Alpha's Fire, page 11
Probably all three.
Chef Giampi and James greet him, but he has eyes for only me.
“Hello, dragon,” I say.
“Leave us,” he orders softly, and Chef Giampi and James exit the room right away.
Smoke streams from his nostrils. His hands glitter as if his skin is about to turn to scales. He moves forward, and a wave of heat hits my skin.
I duck my head close and inhale the rich incense of his scent. “You smell like him. The dragon.”
“Did you dream of him last night?”
“Oh yes. We hung out. At this point, I like him better than you.”
“That's definitely a first. Most people are terrified of him.”
“I'm not most people.”
“I’m beginning to understand this.” He’s still staring at me. My body’s about to internally combust.
I half turn and stick my finger in a dish. Turns out it's pate. It would be sexier if it was whipped cream, but oh well. I lick the earthy-tasting cream off my fingers as sexily as I can.
His eyes follow my every movement. “You disobeyed me. I told you to stay in your room.”
I shrug. “I wanted to get out of my room. So I got myself out.”
“I see.” His voice is dangerously low. He’s like me, he gets quiet when he’s mad. “And you came to the kitchens?”
“Yes.” I’m not going to throw Buttons under the bus. Let Gabriel think I figured out my way down here on my own. “It was nice to have a conversation with decent people.”
He prowls closer. “What did you talk about?”
“You, actually.”
He stops a foot away, his brow knotting. “Did you find out anything interesting?”
I shrug. “They didn’t tell me anything embarrassing. They think you’re a god.”
He raises a black brow.
“Not a god. But a really great boss. They raved about you. You showed up, refurbished the castle. Gave jobs to all the villagers in a thirty-mile radius. Revived an artisan pottery factory. Paid for new roads, fixed bridges. And apparently, you hold a fancy ball to celebrate Christmas. The Orthodox date in January. This year, it’ll be held on the ninth.”
“That’s true.”
“You're a regular benevolent lord of the castle. A modern-day ‘Good King Wenceslas.’”
He snorts. “Duke Vaclav wouldn’t lift a finger for another.”
“Oooh, he was a poser? Of course, you would know. You’re an anachronism.”
I lean against the island to look up at him. He leans in, setting his arms on either side of me.
“We need to address your continued disobedience.”
“What are you going to do about it?” I ask. “Old man,” I add.
He leans back. I suck in a breath. We’re caught in the split second when I’ve stepped over the side of the cliff and realized I’m about to fall.
He whirls me around and clamps a hand to the back of my neck, pinning my front to the butcher block. He yanks off the sash of the robe. My arms are caught in the sleeves, and the robe bunches up in the back, baring my butt.
He palms my left buttock. “I think you wanted to disobey me. I think you want me to truly punish you.” His hand claps down on my ass. “I think you like it.”
“Maybe, I do,” I pant.
“Take this like a good girl,” he purrs. “And I will give you a reward.”
I press myself into the butcher block, presenting my bottom to him.
This time he spanks me with something other than his hand. I yelp. The smaller surface area stings. I look back. There’s a bright red mark on my backside, and Gabriel’s wielding a wooden spoon.
What Chef Giampi doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
He smacks me with the spoon, marking my right buttock with a similar mark. Though it hurts, I bend back over. I want these marks. My body has been electrified since the moment I woke in this castle. I’m needy, craving sex and stimulation. Always desperate for satisfaction.
He braces me with a hand on my hip, kicks my feet further apart, and taps the implement against my pussy.
Even though it was a light tap, it’s intense, and my shout rings out, bouncing off the stove and tiled walls.
I try to close my legs, but he presses into my back, pinning my left side to the island. His right foot keeps mine from closing my legs.
“No, no,” he murmurs in a silky tone. “You can take it.”
My breath hitches, but now I’m determined. He steps away, caressing my hip and steadying me. The spoon taps my wet folds lightly. Each tap sends sparks through my core.
