Bryn Read online

  “Coffee.” Bryn placed a mug of the steaming brew down on the bedside table.

  Tegan winced as she sat high enough up the pillows to pick up the mug and drink down some of the reviving coffee. It was made exactly as she liked it, strong, sweet, with only a little milk. “What time is it?” She’d left her wristwatch in the bathroom the evening before.

  “A little after eight.” Bryn had to smile at her obviously disgruntled expression. Mornings really weren’t Tegan’s thing. Even the mating fever, which he was able to detect rising the moment she started to wake up, was taking second place to her first cup of coffee of the day.

  She drank some more of the strong brew. “Is your brother still around?”

  “I’m still here, and I have reinforcements,” Grigor answered her dryly.

  “Dylan has arrived,” Bryn explained as Tegan gave him a questioning glance.

  “Oh, great.” She put her empty mug back on the side table. “Now there are two of them listening in to our every word.”

  “It’s good to see you again too, Tegan,” Dylan answered her wryly.

  She snorted. “You haven’t seen me yet. Nor will you until I’ve showered and dressed.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “But not too much,” Bryn growled.

  “No, not too much.” The sound of laughter could clearly be heard in Dylan’s voice at his brother’s show of possessiveness. “Although she is very beautiful,” he added deliberately.

  Bryn rose abruptly to his feet. “She is my mate.”

  Tegan placed a reassuring hand on one of his tensed arms. “He’s just winding you up, big guy.”

  “Big guy?” Grigor questioned incredulously.

  “Stay out of this, Grigor,” Tegan snapped, finding it more and more infuriating to carry out this conversation with the inclusion of two men who were not only in another room but also dragon shifters and Bryn’s brothers.

  “Impressive as Bryn is, he is not the biggest of us by any means,” Grigor informed her loftily.

  “Depends which part of his anatomy you’re talking about,” Tegan taunted back. A challenge that was met with complete silence from both Grigor and Dylan. “Wow, how to silence two dragons with a single blow to their overinflated egos.” She laughed softly as she threw back the bedcovers and stood. “’Morning, Bryn.” She moved up on bare tiptoes and kissed him warmly on the lips. “Thank you for last night. It was the most exciting time of my life.”

  He arched one dark brow. “Which part of it?”

  Tegan smiled. Bryn was definitely lightening up under her influence. “All of it,” she assured him with feeling.

  “Good.” He stroked a finger down the warmth of her cheek. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  Horny as hell was the honest answer. The mating fever had been hovering in the background when she woke, but it had descended with a vengeance after she’d kissed Bryn. But it was worth it to see the expression of pleasure on his face that had followed her spontaneous gesture.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, hoping that feeling of having ants crawling under her skin would ease once she stood under the punishing hot water of the shower. “You should probably go keep your brothers company, and maybe attempt to gag both of them before I join you all.”

  Bryn pulled her closer against him, his breath warm against her ear as he spoke softly so that his brothers couldn’t hear him. “Pleasuring yourself will only make the desire worse.”

  How had Bryn guessed that was exactly what she had intended doing once she was beneath the privacy of the hot shower. “Really?”

  Bryn stepped back. “You’ve read Chloe’s books.”

  She had, and neither Chloe nor Izzy had found relief from giving themselves an orgasm. Or even six. “Fine.”

  “Don’t put on too many clothes, Tegan,” Dylan called out. “Waiting for the results of the bloodwork would take too long, so I’ll need to physically examine you instead before I know what dosage of antidote to the mating aphrodisiac I need to give you.”

  “Going on their behavior last night, the highest dose possible,” Grigor drawled.

  “Go to hell,” Tegan instructed, once again placing a hand on Bryn’s arm as he began to growl low in his throat. “He’s just winding you up,” she soothed. “Maybe if we ignore him, he’ll go away.”

  “I’m enjoying myself too much for that to happen any time soon,” their tormentor assured.

  “Definitely gag him,” Tegan huffed. “Can’t you just give me the highest dose and save us all this trouble?” she spoke to Dylan.

  “Too high a dose could send your human body into shock,” he dismissed.

