Deryk (Dragon Hearts 2) Read online

  Deryk had never envisaged living away from his brothers, but if remaining in Russia was Izabella’s choice, then he would do everything in his power to ensure that it happened.

  Including sucking up to the arrogant Vladimir Romanov, whose permission he would need in order to remain in the Russian dragon’s territory.

  “It will,” Deryk confirmed for Izabella. “I understand your need to finish your time at university here. Although we do have universities in Wales,” he added teasingly.

  She looked confused. “You would be in agreement with my staying here to finish my law degree, despite the mating?”

  “I would seek permission from Vlad for us both to remain in Russia, at least until after you finish university, yes.” It would probably kill him to be apart from Izabella for so many hours a day, and once they had offspring, it would become even more difficult, but Deryk had no intention of curtailing Izabella’s life to suit his own.

  He might be that egotistical and selfish bastard he had described to Bryn, and have been born in the late fifth century. But Deryk would hope he hadn’t brought all of that chauvinistic attitude with him to the twenty-first century, even if compromise went totally against his own dominant nature, and his dragon’s need to claim and possess his mate totally.

  He inwardly thanked Chloe for helping him to understand that concept, at least, before he had met his own human mate.

  But, Goddess, this was going to be hard work if he had to talk over every decision with Izabella before making it.

  Suck it up, big guy, he heard Chloe taunt inside his head, knowing how much his sister-in-law was going to enjoy seeing him mated.

  The rueful smile on Izabella’s face indicated she was also aware of how difficult that compromise had been for him. Which she would be, having lived with the Russian dragons all her life; Vlad’s arrogance rivaled even Grigor’s.

  “Izzi’s place is here,” Anton Mikhailov insisted. “We have a duty to the Romanov family.”

  However, that need to compromise did not extend as far as Deryk’s future in-laws. “Izabella’s only duty now is to me. As mine is to her.” And from the increased trembling of Izabella’s body as it rested against the side of his, and the erotic aroma of the arousal only he could detect, his duty—and pleasure—now involved doing something to ease her physical discomfort. “If you will both excuse us?” His arm tightened about Izabella’s waist. “Izabella and I have some things we need to discuss in private.” His tone dared the older man to challenge him.

  Anton Mikhailov wisely chose not to do so, allowing Deryk to guide Izabella out of the sitting room.

  “My bedchamber or yours?” Deryk prompted urgently the moment they were alone together in the hallway.

  Izzi wanted to say neither. But the arousal of her body was now so painful, she needed a relief she knew only Deryk could give her. That didn’t mean she accepted their mating, only that her need was too desperate for her to be able to ignore it any longer. But neither did she want one of her parents following her to her bedroom and finding the two of them together.

  “Yours,” she decided through tight lips.

  Chapter 8

  Izzi didn’t say so much as a word or make a gesture of protest when Deryk began to divest her of her clothes as soon as they reached the privacy of his bedchamber. Instead, she let out a long and relieved sigh as the last piece of clothing, her panties, fell to the floor. It felt so good not to have any of those different textures of material against her hot and too sensitive skin. Enough so that she no longer felt self-conscious about her nakedness. Besides, Deryk had already seen her this way earlier tonight.

  Her knees almost buckled under the fierce possessiveness of Deryk’s gaze as he looked his fill of her nakedness, lingering on her breasts and the damp blonde curls between her thighs.

  That golden gaze gleamed with hunger as Izzi’s hands moved up to cup her aching breasts. “They ache to be sucked,” she invited breathlessly.

  Deryk sank to his knees in front of her. Izabella was so much shorter than him that her breasts were on a level with his mouth. Her whimpers and groans of pleasure as he placed his hands on her hips to suckle first one nipple and then the other, until they had both grown to twice their normal size, was like sweet music to his ears. Her scream seconds later as she came merely from nipple play made his heart swell in his chest.

