I’m so busted. I do. “You can handle it, Warlord.”
He nods. “I can. Take those off.”
I’m in white trousers and a white shirt. “H-Here? But I thought we weren’t going to here?” My heart fills with hope.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“No. Believe me, I want to.” I’m quick to shed my clothes. Tristan tugs off his underpants and discards them in the laundry bin. My eyes flick to his solid cock.
“That’s for you,” he says.
I hug myself, face cracking into a smile. He tackles me, placing my arms over my head, holding them in place, wrists crisscrossed over the other. “I love you,” he whispers into my ear in the old dragon language.
“I love you, Tristan,” I say breathlessly. “What changed?”
“Other than Corrik kicking my arse? I figured out what you knew all along.”
“Oh?” I rub backward into him; my arse catches his bare cock.
“I’ve been bonded to the dragon lord all this time and I don’t feel for him the way I do you. It’s not the bond that makes me feel this way about you, it’s my dragon.”
My rib cage shakes with sobs, and I nod, unable to speak, but after a few hitched breaths and him cheating by sucking his bite on me where he knows it will soothe, I force whispered words. “There’s one more thing.”
“Since I’m clearly dense when it comes to all things dragon, will you take pity on me this once and just tell me?
I laugh. “I could be persuaded.”
Taking that as an invitation, he rubs over my inner thighs and draws circles near my cock without touching it. “You were saying?”
“Answer this, War—Tristan. What would you do to the person who touched your bite on my neck?”
A sword is in his hand—mine—and he prowls around the room, his beast quick to return in defense of me.
“Alpha.Alpha.” My voice brings him back. “Please, come back to me.”
“Who’s touching my bite?”
“No one. I was just trying to … Well, I can see it was a bad idea.”
He sets the sword aside. I’ve inched toward the side of the bed, intent on leaving it until Tristan shakes his head. I freeze. When he reaches me, he steps between my legs, leaning to capture my lips as I grip him with my thighs, fastening my ankles together across his bare—and probably sore—arse cheeks. “Explain.”
“I don’t want to rile you.”
“I’m already riled.”
“More then.”
“River.”
“My point was that you have your own alpha and your own bonding bite with him. Do you see him worried about other people touching it? Using it even? He also told you—made you—do reverse bond bites, which allows other men access to what’s his. D-Do you plan to ever—”
“—yeah, I’m with you now.Don’tsay it. Gods. Just …. Please don’t say it.”
Does he plan to ever allow another access to his bite on me? Does he plan to ever allow anyone to touch it?
No. And may the Gods help the person who tries.
I press my face against his bare torso. “Sorry.”