Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

tries to harm him.”
    It wasn’t until the waxing moon was high in the night sky that Baltic finished his dealings with Thala. He found me standing in a small, seldom-used room, staring blankly at nothing.
    “Did you have another vision?” He hesitated at the door before approaching me.
    “No. Are you done with Thala?”
    “I have been for the past hour. She went into town.”
    I watched him walk toward me, his movements smooth and sinuous, like a big cat on the prowl. There was something about Baltic, a sense of coiled power on the verge of being released, that heightened the general feeling of danger surrounding him. It was simultaneously frightening and very erotic. “When I first saw you, I thought you were a warrior, not the mage my sister told me about. Then I found out you were a dragon.”
    He stopped in front of me, not touching me, waiting for me to finish my thought.
    “Of those three, I think the warrior is strongest in you.”
    Eyes of midnight searched my face. “I am a dragon first and foremost, Ysolde. Dragons are warriors. We always have been. Nothing has changed.”
    “No,” I agreed. “Nothing has changed. You might wear modern clothes, and drive a car, and use a laptop, but at heart, you’re still the same man you were five hundred years ago. You still make decisions for me. You still shut me out of certain aspects of your life. You’re still a warrior.”
    “I protect you when necessary, yes. I cannot do otherwise, mate. I existed once without you, and I will not do so again. Were the events of the past to be repeated and Thala resurrected me again, I would not continue living. You are life to me, Ysolde. I will not live without you.”
    I moved into his arms, kissing the pulse point in his neck. “You make it really hard to lambaste you for doing things you know I won’t like. I love you, too, you frustratingly wonderful man.”
    “Dragon.”
    “And while you may not have changed, I have. I understand that you need to protect Brom and me, and I’m grateful you do. But protecting doesn’t mean keeping me utterly in the dark. You can tell me about threats or things of importance like that. I really don’t like feeling as if I can’t be trusted with the truth.”
    “There is nothing with which I don’t trust you.” His breath was hot on my neck and ear as he nibbled a spot that he knew turned me to mush in his arms.
    “Did Thala know about Fiat’s threat to kill Brom and me?” I slid my hands under his shirt, stroking the muscles of his back, breathing in the scent of him. It was a heady experience, leaving me simmering with desire.
    “Yes. Do you remember the time we were in Venice and you thought to hide behind a mask and test me?”
    I stopped unbuckling his belt, prodding hard at the big black chunks of my memory. “No. A mask? Hmm.”
    “It was during a festival. You pretended to be a woman of no morals who desired my body, and tried to test my fidelity to you.”
    “Still not ringing any bells. Why don’t you do whatever you did to prompt a vision before, so I can relive it?”
    He unzipped my jeans, sliding his hands over my hips as he pushed them down, tossing them onto a chair along with my underwear and sandals. “I would prefer not to.”
    “Why not?” I shucked my shirt and bra at the same time I tackled his belt, suddenly frantic to get him out of his clothes so I could rub myself all over him.
    “You did not believe me when I told you that I knew it was you from the moment you neared me.”
    Buttons went flying as I yanked his shirt off while he was trying to take off his pants.
    “Does that mean that you let me seduce you, then told me you knew it was me?” I moaned softly as I stroked the heavy muscles of his chest, waiting impatiently for him to get his shoes off. The second he stood up, I flung myself on him, biting his shoulder as I wiggled against him, relishing the sensation of hot, satiny flesh covering steely muscles.
    “Yes. You could not wait for me to take you to our bed. You demanded that I make love to you on the balcony of the villa we’d taken.”
    “Balcony, eh?” I stopped licking his neck long enough to look speculatively around the room.
    “On a table.” His voice was rich with the promise of fulfilling the intention so obvious in his beautiful onyx eyes. “Like the one behind you.”
    Cold wood met my behind as he picked me up and set me on the small writing desk, sweeping the accoutrements onto the floor as he took