Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

fact, for a few seconds, he stopped breathing. He just sat there stiff as a plank, staring with wide eyes as I tasted him.
    It was . . . different. Different, but pleasant. He tasted hot, somewhat salty, but it was the feeling of his silken flesh against my tongue that gave me boldness. I slid my tongue around the head of it, and Baltic groaned loudly, clutching with both hands the linen covering the pallet.
    “Stop!” he cried, his voice sounding as if he had a mouthful of stones.
    I released him from my mouth, worried I had done something to harm him. “Did I hurt you?”
    “No. You just have to stop, or else I’m going to—”
    I took his shaft in my hand again, sliding my fingers around the flesh now made slick by my mouth. He groaned again, his hips thrusting forward as he growled, “Too late.”
    “I don’t see how that’s not going to count as a sin,” I said, my hand full of his seed. “You’ll have to do penance for that.”
    “I already am,” he muttered, jerking up one edge of the pallet linen to clean my hand. He rose when he had done so, pulling me up and swinging me into his arms.
    “What are you doing?” I asked, panicking slightly as he marched tense-jawed toward my closet.
    “Taking you to bed.”
    “I told you that I don’t wish for you to bed me.”
    “I heard you the first time,” he said, his voice sounding rough and harsh.
    He shoved open the flimsy door and dropped me onto the pallet.
    “I’m serious. I don’t want to hurt you again, but I will defend myself if you make me.”
    He dropped down onto his knees. “I don’t bed silver dragons.”
    “Then what—”
    “I’m just going to reciprocate.”
    I frowned as he pushed my feet apart in order to move between them. “Reciprocate what?”
    His face lost its tense look as he suddenly grinned at me. “Bliss.”

Chapter Five
    B liss. What a lovely word it was. I lay on the bed and stared up at the shimmers from a streetlight dappling the ceiling of my room, listening to the faint sounds of London traffic, sounds that were muted by the fact that the house had exceptionally good windows, and by the time of night. It was two in the morning—deep night, someone had once called it.
    I frowned. “Now where did I hear that?”
    A sliver of light pierced the darkness of the room as the door opened a tiny bit. “Are you awake?”
    “Unfortunately, yes.”
    Kaawa opened the door wider and gave me an inquisitive look. “I was passing your room a short while ago and heard you call out. I thought perhaps you were having a nightmare. Would you like some company?”
    “So long as you don’t mind being shut up with a nutcase, sure,” I answered, pulling myself up to a sitting position. I clicked on the bedside lamp and watched as she hauled an armchair a little closer to the bed.
    “That’s a lovely caftan,” I said, admiring the black and silver African batik animals on it.
    “Thank you. My daughter sent it to me. She lives in Kenya, on an animal preserve. Why do you think you are a nutcase?”
    I looked back up at the ceiling for a minute, debating whether or not I wanted to talk about the fear that was eating away at me. Kaawa seemed nice and motherly, but I didn’t really know her.
    Then again, there weren’t too many people I did remember knowing.
    “I think I might be mentally unstable,” I said at last, watching her to see if she looked at all frightened of me.
    She didn’t look anything but mildly interested. “Because of the memory loss?”
    “No. I think I might be schizophrenic. Or suffering from multiple personalities. Or some other mental disorder like that.”
    “You are having dreams,” she said, nodding just as if she understood. “Dreams of your past.”
    “I’m having dreams, yes, but it can’t be my past. I’m not a dragon. I’m human. Evidently mentally unstable, but human.”
    She was silent for a moment. “Struggling against yourself is not making the situation any easier, you know.”
    “I’m not struggling against myself. I’m trying to hold on to my sanity. Look, I know what you think, what everyone thinks. But if you were in my place, wouldn’t you know if you weren’t human?”
    “Do you think humans have dreams of their past life as a dragon?” she asked with maddening calm.
    “The only reason I’m having those dreams is because you people put it in my mind!” I said, my voice tinged with desperation.
    She shook her head slowly. “It was a dream that brought you