Driven by Dragonblood, page 11
part #3 of Blood Born Series
I planked over her as an idea jolted through my head.
“What?” Eyes widened, she grasped my shoulders, peering from one of my eyes to the other. “What, Jax?”
“He needs a swift kick in the ass,” I said with a grin, grinding my hips around, rubbing my pelvis against her clit. She squeezed her inner walls around my semi. “And I think I know just the way to do it.”
“How?” she asked, her voice breathy as a goddamn siren.
I pulled out a few inches and slid back through the soaked mess between her thighs, my dick thickening again. “Show him what he’s missing.”
Her brow furrowed. “That’s exactly what I tried to do.”
“Mmm.” I groaned at the feel of her inner walls as I dragged my length out and back in.
She arched beneath me, her arousal rippling across the short distance between us, her fingernails digging into my straining shoulder muscles. “I’m not talking about your sweet as fuck pussy, Prim.”
One more withdraw and slow sink into her body, and I stilled.
“He needs to see you in your true form, all golden scales and spines. Claws and glowing eyes.”
She lifted an eyebrow, probably knowing I wasn’t done laying out my plan. “And?”
“He also needs to feel fear.” I nudged deeper against her cervix, pulling a gasp from her lips as I ground against her. “Sometimes, the only way to realize you need something is to think it’s lost. For fucking good.”
“The bridge,” she whispered as my idea blossomed in her own mind.
“Yes.” I fucked in and out of her a few times, our gazes locked, emotion and arousal simmering and heating between us. “Same as the first time you took me soaring.”
“But how do we get him there?”
I grinned as another idea filled my brain. “He’s a doctor. He’ll come if I call and tell him I’m going to jump off the same ledge my grandmother did.”
“Wouldn’t he just call the authorities?”
What a goddamn conversation to have while fucking my female. I chuckled and ground my pelvis against her slippery clit again. “He could—but I don’t think he will. There’s too much of a connection between us. He can deny it all he wants, but he won’t allow someone else to talk me down. I guaran-fucking-tee it.”
Another slow drag out and slide back in caused us both to groan.
“Do you think it will work?”
I hinged my hope on it and wrapped my arms around her. “Yes,” I whispered against her lips and turned my focus on making her come undone beneath me again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Patrick
I was losing my shit. Fucking thirty-four, years of stability built inside my head—all being ripped to shreds by two kids.
Old enough.
“Shut the fuck up!” I slammed my fist on my desk, jostling the pen close by. I’d managed to keep the damn insanity in my head quiet almost the entire previous evening—even with Primrose’s scent lingering in my nose and on my fingers long after I had showered and fallen into bed.
I’d passed Emelia in the hallway earlier that morning, her gaze pinning me, weakening my defenses against the darkness that immediately began whispering its need to be free, to taste and take what belonged to us.
Couldn’t fucking stand it.
I held my head in my hands to keep from jerking off. To keep from grabbing my keys, sprinting from the office, and tearing off to the next town. To keep from striding into Jax’s apartment and taking them both in the way I wanted. On their knees. Worshiping. Begging for pain and pleasure. Easing the ache in my chest and goddamn balls in their willing holes.
“Fuck.”
Whiskey would work better.
I was leaving work a half hour early, but my appointments had ended for the day and I didn’t give a shit over clocking out early. My car took me southward before I realized which way I’d turned, but I held the steering wheel steady, my gaze straight ahead while my head told me to turn around.
Give in. Fuck them both, find the release we desire and I promise to be silent afterward.
“Manipulative little fuck,” I said through clenched teeth and gripped the steering wheel even tighter.
Take what we need—
“And move the fuck on. Fuck them out of my goddamn system and walk the fuck away,” I murmured as the thing’s idea morphed in my mind.
The slithering motherfucker chuckled even though my dick jerked in my pants.
If done in the privacy of Jaxon’s apartment—no cameras, no phones recording the act—I could walk away unfazed, my profession intact even if my self-pride shattered.
That, I could fucking live with. What I couldn’t continue handling was the desperate need, the consuming lust dominating my thoughts and hindering my ability to focus on work.
The sunset smeared purple across the sky as I turned into the cul-de-sac. Tires crunching on the road, I rolled to a stop and peered back the driveway to the apartment above the garage.
Same as first time I’d approached Jaxon’s place, no awareness of his presence tingled over my skin as it had when occupying the same room. I rolled the window down and breathed in the cool evening air. No scent of either Jaxon or Primrose filled my lungs as it had a few days prior.
Scowling, I reached for the door handle, but my cell’s buzzing stopped me.
Relief at the thought it might be my friend finally returning my call, I grabbed my phone off the passenger seat. A number I didn’t recognize showed up, and scowling, I tapped the ignore button and tossed it back.
I climbed out of the car, intent on Jaxon’s apartment. No one answered my knock, and other than the bathroom, I could easily scan the interior through the window to the left.
Rather than feel relief at having temptation removed from my path, I scowled, hands on hips as I peered around the neighborhood from my vantage point on his deck, wondering where the fuck a young couple goes on a Tuesday night.
Movies? Out for pizza?
