Naked Dragon Read online

  McKenna cupped his neck beneath his hair. “And to think that Vivica just happened to send you to apply for my handyman job.”

  Hardly, but he would not tell Kenna that yet. She needed to believe that he loved her first.

  He worshipped her boldly with his hands. “You have a heart that speaks to mine and a shape I find desirable. It lifts and strengthens my lance in a way that makes me heavy with wanting.”

  He used his magick to unhook her bra. He liked that she leaned her back against his front as he plumped her breasts like pillows, pebbling her nipples and whispering his adoration, using his breath and kisses to warm her neck, ears, and shoulders.

  Bastian turned her and lifted her, with one arm, to suckle a breast. With his other hand, he reacquainted himself with the heat of her beneath her panties. Soon, they, too, were gone.

  She released his dragon lance, circled him, to keep him tense and guessing, then she grabbed that part of him, so it stroked her hand. Thick and supple, it pulsed against her, and she petted it, to smooth the scales one way, then the next, up and back, and Bastian nearly lost his ability to wait for her.

  She seemed intent on tormenting him as she knelt on the floor and cupped his man sacs, surprising him and making him shout.

  Wielding and celebrating her power, she made him throw back his head and roar. And she made him beg and buck and plead for her to stop, then more, and faster, and, “No more!” He caught her hands. “I have an idea.” He took the gown she called a caftan and slipped it on her over her head.

  “See,” she said. “You want to cover me up.”

  He laughed as he worked to zip his lance back into its confinement, but his jeans had shrunk and it wasn’t easy. “Time for an adventure, my Kenna.”

  “Now?” she wailed.

  He chuckled as he dropped condoms from the box, slipped a handful in his pocket, then picked her up and carried her out the kitchen door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “For a ride on Toffee.”

  “With condoms?”

  He grinned and set her down to take the horse from its stall.

  “Wait,” she said. “Toffee needs a saddle blanket and we need that bareback pad I got, so we don’t get horsehair and horse sweat all over us.”

  “Smart girl,” Bastian said as he fastened it and mounted, stroking Toffee first, then the suede bareback pad, before he brought McKenna up to face him. With a word from Bastian, Toffee trotted dutifully away from the barn. “Now, McKenna. Unzip my jeans.”

  “What?” She looked back at her horse. “Toffee girl, you just look straight ahead, don’t mind us, and hum so you don’t hear anything.”

  That said, McKenna unzipped him and accepted the condom he handed her.

  She slipped the largest-size condom she could find over him, making him hiss and rise to her expectations.

  “This is still a bit short, but long enough for the overflow,” she said, “though that’s another horse that’s left the barn.”

  “This is not the time for jokes, McKenna.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  “Snark,” he said as he lifted her caftan enough to slip inside her, an experience that stole her breath as his lips met hers and breathing seemed unnecessary. A forever kiss, their bodies melding. Two puzzles, all their parts moving deliciously and perfectly in sync, the more so once he got Toffee moving a bit faster. “This wouldn’t work if you weren’t so long,” she said against his lips.

  “Thank you, Kenna.”

  “And the average bareback rider wouldn’t be able to do this.”

  “Granted,” he said. “I am above average.”

  “In more ways than one,” she said, turning her mind to passion.

  Their movement might hurt the horse, so they let Toffee’s movements cause a ripple effect that escalated their union, their hands clasped, lips touching, his dragon lance working an effortless magick.

  Wild pleasure Bastian found when loving one’s heart mate bareback, until he realized that his inner dragon woke, so he sat a bit back, cupped Kenna’s face, and watched pleasure wash over her.

  “You’re fighting your inner dragon,” she said. “Watch me and let pleasure replace your struggle.”

  With their gazes locked, a soft word got the horse to trotting faster, the spade of Bastian’s man lance, with a mind of its own, working that tender place on Kenna that made her rise and weep and beg and gasp. Then his thickness entered and stretched her, his movable scales exciting them both, shooting them nearly beyond a plane of endurance.

