Page 44 of Dragon’s Ending

Neither of us spoke for a second. Then, because apparently I’d lost all higher brain function, I heard myself ask, “What was that?”

For once, Dominic looked genuinely unguarded. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

His hand was still on my jaw, just the way I was still clutching handfuls of his shirt, and he ran his thumb over my lower lip.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for days.” His eyes were warm on mine, yet there was the slightest hint of a crease between his eyes, something not quite worry but not quite peace either. “And apparently I’m spending my life sorting your bloody archives. So no, historian, I don’t really know what this is.”

His thumb moved once more across my lower lip, and my eyes closed. The slight pressure had my lips parting, and then instinct overrode all thought and I pushed my mouth down on his thumb.

Oh, God. He hissed in a breath as I sucked gently, tasting him, the rough pad of his thumb sliding against my tongue and sending a wave of heat straight to my cock.

I finally relinquished his thumb, dragging my eyes open, and his face… He was breathing hard, his eyes swallowed by darkness as he watched me.

No one had ever looked at me like that, as if I were the centre of everything, and I had no idea how to do this. Oh, I knew how to kiss someone, how to have sex, how to share lives as well as a bed. I just didn’t know what to do with the way Dominic was looking at me.

So I kissed him again. The soft sound he made into my mouth nearly undid me entirely. God. One of his hands slid into my hair as if he couldn’t help himself, and I pulled at his shirt, needing him even closer.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I became aware that he’d stood up without breaking the kiss, drawing me with him until I was half-trapped between his body and the edge of the table.

We finally parted, and then he kissed the sensitive spot beneath my ear. I gasped, couldn’t help it, and he went back for more, holding me still as I squirmed against him, needing to move, to do something.

He muttered, low and wrecked against my skin, “Christ, Ben.”

My knees nearly gave way. His hands tightened on me instinctively, steadying me. And there it was again, that startling care beneath all the heat. I turned my face against his throat, breathing hard. He smelled faintly of dragon-smoke and Dominic, warm skin beneath clean cotton, and I wanted him.

“You do know,” he said, voice rougher than I’d ever heard it, “that my bedroom is literally next door.”

I think I made a little sound, something small and embarrassingly turned on.

“Come with me?” he said more quietly. There was no arrogance in it, no assumption. It was an invitation.

And God help me, there was never any possibility I was going to say no.

His hand circled my wrist as we made it to his room, and there was no way he could miss the thundering of my pulse.

I came out of my daze when he led me into his bedroom. It was almost exactly how I would have imagined it—not that I’d let myself think about his bedroom. Or him. In bed. Clothes were piled half on and half off a chair by the windows, haphazard stacks of books gave a cheerful middle finger to the almost-empty bookshelves next to them, and his bed was unmade, duvet and sheet tangled in a mess at the bottom of the mattress.

My cheeks heated as I jerked my gaze away from his bed. Which was ridiculous, given why we were here. But the bed—Dominic’s bed—made it real.

He closed the door behind us, and I turned to look at him, my throat so dry that there was an audible click when I swallowed. He stalked towards me.

“You know,” I said, hanging on to what was left of my calm by the skin of my teeth, “for someone who doesn’t know what this is, you seem pretty confident about it.”

His lips tugged up in a slow smile. “Oh, this isn’t the confusing part,” he said. “I know exactly what I want to do to you, historian.”

I swallowed again, and then he was in my space, so close we were breathing the same air. But where I would have expected him to back me against the nearest wall and snog me within an inch of my life, he reached his hand out and brushed his knuckles against my jaw.

“Okay?” he asked, his eyes steady.

“Very much so.” The words spilled out before I could stop them. Oh, God. Who even said things like that outside of a Victorian novel?

There was a smile in his eyes, but then he leaned in those last few inches, slanting his lips over mine, and coherent thought deserted me. His tongue was in my mouth, teasing but not enough. I pressed closer, needing more, and reached for the fastening of his jeans.

When I slid my hand inside and my fingers finally touched his silky cock, he made a noise into my mouth and pushed into my hand. But then he broke the kiss.

“Don’t,” he murmured, drawing my hand away and kissing my palm. “Not yet.”

Somehow, I found myself naked, on my back on his bed, with him propped over me, looking down at me for a long minute. He was still beautiful, but it wasn’t that which left me helpless under him. It was the fact he was Dominic, his eyes steady on mine, almost as if he were searching for something. Then he let himself down on top of me. His cock pressed against mine, sending me arching up, panting into his mouth.