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  She was laughing until he kissed her, then she was kissing him back. His arms went around her waist as she straddled him. He held her close as his dick found her entrance and she eased down over him. More water hit the floor as she began to ride him hard and fast. When she arched her back, her hands firmly gripping his shoulders, he leaned in to take a nipple into his mouth. He sucked and caught that tip between his teeth until she moaned and drove herself down onto his dick with even faster thrusts. He moved to the other breast and her reaction was the same. And just when he knew she was about to come, he lifted her off him.

  She was about to protest when he stood her up and then followed, rubbing his palm over the perfectly round globes of her ass. They were slick with water and he licked his lips at the delectable sight. Touching the small of her back, he leaned her over so that her palms rested on the back of the tub where he’d just been resting his head.

  “Damn.” A string of more intense curses followed as he looked at that perfect ass, rubbing his palm over it once more, before slipping his fingers between her crease.

  He went down with his fingers, spreading her and pushing his face between her legs.

  “Come for me,” he whispered over her wet flesh. “Just for me, my warrior goddess. Only for me.”

  The second he put his mouth to her, she bucked and screamed his name. He never wanted to hear his name at this pitch by another woman again. She was fearless and tasted sweeter than the morning rain. A more beautiful woman he could never have imagined for himself. Hell yes, he wanted her to stay a thousand forevers and then some.

  He continued licking and sucking, loving the taste of her on his tongue and the silky smooth feel of her skin rubbing along his face. Her next words were in another language, but Theo was pretty sure of everything she said because as soon as she finished speaking, her release dripped into his mouth and his beast roared with pleasure.

  * * *

  “I love you.”

  He’d whispered the words so softly the next morning as they lay in his bed that Shola almost didn’t hear them.

  She was certain she would have missed them if she were asleep, but slumber had failed to find her for quite some time. Her mind was still churning with all the events of the past two weeks. In the beginning, she was Shola N’Gara of the River Tribe, savior to her people. Now, in the end, she was Shola N’Gara, demigoddess who was afraid she might have fallen in love with the only unattainable dragon in the Human Realm.

  But now, she was lying in the bed with him snuggled tight to her back, his strong arms wrapped around her, his lips at her ear.

  “And I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you why I left the Far Realm because I’d locked that part of me away for so long I didn’t know how to talk about it. My mother’s betrayal made it hard for me to accept emotional connections, until you,” he said.

  She wondered if he knew she was awake and then decided he was about to find out.

  “But you have built emotional connections. Bleu and everyone in this house are more to you than just your team. They are your family, Theo. They love and respect you, and you love them back.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I propose we make a promise to always tell each other the truth about what we’re feeling. Good, bad or indifferent.”

  Again, he didn’t respond, so Shola turned to him. “Is that asking too much?”

  “Not at all,” he said and leaned in to rub his nose against hers. “Not at all.”

  She kissed him and smiled. “Well in that case, I love you too.”

  * * *

  Five hours and another bath later, Shola sat on the seat to the right of Theo in the main conference room.

  “I haven’t been able to get in touch with Enes. Twilight is closed indefinitely,” Ziva said.

  “Nothing from the Royal Blood either. Not even a whisper about Warrick or what went down at the Tower,” Bleu added.

  Magnum shook his head. “The calm before the storm.”

  Theo nodded. “Probably. But for now we’ll proceed with business as usual. We have some client accounts that we need to catch up on and a new member on our team we need to train.”

  A spurt of pride and then nervousness bloomed as Shola greeted every set of eyes that stared back at her. The decision to stay with Theo was easy; this was where she belonged. Mobo would always be her home, and she was elated to know that her people would now be safe, but she realized that she liked using her power and was excited to start using it to help others. Her destiny was here with this man and his dragons.

  “You’re staying?” Ziva asked. “Well hot damn! Another woman in this house. Can you talk to him about more leisure activities? Maybe a New Year’s Eve party or something like that.”

  Shola smiled. She really liked Ziva. “We will see what we can do to spruce things up around here.”

  “Welcome to the Legion Security Company,” Reece said and grinned down at Shola.

  “Is that all we are?” Steele asked. “I mean, is that what we’ll remain after everything that just happened?”