  Kenna’s pleasure, like her pain, belonged to him.

  He whooped as he watched her come, while he came, too, and his inner beast lost the fight.

  “Knowing you feel my pleasure enhances mine,” she said breathlessly. “I can’t believe we’re making love on Toffee’s back. She used to be such an innocent.”

  “So were you. So were we both.” Bastian chuckled against Kenna’s lips. “You finally admitted to ‘making love,’ my Kenna. Believe it.”

  Her eyes widened, and Toffee’s sudden change of direction along the shore made Bastian surge inside her, so they unexpectedly rushed the stars, the ones in the sky—not the blue fluorescents frolicking about them—and they cried out together.

  “Come again, Kenna, to the farthest plane, if only for a minute, where we can shine like suns and burn ourselves out. I’ll wait. Come.” Bringing her closer, deepening his penetration, he lowered her gown from her shoulders and suckled her, gratification bursting through him.

  When she came, he did, too.

  When she gasped, he hissed.

  When she shouted, he shouted with her.

  They climaxed together, calling each other’s names, touched the island of stars and rode the scarlet sun.

  He made Toffee go faster and faster, and the farther they rode, the more orgasmic his heart mate became. Multiple multiples, she experienced. Him, too.

  “I am near to passing out,” he said, finally, as he headed Toffee back toward the barn. “No man could be happier or more sated.”

  Kenna sighed and fell against him, and it was all he could do, after they returned to the barn, to lift her off the horse, groom Toffee, get the horse some oats, and walk Kenna inside.

  In the house, he fell to the bed. “Men do not usually have multiple orgasms,” he said against his pillow. “And now I know why.”

  McKenna giggled as Bastian began to make demented dragon noises, his snore like none she’d ever heard, and she took her first opportunity to examine his dragon lance at her leisure, with the soft light of dawn beaming through the window. She could see how much it looked like a dragon’s tail, but she didn’t care. It belonged to Bastian, the man who loved her body.

  Who, apparently, and for no good reason, loved her.

  Bastian’s lance grew and woke the beast himself, the one on the outside. Another condom it was, but he took her slower now, with more purpose, looking godlike and imperfectly perfect.

  He slept again soon after, his dragon noises a bit less demented.

  McKenna sighed in contentment and snuggled deeper against his side, until she spotted a condom floating through the air, tumbling across her room, all pokes, grunts, and curses. “If you do not get me out of here, your tongue should grow warts and your bottom grow spines too painful to sit upon!”

  “Bastian,” McKenna said, shaking him. “Dewcup has been swallowed by a condom.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  Stark naked, Bastian chased a flying condom across the room, his sleeping lance and hefty dragon balls flying in the breeze as he leapt over her mother’s hope chest, around the bed, over it, and back, while McKenna slunk deeper down into the bedding, pulling the blankets over her, so he wouldn’t see her shoulders shaking or the grin on her face.

  “Stop flapping your wings this minute!” he ordered the cursing faery, but if anything, Dewcup flapped harder.

  “May you sprain your lance and need a splint,” the faery shouted as the co
ndom dipped and swayed, hit the door, a lamp, and knocked a picture off the wall.

  Oh, man, where was a camcorder when you needed it? Would this get hits on YouTube or what?

  A knock on the door startled them both, and it must have startled Dewcup, too, because the flying condom dropped to the bed.

  As fast as Bastian put on his pants, McKenna slipped the condom-trapped faery beneath the covers. She only hoped that whoever stood on the opposite side of the door couldn’t hear Dewcup cursing them to life in a stink swamp.

  “It’s Lizzie,” Steve said when Bastian opened the door. “She’s having the babies.”

  “I’ll call nine-one-one,” McKenna said, reaching for the phone on her nightstand.

  “Too late; she’s on the floor in the living room delivering them herself. When I heard her in labor, thanks to your upper body workouts, Bastian, I was able to fall out of that bed and into this chair by myself. Get dressed,” Steve said, as he rolled his chair away. “Hurry.”