  He kissed his way down her rib cage and across the softness of her belly. “Part your legs for me,” he instructed gruffly, needing to taste her again, to lap up the juices he knew would be flowing between her thighs after her orgasm. He was already addicted to her taste.

  Izzi might not have a great deal of sexual experience, but she did know it was supposed to be reciprocal, and so far, Deryk had showered all his lavish attention on ensuring her pleasure and satisfaction.

  He might be arrogant and domineering, but his actions proved he wasn’t selfish in his lovemaking.

  Instead of parting her legs, Izzi stepped back a little to look at Deryk down on his knees in front of her. His overlong hair was disheveled, his eyes glowing deeply gold, his lips a deep pink and slightly swollen from his ministrations to her nipples.

  She held out her hand to him. “I think it’s time I returned the favor, don’t you?”

  A flush appeared on the sharpness of his cheekbones as he took her hand and rose slowly to his feet. “What did you have in mind?”

  Izzi found it rather daunting to realize this man was fifteen hundred years old and must have had dozens of lovers during that time. There couldn’t be anything, anything at all, that Deryk hadn’t already experience when it came to lovemaking.

  “None of them were you.”

  She raised her lids, her cheeks feeling hot as she looked at him. “Has the mating already gone far enough for you to be able to read my thoughts?”

  A gentle smile curved his lips as he shook his head. “I can only read your expression. This, being here with you, makes me forget everything and everyone else. It certainly makes the past hollow and meaningless. You, the essence of you, already fills me with so much more than I have ever experienced before.”

  He sounded and looked so sincere, Izzi felt something expand in her chest. Not quite love. Not yet. But a warmth that perhaps one day might become love?

  The thought of that gave her the courage to continue. “I want to make love to you too. To give you pleasure. Can I do that?” Her cheeks were burning with her forwardness in suggesting such a thing.

  “You never have to ask, Izabella,” he instantly assured her. “Not ever. If you want me, whenever you want me, I’m yours.” He raised his arms out to the sides, the parting of his leather jacket revealing the thick and lengthy bulge of the arousal in the front of his trousers.

  Heady, heady stuff for someone who’d had less than a handful of boyfriends, and none of them what could be called serious. Not serious enough for Izzi to have ever wanted to take the next step from kissing to entering into a physical relationship with any of them, at least. She had been considering it with Pyotr, yes, and was so relieved now that she hadn’t gone any further than thinking about it.

  Because what was between her and Deryk was so very different from anything Izzi had ever felt before. He was so very different. She didn’t know him, and yet in the ways that mattered, she did. She wasn’t in love with Deryk either, not yet, but she believed him when he said her happiness was all that mattered to him. His offer to remain in Russia, far away from his own family, had already proven that. As had his unselfish lovemaking.

  She also believe him when he said he would be faithful to only her for the rest of his life.

  How many women could claim that about their partner?

  Very few, Izzi believed.

  It’s the mating, a voice cautioned inside her head.

  So, what if it was?

  A dragon’s mating was no less binding, no less real, than two complete strangers meeting and believing they had fallen in love with each other. If anything, a
dragon’s promise of fidelity made it so much more than that.

  And Deryk wanted Izzi for his mate.

  The reason why didn’t really matter, not when Deryk was looking at her with such raw passion and pleading in those gold-colored eyes. He was an alpha, alpha male, and made no secret of the fact, and yet he had gladly fallen to his knees in front of her so that he could pleasure her. She had no doubt he would do it again, and again, if she asked.

  Izzi gave a self-conscious and yet triumphant laugh as she took his hand in hers and pulled him with her toward the bed. She removed his leather jacket and then unfastened his shirt before slipping that off his shoulders too and dropping it to the floor alongside his jacket.

  Deryk’s bared chest was a work of art, his skin slightly golden, the musculature clearly defined. Like a sculpture by Michelangelo. Or Bernini, who was Izzi’s favorite sculptor of all time. Deryk might even have posed for Bernini, she realized, having been alive during the sculptor’s lifetime.

