Filed to story: Reclaimed Book by Roxie Ray
“You can talk to me about anything.” I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, then trailed my fingertips down her neck.
Harley hummed and leaned into the touch. “I want you to claim me.”
My hand stilled. My dragon roared. I knew my eyes were burning gold-he was so, so close to the surface. Hearing those words fall from her lips was the most erotic thing I’d ever heard.
She wants us.
My dragon snapped his jaws internally.
Our mate. She wants to complete the bond.
I’d never wanted anything so badly. My fangs dropped at the mere thought of it.
But.
“Harley.” I leaned close and pressed my lips to her jaw. I exhaled, then slowly, luxuriously breathed in the warm, musky scent of her skin.
“You should do it tonight,” she whispered. “Take me upstairs.”
Fuck.
My grip tightened on her thighs, then I slid both hands to her waist. “Harley,” I whispered again. It took every ounce of my self-control to respond. “I can’t.”
She stilled. “What? Why?”
I exhaled hard into her skin. My dragon was furious with me, gnawing at me from the inside. This was our fated mate, in our lap, neck bared, asking me to claim her. And yet, I had to say no.
“I thought this was what your dragon wanted,” she said. “The connection’s only one-way now, right? I want to be able to feel you too, Steph.”
I pulled away enough to look into her bright, confused eyes. My rejection had hurt her, and that pissed my dragon off even more than he already was. “It’s too dangerous. We can’t do this, not right before I face Sean for the last time.”
“Why?” she pressed. “Because of the bond? Because if-God forbid-something happened to you, it’d hurt me?” She ran both hands up my arms to my shoulders. “I’d be hurt without the bond, Steph.”
“It’s more than that.”
“I don’t want you to go into this without me,” she said. “I want to have our bond completed. I want to feel what you feel. I want to be there with you in a way. I want to give you strength so you will come back to me.”
“I want that. More than anything.” So did my dragon. He wanted it so much, it was burning my insides.
“Then do it,” she whispered. “Show me you want me.”
God, my dragon was going to kill me. Was this how Sean felt all the time? Barely able to control his dragon’s desires? I wasn’t as weak as he was, so there was no risk of me doing something insane like claiming her right now, but the desire was like a flame ever-burning inside me.
“If something happened to me, it wouldn’t just hurt you,” I explained. “It would cleave through your soul. Leave you broken, forever. It’s not something you can recover from.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’d never be able to take another partner,” I said.
“I wouldn’t want to. I only want you, Steph.”
My dragon preened at that, and I squeezed her waist in acknowledgment. “I know. I feel the same. But… If I’m killed, Harley, the pain wouldn’t fade. Not in a year. Not in five years. Not in ten or twenty. Every day it’d be like it had just happened. The bond would always, always cry out for me, and it would never get any easier.”
She said nothing, but I saw understanding begin to build in her gaze.
“It’d be torture,” I said.
She nodded, barely ducking her chin, her eyes still wide with shock.
“I won’t take that risk, Harley. I won’t condemn you to that life.”
Harley slumped forward against me and tucked her face into my neck. “Thank you,” she whispered.
I wrapped my arms tightly around her and ran my hands up and down her back. “What? What are you thanking me for?”
“For caring about me. It’d be easy for you to claim me now. I know your dragon wants to-your eyes look crazy.”
I huffed a small laugh.
“But you won’t, because you’re worried it would hurt me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. “Ever. No matter what. I think I’ve done that enough.”
She pulled back, then cupped my face in both hands and kissed me briefly. It was soft and sweet, and my frustrated dragon was soothed by the gesture. “But you want to claim me, right?”
“More than anything,” I said in a low growl.
“Then when this is all over. Promise me.”
“I promise.” I kissed her neck, right where I’d put my bite.
“Mom?” Dylan’s voice called down the stairs. “Is Dad back?”
I smiled and kissed Harley again, a brief, hard kiss. Like a promise. “Yeah, kiddo, I’m here.”
Smiling, Harley rolled off my lap as Dylan came thundering down the stairs. “Dad! Fix your dinner so I can have the leftovers. I’m hungry again.”
“There’s ice cream, too,” Harley said.
“Ooh! I’ll have that first.” He raced into the kitchen, giving me nothing more than a hearty wave. I was glad to see him so lighthearted. At least the stress of this battle with Sean hadn’t reached him.
“Where’s Cassidy?” I asked as I stood up off the couch. I was starving. Finally eating dinner sounded almost as good as ravishing Harley. A good second option, at least.
“Locked up in her room with Striker,” Harley said with a smirk. “She said they had to talk. But”-she lowered her voice-“I think they might be doing a little more than that.”
I chuckled. I’d been pretty sure that was happening when Striker brought his fancy white noise machine from his room in the clubhouse. With a bunch of dragons sharing space, we’d gotten pretty good at masking-or at least, attempting to mask-our private endeavors. “Well, that explains why Striker asked to skip the clubhouse meeting. First time he’s ever done that. He said he was compromised.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” she said, laughing.
I went into the kitchen and gave Dylan a big hug. He whined theatrically and reached for his ice cream bowl as I got him in a headlock. It felt like I hadn’t seen him in ages, and we roughhoused around the kitchen for a few minutes before I finally fixed myself a plate. Dylan dived into the leftovers moments after finishing his ice cream. Such was the metabolism of a teenaged dragon shifter. Harley watched us with a fond smile on her face.
I wanted this for the rest of my life. My son, happy, laughing, and well-fed. My wife on the couch. The warmth of the house around us.
This was all I needed to be happy. All I wanted was for us to laugh and love and live freely together, without any threats from my old life hanging over our heads.
