A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania 2)

“I’d prefer if we didn’t.”

“Are you sure? Because I feel like we should hug.”

“Sometimes,” he said, “we shouldn’t act on feelings, no matter how strong they may be. Now, since I’m sure I will not escape it, I suppose I should hear your epic ode to penises.”

“It’s long,” I warned him.

“So you’ve said.”

“And hard.”

“I am regretting so much already.”

MORGAN LEFT me alone with specific instructions to keep going as I was, no distractions. “Your Grimoire isn’t going to finish itself, Sam.” Which, of course, gave me the idea of making a spell in which my Grimoire would complete itself, which, you know. Genius. But I obviously spent too much time around Morgan because he must have seen my entire train of thought coming a mile away and threatened me with bodily harm if I even considered cheating in such a way. Oh, and no more dick poems, because his heart could only take so much before it stopped itself just to get away from me.

He was such a drama queen.

He’d said he’d thought it was almost time to begin considering a binding for my Grimoire, either the skin of a fallen enemy defeated in battle or a material hard-won in the face of adversity. It would probably be years, he warned me, before I found such a thing, but the fact that he thought I was ready was monumental. I hadn’t expected such a thing to fall from his lips for another five years at least, or even as much as a decade. It meant that my plan to be the youngest wizard to take the Trials would be within my reach. I had wanted to attempt them (complete them, I reminded myself) by the time I was thirty. If things kept going the way they were, maybe I could get to them sooner. Of course, that would be only if Randall would let me, seeing as how he administered the Trials. He was an obstacle that I was sure would find some way to muck up my plans, just because he could.

I was lost in a fantasy of finding a way to banish Randall to the far reaches of the earth, and I didn’t hear the door to the labs open. Probably not the best idea, given my propensity for having trouble find me at the most random of times.

But then there were hands on my waist and lips trailing along my neck, and my magic said yes and home and mineminemine. I tilted my head back, letting it lie on his shoulder as he pressed himself

against my back.

“Hey,” Ryan Foxheart murmured against my skin.

“Hi,” I said, closing my eyes and relaxing.

“You didn’t hear me come in, did you?”

I scoffed. “Of course I did.”

I felt his smile. “Liar.”

“I was busy doing very important things.”

“Uh-huh. So, do we need to talk about why your Grimoire is open to a page that says His shaft is thick and epic / without it I feel apoplectic?”

“Nope,” I said hurriedly, reaching forward and slamming the Grimoire shut. “Nothing for you to see here. Secret wizarding stuff. Very hush-hush. Ancient and all that. Why, even seeing the words could cause your eyes to melt right out of your face.”

“Really,” he said, gripping my hips. “Is that what you’re going with?”

“It wasn’t even about you,” I said. “Not everything is about you, you know. Gods, how self-centered can you get? I’m a wizard, Ryan. I will have secrets. You’re tearing us apart.”

“Uh-huh.” He moved his hands from my hips, trailing them along to the front of my trousers.

“Ngh,” I said, because I had no blood left in my brain.

“Eloquent as always. Maybe I should just jack you off right here. Think that’ll help you become vocal again?”

Yes. Yes it would. He had the best ideas. I always thought so.

“Except,” he said, sounding regretful. He gripped my dick through my trousers with his big hand, holding it tight. “Except, didn’t Morgan say that if he ever caught us having sex in the labs again, he’d curse us both and make it so the thought of touching each other was the most disgusting thing that could ever happen?”

“I don’t remember that at all,” I said, arching into him. I brought my hand up to the back of his head, trying to hold it in place. “You must have dreamed it.”

“I don’t know if I did,” he said, teeth scraping against my neck. “In fact, I’m pretty sure we were standing right about here when it happened. And you squeaked a little bit, just like—”