Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Well, my bottom lip anyway.
My first kiss. The words rose in my mind but I wasn’t exactly sure they were accurate. Had it been a kiss? Or was Saint just healing me, like he had said? What had just happened between us? Was he as confused as I was right now?
He hadn’t seemed confused. He’d seemed…eager was the word that came to mind. And he had denied that it was his Drake making him want to do it—to heal me, to kiss me…
He hadn’t wanted to stop—he wouldn’t have stopped if I hadn’t stopped him, I thought. But he kept claiming he was straight, that he wasn’t a “lover-of-men” like me.
How was he going to feel about all this in the morning?
That was the question that really worried me. I mean, the way he’d been touching me and kissing me wasn’t exactly sexual—we both kept our clothes on and nothing had happened below the belt. But the way he had healed me—basically kissing me better—also wasn’t exactly the straightest thing in the world either. Was Saint going to wake up hating himself for what we had done tonight?
And was he going to hate me?
I really, really hoped not. I had been miserable those few hours when I thought that the tall, dark Drake disliked me. I didn’t want him to blame me for what we had just done and hate me for real this time.
And yet, it had felt really good. What if I had let him keep going? What if we had kissed more? Done…other things?
The thought made me uneasy and yet filled me with intense desire, emotions that didn’t sit comfortably together at all. I imagined myself getting out of my own bed and getting in with Saint. Imagined kissing him back, taking his mouth the way he had taken mine…
But no, I couldn’t do that. He had been healing me. What if that was all he’d been doing? What if he got mad at me and accused me of misinterpreting his motives and acting gay with him when he was really and truly straight?
My thoughts were such a muddled confusion it took me hours to get to sleep. And when I did, I had all kinds of weird, confusing dreams where a huge black dragon with scales outlined in burning crimson was chasing me. When he finally caught me, he swept me up in one huge, clawed forehand and spoke to me in Saint’s voice.
“I just want to love you,” he rumbled, looking at me with those burning, fiery eyes. “Just let me love you, Avery.”
I woke up in a cold sweat, not knowing what to think.
12
SAINT
When my Drake awoke, he was extremely upset. Because I can hide little to nothing from him, he saw that I had been intimate with Avery. Well, maybe “intimate” is too strong a term, but he saw that I had been able to touch him at least—to hold him—and to press my mouth to his soft skin and breathe in his warm scent.
I got feelings of extreme jealousy from him—why had I been allowed to hold and touch and be near our fated mate while he, my Drake, had not? Why had I been allowed to be so close to our l’lorna while he was sleeping?
“Avery is not our l’lorna,” I told him firmly. “He is a male—a male cannot be the fated mate—the l’lorna—of a male Drake.”
But my Drake insisted—in angry pictures and emotions that he shoved into my mind—that Avery was our l’lorna and that he must be allowed to be close to him, too.
“No—absolutely not!” I mentally shouted at him. “You’re too big and unpredictable and frightening. If you come out you’ll scare him.”
My Drake pointed out that he had come out part of the way yesterday and Avery had been the only person who wasn’t frightened. He insisted that he would never hurt Avery—he only wanted to come out and “cuddle” him.
I had never heard him so articulate—it seemed that his desire for my roommate brought out his words. But this was still a bad situation. I reminded him that if he came out again, I would be expelled from the school and that both of us would have to go back to the Sky Lands and never see Avery again.
This revelation brought a burst of emotions from my drake—horror at the idea of never seeing the beloved l’lorna again, anger that others were trying to keep Avery from him, and such a strong desire to be close to my short, blond roommate that he made me ache with it, from head to toe.
If he could not hold and cuddle Avery, could I do it again—this time while he was awake, he asked? At least then he could feel the sensations through me.
It was no use trying to explain to him how awkward such a request would be. Last night had been different—we had been speaking openly and Avery had offered me a hug—the first one I’d had in years. It had felt right to pour our hearts out to each other and right for me to heal him. But now it was morning and we were about to start another school day. How could I go over to Avery and ask if I could “cuddle” him for a few minutes before we went to Breakfast?