“Gabriel,” I breathe.
A cloud of steam billows past me. I’ve awakened his dragon. He’s as excited as I am. I love trying to make him lose control.
“Spank me,” I order. “My ass, not my pussy.”
“You are not in charge here, my lovely bride,” he says, but then he does exactly as I asked, spanking my right and left cheeks with quick, rapid smacks.
“Ouch, ooh.” I dance under the onslaught.
He stops and drops the spoon, rubbing away the sting, massaging in the heat. I moan my satisfaction and reach one hand back, seeking him. My fingers close on his shirt, and I use it to pull his body against mine. Well, I try to, anyway. At first he’s immovable, obviously needing to control the scene, as always.
But then he steps into me, pressing the bulge of his cock against my ass. “You want me to fuck you here in the kitchen, Tabitha?”
“Yes.” There’s something so naughty about it that makes it so right.
“Good.” He wraps my hair up in his fist and gently tugs my head backward. “Because I think you need to take me deeply right now. Remember who you belong to.”
On some level, I’m sure I’m offended, but none of it reaches my brain now. Instead, his words incite more flames of desire, and I let out a little whimper. He gives my ass a slap with his hand, and I turn to watch him unzip and release his erection.
“Show me what you’ve got, dragon man,” I purr,
His lips kick up and pupils slit. “You’re too perfect for words,” he breathes, pushing my hair back from my shoulder and scoring my skin with his teeth as he pressed against my entrance.
I reach a hand between my legs to help guide him in.
He shudders the moment he seats himself deep inside me, his breath hot against my cheek. He bands an arm around my waist, creating a cushion between my hip bones at the butcher block, and then starts to shove in rhythmically with deep hard thrusts.
“I like to see you lose control,” I tell him, only to regret it because he stops moving.
I shift my hips back to take him deep, and he holds me in tight, caging me with his arm around my hips.
“I don’t lose control,” he growls against my neck, his open mouth hot and wet against my skin.
“You will.” I don’t know why I’m taunting him. I guess I just want to interrupt his games. To see the real man behind the expensive suits, perfect hair, and smooth facade. I want the real Gabriel–imperfect, chipped, maybe even a little broken like me.
Until I see that side of him, until he opens up and shows me who he really is, I will keep running. Also until he learns I can’t be kept or controlled. I’m not my mother. I won’t be bought, caged, or bound by Gabriel Dieter.
“I won’t.” Thankfully, he starts slowly arcing in and out of me again.
It’s tortuously slow, but it feels delicious. Gabriel’s smoky scent wraps around me, his searing touch grounds me.
He thrusts harder, pausing at the end of each outstroke, then ramming in and pausing again. It feels like punishment. Like he’s teaching me a lesson. What I’m supposed to be learning, I can’t say for sure.
That he’s in charge. That he won’t lose control. That I’m still his prisoner.
None of it is true. I know because his breath grows ragged. He may think he’s holding me captive here, but the truth is that I’ve got him bound. He needs me far more desperately than I want this orgasm. I ultimately hold the upper hand, and I will eventually get my way.
I focus on squeezing my channel around his cock, making his breath quicken even more. Making him pump faster. His thrusts shake the butcher block. A vase tips, spilling flowers and water.
We both ignore the mess. We’re too close now. It feels too glorious to stop or slow down. I let him hear my desire in my throaty cries, the way I roll my hips back to meet his.
Steam clouds my vision. The room fills with a smoky scent. From him?
Must be.
Our exhales twine together in time with his thrusts. My eyes roll back in my head, and my legs start to shake. My orgasm looms, bright and yellow and shimmering with a pulsing red.
“Tabitha.” More steam billows past my face. “Tabitha.”
Gabriel pulls out, shifting the arm around my waist, so he can cup between my legs. He shoves several fingers in a cone inside me, and I come all over them at the same time he shoots his load across my ass. His cum is deliciously hot and thick.
