The Lost Barinov Dragon, page 15
Tasha exhaled slowly, the sound strangely audible in the silent room.
“When can we see the witches?”
Chapter 11
Excerpt from Barrow’s Journal – My Year with Dragons
There is nothing more powerful in the world than a dragon’s love for its mate. It outlasts all else; it is stronger than any bond. It is love and devotion in its purest form. To be loved by a dragon is to be valued as life’s greatest treasure.
* * *
Tasha was exhausted. After everything she had been through tonight, everything she had learned tonight, she was overwhelmed.
“The witches are in Cornwall. We’ll leave tomorrow after you both have rested. I insist you stay in here tonight. There are dangers in London that you are not aware of yet and we haven’t the time tonight to tell you about them. It is safer for you to remain here. My men can retrieve your luggage and the Heart of Sorrows, if you wish, and bring them to you,” Everett offered.
Tasha nearly said no, but the thought of driving all the way back to the Dorchester sounded completely unappealing when she really felt ready to collapse.
“Thank you, Mr. Belishaw. I would appreciate that.” She didn’t speak for Vasili. She wasn’t sure she could anymore. It had cut deep when she’d learned her father was the dragon who’d killed Marina. Now she was standing in the same room as Vasili, and all she could think about was this new and horrifying truth about her father.
The man she’d loved, the man she’d thought she knew all about because of those silly dreams was a lie. She hadn’t known him at all. It was one more deception on a foundation of secrets her parents had kept from her.
Her father was a murderer.
She found herself unable to even look at Vasili, who’d moved to stand beside her. He must hate her. How could he not? She represented everything that had been stolen from him. And if Marina was somehow inside her, or even just her memories, it was one more thing she and her family had somehow stolen from Vasili.
“We will see it done. In the meantime, Randolph will take you to one of our guest rooms.”
“Thank you.” Tasha followed Randolph out of the dining room but paused at the door. “Mr. Belishaw, how did my father die?”
Everett looked between her and Vasili before speaking. “He conspired to attack the Barinov family on many occasions. He nearly killed Grigori’s mate—Grigori is Vasili’s eldest nephew. Then he killed the possible mate of Rurik, Vasili’s youngest nephew. Finally, he attacked Rurik’s chosen true mate.
“It was the woman mated to Rurik who killed your father. She is a scientist and had reverse-engineered a powerful drug an enemy of ours had developed, one that deprives a dragon shifter of their dragon for a time. She turned your father human moments before he tried to kill her. They fell from a skyscraper. Rurik was able to catch her, but your father perished in the fall.”
Tasha stared at the tiled floor, fighting back tears. “Thank you for telling me the truth.” Then she followed Randolph out the door.
She was already upstairs when she felt Vasili come up close behind her, and she froze.
“Thank you, Randolph,” Vasili said, dismissing him. He put a hand on Tasha’s lower back and guided her through the open door of a bedroom.
Tasha stumbled into the room, desperate to put distance between her and the man who surely hated her. “What are you doing, Vasili?”
Vasili’s eyes were frosty and his face thunderous. “You and I must talk, Tasha.”
“No, please, I don’t want to. There’s nothing I can say to you to make this go away.”
She spun away from him and crossed the room to the windows, gazing bleakly out at the rainy night. Then she pressed her forehead against the glass, her chest aching.
Vasili growled as he came toward her. “Look at me, Tasha.” She saw him reflected in the glass as he approached. She didn’t dare face him.
He spun her around, hands firm but gentle on her shoulders as he pinned her against the window. The second his hands touched her, that gravity of his pulled her toward him. It was going to be that much worse when what he said next tore her heart apart.
“Please,” she begged, tears burning her eyes. “Please don’t.”
His hypnotic gaze caught and held hers. “What is it you fear?” he asked, his voice a gentle whisper that pierced her soul. His eyes searched her face. “Do you fear me? Fear that I will harm you?” His face was so close to hers that she could feel the heat of him. He reached up to touch her cheek, but she didn’t flinch. The cold window behind her no longer felt like an escape.
Her eyes widened. That hadn’t occurred to her. She’d been afraid of what he would say—what he would do to her heart, not her body. “No, of course not.”
“Then what do you fear?” He moved one hand up, his fingers curling around the back of her neck in a soothing way. They both seemed on a ragged edge, desperate to say a thousand things.
“My father . . . ,” she stammered. “He . . . he killed her.” For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to say Marina’s name. “How . . . How could you want to . . . How can you even look at me?”
“Ah, little one.” Vasili’s shoulders sank as he closed his eyes. “I feared that you could not look at me because my family killed your father.”
For a long second, their bodies were locked as that awful tension between them ebbed away. Their breath mingled and their eyes never left each other’s faces as the fears they’d both been holding began to fade.
“I would never judge you because of your father,” he assured her. “I knew Dimitri. You are nothing alike.” He rubbed the back of her neck with his fingertips in the ghost of a caress. “But you must hate me.”
“No,” she protested.
“When you learned I was a Barinov, you looked . . .” He shuddered. “It was a look of horror and betrayal.”
