I was disoriented as I always am in Drake’s dreamscapes—I was in warm silky water, in a large black pool, ringed with candles whose flames sputtered and danced in the heated air. Shadows stretched behind them in inky infinity, the light dappling only the water of the pool in which I sat.

“Mmm. This is a new one—frankincense and myrrh?” I asked as I cupped my hand and allowed the oiled water to pour from between my fingers. “I like it. It’s very dragon. This is awfully sweet of you, to send me a dream just because you had to go to Paris to get those blasted Tools, Drake, but it’s not necessary. I could have waited until tomorrow when you got home.”

“I, on the other hand, could not wait.” His voice slid across my damp skin like velvet, sending little skitters of anticipation rippling down my spine. I turned to look behind me, where his voice had originated, but there was nothing to be seen in the dense shadows.

“Oooh, are you going to be dominant and bossy in this dream?” I scooped up another handful of water and tilted my head back, letting it pour down my neck to my chest.

“I am always dominant. I am wyvern. You are my mate. It is the natural order of things.”

Movement flickered to my left. I peered into the darkness but could make out nothing but the slightest whisper of cloth as it dropped to the floor. I smiled to myself and heaved a mock sigh. “You live in your own little world, don’t you?”

“Yes.” A little breeze tickled my back. I spun around, but no one was there. “It consists of you and me, and nothing else of importance. Love me, mate.”

His lips were warm on the nape of my neck. I arched my back as his hands slid around my oiled skin, cupping my breasts as he nibbled several highly erogenous spots behind my ear.

“Oh-ho, it’s going to be an ‘all about Drake’ night, is it?” I asked, teasing him with more than just my words.

“Yes. Tonight I will take my pleasure of you. And when I am done, if you are worthy, perhaps I will allow you a little enjoyment, as well.”

I laughed, pinching the skin of his thigh. “In your dreams, buster. Oh, wait, this is your dream.”

“Are you so sure it is only a dream?” he asked, his hands gentle but demanding on my sensitive breasts.

“Oh, yes. If it was my dream, you’d be spread-eagled on the bed, and I’d be licking warm chocolate off you.”

“We will leave that for an ‘all about Aisling’ night.”

“Deal. Mmm. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” I leaned back into him, my hands finding the long length of muscles in his thighs. He was warm, and slick, and absolutely wonderful to the touch. “I much prefer you in the flesh, not that these dreams aren’t pleasant. But there’s something to be said for in-person attendance at these events.”

“I agree completely.”

I turned on his lap, examining his face, wondering how I could ever have thought I could live without him. He was arrogant, he was bossy, he did what he thought best regardless of my wishes—most of the time, although he was getting better about that—in short, he was the most exasperating man I’d ever met or ever would meet, and yet I loved him with every morsel of my heart and soul. “I used to think that love meant just wanting to be with someone. But it’s more than that. It’s all the frustrations and irritations and gloriously wondrous times all wrapped together in one magical being that has become so ingrained in me, I don’t think we could ever be separated into our original parts.”

His lips caressed mine, a familiar heat building within me that was echoed in him. “You are my life, Aisling. I knew that the first moment you strolled into the G&T. I will never forget the way you sauntered across the bar and challenged me without even knowing who or what I was. I did not wish to admit it, but even then you had captured my heart.”

I laughed into his mouth even as a tear rolled down my cheek. “You drove me mad then, you know that, right? You were so bossy, so mysterious, never answering any question, but somehow, always there when I needed you.”

“You have never needed me,” he said, cutting off my objections with a kiss so hot, it set the water ablaze. “You have not needed me to achieve what you wanted, kincsem. You were strong even if you did not yet recognize the full extent of your powers. It is a strength that will continue, even in times of darkness.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, acknowledging the sad, dark little corner of my soul. Giving up my Guardianship was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. It was as much a part of me as Drake had become, and refusing that part of myself, refuting it and denying it, felt like something had been amputated from my life. But I would survive the loss of it, whereas I could not survive the loss of the man I held in my arms, the man who was kissing every last little bit of sadness from me. “We will overcome this, too, mate. You must have faith that all will be well.”

“I have faith in you,” I whispered.

His tongue twined around mine as I kissed him, opened myself to his fire, accepted it, reveled in it, gloried in the fact that I could share it again, then returned it to him. The muscles of his back bunched under my questing fingers as he lifted me back onto the seat from which I’d slipped. Water lapped at the underside of my breasts as he knelt between my legs, his hands sliding up my thighs, parting them to dance a silky line upward.

“You’ll notice I’m losing my waist. I’m getting thick. Jim hid the scale, saying he was afraid of what would happen when I saw my weight.” My breath sucked in as his head dipped and he took one aching nipple into the fiery inferno of his mouth. I squirmed on the warm, slick seat of the tub as his fingers danced in my most private of places, the fire he’d started there burning up to where my breast was being laved by his tongue. “Are you one of those men who finds pregnant women sexy?”

He pulled his mouth from my breast, trailing flames as he licked a path to my other nipple. “No.”

I pinched his shoulder.

He flashed one of his heart-stopping grins at me, his eyes alight with amused passion. “Unless the woman happens to be you, in which case, yes.”

“I’m going to have to deduct five points from your total score for your delay in answering correctly,” I told him, presenting my poor, ignored breast for his attention.

He blew a little ring of fire onto it. “I will find you arousing even when these delectable breasts have lost their tone and lie limp along your chest.”