I shake and squeeze his fingers in spasms of my release.
I’ve never been a fan of the pull-out method, and not because it’s unreliable in preventing pregnancy. There’s something just not satisfying about finishing alone.
“Are you afraid I’ll get pregnant?” I ask. Maybe he doesn’t know there are other methods of birth control in the twenty-first century.
“What?” He shifts his hand to rub my clit, and I come again, bucking my hips against the butcher block.
“Is that why you don’t come inside me?”
He draws in a sharp breath and tucks his cock away, somehow managing to look put together and business-like after what we just did. “No. One day, I will breed you.”
Oh god. Mini orgasm. I don’t even want kids but something about stern dragon daddy making it sound like I don’t have a choice? Hot. “Kinda hard to do that when you don’t cum inside me.” I force my voice to remain light and level. “Unless you missed that medieval health class.” I’ll explain about my birth control implant later.
He glowers at me under his thick brows.
“You’re holding back,” I say, and my voice hitches despite my efforts. “Please tell me why.”
He reaches for me once more, pulling my back against his front and cupping my breast with one hand, my pussy with the other. An effective way of avoiding my probing, but I’ll let him distract me.
A few more rubs and my head falls back against his shoulder.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, and his rasping voice in my ear makes my arousal spiral higher. “Give over control.” Another aftershock runs through me. Gabriel plays my body like a musician plays an instrument, seeming to know how to hit every note with perfect clarity. Putting them together to make a symphony of sensations that are like none I’ve ever felt before.
“I don’t understand…” I pant. My brain is soup. “I've never been able to…” I trail off, not willing to finish the sentence, but Gabriel has caught on.
“Tell me.”
I lick my lips. I’ve never come like this with anyone. My previous sexual encounters were so forgettable it’s laughable. If the guy could fumble around and even find my clit, he wouldn’t know what to do with it. Gabriel works my body like he knows every inch, like he’s designed it, studied every angle and curve. He could pull me apart and put me back together. “I've never been with someone where I’ve shared such explosive chemistry,” I hedge. “Especially not someone who is someone my mother would approve of.”
“Your mother would approve of me?” He lets me turn to face him.
“Oh yes.” I tick off on my fingers, “Well-dressed, handsome, obviously ultra-wealthy, owns a castle. She would nag me to make sure I stay on your good side. She’d book me waxing appointments and buy me racy lingerie, so I could keep you happy.”
“I see.” His eyes narrow. “But what about you, Tabitha? Am I your type?”
“Well.” I kind of like that he's not asking about my mother anymore, but he’s trying to get me to open up when he won’t even answer my questions. “No, not really.” Except in looks and in the sack. “I tend to run away from guys like you. Rich, powerful, overbearing. I had too much of men like that growing up. It’s my mom’s type.”
“What sort of man would you prefer?”
“Does it matter? Would you change for me?”
“I am capable of change.”
I wrinkle my nose. Do I want Gabriel to be more like the men I’ve dated? Those guys were all free spirits, like me. Vagabonds with no jobs or roots. In Taos, they're the Trustafarians who’ve given themselves new names and smoke a lot of pot and talk about “finding themselves.” I felt comfortable with them. But we were like jellyfish, drifting through life.
Gabriel isn’t a jellyfish. He’s a dragon. An intense, powerful, obnoxiously controlling, and obsessive dragon. There’s no comparison.
Compared to Gabriel, sex with the guys I dated is like drinking dirty brackish water versus rich fine wine. Which is probably why I've only had a handful of hookups. I thought I just wasn't into long-term relationships, but maybe I wasn't choosing guys I wanted to be with. I was scratching an itch and moving on.
Gabriel...he could consume my world. I could become obsessed with him. And that’s exactly what he wants. A shiver runs through me.
I hope he won't notice, but he's completely in tune with me, as I'm in tune with him.
