Dragon's Honor by Mina Carter

Baron lead her where he would. She was way too tired to argue. Silence stretched out between them as he led her upstairs. Even on that short walk the precautions he’d already taken for her security were obvious. There was a guard at what remained of the front door and another on the stairs. If either were human, then she was a monkey’s uncle. There wasn’t a guard at the top of the stairs, for which she was grateful. Tension joined the silence between her and Baron with each step closer to her bedroom door.
    Oh hell, who was she trying to kid? It was the middle of the damn night. She’d probably had bed-head before the homicidal fairies had trashed the kitchen and tried to punch her ticket. Risking a quick glance down, she grimaced. Her robe hadn’t survived the encounter. Covered in redcap blood, a large tear had taken the hem from under the knee to hip, indecently so. Instead, she was swaddled in Baron’s shirt.
    She stole a glance at him from under her lashes. Sans shirt, his broad shoulders and muscular chest were displayed to mouth-watering advantage in a tight, white wife-beater vest.
    She swallowed, throat making a dry ‘clacking’ sound, embarrassed by the heat that rolled through her from the top of her head right down to where it made her toes curl. She shouldn’t find him attractive…well no, screw attractive, he wasn’t just attractive. He was hot, freaking panty-wetting hot with a capital H.
    Her door loomed and she slowed down, not wanting to be parted from him. In her head she rolled through scenarios to invite him into her room, each more charged than the last. There was just one problem. She’d never have the guts to act like a sex kitten and say the words her imagination kept trying to feed her.
    Baron slowed his pace to match hers, turning to study her. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little….”
    Hot and bothered? Wondering what you look like out of the rest of your clothes? She’d been wrong about the tattoos. His arms were clear, which in her scattered state of mind, made perfect sense. She’d seen creepy little men scale walls like gravity was optional tonight, so a few missing tattoos were no biggie. She’d probably mistaken a shadow for a tattoo or something.
    “Oh, screw this.”
    His voice a low growl, he crowded her against the wall by her door. She met him halfway, lips crashing against his in a desperate dance as the tension of the last couple of hours shattered through her. Fuck being embarrassed. She needed this. Needed him. Needed the contact to feel alive again, to reassure herself that she hadn’t met her end in the hallway under a redcaps pike.
    The heat of his body surrounded her, reassuring and arousing all at the same moment. His tongue parted her lips with a decisive sweep, and drove within the soft recesses of her mouth. She moaned at the first touch, the sound lost under his deeper rumble of approval and pleasure, and wound her tongue around his. Playing with it, teasing him and then withdrawing in a display of sexual bravado totally unlike her. She had no idea where it had come from, but when he growled and pressed his hips against hers, the thick length of his cock pressing hard into her soft belly, she didn’t care.
    He broke away, his breathing ragged and looked down at her. She’d never seen such a tortured expression on a man’s face before. “God, Honor, don’t…just don’t. I shouldn’t…but I…when you…I can’t resist.”
    She frowned in confusion. Couldn’t what? What was she doing? But she didn’t get past opening her mouth to ask. He claimed her lips again and if she’d thought the last kiss was hot, this one was an inferno. He demanded and she gave, not playing any more. Instead she let him plunder her mouth, taking what he wanted. What they both wanted. He kissed her like she was the last woman on earth, aggressive with a hint of desperation that melted her heart. Then she stopped thinking, and matched him kiss for hard