A Dragon's Mark Read online

  “Your body trembles when you come, I love it, do it again.” Aki’s head was on her stomach as she tried to regain her thought process. His fingers were still inside her and he began to move them again.

  Cay moaned. “My turn to make you burn for me, I want to taste you.”

  “Then take my cock in your mouth.” Aki knelt between her legs and she looked with longing at his shaft.

  She scrambled to her knees and wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his torso for a moment. His cock, trapped between them, throbbed. She took his shaft in her grasp and stroked it. She ran her tongue along the smooth tip and felt his body tense. Caye took his cock in her mouth and loved him with her lips and tongue.

  “Oh Caye,” he muttered and buried his hands in her hair.

  His body strained against her lips and he pushed herself deeper into her mouth. Caye took as much of him as she could, moaning at the taste of his pre-cum as he fucked her mouth. He pulled away, breathing hard and looking at her with unabashed need on his face.

  “I’m going to fuck you.”

  It wasn’t him asking, but telling her it was time to be loved hard. Aki lay her back and she felt the tip of his cock against her pussy. Their fingers were laced together and he buried himself to the hilt inside her. The way he groaned her name made her even wetter. He more than filled her, his thick cock stretched the sensitive walls of her sex and she wondered if she could take the sensations. When he began to move she lost all reason, once more swept away by desire with each stroke of his cock, each time his thighs flexed as he entered her with tempered force. She held on to his shoulders, dug her nails into his back as need forced its way through her entire being.

  “Take me hard, don’t hold back!” she cried out in earnest, meeting his every thrust with building anticipation.

  He lifted her legs over his shoulders. “Look at me, let me see the pleasure in your eyes when you come.”

  “Yes, yes,” she cried out, and as he kissed her hard their gazes locked.

  He pounded into her body, deeper with every thrust, pushing Caye to a blinding orgasm. He made claim to her body in more ways than one, because she felt the connection deep in her soul. They were mated.

  “Oh, Aki,” she cried out his name.

  “Mine, mine.”

  He repeated the word and it was punctuated by his thrusts. With his fingers entwined with hers, her gaze never wavered from his emerald green eyes. Her body exploded and shattered in ecstasy while he watched. Watching her release seemed to arouse him more. His thrust became frenzied, the look on his face was a mask of pure bliss and she couldn’t tear her eyes away. He was handsome and beautiful in ecstasy. He slid deep into her wet pussy repeatedly and she felt herself coming again.

  “Come with me,” he said. His voice was harsh and guttural as his excitement built.

  She cried out and slipped over the precipice with him and felt his seed fill her. His tense muscled arms relaxed and he fell against her. Caye accepted his weight, loving the feel of his body pressing hers into the bed. He moved to the side a few minutes later and pulled her close. He trailed his finger along her palm in a pattern. She concentrated on what he was doing and it felt if he was tracing a flower on her skin. She felt so close to him lying in his arms, but knowing that his heart wasn’t hers made her reluctantly move from the bed.

  “Where are you going?” His voice was like a caress.

  “I was in your bed and nothing more, I know that. I’m going to my own room so you don’t have to figure a way out of it,” Caye answered.

  “Is that what you think I want?” Aki asked quietly.

  “There is that whole thing about your soul being shattered and all that,” Caye said. “I know where I stand.”

  “Luckily you do because I don’t,” Aki said. “But I do know I need you to stay, to smell your skin and to feel you in my arms.”

  “My dad will be up at six to make breakfast,” she pointed out.

  ‘Then you can leave at five thirty.” He smiled and her heart melted. “Come back to bed, if only for a little while. I have much more I want to do to that wonderful body of yours.”

  She slipped between the covers and Aki pulled her into his arms. It was as if she was meant to be there all her life. He inhaled her scent and Caye pressed her nose against his chest. It was going to hurt when this was over and she had to leave him. Self-preservation my ass, she knew she’d already lost her heart. Six a.m. came and went and she was still snuggled in his bed. His eyes were closed and she wondered if he was actually sleeping. Had she managed to give the dragon that never slept his rest?