How they managed to stop fucking each other to go out into public, I had no clue. Cursing some more, I climbed back in my car and started the engine back up. A glance at my cell showed a voice mail.
Reminding myself of my profession, I grabbed it and keyed in the code to access the message.
“Doc.”
My cock swelled at the sound of Jaxon’s voice.
“I … uh … I’m really struggling.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose beneath my glasses, my eyes sliding shut.
“I’ve been so confused, so messed up in the head—I can’t do this anymore.”
His voice broke, and I cursed, my eyelids jerking open once more as the line went dead.
Hand shaking, I hit the recall button, my stomach churning.
“Doc?”
“Jaxon.” I exhaled a heavy breath to hear his voice live over the line. “Where are you?”
“At the canyon.” His pause furrowed my brow. “Where my grandma ended her suffering.”
My body stilled, tense muscles ready to spring. “What are you doing?” My voice barely escaped.
“I can’t stand it anymore.” The line muffled as though he fumbled with the cell.
“Jaxon!”
“I need to let go. Need to fly, Patrick.”
“No!” I turned the key and tore out of the cul-de-sac. “Jaxon!” A glance down at the cell showed he’d hung up—or fucking jumped. “Goddamnit!”
I sped northward, my heart in my throat, knowing the exact south rim viewpoint he spoke of. The overlook mentioned in his file, the image in black and white I’d stared at wondering what had led his grandmother to leap to her death.
Voices, I’d been sure. The same enticing Jaxon to leap, to fly—even though he couldn’t.
For the first time, I hoped—fucking prayed to whatever deity reigned the universe—that everything I’d learned since Sunday morning with David, every goddamn tale of dragons and dragonblood was true.
Yes.
“Shut the fuck up!” I hollered.
True. All true.
If Jaxon jumped—and didn’t sprout fucking wings…
My foot already lay like lead against the gas pedal, but I couldn’t get there fast enough. The sun sank in my driver side window, the sky darkening along with my thoughts, my fears as every time I tried calling him back, an automated voice mail picked up.
“Fuck!” I tossed the cell onto the passenger seat for the fifth time, swearing at every slow-moving asshole in my way.
If he jumped, it would be my fault. I should have invested more time with him to assure my own mind of the stability of his before agreeing with Doctor Holliday’s conclusions. I should have kept my damn hormones and dick in check when he’d shown up at my house, and I sure as fuck shouldn’t have been so harsh when telling him to leave, dismissing him as though I didn’t give a fuck he’d spilled his guts to me.
How would he feel anything other than rejected? Used and discarded like a piece of trash—the same as he must feel over his parents’ treatment of him according to his file’s notes?
“Goddamnit!” Again, he didn’t answer, and I found my hands shaking and eyesight hazing over the fact he might be gone.
Until I approached my destination, darkness coated the land. Even with my cell phone’s light, I wouldn’t be able to peer into the canyon to see if he’d survived. I swung into the overlook, my headlights illuminating a figure on the other side of the fence.
My breath left in a rush, the release of finding him alive weakening me to the point of passing out. “Jaxon.” I slammed the car in park and hopped out, my legs shaky as hell.
Back to me, he leaned over the rim, hands closed around the top railing and holding himself at an angle out over the cliff.
“Jaxon,” I called, slowly moving forward, hating that my voice shook.
He finally glanced over his shoulder, his face pale in the blinding headlights. “You came,” he murmured and turned, still gripping the railing.
“Don’t do this,” I said, stopping a good twenty or so feet away—close enough I caught his scent on the cool breeze.
“I need you to see I’m not crazy,” he said, his eyes wide, hair mussed as though he’d been running his hands through it.
“I know you’re not.”
“I need you to understand.” He let go of his hold with one hand.
“Please, Jaxon.” I held out my hand, palm up even though he wouldn’t see my face from the headlights at my back. “Please don’t do this.”
“You’ll never believe me if I don’t.” A soft smile tilted his lips—froze my fucking insides—and he let go. Arms spread wide, he tipped back.
“No!” I screamed and leapt forward. Too late.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jaxon
Patrick’s scream was nothing less than perfect as wind rushed against my back. At the clasp of Prim’s claws, my grin widened. The force of her flapping wings, the jerking change in altitude landed my heart in my stomach. We shot upward, and I studied the man below, hands at his sides as his head tipped back the higher we went.
Fuck the lack of sunlight and his car’s headlights behind him. I couldn’t see his face.
Prim’s heartbeat thrummed in tune with mine, adrenaline coursing through my system to the point I shook. I lifted up to pat the bottom of her neck. “Touch down, Prim.”
She circled, landing just outside the reach of the car’s lights.
Patrick turned with us, his face’s profile finally lit. Eyes hid behind his glasses, he stood unmoving, his lips parted—and face deathly pale. He shook, shoulders trembling.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered as Prim released her hold on me and we both moved toward him. I stepped off to the side, motioning our female to walk alongside me—and allow the lights to glimmer off her golden scales as I slid my hand along her side, needing to feel her emotion, the connection of shared fear between us.
“Holy fuck,” Patrick swore again and swallowed, his hands clenching and relaxing at his sides.
