-subtle hint that he wants more. “Then it would mean we were happy and fuck the bond, Alpha.”
Inhaling a large breath of him takes the last of my resolve. I rest my forehead against his. “Let’s try.”
“Yeah?”
I smile. “Yeah, but …” I groan. “We have to stop what we’re doing now.” WhatI’mdoing now.
“A-Are you sure?”
“Alrik’s stupid orgasm schedule. Can you believe he followed through with that bullshite?”
“Are you really asking that? Yes, I can.”
I should tell him to go, but I don’t want him to go. I want to ravage him anyway. “Oh, fuck it. I can’t do this anymore.”
18
River
“Oh, fuck it. I can’t do this anymore.” For one awful second, I think he means he can’t dousanymore as alpha and omega.
But then his lips are on mine.
I thought the day he bit me was the most important day of my life. It’s not. Today is. I do what I know to do for him; soften, become his to do what he wants with. I’m dominant on the field—unless it’s following his orders—and that’s absolutely it. There isn’t a dominant bone in my dragon body otherwise.
The kiss fills me with the dragon’s fire he’s known for. Nothing about it is chaste. It’s as feral as the day he bit me. It deepens with hands clawing up my neck. When he pulls away, his sapphire eyes are wild. “There will be rules,” he says.
Tiny dragons fly around in my stomach. Real relationship rules from my alpha! I bite my lip and try not to die of anticipation.
“Rule number one. I want you home with me every night and by home, I mean in my bed. You sleep with me from now on, understood?”
I choke on my words. I didn’t dare dream about this. He may well only want me in his bed so I’m near and I don’t even care. I meant it when I said I’d have him any way I could. This is more than I thought possible. “Yeah—yes, Alpha. I’d like that.”
“I’ll have you there because I want you there and no other reason. If you want to be there it makes it better, but your opinion wouldn’t change the outcome. That’s the honest to Gods’ truth, Riv. I wish I could say otherwise, but that’s how I feel. You make me crazy.”
Which only makes itthatmuch better for me. I swallow. My usually sleepy dick is wide awake. “In the spirit of honesty, I like making you crazy.”
I don’t want to scare him out of the rash decision he’s made—I don’t see it as rash, but I know he will—so I think of the best ways to assure him he’s not doing anything I don’t fucking crave like air.
I see it coming. I spend most of my time with him and even if I didn’t—and even if we weren’t bonded—I’m a thirteen-hundred-year-old battle-savvy dragon. He knows this too, which is why he knows I’m letting him snatch my wrist and yank me to him. My head falls to his large Elven shoulder. His ears wiggle above me with affection.
“You’ll have a memorable first time,” he declares.
“It will be no matter what it is, T-Tristan. Because it will be with you,” I whisper.