  “Damn.”

  “I’ll be right here with you when Dylan examines you,” Bryn assured.

  Her hand fell back to her side; touching Bryn was only causing her already rising desire to intensify. “Fine.” She hurried into the adjoining bathroom, shutting the door hastily behind her to lean weakly back against it.

  She’d nearly given in to the impulse to unfasten Bryn’s denims, pull them and his boxers down to his thighs, push him back on the bed and straddle his thighs so that he could fill her aching and wet pussy with his engorged cock. Even thinking of doing that was enough to make her groan with need.

  Bryn could feel Tegan’s mounting physical distress even through the thickness of the bathroom door. It posed the dichotomy of whether he should go to his mate and ease her discomfort, or return to the sitting room and vent his displeasure on his two brothers.

  He decided on the latter as he heard Tegan determinedly push herself away from the other side of the door to cross the room and turn on the shower. They didn’t have time to make love now, and silencing Grigor and Dylan would also please his mate.

  The bedroom was empty by the time Tegan returned wearing only a towel over her nakedness. Her attempts to put on underwear only made her squirm as the lace cups of her bra rubbed against her engorged nipples, and her panties felt altogether too restrictive against her swollen clit. In the end, she gave up on wearing either and instead pulled on one of the loose gray cotton T-shirts and sweats she would normally wear to sleep in.

  Three pairs of predatory eyes turned in her direction the moment she left the bedroom. And right now, those glittering eyes were unmistakably those of a bronze dragon, a blue dragon, and she would take Bryn’s word about Grigor’s dragon being red.

  That low and possessive growl began to rumble in Bryn’s chest and throat the moment Tegan entered the room.

  She ignored that growl and instead looked at Dylan. He was as tall as Grigor, possibly an inch over six and a half feet, but not quite as wide across the shoulders as either of his two brothers. His hair was as black as Bryn’s, his chiseled features dominated by eyes of sapphire blue. The same blue as his dragon.

  If these three men appeared in the hotel lobby together, they would have women swooning at their feet.

  Not that Tegan was at all attracted to either Grigor or Dylan. Or any other man, for that matter. She hadn’t so much as noticed any other man since walking into this hotel suite and meeting Bryn for the first time.

  Confirming, if Tegan had needed any further confirmation, that she really was Bryn’s mate.

  Her spine stiffened. “Can we get this over with so that I can get back to work?” Her first scheduled appointment of the day was an early lunch with another one of her authors.

  “Of course.” Dylan was all business as he picked up his rucksack from the floor. “The bedroom?”

  “Well, I’m certainly not staying in here and giving him a free show.” Tegan glared at a relaxed if unsmiling Grigor.

  “Don’t flatter yourself into thinking your nudity would bother me in the slightest,” he said haughtily.

  Tegan ignored Bryn’s deepening growl as her eyes widened in alarm. Just how thorough was Dylan’s examination going to be?

  She found out only seconds later, once they were in the privacy of the bedroom, and he instructed her to t
ake off all her clothes and lie back on the bed.

  As all her clothes only consisted of the T-shirt and sweats, there really wasn’t much to remove. Even so, Tegan baulked at getting naked in front of one of Bryn’s brothers.

  “Get out,” Bryn instructed Dylan harshly, not only because of Tegan’s obvious discomfort but because his dragon was threatening to break free just at the thought of his brother seeing Tegan naked, let alone having him touch her. Which was obviously Dylan’s intention.

  But if Bryn shifted to dragon, Dylan would have no choice but to do the same, and Bryn very much doubted they would be able to hide a battle between two fully grown dragons from the rest of the guests in the hotel.

  “I’ll call you when Tegan is ready for you,” he added harshly, waiting until Dylan had left before turning back to Tegan. “Are you okay with this?”

  She frowned. “Are you?”

  “No,” he answered honestly. “But I don’t want you to carry on suffering either.”

  Tegan grimaced. “Lesser of two evils, huh?”

  His smile was rueful. “If you classify desiring me as your mate as an evil, yes.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she protested. “I simply can’t continue to walk around on the edge of a climax all the time.”

