Wounded Dragon In Heat

Tessaraine Thorn lives alone in a cave by the sea. Her days are quiet as she waits for a ship that does not come and a family that has long abandoned. When she finds an injured man in the entrance of her home, she does what any decent person would do and nurses him back to health. The last thing she expects him to do once he wakes is to return her kindness by curling his fingers around her neck.


~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~

“Let go of me,” she said.

He turned slightly to the side, his mouth parting slightly as he breathed, heat and steam coming from his lips.

It looked like he was saying something, but she couldn't hear the words that were being said. Reason seemed to have abandoned her altogether as she leaned closer, towards the golden eyes that were staring into her soul from behind black hair.

“What is it?” she whispered, pulling his hair back and tucking it behind his ear. She trailed her fingers along his jaw to his chin, feeling the growth of hair there, black as the rest of the hair on his body. “I can help you,” she whispered. “Tell me what you need.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

With a snarl, he grabbed her. Before she could properly react, an arm as hot as fresh-worked iron wrapped around her waist.

He was up to his knees, his face buried in her hair as he pulled her hips towards and under him. Water soaked into the back of her dress and water splashed around everywhere.

She had not been in close contact with anyone for a long time, but even as sheltered as she was, she knew the implications of his actions and where it would lead if she weren't careful.

“I need,” he snarled, pawing at her robes, lifting the ends of it and seeing the waistband of her pants. Nose still against her head, he inhaled deeply once, and then again, nuzzling her hair aside.

“Wait, wait,” she cried out, but her body was reacting eagerly to his touch despite her own reservations. Was she so desperate that even a half-dead stranger in her cave would satisfy her? Filled with shame, she pushed back against him. “Stop!” she gasped.

He pressed open-mouthed kisses to her neck. The graze of teeth and velvety warmth of his tongue against the sensitive skin there nearly brought her to the ground. With a strangled moan, she attempted to push him away again.

“You can't,” she gasped. And then, recognizing that he was overpowering her really easily and therefore could do whatever he wanted, she corrected her gasp to, “You shouldn't!”

She couldn't tell if he was ignoring her or too lost in the haze of his rut to understanding anything. The stranger remained single-mindedly focused on trying to suck bruises on her neck. It was difficult trying to think with him so insistent on putting his lips on her, his hands somehow oddly gentle as he restrained her wrists above her head once he had gotten tired of her attempts to push him off.