  Steele sounded a bit irritated, which was not unusual, but she looked at Theo, waiting to see how he was going to handle the question. Their conversation about this particular aspect of their lives had been abbreviated as they needed to get to this meeting, so she wondered, just like the others at the table, what he would say.

  “We’ll remain the Legion Security Company,” he said evenly. “We’ll work in the Human Realm just as we always have. If or when we need to deal with the vampires again, we will. As Drakon.”

  Reece did a fist pump in the air, and Aiken elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Minimizing exposure is no longer our top priority. If what I think is going to happen as a result of these last couple of weeks happens, we’re the best protection the humans and preternatural beings will have. Hiding in our cave or working within limiting parameters isn’t going to help anyone. The vampires aren’t happy with us right now. We’ve interrupted a very lucrative plan, and they lost one of their own, although they’d practically disowned him. They’re going to come for us, and we’ll be ready for them when they do.”

  “And the rest?” Bleu asked.

  He was talking about the Far Realm, asking the question that she hadn’t asked of him yet. When he reached out a hand to twine his fingers with hers, she smiled with the warmth that always spread through her at his touch.

  “For the moment Byou will do what needs to be done to reestablish the Drakon rule on the Far Realm. The rest will be what it was meant to be,” he said and lifted her hand up to his lips to kiss.

  Shola’s heart swelled with love and respect for this man. He had a choice to make and he’d made the best one for himself, for now. She admired his strength and resolve and knew that whatever he chose to do in his life, and whatever she chose to do in hers, she would always love him.

  “Does that mean we are going to get a wedding? Because I have come all this way, and I would like to see my daughter get married.”

  Shola’s head shot up to see her mother and father entering the conference room. Isla followed behind them.

  “These two showed up at the Tower this morning looking for their daughter,” Isla said when the other Drakons stared at her in question.

  Ziva had told Shola that no one except the Drakon had ever been at the Office. Now her parents were coming toward her, grabbing her into a tight hug the moment she got up out of her chair.

  “I cannot believe you are here,” she said when they broke the hug. “I have so much to tell you. So much to explain.”

  “Nonsense,” Ejaita snapped and kissed her daughter on the cheek for the second time. “This lovely lady told us everything on the ride here. She said it was time it was all out in the open. Secrets are evil, I believe were her exact words.”

  Isla nodded proudly from where she stood in a corner of the
room. She was the shy Drakon. Theo and the others thought she was just into her work and didn’t socialize well, but Shola could see how shy and unsure of herself the woman was when around other people.

  “I...um, I wasn’t supposed to. I mean, I didn’t know how to and then I was going to wait but—” Shola started and stopped and then sighed with how simple she must have sounded.

  “Stop it,” Joku said when he draped an arm over her shoulder and hugged her again. “I made a mistake and the mighty Oya fixed it. I will forever be grateful and make many offerings to her until the day I leave this earth.”

  “As will I,” Ejaita added. “I always knew it was a miracle that I conceived a child, and you were such a special one, spending all that time at the river. I’d wondered if you’d ever seen the great Orisha who ruled the river. And you had, because she was a part of you.”

  Shola didn’t know what to say. How had this turned out to be her life when it was so far from anything she’d ever imagined?

  “And this one,” Ejaita said while stepping away from Shola. “He is the one.”

  “The one?” Joku asked as he too went to stand in front of Theo.

  Shola hadn’t realized that Theo had stood, but now he faced her father.

  “He who loves the vase, loves what is inside,” Ejaita said. “It is clear, Joku. No matter what you say or see. He is the one for our Shola. I knew this trip would end in love. I just knew it.”

  * * *

  To purchase and read more books by A.C. Arthur, please visit her website at http://www.acarthur.net/books/.

  About the Author

  A.C. Arthur was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where she currently resides with her husband, three children, grandson and an English bulldog named Vader. An active imagination and a love for reading encouraged her to begin writing in high school and she hasn’t stopped since.

  Working in the legal field for over twenty-five years, A.C. has seen lots of horrific things and longs for the safe haven of a romance novel. To date, she has written in several genres: YA paranormal (w/a Artist Arthur), small-town romance as Lacey Baker, and sexy contemporary and paranormal romance. With intriguing plots and sexy love scenes, A.C. brings a new edge to romance!

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  ISBN-13: 9781488058851

  Awaken the Dragon

  Copyright © 2019 by Artist Arthur

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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