Her tone was unbelievably condescending and superior, which only made him want her even more. Why? Because he was pathetic! He didn’t deserve to be a dragon. The mightiest of higher beings!

The pompous brat stepped away from him, tossing aside the piece of chair she’d used to temporarily incapacitate him.

“Night!” She gave him a little wave that made him hate her a bit and that’s when something in Éibhear snapped. Like the last piece of rope he was hanging on to.

Éibhear stood to his full height and reached out, catching hold of Izzy by her chain-mail shirt and swinging her around until she was in front of him.

“Really?” he asked.

As usual with this insane female, Iseabail the Dangerous showed no fear, no concern, nothing but humor at his expense.

“Really?” she shot back, her arms extending from her body. “Really . . . what are you going to do? The great, pious, beloved Éibhear the Blue. What are you going to do?”

Éibhear’s grip on her shirt tightened, the little metal rings that made up the protective garment digging into his fingers. And he realized in that moment that he’d have to show Izzy the Dangerous that the “great, pious, beloved Éibhear the Blue” had been dead and gone for a very long time....

Chapter 18

Izzy would be the first to admit that over the years, it was this sort of thing that often got her into the worst sort of trouble. Well . . . her and Brannie. Poor thing. That dragoness had pulled Izzy out of more scrapes that Izzy’s mouth had gotten them into than either would ever care to admit. But Brannie wasn’t here right now and Izzy wasn’t exactly in a situation she didn’t want to be in.

More fool her.

What exactly was wrong with her anyway? Was she still harboring the desires of her sixteen-year-old self? The same girl who had gone from having only three soldiers protecting her as they lived their lives on the road to having an entire family to call her own, including a mother, father, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents . . . and Éibhear. Handsome, chivalrous, impatient, terse Éibhear.

Well, with her he’d been impatient and terse. With everyone else, he was the wonderful, sweet, adorable Éibhear. The blue dragon everyone loved. But Izzy would be the first to admit, she’d seamlessly moved from loving him to hating him. He’d driven her absolutely insane for years. Hot one second, cold the next.

Of course, at the moment . . . she seemed to have him decidedly hot.

Using his grip on her shirt, he pulled her closer, his gaze locked on her mouth. To be honest, Izzy expected him to do what he always did to her any time they got too close to anything that even hinted at sex. But Izzy wouldn’t pull away first. She wouldn’t let him off the hook. If he was going to walk away, he could walk away. She wouldn’t help him by—

Yanking her up until she was on her toes, Éibhear leaned down and took her mouth with his. Her thoughts tumbled away as his hands released her shirt and moved to her shoulders, shoving her back against the wall, his lips still against hers.

Sure, Izzy could have fought him off. He was a tough challenger, but so was she. But the truth was, Izzy didn’t want to fight him off. All these years, all her long days on patrol thinking about him and what he might be up to and those long nights in her bunk dreaming about him, this was what she’d always wanted.

Well, this and one other thing . . .

And deciding not to wait any longer for that, Izzy did what she’d dreamed of since the very moment she met Éibhear the Blue all those years ago.

She dug her hands into his blue hair and held on.

Gods, his hair. Not his hair!

All these years he’d never willingly let Izzy near his hair because . . . well, because he was afraid of this. Of what was happening right here.

When his mother, or Talaith, stroked his hair, he felt a great sense of comfort and, very often, quite sleepy. But from the first time Iseabail had dug her hands into his mane and demanded he take her flying, his feelings were far from comfortable or sleepy.

And he blamed the damn woman who, at the moment, had her fingers gripping his hair.

His hair!

Éibhear tried to pull her hands away, but Izzy only tightened her grip and kissed him harder. Her tongue slid inside his mouth and Éibhear used his body to pin her against the wall.

There were many things he should be doing. Either pushing her away or seducing her. He did neither. Like some out of control hatchling, he reached for her leggings, gripping them and pushing them down her hips.

He’d have been appalled by his lack of finesse, too, if Izzy hadn’t already beaten him to it, his leggings nearly around his knees.

By the time he got hers down to her knees, she’d already gotten off her boots. Seconds later she’d managed to get out of her leggings completely. One indescribably long leg wrapped around his waist—flexible!—and the other around his calf.

Then, with no thought or even a modicum of self-control, he lifted her just a bit and drove home with one brutal thrust, burying himself inside Izzy and making his c**k the happiest thing on the planet!

Izzy barely managed to bite back a scream of pure pleasure and instead buried her mouth against the flesh between Éibhear’s neck and shoulder. She bit down hard and held on, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, while she tried to stop herself from saying or doing something—anything!—that might destroy whatever self-respect she’d built up for herself over the years.

Because, gods of thunder and suffering, this sudden, rather rude, entertainingly brutal f**k was turning out to be the best one she’d ever had. Without foreplay, without a kind word said between them, without a gods-damn bed!