Chapter Twenty-One

Melody’s tears flowed freely when she was finally alone again for the first time in days. It wasn’t the abruptness of Skye’s departure that had done it. That had only been a part of it. She felt trapped between two overwhelming desires. She craved the release of letting go, letting herself be in love for the first time in her life. The need overwhelmed her in spite of her promise that she wouldn’t let that happen until she’d achieved her dream. To let herself be loved, because what else had that look in Skye’s eyes meant? Deep in her soul, she’d felt it—a completely irrational, yet unbreakable connection.

And to think that it had snuck up on her the way it had, in the middle of her rage. She’d been trying her best to goad him into being even more of an ass to her than he’d started out being, hoping that it would help her to maintain some level of control over her feelings—to keep from letting them control her instead. Yet with every plunge of his cock into her, the feelings she’d been struggling to keep at bay were hammered deeper into her heart. She tried using logic to fight it—she barely knew him—yet every word he spoke, even the harshest ones, plucked deeply at her secret need for love from a man like him.

She had only the most fleeting, foggy memories of Alec now, but he had left, and the men her heartbroken mother brought home after that had never measured up. The craving had never been so apparent as it was with Skye. Even in his worst moments, she responded to him. It made no sense and she hated herself for it, but there was no denying that the feelings existed. Not now that she was a naked, blubbering mess, curled up into a ball on the massive table while the city glimmered with jewel-like beauty outside the windows behind her.

The air had cooled drastically and she shivered, but didn’t have the will to move and find the robe she’d left draped over a chair in the corner of the room.

The contract was her means to an end, but she hadn’t counted on wanting precisely the thing she’d always told herself she’d avoid for as long as possible. It became clear in that desolate moment, however—she didn’t want adventure, or freedom from the ties of the world. She didn’t want to travel and experience new places, open her mind to new ideas.

She wanted love. And she hated herself for how much she wanted it. How much she might end up sacrificing for the sake of it, just like her mother had.

“I won’t be that sad,” she cried, slapping her hand onto the table, then curling in on herself and crying more. Because, in spite of how much she loved her mother, admired her for her sacrifices, there was still that measure of disrespect for how much of herself her mother had given up for the sake of love. Even though most of it was to raise Melody herself.

The cool air in the apartment made her shiver harder, and for the first time she truly felt cold here. Cold to her core. She’d always reveled in her own solitude. Found strength and happiness in her self-reliance. She had few friends in her life and they were fleeting. Her closest friend was the last man she’d dated, who wasn’t really a friend anyway because he was still in love with her, but he had been kind and understanding of her quirks, at least. It wasn’t like she could call him to talk, and she certainly couldn’t call her mother now, even if it hadn’t been the middle of the night in her old hometown.

She simply lay there, numb and staring out at the twinkling lights and wondering if she had any love for herself left after falling in love with a man she had no business loving to begin with.

“Melody.”

The soft voice barely drew her out of her reverie. She shivered and curled further into herself.

The hand that gripped her was hot, a sharp contrast to the chilled temperature of her skin, but he was also insistent. “Sweet Mother, Melody, what happened? Did he hurt you?”

“No …” she whispered. “He loves me. And I hate him for it.”

“You’re shivering. Come here,” Garen said. He tugged at her to get a grip and swiftly lifted her into his arms. God, the warmth of him was like heaven. Her protector. Her keeper. She clung to him, snagging her fingers on his shirt, too aware of the heat of his chest beneath it. He loved her, too. But she didn’t hate him. God, she didn’t hate him in the least.

“Jesus, Melody. What happened?” he murmured, carrying her away. She fixated on the way he’d said “Jesus,” like the word were a sandwich, with a grape jelly “S” in the center. Nobody who’d been raised in a tiny Bible Belt town like she had said “Jesus” the way he did.

Garen set her down on her bed and covered her with her quilt. His irritatingly adorable cowlick of pale blond hair dipped over one eye. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded.

“I don’t know … We made love, and then he left. That’s all.” The biggest understatement of her life. But how did she say he made her feel like she was immortal in his eyes? There was more to it than that, though. She pressed her face into the pillow and groaned, frustrated at all of it. Pissed off at herself for having these feelings to begin with.

