Chapter 7

seven

ZAKARION

She’s willing to help me, without compensation.

I wonder what I’m missing. Her emotions seem to sway back and forth like the sea. Last time we were in this room, it was as if she didn’t know me. Now she’s offering to... loan me use of her body, for nothing in return?

I don’t understand, but her face is so vulnerable and pleading that I know I have only one choice.

Using my claws I free her arm from the strap, even though we could easily have called in someone on staff to help.

“What’s your name?” she asks as I cut the strap on her other arm.

Oh, of course. Now that we’re tossing aside DreamTogether, there’s no reason to keep who we are secret anymore.

“Zakarion,” I say. “Offspring of Zabaza and Akatarion.” I draw her arms forward to hold onto my shoulder while I reach down to free her legs. When I’ve helped her down to the floor, I realize precisely how small she is. How does a creature this size take my cock? And take it so well?

“You are?” I ask as she plants both feet on the ground and straightens.

“Samantha,” she says. “Sammy. I prefer that.”

I taste the sound of her name. “Sammy.” It’s cute, like she is. Cute and precious. I resist the urge to touch her now that she’s freed of the table. I want to pick her up and clutch her close to me, but she’s keeping a safe distance, so I do, too.

“Shall we get the hell out of here?” she says, heading to what appears to be a locker in the back of the room. She opens it and grabs her clothing.

All I can do is nod, because I’m not sure what’s happening. We’re really... running off together. I watch as she slides on her underwear, bra, shirt and pants.

“So many clothes,” I observe while she dresses.

Sammy purses her lips. “When you have tits like mine, you need ‘em.” She slams the locker closed, then approaches me. “Let’s go, Zakarion .”

Oh, I like that.

“Of course. Sammy.” The taste of her name is delicious.

She grins, and leads the way. We don’t even stop at the receptionist desk as we go. Sammy just flaps a hand over her shoulder, saying, “Sorry. I think we’re done.”

I’m pretty sure there will be some paperwork to sign later because I’ve violated the rules, but I’ll let her have her moment. There’s always paperwork. I’m rather amazed by her as I follow her from the building out into the autumn sunlight.

“Well,” Sammy says, stopping abruptly. “Would you like to meet me at my house?” She tilts her head up to observe my full height. “I have a big backyard. We can figure out our plan of attack there. ”

I blink. Plan of attack?

“Lead the way,” I say. “I’ll follow your car.”

She arches an eyebrow. “They let you do that?” she asks. “Just fly over town like that?”

“Who’s going to stop me?” I shoot back, and she laughs.

I follow Sammy’s hatchback out of the city, into the countryside. She pulls off the road onto a dirt trail, which leads to a cute, rather small house at the end. There’s a shed, an abandoned swing, and a big yard of grass that got brown over the summer.

Seeing where she lives, I understand quite a bit more about Sammy now. She likes her freedom, and she doesn’t want her neighbors seeing into her space. It’s probably inexpensive to live here, and as I survey the house, it’s clear she’s recently repainted it, and the frames around the windows have all been replaced.

“This is lovely,” I say, peering at the final flower blooms that are slowly starting to wilt in their beds. “All yours?”

She shrugs. “Some belongs to me, some to the bank still. If I’d kept my old job, I’d be a lot closer to owning it, but...” Sammy trails off. “Anyway, come sit down. I’ll get us lemonade.” She gestures at four yard chairs assembled around a table. When she goes inside to fetch the lemonade, I try to fit into one of the chairs, but it’s far too small for me. Instead, I set it aside and sit on the ground, and I’m still tall enough that when Sammy returns and sits, I can look her in the eyes.

As she sips her lemonade, I cough. “How will helping me help you pay off your house?” I ask.

“It doesn’t.” She smiles, and it’s a genuine one. “But that’s okay. I’m not a stranger to rustling up some extra bucks here and there while we’re working on our project.”

“What would we be doing?” I ask.

Sammy furrows her brow like I’m daft. “Well,” she says, coughing as she turns her head. “I mean, obviously. You’d be, you know.” I’ve never seen someone look so embarrassed. “Trying to get me pregnant?”

“But if it didn’t work at DreamTogether...” I begin.

“In that creepy white room?” she asks. “I read that lizards’ bodies are sensitive to just about everything, from light to temperature. Some animals need perfect conditions to successfully breed.”

Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. But I know very little about my own kind, as my own parents passed away before I ever thought to ask.

“So perhaps it was too cold?” I say.

“Or your body didn’t like the artificial lighting. Maybe you need sunshine.”

I peer up at the sky, where the afternoon light is coming in through the leaves of the trees that surround Sammy’s little house.

Is she suggesting...? My mind goes momentarily blank.

“Here?” I ask, like a fool.

“Why not?” Sammy rises from her chair, then pauses. “But we have to set some ground rules.”

I don’t like the sound of that. “DreamTogether was full of rules,” I say, curling my shoulders.

“Right. It was to protect us.” She rubs her arm. “And maybe we still need protection.”

I give her a baffled look. “From what?” Does she think I’ll injure her?

“From each other.” She sighs. “It’s easy to get too close when you’re having sex with someone, you know? But that’s not what either of us is looking for. What we want is to get you a hatchling, so dragons will continue after you.”

I’m not entirely sure what distinction she’s trying to make. “Are you speaking of romantic involvement?” I ask, just to be clear.

“That’s what was brilliant about DreamTogether, right?” she says brightly, almost unnaturally so. “They connected us, but once our roles were played, that was the end of it. No complications.”

So that’s what she wants—for us to go our separate ways once the mission is achieved, without any further attachment. I try to ignore the way my heart plummets.