  Chapter Six

  She slipped from bed later that morning and left Aki asleep, well, she thought he was in any case. He didn’t snore, he didn’t move, in fact she put her hand in front of his nose to see if he was breathing. He was so still she wondered if he was in deep meditation, and instead of rousing him she left his bed and went to her own room to shower. Downstairs her father and her friends were still in the kitchen nursing their coffee.

  “Good morning,” she said and went behind the counter. She grabbed a coffee cup and poured herself a cup of Seattle’s best. She ignored Dale’s raised eyebrow and Jeff’s wink as she sat at the table.

  “Breakfast is warming over for you and Aki,” her father said and got up and took her plate out of the oven. The smell of hotcakes made her stomach growl. “I knocked on your door and you didn’t answer, neither did he.”

  “Go figure,” she said and revealed nothing.

  “You should be careful about…”

  She pointed a finger at her dad. “Nope, you don’t get to go there. We’ve been living with him and he’s done nothing but show us courtesy. Plus, my love life is none of your business.”

  “You’re my daughter and I’m supposed to worry,” her father growled.

  “I know, worry is fine, threaten to shoot him if you need to, but my choices have to be my own, Dad,” Caye said.

  “So you love him?” Dale grinned and got a kick under the table in response. “Ow, that’s my shin, chick!”

  “Oops, spasm,” she said sweetly.

  “Well, answer the question, do you love him?” her father asked again.

  “I don’t know, it’s all very complicated,” she answered.

  At that moment Aki walked in the kitchen door and everyone stared at him. Caye had her own reasons for her stare, he looked delicious with his long hair undone and wearing sleep pants and an old T-shirt. How they did not get tangled in his hair braid last night the many times they made love she didn’t know. But the calf-length hair was loose now and a wind through the open screen door lifted it lightly at the ends. He looked behind him and back to them in confusion.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “Nope, not at all,” Jeff said good-natured. ‘Good morning, usually you’re up and moving way before us.”

  “I think I actually may have slept?” he said softly, looking at her. “You were gone and I missed you.”

  Her heart skipped a beat and her stomach gave a delicious little flip. “I needed breakfast.”

  “You don’t know if you slept?” Jeff said curiously.

  “It’s been a very long time since I’ve done it,” Aki admitted.

  “Like how long?” Dale asked.

  “A few hundred years,” Aki answered and her father choked on his coffee. Aki explained before they could ask. “I use a deep state of meditation to find my rest but I did not use my usual routine last night. I held Caye and closed my eyes and it just happened…”

  “Hello, father who owns a gun over here,” her father snapped in irritation.

  It didn’t seem to faze Aki in the least. He looked directly at her father. “I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, Bradley, but I want to be with your daughter.”

  “I can’t tell her what to do,” her father grumbled.

  “No you can’t, but I’ve come to consider you a friend, a good man, and I resp
ect you,” Aki said. “I’d like to have your blessing.”

  “Since you put it that way, I guess I don’t have a problem with you and my daughter…um, whatever,” her father said. “So is everyone ready for tonight?”

  “We’ll need to borrow a camera for tonight,” Jeff said. “Dale’s going to be the camera guy, Bradley and I will be muscle in case something happens.”

  “If they are caretakers or Shen I’d prefer for you not to try to take them on. Caretakers are still dragons and may be smaller than myself but still very strong and deadly to humans. The Shen bite is venomous and I don’t want any of you harmed, so please remember reconnaissance only.”

  Dale saluted. “Yes sir!”

  “I was in the army for World War I for a bit, that’s not how you salute,” Aki teased.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Caye said, amazed.

  He shook his head. “No I’m not, there was a Shen cell working with the enemy and I needed to take the advantage away.”