“You can have him back,” she said finally. “I don’t want him, and I know you do. You’ve loved him forever already.” Tears welled up in her eyes, her decision becoming clear for the first time. “He’s the only one who makes you happy. And you deserve to be happy.” ~And I don’t want to love him.~

“Don’t you deserve to be happy, too?” he asked.

“Yes, I do, and you two … this contract is not helping.”

“What would make you happy?” He said it with such genuine concern, his voice tight and filled with emotion. When she looked at him, he looked tense, his brows clenched together with true worry.

And suddenly she wasn’t sure anymore what she wanted. She’d gone into this dead certain it was about the money and about finally giving her mother some true happiness by traveling the world together. But would that make her happy, or simply fill a void she’d had for years? What was the difference really?

“I used to know, but I don’t anymore,” she said helplessly.

He frowned and turned to leave. “You might need to figure it out, because the ~contract~ isn’t going away.”

The closer he got to the door, the deeper her despair sank into her gut. God, she didn’t want him to leave now, but his staying would be a bad idea in any circumstance.

“It would make me happy if you stayed and just held me,” she called out. Fuck that inner voice.

She wasn’t prepared for his response, however. He stopped in the doorway, his shoulders tight, but when she said the words he made a weird shift, his entire body became something else for a split second, the shape silhouetted in the light from her doorway, before he turned around to face her. She knew better than to pass it off as a simple trick of light like she had the first day they’d met. In that instant she was sure she had the answer she’d wished for all along. The truth about them, bound up in a long forgotten memory that came crashing back with such force the air left her lungs. ~Dragons~.

“All right,” he said. His eyes had an excited inner glow when he came back to her, but he quickly hid it before kicking off his shoes and sliding under the covers with her. His warm bulk engulfed her as he situated himself, finding the ideal spot for each of his long, thickly muscled limbs. His legs bent, pushing her own knees up as he tucked himself around her. He slid one arm gently beneath her head while the other wrapped around her waist, his fingers gently squeezing her naked hip. She twined her fingers through his and held them there, still buzzed and elated at her revelation. “Would you be more comfortable in a gown?” he whispered.

“No, I like this, but can you do what you did before to calm me, please? My eyes are shut, I promise.” Whatever he’d done earlier had the effect of a pharmaceutical, leaving her relaxed and care-free. Now that she wasn’t the least bit aroused, she could use the comfortable distraction of it to help her forget about Skye.

Garen released a deep breath, the warm air tickling the back of her neck.

“Sleep, Melody. I promise not to let you go.”

* * *

Garen felt a little guilty for making such an empty promise, but at least for one night, he could mean it. Once his breath took effect, Melody’s body relaxed and her breathing slowed. Her aura faded to a soft glow, the blue of Skye’s energy making up the majority of its potency.

He closed his eyes and simply enjoyed the soft weight of her pressed against him and the comforting sensation of her aura searching him out, though with less insistence than it had before. There was less of Garen’s energy diluting Skye’s, and the glimmer of a magical bond that had existed a week ago had begun to fade.

His emotional craving for his friend hadn’t subsided, however. He had been about to go find Skye and confront him about Melody’s mental state when she had begged him to stay with her. She’d sounded fragile and forlorn, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave her, even if she refused to tell him more about why she was so upset.

~“He made love to me …”~ Sweet Mother, Garen knew exactly what that felt like and how utterly wrecked he always was afterward. Skye never did things by half measures, and even when he was in a rush or an impatient mood, he was always fully invested. Yet he was every bit as invested in keeping his distance in between.

He had hoped that Melody would be the exception, yet Skye hadn’t made any overtures to spend time with her in between sessions—to treat her like more than a readily available well of energy for him to draw from when he was depleted. Her state of mind tonight was evidence enough that he’d been as attentive to her as was his nature, but true to form had disappeared right afterward.

For the hundredth time, Garen wished he possessed Skye’s ability to sense deeper human emotions and to affect them with his breath. His own drugged-haze inducing breath would only calm her for so long and wouldn’t give him any insight into her mood.

Perhaps sleep would be enough and she would talk to him when she woke.

He felt himself gradually drifting off, the scent of Skye’s seed mixed with Melody’s arousal inciting odd images of the pair of them together that morphed into dark dreams. How a dragon could be so brutally thorough with giving pleasure, Garen would never understand, but Skye was relentless.

He dreamed of the first day, watching Skye pleasure Melody with his tongue, enthralled by the way she responded to him. In the middle of the dream, she shifted, her body growing larger, paler, and more masculine until he stared into his own eyes and watched himself come undone from Skye’s tongue wrapped around his cock.