  Bryn sighed. “I know.” He nodded. “So do you want me to leave too while you undress?”

  “I can’t see the point in that when you’ve already seen it all.” She deliberately didn’t look at Bryn as she reached to pull up and then remove her T-shirt. She pushed her sweats down her thighs and allowed them to pool at her feet before stepping out of them. “I’m ready.” Her chin rose defensively.

  “Lie back on the bed and pull the sheet over yourself.” Bryn’s voice sounded guttural. Or, as was more likely, a cross between his human and dragon voices.

  Tegan was safely covered by a sheet by the time Dylan entered the bedroom with Bryn a few minutes later.

  Dylan frowned when he saw her white-knuckled grip on the bedsheet. “I need to be able to see and touch—”

  “You aren’t touching my mate,” Bryn growled in warning.

  Dylan didn’t argue. “Then I’ll need you to do it for me.”

  Bryn hated the apprehension he could see in the dark blue of Tegan’s eyes, made to look even darker by the pallor of her face. “It’s okay, love,” he soothed as he sat beside her on the bed. “What do you need to know?” His voice hardened as he spoke to his brother.

  Dylan remained standing near the door, his face turned away. “Are her breasts soft or hard? The nipples permanently engorged or only when stimulated?”

  Bryn gently removed Tegan’s death grip on the sheet before lowering it enough for him to be able to visually check her breasts. Those creamy orbs were firm, not soft, the elongated nipples a dark red. “Hard and permanently,” he answered economically.

  “Is her lubrication a light coating or a gush—”

  “You don’t need to know that!” Tegan protested, feeling her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

  “I’m afraid I do,” Dylan insisted gently. “I also need to know if your clit is permanently erect or only when—”

  “Stimulated,” Tegan finished in disgust. She had thought her yearly checkup at the gynecologist was bad enough, but this was excruciating. “The answer to the second question is permanently. Bryn can check on the first question.” She parted her legs beneath the sheet.

  “I am so sorry I have to do this.” His expression was pained as he slipped his hand beneath the sheet and down to her mound.

  Tegan’s breath caught in a gasp as the lightest brush of his fingers over her throbbing clit was enough to send her over the edge into a body-shaking climax.

  “I’ll take that as a gush,” Dylan muttered uncomfortably.

  “Get out,” Bryn told his brother for the second time that morning. He saw the mortification in Tegan’s pleading gaze at her uncontrolled response to his lightest touch.

  The moment his brother was out of the room with the door closed behind him, Bryn pulled down the sheet and latched his mouth onto one of Tegan’s swollen nipples. He suckled deeply and continued to stroke her clit to a second climax.

  “I need more, Bryn,” she groaned.

  He moved his mouth to her other breast before thrusting two fingers inside her, locating her G-spot and stimulating it until her juices gushed over his fingers and she reached yet another climax.

  “Again.” Her body continued to writhe with need.

  He suckled harder, biting the engorged flesh in his mouth as he added a third finger and pressed on her clit with the soft pad of his thumb.

  Tegan’s third climax in as many minutes seemed never-ending, the pleasure racking and claiming her body until she finally collapsed back against the pillows in complete exhaustion. “I guess that’s definitely going to require the highest dosage,” she acknowledged self-consciously once she was finally able to speak again.

  Bryn ran caressing fingers against her cheek. “You have no reason to feel embarrassed—”

  “No?” she snapped bitterly. “Your brothers just heard me climax three times, the first with one of them still in the room. I think that’s a very good reason for me to feel embarrassed.” She turned away from him. “Please leave. I want to be alone now.”

  “Tegan—”

  Tegan silenced him with a single narrow-eyed glare. “What part of I want to be alone now didn’t you understand?”

  Bryn stood and left the room without saying another word.

  At which time, Tegan buried her face in the pillows and allowed herself to cry for the first time since this nightmare began.

  Chapter 14

  By the time Tegan stopped crying and realized she had to get dressed and ready for her early luncheon appointment, she also noticed that the suite seemed unusually quiet. She certainly couldn’t hear that low rumbling sound of the three brothers’ voices as they talked together.