  “What?” he prompted curiously.

  “You’re beautiful. Hard and yet at the same time smooth and utterly beautiful,” she repeated huskily. “Like a Bernini sculpture. Did you ever…”

  Deryk grinned. “Meet him?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed shyly.

  He nodded. “I did, as it happens. Rome was an interesting place to be in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”

  And this man would have wanted to be there. “Did you meet Michelangelo too?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated before speaking again. “There’s also someone else, someone who was very important in my life who was born before either of them that I want—need to tell you about, one day. But not right now,” he teased as he ran a fingertip along her slightly parted lips.

  Izzi couldn’t even begin to imagine all the wonderful things and the amazing people Deryk must have seen and met in his long lifetime.

  But he was right, there would be time to talk of that another time. Right now, she wanted to study and touch the perfect living, breathing sculpture standing in front of her.

  “May I?” Her hands hesitated over unfastening his jeans.

  “Please,” Deryk encouraged gruffly. It was taking every bit of his control not to grab Izabella up in his arms and lay her on the bed before joining her. To make love to her, to claim her, to mate her, as he so longed to do.

  But he knew that he couldn’t do that. Not only was this the first time Izabella had voluntarily touched and caressed him, but he was determined, no matter what the cost to himself, to take their relationship as slowly as she needed it to be.

  There was too much at stake for him to do anything else. A lifetime of happiness together. Or a quick and agonizing death for both of them.

  Instead, Izabella was the one to gently push him back until he sat on the side of the bed and she could kneel at his feet to pull off his shoes and unfastened jeans.

  Izabella gave him a shy smile. “I didn’t think that through very well, did I?” she derided herself at the realization he was still wearing black boxers. “Should I—”

  “No.” Deryk liked her exactly where she was, and quickly lifted to pull down his own boxers, completely naked as he resumed sitting on the side of the bed.

  Izzi’s mouth watered as she stared at Deryk’s bared cock. It was thick and at least nine inches long, with a heavy vein pulsing along its length, the bulbous tip a deep, engorged red and glistening with pre-come.

  She wasn’t a complete innocent, knew the basics of what she was about to do. She was just a little overwhelmed now that she was confronted with all that aroused and throbbing male beauty.

  Izzi kept her eyes on that straining length as she moved forward on her knees to curl the fingers of one hand about him, surprised by how silky the skin of Deryk’s cock felt, with the promise of steel beneath, against her hand.

  She looked up questioningly when she heard his sharply indrawn breath.

  “Don’t stop,” Deryk groaned achingly, loving the feel of her hand surrounding his cock.

  She looked like a siren or a mermaid curled up on her knees in front of him, her blonde hair falling long and straight down the narrow length of her spine, her rosy-red and well-suckled nipples visible through the silky tendrils that had fallen forward.

  Her hand was very tiny wrapped about his cock, the fingers slender and elegant as she ran them along the length of his shaft. Deryk thought he was going to come all over those delicate fingers as Izabella licked her lips with the tip of her tongue and concentrated on her task. He couldn’t wait to feel that moist rasp against his burning and sensitive flesh.

  “I ache to be sucked too.” He used almost the same words she had to him minutes ago, leaning back to rest his weight on his hands as he continued to watch her through narrowed lids.

  White light flashed in front of his eyes when her other hand cupped and then squeezed his balls, not enough to hurt, but enough to let him know who was in control.

  “Or not,” he groaned in surrender. Right now, with Izabella kneeling naked at his feet, one of her hands squeezing his cock and the other holding his balls, he would promise her anything. Anything at all. Not because he feared she would hurt him, but because he wanted her to keep touching and caressing him. He wanted her mouth on him more than he wanted his next breath. “Please, Izabella.”

  She gave him a playfully coy glance. “Tell me what you want?”

  “Your lips wrapped around my cock while it’s buried in the heat of your mouth.”