We stopped ten feet away from his shaking form, and I peered at his face as his gaze slid over the beauty of our female.
“Prim,” I said, encouraging her to do as we’d discussed. She hesitated, but finally leaned down, stretching her neck toward Patrick.
His hand shook as he lifted to touch her lower jaw. “My God.”
Primrose purred, her eyes closing like a cat, head tilting as though begging him to pet her, her contentment of feeling us both at the same time, her joy at being linked rippling through the partial bond already among us.
I reached out to caress her upper jaw and slid my hand down to cover our alpha’s. Electrical currents raced through my body.
Finally touching, the three of us linked physically—just not in the way I desperately needed.
“You see?” I half-choked on the words, so full of love and longing for his acceptance tears stung my eyes.
His head jerked up and down, and he finally tore his gaze off Prim’s face to find mine. “The fuck, Jaxon?”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do.” I blew out a breath. “How to get through to you.”
“Fucking nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack!” He turned his focus back on Prim as she wound her tail around us as though to shelter and hold us close. “Change back—please.”
The light shimmered around her in golden waves, almost like flame as she shrank back into her human skin, both Patrick and my touch falling away from her.
“Holy fuck,” he murmured again, his gaze flitting down over her nakedness and back up, swallowing as his gaze rested on her face. He held out his hand, and she slipped hers into his grasp. “Jaxon.” Patrick held out his other hand, but didn’t turn toward me until I laced my fingers through his.
As though of the same mind, Prim and I reached out, our hands clasping, creating the circle I’d dreamed of. Currents of emotion rose and ebbed from both sides, filling my heart—and stiffening my dick.
I couldn’t yet hear either of their dragons, but I felt his acknowledging the truth and the resulting joy radiating from her gorgeous face.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Primrose
My heart wanted to explode, my dragon take flight once more and roar her delight in feeling both mates’ touch at once.
Patrick’s inner dragon whispered to him, but he stared at me, his mouth clamped shut, lips still pale.
“Speak the words,” I whispered to him, begging with my eyes for him to release what was needed to begin the bonding among the three of us. “Please, my alpha.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he glanced at Jaxon.
“Do it,” Jaxon agreed with his inner dragon’s pleadings.
I could feel Patrick fighting the voice begging to be heard, begging to speak aloud the ancient words that would bind us together.
Perhaps he understood—but still didn’t want us.
My throat thickened, and tears slid down my cheeks. “We are destined for each other, Patrick,” I whispered. “Drawn together in ways I know you don’t yet understand, but we do belong to one another. Alpha, beta, and female.” I held my breath to keep from sobbing.
“Fuck.” Jaxon’s anger over our alpha’s hesitation simmered through our fingertips clasped tightly together.
Patrick’s whiskers twitched as though he clenched his jaw, and his eyes closed. A heavy exhale lowered his shoulders and bowed his head. “I have so many questions.”
“Ask them,” I whispered, trying to sift through Jax’s anger and fear and our alpha’s worries.
“What you need to do,” Jaxon said, his voice firm—pissed as hell, “is speak the goddamn words like you’re supposed to do. I promise everything, and I mean absolutely everything, will fall into place. Will feel right. There won’t be any more of this concern over our ages, the fact you’re a professional who should have the self-control of a goddamn monk.”
Patrick’s head lifted, his eyes narrowing. “What do you know of my thoughts, boy?” he asked, his voice shaky.
A cocky grin split Jaxon’s face even though it carried no joy through the energy linking us. “They’re all over your face, Doc. You ooze it like a gaping sore in desperate need of healing.”
“Let us heal you,” I said, slipping to my knees and tugging on Jaxon’s hand. “It will be as Jaxon said.”
My beta dropped beside me, and we stared up at Patrick.
The dragon inside him growled—groaned—with a need to intense, I couldn’t understand how he had managed to withstand its power for so many years. His desire for us physically radiated through the circle, but still he hesitated, his anxiety palatable.
“Fucking us out of your system isn’t an option,” Jaxon said. “It’ll only make you want us more.”
“Accept our worship,” I murmured as a brisk wind blew my hair. “Allow us to love you.”
“You are worthy,” Jaxon added, his brow furrowed as though he understood something with Patrick’s psyche that I didn’t.
Patrick swallowed. “You’re asking me to end me. End my career I’ve worked so hard for. End everything I’ve known as truth for my entire life.”
“This is only the beginning,” I argued softly. “And nothing about your life right now needs to end. You aren’t losing anything, Patrick. You’ll be gaining so much more than you could ever have imagined.”
He tipped his head back and heaved another heavy sigh, his inner dragon’s voice strengthening in its pleadings to be set free. “Goddamnit.” His mutter floated away in the air, and a deeper voice, one full of wisdom—ancient words—poured from his lips, sweeping through our linked hands.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Patrick
Exhaustion from trying to keep the truth—the beast—buried inside me gave way to the voice needing to utilize my vocal cords. I didn’t give in. The beast took over the second I considered doing so.
I’d never been anything but driven to excel, driven to prove myself sane, whole, someone who didn’t need another in order to feel fulfilled, and as I lost the battle with insanity, I hated myself.