She had felt both horror and betrayal when she’d learned of his family, but she had never feared him. He had gone into the ice seven hundred years before her father had been killed. She couldn’t, wouldn’t blame him for something that he hadn’t been a part of.
“When my father died, I was told the Barinov dragons murdered him,” Tasha said. “I didn’t know how or why. My mother explained that’s why we’d lived all of our lives in hiding, because of my father’s enemies . . . and then I found you.”
“Yes, you found me, in more ways than you know. What we have, Tasha, goes beyond wars or rivalries. We are mates.” He leaned in close, touching his forehead to hers, and she closed her eyes for a moment, soaking in that feeling of belonging to someone.
“You truly want that? You want me? Mortal and all? The daughter of a monster?”
Vasili was quiet, though his eyes were turbulent. “If Dimitri loved you, then some sliver of his heart was pure, the part that loved you. I can live knowing that that part of him existed. It does not undo Marina’s murder, but I can’t hate that part of him. Do you understand?”
In a way, she did. She still loved her father, but now she knew there was a large part of him that she could never accept or love completely, the part that had held so much greed and hate that he’d attacked the Barinovs and gone after their mates. “I understand.”
“Good.” Vasili pressed his lips to her forehead. “Will you be my mate?”
He stepped back, his hands letting go of her as he asked the question. He wanted her to make the choice without the influence of his touch. Her head cleared of the fog of need she felt, but it didn’t change her mind.
She stepped into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his back and pressing her cheek against his chest. “If you want me, I’m yours.”
Something clicked into place inside her as everything opened between them. Tasha raised her head, and Vasili claimed her mouth. The kiss was soft and tender, as though he wished to learn the shape of her lips in his gentle exploration. It was full of heart, full of unspoken words and dreams of the future.
She cupped his face, her palms rasping against the scruff on his hard jawline. She’d never been intimate with a man before, yet some ancient part of her knew exactly what to do. She gripped the edge of his T-shirt and pulled it up his body. Vasili broke the kiss to let her push the shirt over his head before tossing it to the ground.
His chest was a hard, chiseled work of art, scars and all. She leaned in, pressing slow, soft kisses to his skin. That scent, the one that brought back Christmas memories, filled her head, making her dizzy in the best way. She kissed a path to one of his nipples and flicked her tongue against it. He hissed out a breath, his hands tunneling into her hair as he cradled the back of her head while she explored him. There was an undeniable sense of wonder at the thought that this man was hers alone, and she felt safe knowing she would only ever belong to him.
Vasili’s hands moved to her waist, teasing up the edge of her sweater until he met bare skin, and she shivered in anticipation. Lifting her arms, she let him remove the sweater.
He gazed at her a long moment, eyeing her white lace bra, gold swirling in the blue of his eyes.
“What an age we live in,” he murmured. “To display your lovely breasts in such a fashion. I feel as though you are offering them to me, to suck and nip at until you are begging for me to be inside you.”
Her nipples hardened at Vasili’s words. Tasha’s mind was filled with thoughts of him playing with her breasts, rubbing his cheek against them, flicking his tongue over them, lightly pinching them. She wanted to feel all of it.
He stroked his fingers down her throat, down her collarbone, and finally to the peak of one breast. He rubbed his thumb over one nipple as it pressed against the thin barrier of her bra. She whimpered as a sharp bolt of need shot through her body at his touch. He stepped closer, and her breath came unevenly as he slid the straps of her bra down her shoulders. Then he slowly spun her to face away from him. It took him but a moment to unclasp her bra and let it fall to the floor. Then he pressed against her from behind, his arousal digging into her lower back as he cupped her bare breasts in his palms. She arched into the touch, wanting so much more from him. She felt empty inside, and only he could ease that feeling.
“Please, Vasili, I need you.”
His warm breath tickled the fine hairs on the back of her neck as he rolled her nipples with the pads of his thumbs.
“I know, little one, but I wish to enjoy you. A dragon always savors their first mating.”
“So you’re going to torture me, is that it?” Her voice was breathless with excitement.
“Torture you with pleasure, yes,” he promised before he pinched her nipples. She gasped as he lowered his mouth to her neck, kissing her and then grazing his teeth over her skin. Each kiss seared a path over her sensitive flesh.
His hands left her breasts and unfastened her jeans. She shimmied her hips as he pulled the jeans down, and she slipped out of her boots. Once ready, she squealed as he lifted her into the air and carried her toward the bed. He gently set her down on the edge and knelt at her feet, removing her socks and massaging the arches of each foot.
He slid his palms up her body and reached her hips, where he grasped her panties and tugged. She lay back on the bed and lifted her hips as he slid the underwear off and let them fall away. His hands settled on her inner thighs, spreading her wide for his view before she could regain her wits enough to close her legs.
Heat scorched her as he stared a long moment at the spot between her legs.
“Vasili,” she said uncertainly.
“Oh, you are exquisite, Tasha,” he growled, the dragon rumbling coming deep from his chest. “I wish to devour you.” He bent over her, kissing her belly as he moved down toward her mound.
“You don’t have to—holy shit.” She strangled the curse as his lips settled around her clit, sucking on it. He flicked his tongue into her sensitive folds before he laved the flat of his tongue along her slit. The feel of it was unlike anything else she had ever experienced. It was heaven and frustration at the same time.