  Izzi drew her breath in sharply at his candidness. She really hoped she did this right. That she wasn’t a complete failure—

  “I could come right now just from being with you,” he groaned.

  Deryk might not be able to read her thoughts, but he was certainly becoming very adept at reading her emotions. More so than he should be able to? Had the mating closeness already started? Perhaps for Deryk, at least, because for the main part he was as much of an enigma to her now as he had been in the beginning.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he totally nullified her thoughts as he sat forward to grasp her arms, dislodging her hands in the process. “Goddess, please don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.” Strain bracketed a groove either side of his mouth. “I need your mouth on me, Izabella. I need that so damned much.” His voice broke with the urgency of that need.

  If he felt anything like the fever that constantly racked her body, along with the desire that felt as if it consumed her, then he did need that, Izzi accepted ruefully. It was only—

  “Your mouth, Izabella.” He gazed intently into her eyes. “Only you exist for me now.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “What if I’m no good at it? If I don’t do the things you like?”

  “That’s all you’re worried about?” He gave a self-derisive laugh. “Haven’t you realized yet that you’re my mate and I’ll love everything and anything you care to do to and with me? Just having you here with me now, the two of us naked together, is enough to make me spontaneously combust.” He released her to sit back. “Give me your hand.” He held his own hand out, palm upward, waiting until she slowly placed her hand in his before guiding it back to the throbbing length of his cock. “See.” He ran the tips of her fingers along that silken length, and immediately, a trickle of pre-come bubbled to the surface. “You only have to touch me to give me pleasure,” he reassured her. “With any part of you. I love it all.”

  Izzi believed him, could see in his face the pleasure he made no effort to hide. It emboldened her. Gave her the courage to once again curl her fingers about his cock of steel encased in velvet. To slowly stroke and pump that rampant length as she lowered her head to lick up the beads of salty-sweet pre-come before her lips parted and she took that glistening head fully into her mouth.

  “Goddess…” Deryk fell back weakly onto the bed covers, thrusting his cock even deeper into that enveloping heat. “Yes…” he groaned again as he felt the delicate lick of Izabella’s tongue o
ver his cockhead, that groan almost becoming a sob when she discovered the sensitive spot just beneath the mushroom top. He started to shake as her tongue swirled and stroked, his fingers tightly gripping the covers beneath him as he fought not to come yet. This pleasure was too delicious to end too quickly.

  Izabella took him deeper into her mouth as her confidence grew by leaps and bounds, fingers squeezing and stroking the inches of his cock she couldn’t fit into her mouth. Her head bobbed rhythmically up and down as she began to suck him deep to the back of her throat before slowly raising her head and then starting the whole process again.

  Deryk wanted this to last, to stay in this sensual paradise forever, but he had been in a state of arousal for too long. He’d wanted Izabella since the moment he set eyes on her. Before he met her. To him, she was perfection. The ultimate woman. His woman.

  What if she didn’t do the things he liked?

  All Izabella had to do was breathe—

  Oh sweet Goddess!

  Deryk shot up into a sitting position as Izabella cupped his balls again. Combined with the sucking of her mouth, the firm caress of her wet tongue, and the pumping of her hand, Deryk completely lost control. There was none of the usual warnings, the tingling at the base of his spine, the tightening of his balls, only the fierce explosion of his cum as it shot along the length of his cock and exploded in thick, hot jets into Izabella’s waiting mouth.

  Ambrosia was Izzi’s first thought. And her second. And her third. It became every thought, as Deryk’s pleasure became all that existed. His cum was so delicious, she sucked greedily until she had swallowed down every last drop as that nectar pumped and continued to flow.

  She felt almost euphoric when his release finally stopped, a satiated smile curving her lips when she raised her head to look at him.

  He winced as he stared at her. “Fuck,” he muttered with feeling. “Damn it, I thought I had things under control. I didn’t mean to— I should have— Fuck,” he muttered with even deeper self-disgust and vehemence.