  “We’re coming,” McKenna called. “Bastian, go with him. I’ll be right there.”

  She called nine-one-one in case the babies needed help, got dressed, and went out to find Esther, the spirit who’d been a midwife.

  When she got to Lizzie, Steve held one of the babies, his face ashen.

  Bastian stood by Lizzie’s head and his face matched Steve’s, though his eyes were wide, his pupils dilated, as if he faced a loaded gun. “Having babies hurts, Kenna.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “But look,” he added. “A new kidlet. A girl.”

  “And here comes another,” Lizzie said.

  McKenna caught the second baby, a boy, and wrapped him in the receiving blanket Lizzie had waiting. “You planned to do this yourself all along, didn’t you, because you don’t have health insurance?”

  “Ya think?”

  “I think this isn’t the right time to give you hell.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Esther gave instructions for cutting the second baby’s cord, which Bastian followed to the letter. “McKenna,” he said. “Lizzie really hurts.”

  McKenna wondered if he was suffering at the thought, as if . . . as if he might actually stick around long enough for them to have children. Speaking of which, “Where are Wyatt and Whitney?” she asked as she sat beside Lizzie on the floor so Lizzie could see her new son.

  “Nothing wakes those kids,” Steve said, wiping his new daughter’s face with a towel. “Thank God.”

  Not that Lizzie was screaming. Right now McKenna found her eerily quiet and determined.

  “Kenna,” Bastian said, “give Lizzie a Midol for her belly pain.”

  Lizzie fell back and laughed. “Don’t do that. I’m concentrating.”

  “Why are you concentrating?” McKenna asked. “You already have both babies.”

  “Wait,” Lizzie said.

  Disquiet filled McKenna as she got up and handed Steve his new son, returned to Lizzie, and sure enough, she delivered a second baby girl, which McKenna caught and wrapped. “You do have them fast.”

  “And easy. I’m a freaking baby factory. Do I hear sirens?” Lizzie pulled herself up on her elbows.

  “I called them for the babies,” McKenna said. “This way you’ll all get checked out and since you look fine, I’m guessing you won’t have to stay at the hospital for long.”

  Lizzie lay back and released her breath. “Thank you, for the sake of the babies. I planned to bring them to Dr. Carver tomorrow. He lets us pay on the installment plan. I would have let Steve call if it wasn’t going as fast as it always does.”

  “I should beat you,” Steve said. “For not telling me what you planned. How long have you known we were having triplets?”

  “I found out after you got hurt. Our fifth was hiding behind her sister. I didn’t want to add to your burden. You wouldn’t have wanted a home delivery, especially with three. I knew that, but I did plenty of studying, and see . . .” She held up her cell phone. “In case I was in trouble. But babies fall out of me. You know that. We barely made it to the hospital the other times. You can be mad, but I’m pretty sure you won’t beat me since I just gave you three beautiful babies.”

  “As long as you’re all fine,” Steve said. “Geez McGee, Lizzie, we have three! We don’t have enough cribs!”

  McKenna squeezed his shoulder. “They’ll all fit in one for a while.”

  “Oh, right.”

  The paramedics took Lizzie and the babies to the hospital to get checked out. McKenna and Steve followed the ambulance in her truck, while Bastian stayed to take care of Wyatt and Whitney.

  After an hour, McKenna left the babies for overnight monitoring in the nursery, while Lizzie and Steve stayed in a family room so Lizzie could nurse as needed. If all went well, they’d call her in the morning to bring them all home.

  When McKenna got home, the house was still dark and she felt nervous as she called Bastian’s name.

  “In my room,” he said.

  Right away, she knew that he was leaving. The delivery had scared him into it, and she couldn’t blame him.

  “Look what I found,” he said, no travel bag in sight.

  Her cat, Jaunty, lay curled in the center of Bastian’s bed, but not alone. “The snack gave birth to six niblets. This is happening all over the place tonight.”

  McKenna released a breath. “I told you, she’s a cat, not a snack.”

  “That was a joke, McKenna. I know they’re not niblets; they’re kittens.”