“You taste so sweet.” Vasili lifted his head, and their gazes locked. His lips glistened, and his eyes were now fully gold, his dark pupils large with arousal.
“I want to bind you to my bed and devour you for hours.” He slid a hand up to her throat, curling his fingers around the column of her neck, but he didn’t squeeze. The possessive hold sent her pulse into the stratosphere.
“Yes,” she panted. “Yes, do that . . . Do everything . . . Oh God . . .”
He pushed two fingers into her sheath suddenly, but not roughly. “Little virgin,” he rasped. “You have caught your dragon, and now I will have you.” He pumped his fingers deep, hard. “So tight,” he praised. “You are wet and ready to be taken by your mate.”
Tasha entered a strange mindless state where her head was no longer in control of her body. She rocked her hips, inviting him, teasing him, begging him to do as he’d promised.
“More, Vasili, tell me more . . .” Her voice was a ragged gasp.
“You like it when I tell you what I want?” He smiled, a wickedness to the expression that told her he would fuck her to within an inch of her life if she asked him to.
“Yes. Tell me what you want to do to me.” She had never known this side of herself existed, but now that her usually stoic dragon was revealing his darker desires, she had to have more.
Vasili continued to penetrate her with his fingers. His other hand held her throat as he stared down at her.
“I will ram my cock deep into you, little one, and listen to your cries of pleasure. You belong only to me. My body will fill you until you feel empty without me inside you. Then I will part those pretty lips and fuck your mouth until I release.”
She groaned at the thought of sucking on him and how it would feel to be used like that. She wanted it, wanted to know that she drove him to madness. There was a power in knowing her body made him lose control.
“Then,” he whispered more softly, “I might claim other places.” He moved his hand on her neck down to her bottom, cupping it before he gave it a light smack while still pushing his fingers into her sheath.
She exploded like a firecracker, parts of her igniting at different instances as she came undone.
Vasili quickened the pace of his fingers inside her, drawing out her climax until she was quivering with exhaustion. Then he pulled his fingers out and tore at his jeans, shoving them roughly down his hips, along with his boxers. He cursed softly in Russian as he struggled for a moment to kick off his boots and socks.
Tasha giggled at the sight of him, but the giggle died when she saw his massive shaft jutting out from his groin. Oh God . . . She had felt it through his jeans, but seeing it, it looked far too big.
“How? It won’t—?”
He grasped her thighs and entered her in a swift thrust. Pain tore inside her, and she cried out. He froze, holding still, half-buried inside her. The lust dimmed from his eyes.
“Breathe, little one, breathe. We must get this over quickly,” he said.
Her breath was uneven at first and hitched when he moved out of her a little, then sank back in. Pressure built inside her lower belly as he worked deeper into her. The pain eased, and finally the pressure faded a little.
“I’m okay now. You can go faster,” she said. She gripped the bedding, holding herself in place as he stood at the side of the bed and took her hips in his hands.
“Faster, you say?”
“Yeah.” She needed faster, needed harder. She was so close to that glorious next orgasm.
His hips slapped against her body as he fucked her hard and fast. He murmured softly in Russian, his own breathing as uneven as hers as he pumped into her with frantic desperation, a desperation that she felt all too well inside herself. The perpetual need to be closer, connected, to feel no end or beginning between them. She surrendered to his strength and dominance, letting him own her body, heart, and soul.
Her thighs quaked as her body desperately tried to join in the movement, but he kept her still, taking her at his own pace, using her as a pleasure slave for his desires; and that single thought sent her careening off the edge. Bliss blinded her. Her head thrashed on the bed, and she screamed out his name.
Vasili came a few seconds later, ramming into her hard enough that the bed frame lurched several inches across the floor. Vasili threw back his head. The roar that erupted from him shook the room. Electricity arched between their bodies, and a deep heat spread inside her.
He braced his hands on either side of her shoulders as he leaned over her on the bed. Sweat glistened on his body, making him shimmer in the dim gold light of the nearby lamps. His dark hair fell across his eyes. With a shaky hand, she reached up to brush it away before she stroked his cheekbones. He turned his face into her hand, catching her wrist as he placed a kiss to the center of her palm.
“Was I too rough?”
She shook her head. “It was incredible.” The pain of losing her virginity had been totally worth it. He rocked his hips into her, and a little aftershock of her climax made her body quiver again.
“How was it for you?” she asked, praying that it had been good for him too.
He closed his eyes, moving deep into her body again. His lips curved up a little before he opened them again.
“It felt like the first time, like I had never claimed a female before.”
He confessed this with a look of wonder on his face. His eyes were blue again, the color as soft and vibrant as a summer sky. He started to pull out of her, but she tried to stop him.
“I’m not leaving you, little one, but I must clean up before we can sleep.”
“Okay.” She winced as he pulled out of her body. Blood streaked his cock and her thighs. She shifted awkwardly on the bed. He stepped into the bathroom for a few minutes before returning with a warm, wet washcloth. He cleaned her legs and himself and then he returned to the bathroom.