~“You will be mine forever,”~ Skye’s dream-shape said as he rose above Garen and buried his thick cock into his ass. With a yell, Garen pushed back, rejecting the claim. He couldn’t be Skye’s anymore. ~Wouldn’t~ let himself submit for one more second. If only his body would behave enough that he could properly mate someone else.

Again, the dream changed and Skye’s form shifted, his blond hair taking on a redder glow and growing longer, his large body shrinking as it climbed on top of Garen. The hard planes of Skye’s chest became Melody’s soft, luscious breasts. Her hips poised over his, as insistent as Skye had been, but inundated with Melody’s sweet, tangy aroma, so potent it was enough to dizzy him. He sighed with the pleasure of Melody’s slick heat when she lowered herself slowly down onto his rigid cock and he clutched her hips tightly with both hands. ~This~ was what he would live for now, not for Skye’s attention, but for a woman like Melody, if only he could find her.

~“Just another taste,” ~Melody said in a sleepy voice. “You felt so good the first time.”

Her voice tickled his eardrums enough to draw him out of sleep.

Sweet Mother, she was truly there, poised over him, her hands resting on his chest. She moved above him, raising and lowering her hips with slow, delicious strokes. Her eyelids fluttered and she sighed when his cock was seated deep inside her again, their hips flush against each other.

Garen couldn’t find words for how utterly perfect she looked, her red-gold hair falling in messy tendrils over her breasts. Their full swells beckoned and he raised his hands from her hips to cup them both, pretending for a moment that they were his to enjoy, pushing away the warning that clamored at the back of his mind; he shouldn’t let this go any further than it had already.

But the faint remnant of his dream lingered, along with it his fierce rebellion against continuing to submit to Skye. Yet Melody was still above him, awash in Skye’s energy, and all Garen could think was how much he wanted to make love to her, to have this moment last forever.

He bent his knees and sat up, holding her tighter against him. The long, silken strands of her hair tickled his hands as he wove his fingers through and pulled her face to his to kiss her. In the back of his mind, he was half-aware that she shouldn’t have given in to him so readily. She had a bond with Skye potent enough for her skin to glow blue in the darkness, yet it hadn’t stopped her from this, and he didn’t care, because for this moment, she was his.

“I know what you are,” she whispered when their lips slid apart finally. “I won’t say it, but I know.”

The revelation didn’t surprise him, nor did it make him falter. He only urged her to move her hips faster, hoping to witness her undoing by his own touch, and to ride the flow of energy as it passed into him, infusing him with her essence. Just once he needed to be filled with her, and then he could leave, completely free from Skye’s influence and with the energy to move on, to find a woman who could match the glory of the beauty in his arms at that moment.

“Sweet Mother, Melody, yes. Move like that, love,” he said, shifting to alter the depth of his thrusting into her. She wrapped her legs around his hips and gripped his shoulders, letting out a breathy moan with each steady tilt of her hips atop his. The friction grew hotter and slicker as she moved, her muscles grasping harder around him, her aura glowing a brighter gold and engulfing him in tingling pleasure as all-encompassing as her tight sheath around his cock.

The sensation came upon him too swiftly to comprehend or to prepare for. She threw her head back and cried out his name, and his entire body answered the call. Before he knew it he’d tilted them both, pressing her to the mattress beneath them and was pounding into her as the milking grasp of her exquisite cunt pulled his orgasm from him.

She opened her eyes wide and smiled up at him, panting. “Oh, God, Garen. Did you feel that?”

Feel it? He didn’t want to stop feeling it and kept thrusting for a moment longer until his sanity returned.

~Betrayer.~

No. He shook his head, trying to dispel the thought. He’d found her. But she couldn’t be his. She belonged to Skye, and in spite of his need to be out from under Skye’s influence, his need to take a little something for himself before he left, he did not wish to take ~her~ from him. Only a small piece of her to tide him over. Skye wouldn’t have begrudged him her energy—they’d shared women before and his bond with Melody could be rebuilt over time.

But no, something unexpected had happened.

“I found you,” he said, incredulous. Tears sprang to his eyes and his chest tightened at the revelation. The very devastating revelation. “Oh fuck. I can’t. I can’t love you, Melody. I have to go.”