“I can’t compare you with those guys. Being with you is so much more satisfying,” I admit. “On another level.”
“And that is why you are so eager to leave me?”
My insides churn, and I give him a desperate look.
“Ah yes,” he caresses my face. “You are afraid of what we share.”
“Love is control.”
“Ah, but, Tabitha, control sets you free.”
I lift my wrists. “Take these trackers off, and we can have a conversation about control.”
He presses his lips together.
“That’s what I thought.” I plant a hand on his chest and push him out of my way, wanting a cloth to clean myself with. I’m naked and Gabriel is still fully clothed. Again.
I grab the robe and yank it on. “I’m going to keep trying to escape.”
“You cannot run from me. I will not allow it.” He grips my wrist just above the golden cuff. His fist tightens. “I cannot allow you to be hurt again.”
Again? For a moment, I have a clear vision of the tapestry I stumbled upon in the dusty area of the castle. The one with the woman with long brown hair. She looks a little like me.
“In the interest of change,” he spits it like a dirty word, “and making you happy, I propose a compromise.”
“What?” This is new.
Gabriel’s dark brows knot together. “Don’t misunderstand. My preference is to keep you in a cage. To keep you on your back or pregnant for the next ten years.”
My pussy clenches even as my mind rebels.
His lips curl. He moves me in front of him, sliding his hand around me, pressing his palm to my belly as he rasps in my ear, “I still could. Put you in the cage while I work, let you out only at night. Carry you to my bed, feed you…” Smoke rolls down my cheek. His hard cock probes my bottom. “You’d like it, Tabitha. A part of you would thrive.”
I push away and face him. “And a part of me would die.”
“Yes.” He sounds sad. “So I propose a compromise. Forty days and forty nights as my bride. You remain at my side and obey my commands. After that, if you wish to leave, I will let you go.”
“No way.”
“Forty days and forty nights. The number of days the Nazarene wandered in the desert.”
“Or like the trial period for WinRAR.”
My lips twitch at Gabriel’s perplexed look.
“It’s a file archiving software.” I consider him. “How do I know you’re not going to renege?”
“My word is my bond.”
“All right, then.” Forty days and forty nights aren’t so bad. I get to live out my princess in the castle dreams and then bail. “A three-hour tour,” I sing and make a face when his face remains blank. “Come on, you don't know Gilligan’s Island? I need to work on your modern education, so you get my references. Let’s put that on the to-do list.”
A trace of indulgence settles on Gabriel’s face, the tension leaving his jaw. He’s relieved that I’ve agreed to stay, even for the limited duration.
“But I need to contact my friends. And my mom. They need to know I’m all right.”
“You earn the right to call your friends when I feel I can trust you. I will not have you giving those wolves the location of my castle.”
“What about an email?”
“I will consider an email.”
“Fine. I'll take it. Though an email from me would raise more red flags in my friend’s minds than a text or call…”
“There will be no texts or calls, Tabitha.” He lowers his voice. “Perhaps I should keep you in the cage for the duration of our bargain.”
“That wasn’t the agreement,” I say, but my inner thighs squeeze together, reacting to the threat as if he just promised me pleasure.
He dips his head close. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he murmurs. “Being locked in the cage while I work. Naked and at my mercy.”
“No,” I croak. I’m lying. My core throbs like he’s stroked my clit.
“Are you sure? I could tie you up with a toy between your legs. I’d take breaks often to give you…relief. If you’re good. And punish you if you’ve been bad.”
“That sounds awful.” That sounds great. I squirm, impossibly turned on. “Is it hot in here?”
His dark chuckle sends thrills up my spine. “You love it when I force you to obey me. I could keep you like this forever. You’d spend your days locked in the cage and your nights cuffed to my bed. Eventually, you’d forget what it was like to be free.”
I swallow. “You promised.”
“Yes, I promised. My word is good. But for the next forty days and forty nights…you are mine.”
9
Gabriel