  “One day you’re going to have to tell me a few of your adventures over beers,” her father said. “I was in Vietnam so we could swap some stories.”

  “We could. I was there, too,” he replied.

  Bradley threw up his hands. “Of course you were, you’re a thousand years old.”

  They all laughed and it lightened the mood considerably. He wanted to be with her, and he actually slept, both of those were the highest of compliments. But how many women did she know that stayed in relationships with men who didn’t really love them? They were so comfortable with ‘you know you’re my boo’ and ‘we don’t need the words to know how we feel’ that they convinced themselves they didn’t need to hear it. She couldn’t do that, she wanted to hear ‘I love you’ whispered in her ear before she fell asleep. Wanted to look into his eyes and see he meant it. She cursed in her own mind wondered if she should’ve run away from the time his hands reached out of the darkness asking for help. He looked at her more than once from across the table and she barely met his gaze. Caye was never one that could hide her feelings. It got her in trouble at school, with friends, and her first job. She didn’t want him to see the uncertainty and play of emotions on her face. She kept busy for the rest of the day and out of his way. More than once she knew he wanted to speak to her alone but she wasn’t ready to face him.

  Her plan was to build a nice thick wall between her and her emotions before being stuck in a car with him that night. The time came for them to leave for a night of staking out the two abandoned locations. Her father made flasks of coffee and sandwiches and even baggies of Oreo cookies much to the men’s delight. In the car he was silent as they drove away from the house. They took the ferry to the mainland and would take the longer route back to the house that night. Eventually the car with her father and friends broke off for another direction when they got into the city. In all that time he said nothing, and each time she cast a sidelong glance in his direction he was watching the road.

  Finally the silence became unbearable and she asked, “Aren’t you talking to me?”

  “I thought since you’ve been avoiding me all day that I should be silent,” he replied. He didn’t glance in her direction at all.

  “I wasn’t avoiding you,” she answered a little politely.

  “Weren’t you?”

  She sighed. “Was I that obvious?”

  “Rampaging elephants were more subtle,” he said, amused. “The question is why?”

  “I don’t know, I kinda don’t want the after-sex conversation that’s awkward and weird…”

  “Why would it be?” Aki asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, you did everything right.” Caye sighed. “More than right, can we just table this conversation?”

  “We haven’t really said anything for this to be classified as a serious conversation,” he stated.

  “Let’s keep it that way, the turn to the abandoned hotel is up there.” She pointed and he turned the car.

  He drove past and like before Caye noticed that there was no traffic on the street. Aki turned onto a little dirt road that was covered with overhanging trees and tall bushes. He turned off the car and they were in complete darkness and hidden from the road and anyone patrolling the hotel.

  “It’s so weird, I mean there should be more traffic using the road, right?” she whispered. “It leads to the interstate and airport from here, granted the hotel is close but it still beats traffic.”

  “It’s very deserted though, very little light, and people would fear being robbed or having car trouble around here,” Aki commented.

  “Good point,” Caye said. She got her camera ready in case they saw anything worth documenting by film.

  “So about this serious conversation we’re not having,” Aki said.

  Her stomach clenched in anxiety. “Can we please…”

  “Let me talk and you listen,” Aki said. “As a young dragon I loved this world and I loved a woman from it. I was in my fourth century in dragon age.”

  ‘You mean four hundred,” Caye said.

  Aki nodded. “Yes, and I was learning martial arts from every master with the skill to teach me. I was in Japan. I was deep into my Akido training and that’s when I met her. Her name was Tamae but she took the English name of Miranda and her father was a man of great importance and very cruel. He spread his evil over the village they were from and she was a defiant child. Her body carried scars from the beatings he gave her for her disobedience and still she did what she wanted to do. She hated what her father did and hoped that people would follow her in rebellion. I loved her, I loved her with every breath I took.”

  Hearing him say that made her heart ache, it wasn’t her. She could hear it in his voice, he still loved this woman from long ago. She always wondered if love could span time and place. Hundreds of years had passed and he still loved this woman.