  The reason for that became obvious the moment she stepped out into the sitting room, fully dressed and prepared to outstare all the Pendragon brothers, if necessary. The suite was empty apart from herself.

  Which, Tegan decided ruefully, was something of an anticlimax—no pun intended—after she’d steeled herself to be in the presence of those three imposing men.

  She knew Grigor and Dylan intended to return to Wales today, but was it possible Bryn had left with them?

  No, Tegan knew instinctively he wouldn’t do that to his fated mate, not when he had several times claimed her welfare and comfort was of paramount importance to him. His priority. To the degree Bryn gave her as many climaxes as she needed to alleviate the painful arousal, while taking nothing for himself.

  Could he have taken her I want to be alone moment quite literally and made himself scarce until he thought she had need of him again?

  Tegan dropped heavily into an armchair as she acknowledged that need was no longer merely sexual.

  The fated mate thing might have given her a kick start to her emotions, but it was Bryn she’d fallen in love with. His caring. His gentleness. The way he looked at her as if she was the only woman in the world who existed for him. The utter wonder in Bryn’s voice when he spoke of having found her, his mate, when he hadn’t expected to do so. The latter was the fated-mate thing, of course, but the way Bryn had looked at her, seen her, had all been for Tegan McCall.

  Did knowing she’d fallen in love with Bryn mean she’d decided to be his fated mate?

  The thought of Bryn dying because she refused to be his mate was complete anathema to her. Unbearable to even contemplate.

  So yes, at the first opportunity she intended telling Bryn she was no longer going to resist becoming his mate.

  If or when he ever came back to their suite.

  What was she supposed to do in the meantime? Go down for her luncheon appointment and hope that Bryn caught up with her?

  Or did she cancel because he wasn’t here to accompany and protect her?
/>   He was going to be furious with her if she did the former, but canceling wasn’t an option either, when Tegan was supposed to discuss signing a new contract with the author she was meeting for lunch. It was even more imperative that she do her job efficiently right now, with the threatening cutbacks and redundancies in Hawke Publishing.

  A glance at her wristwatch told Tegan she didn’t have any more time to debate the subject. Bryn would just have to be furious with her because she’d had to go down to the lobby and meet up with her author.

  “Oh!” Tegan stepped back with a shocked gasp after opening the door out into the hallway and almost walking into the man standing outside. His hand was raised as he was obviously about to knock. “You startled me, Justin,” she greeted with a light laugh. “What’s that?” She frowned at the now-familiar white box, tied with a red bow, he held in his hands.

  He shrugged. “It was sitting outside your door when I got here. From an admirer?” He arched silver eyebrows. “I doubt your overprotective fiancé is going to like that,” he drawled. “I saw him downstairs just now, by the way. He left the hotel with two other men equally as imposing.”

  Well, at least she knew Bryn was still in the vicinity. Somewhere. Although she had no idea where he and his brothers could have been going.

  “You had better come in,” Tegan invited distractedly. She continued to stare at the white box as if it were a viper about to strike her.

  “Wow.” Justin looked around the elegant sitting room. “I think this is nicer than my own suite.”

  Tegan grimaced. “It’s the honeymoon suite.”

  “Something you want to tell me?” he teased.

  She shook her head. “It was the only suite available at such short notice when Bryn decided to accompany me.”

  Justin nodded. “And no doubt your fiancé can afford it. He’s some sort of Welsh aristocracy, isn’t he?”

  Tegan smiled ruefully. “I’m not sure Wales has its own aristocracy.”

  Justin placed the box down on the coffee table. “But he lives in a castle, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes…” Tegan wasn’t quite sure where this conversation was going. Unless… “Have you decided now you know I have a wealthy fiancé that I’m expendable to Hawke Publishing, after all?” She wasn’t sure she would be able to work in London once she and Bryn were mated, although she assumed not, but there was always the option of continuing to be a freelance editor from home if that should be the case. But that didn’t mean she wanted Hawke Publishing to take that choice taken away from her.