“Why do you smile that way from time to time?” I ask her, tilting my head. “It doesn’t seem like you.”

Her lip twitches, and the smile falls from her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“The way you looked at me as if...” I scratch my chin with one claw. “As if you didn’t know me.”

She shoots me a surprised look. “Oh.” Her mouth tilts down into a frown. “It’s... professionalism, you know? At my old job, we had to be professional, no matter what. And that’s how I’m going to approach this, too.”

So this is still just a part of the job for her.

But I believe I understand why she doesn’t have romantic interest in me. Likely she would prefer to marry another human, spend her life with someone who would live a normal life at her side. I would live long beyond her, anyway.

We are not compatible. So, instead of letting that disappointment in, I nod and wall it off.

“I understand,” I say.

“Friends?” Sammy asks, holding out her hand toward me .

I take it in mine, my big claws dwarfing her small palm, and we shake as best we can.

“Friends,” I agree. And it tastes like ash on my tongue.

SAMMY

Way easier said than done, of course. Interacting with Zakarion out here, in the real world, he’s even more... I don’t know. Wonderful. Funny. A little out of his element.

Which, of course he is. He’s a three-hundred-year-old dragon standing in my backyard. And now we’ve just shaken on our deal.

“Does that mean that I should, erm...” Zakarion’s hand curls at his side, and the tip of his tail is twitching.

“Fuck me?” I ask. “Probably.”

He looks up at the sun and spreads his wings, as if soaking all of it in. Then he approaches me, those wings still unfurled, and dwarfs me in their shadow.

“Are you certain?” His voice is lower, more full of gravel. “There is no steel table here to protect you.”

Little does he know that’s part of the fun.

“I have you here,” I say. “You won’t hurt me.”

He doesn’t look quite as certain as I feel, though. But he rises up on his back legs anyway, and he slips a claw under my shirt.

“Take this off,” he says, in a way that’s surprisingly commanding. This part of him is back, then. I peel up the shirt, not that it’s necessary to the business of procreating , but I can’t stand the way we did it last time. Mechanical. Businesslike. Zakarion needs intimacy to get turned on, and I don’t mind the skin-on-skin with him, either.

I toss the shirt aside along with my bra, and then Zakarion nudges again with his claw at my pants. I can see that slit at his groin opening, revealing two hidden treasures inside. The moment I ditch my jeans, I stoop down in front of him.

“Sammy?” Zakarion asks, uncertain.

“Finally,” I say, stretching my neck and my fingers. “I can touch you. I’ve always wanted to touch you.”

His eyes get much bigger as his cocks begin to extrude, the twin heads pressed against one another until they’re free of the pocket, and there, they spring apart—one pointing upward, the other downward, in that perfect way that stimulates me no matter which cock I take.

Two for the price of one.

I hover there, not quite touching him, and glance up. Here I was just talking about professionalism.

“Can I touch them?” I ask. I want to get him good and turned on before we do the deed—not to mention that I’ve always wanted to get up close and personal with his equipment, if it weren’t for that damn table.

He gives me a sharp nod. “Please,” he answers with a huff of hot air, smoke escaping his nostrils.

I close the distance between me and those two swollen, red cocks, and gently take the upper one in my hand. Now I can get a really good look at it, covered in the gentle nubs that feel like heaven when he fucks me, the smooth crown with the lip and no foreskin. I drag my hand downward, over the textured bumps, to the swell farther down.

“Oh hell,” Zakarion grunts, pitching forward. He grips the edge of the lawn table like the tiny thing is holding him up. I stroke again, and beads of white form at the slit on each of his cocks. Sliding my hand from head to base, squeezing when I reach the swell like I imagine my pussy does around him, causes him to groan and his whole body to shiver underneath me.

But I can take it up a notch. If this is doing it for him...

I lean down and lick the white stuff right off.

“Sammy?” he asks, a hint of concern in his voice. Instead of answering, though, I lick again, and his hips snap forward, shoving his cock into my mouth. This time I take the whole head, then I raise my other hand to his lower cock so I’m double-fisting him.

“Fuck,” Zakarion moans, the table creaking as he puts his weight on it. “That’s incredible.”

I swallow even more, then drag my lips back up to the tip again, sucking in while I do it. He’s so responsive that I want to torture him even more, so I begin moving my hands in unison, dragging up and down along both his lengths while I take that massive cock into my mouth. I can barely reach the halfway point, though, before he’s too wide to fit.

How on earth do I take this thing inside me?

“Sammy,” Zakarion says abruptly, sounding choked. “Stand up.”

Curious, I release him and do what he says, getting to my feet. Suddenly, his huge hands scoop me up, then seat me gently on the table, which is cold and hard under my ass. Zakarion hovers over me, his long neck bent to bring his snout near my face. He yanks my legs apart, exposing me to the backyard. His cocks are both pulsing, both hungry for me, both calling my name.

“I’m not going to waste it in your mouth,” he says, panting. “I have to put it inside you.”

I nod rapidly, and raise my hips up towards him, asking for what we both want. He guides his lower cock into me this time, the cone-shaped head easily slipping through my layers. His claws have found their way through the iron swirls on the table, and he grips them tight as he slides in deeper, reuniting with me again.

That’s what this feels like, as Zakarion’s eyes hover half-lidded, his big jaws open while his upper cock drags over my clit: coming back somewhere I belong. Drool pools at the base of his fangs as he pushes in, taking his time, like he always does.

This is what happens when you have sex with a creature that’s hundreds of years old. He knows how to take his time.

“Zakarion,” I manage to say as he begins to spread me wide, then retreats again. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

At first, his yellow eyes get big, but then a smile curls his lip, revealing white, sharp teeth.

“Oh, I’ll fuck you until you scream.”