  “Oh. Right.” She touched his arm. “Bastian, are you okay?”

  “I will be honest with you,” he said.

  Ah, she thought, here it comes.

  “I do not like that our babies will hurt you.”

  “They’ll hurt you, too.” Listen to her talking as if it could happen.

  “Pain is nothing to me,” Bastian boasted.

  McKenna swallowed her chuckle. “Did the children wake up?”

  “I just looked in on them. They’re sleeping like angels.”

  The next morning, the Framinghams, all five, were ready to come home. Lizzie’s longtime doctor would check in daily. The babies all weighed in at around five and a half pounds, not bad for triplets.

  McKenna and Bastian lent a hand whenever they could.

  “Are newborn kidlets as breakable as they look?” he asked as they bathed them on their third day of life.

  “Yes, and no,” she said. “They look like Lizzie, don’t they?”

  “No, they look like Steve.”

  “Let’s face it, they look like both their parents.”

  Both, McKenna thought, which was probably why it touched her so deeply when she placed the babies on the bed beside Lizzie, the way Steve looked at the four of them, and the way Lizzie looked back at him.

  Bastian closed his hand around hers and squeezed.

  Now, this was magick . . .

  Unless she lost the fight for her home and put them al1 out on the street.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Bastian sat in the rocker in the kitchen by the big hearth with two kittens in his lap. “Babies everywhere,” he said.

  McKenna nodded. “The human ones set Steve back a few weeks. Lizzie is weaker than we expected after three. How are you managing with the plumbing on your own?”

  “You have a lot of bathrooms.”

  “I know. My grandmother was already thinking bed-and-breakfast when she had so many of them put in. That was before she got sick. Bastian, you’ve done a great job, moving all the furniture into the bedrooms by yourself. We used almost all the furniture I had. Those new mattresses set me back a bundle. Not that I didn’t expect it. I’m just glad that we decided to be a romantic inn with no televisions in the bedrooms.”

  Jaunty dropped a third kitten in his lap.

  “That cat thinks you’re the niblets’ daddy.”

  Bastian raised a brow as he petted the mewling things. But all he could think about was how McKenna and Steve and Lizzie
struggled because a blackheart like Elliott Huntley wanted the land this beautiful home sat on. “I need to go and investigate Huntley.”

  “Where? How?”

  “Can I tell you when I get back?” Bastian got up and handed her the kittens, kissed her longer than he planned, pulled back, looked into her eyes, and kissed her again. “This is bad that I want to stay and never go.”

  “Is it?”

  “No and yes. We cannot spend every minute in bed. Life is for more than sex. We have to do all those things you said you would do with a heart mate. Take care of the B and B, have children, run the farm, defeat Huntley, get our groove on—that means to dance, I think.”

  “You’ve been taking vocab lessons from Wyatt again, haven’t you?” She kissed him. “I’d like to do all of it with you, Bastian Dragonelli, and more, including midnight bareback rides. Now, go run your errand, and don’t get lost.”

  He probably would, Bastian thought as he tried to find his way back to the house where Steve fell off the roof. He made one wrong turn but eventually he found the place. Still, it looked empty. A big, beautiful, expensive house going to waste. He rang the doorbell, but no one answered. He wanted to say, “Did you know that a man fell off your roof, got badly hurt, and lost his insurance and his home?”

  He wanted to but he didn’t. Kenna told him not to, and he trusted her instincts. They were better honed for humans than his were.

  He walked around to the back of the house, saw a sign for a burglar alarm company, and wrote it down, but when he was leaving, he also took down the name on the truck parked out front, which belonged to a property management company. A man with the name on the back of his shirt worked near the front door.

  He got lost twice on his way to Salem proper, but he found Works Like Magick and surprised Vivica. “You found me without McKenna’s help,” she said.

  “Huntley came to see her a few days ago. He is an evil man, Vivica. He is scared she will win. I am scared she will not. I got to thinking that maybe somebody who works at that house where Steve got hurt might have seen something.”