  Sorrow filled her but she kept silent and let him speak.

  “Her final defiant act was to take me, a non-Japanese man, as her lover,” Aki sighed. “One night he tore her from my bed and before I could shift to my true nature I was injured severely. They made me watch as her father beat her, laughing as she bit her lip and tears ran down her cheeks. Him and his men pointing at me because I couldn’t move and all I could do was to watch her in pain. She never screamed or cried out, not once, and that enraged him all the more. Her eyes never left my face as if she was finding strength in me. She was dying, his men saw that and even they tried to stop him, but he was beyond caring, crazy, or both. He lifted her head by her hair and told her to scream or he would kill her. She smiled and said, ‘Dream of me, my love.’”

  She was unable to hold back her horror and sadness for what he and his mate went through. Caye reached out and covered his hand that was clenched on the steering wheel. “Oh my God, Aki, you don’t have to say anymore, don’t do this to yourself.”

  He took a deep breath. “It has to be said, you need to know. He left her there like she was garbage and they thought I was dead as well. A dragon heals from the inside out and while I lay there bleeding the fire in me was burning. By the time they came back I had taken her body and I was gone, I buried her and the rage built. I destroyed them the next night with such wrath and vengeance that the horror of what I’ve done stayed with me. I spent the next few years paying what I considered penance and I learned how not to sleep. I couldn’t do what she asked, I couldn’t dream of her, it would tear me apart each and every time.”

  “So that’s why you can’t love me.” She heard the emotion clog her throat and tried to clear it. Tears threatened to fall and she stared out the window into the darkness and blinked them back.

  “Caye, look at me,” he asked gently.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “You have done so much…”

  “Uh-huh ,I fucked you into exhaustion and you slept.” She gave a sarcastic laugh. “Score one for my libido.”

  “I’ve had other women before you,” Aki gave
a soft laugh. “It wasn’t the sexual acts even though they were unbelievably great. It’s you Caye, stubborn, willful woman who plucked me from the dark. Your scent, feeling you close, everything inside you calms me. I woke up and you weren’t in my bed and I felt lost. I want you in my life, Caye, you are my mate.”

  “One that you can’t love,” she tuned to face him and this time she couldn’t help the tears that fell. “You can’t even say the words. You want me, I calm you, I’m your mate, but your love is hers. How can I compete with a dead woman who has your heart?”

  He shook his head and reached out to her. “She does not, I dreamed last night and it was not of her, it was you Caye, smiling up at the sky and taking pictures. Don’t you understand it was you?”

  “Then say the words, let me know you love me,” she insisted.

  “I can’t, not yet,” he answered. “I don’t lie, Caye, the last time I loved someone they were taken from me. I felt as if I caused her death and it was a curse on her. How can I do the same to you?”

  She shook her hear furiously. “That’s a cop-out and I don’t know how I can be with someone who can’t even say they love me.”

  “Caye…” He tried to pull her close.

  Caye pulled away and slapped him. “I hate you for making me love you.”

  “No you don’t,” Aki’s voice was calm.

  She wished she could break through that mask he put up. How could he be so calm when she ached for him, hurt for the pain he went through? His green eyes seemed to blaze in the night as he faced her, couldn’t he see how much it was killing her to love him? Yet even wishing that it never happened was a pain in itself.

  “Yes I do.” She was openly crying now and uncaring of what she was saying. She wanted him to hurt, to feel the swirling emotion that was threatening to break her apart. “I should’ve left you where I found you. Can’t you feel? I’m sick of your calm exterior, sick of the Zen bullshit…”

  This time he pulled her into his arms and his lips were on hers. She could taste her tears on his lips as he kissed her ravenously. He lifted her over the center console effortlessly and she was in his lap. Their lips mated furiously and she whimpered under the onslaught. She felt the buttons of her cotton blouse gave way under his hands.