Chapter 43

Dana lifted herself up on one elbow and studied Beau's face, relaxed now in slumber. Her queen-sized bed was cramped with the two of them in it but it had been years since she'd actually slept all night with a man and she was enjoying the sensations of closeness and warmth.
In sleep, he looked younger, less careworn but no softer. His solid musculature and chiseled features still radiated strength and stability. She couldn't help wondering what had happened to make him the man he was. He'd obviously had and lost a child. Dana couldn't even imagine that kind of grief. And his wife - were they divorced, or had she died along with their child in some kind of accident or illness? Not for the first time, Dana really wished Katie was more of a gossip. But since she'd never talked to Katie about hooking up with Beau after the reception, she'd never felt right asking about him either. She'd never even known why he'd taken off in such a rush. The least he could have done was call her.
The bite mark on her shoulder itched and she rubbed at it. In the last few months it had become a new nervous habit. She'd never had an injury that wouldn't heal like this. She'd asked a friend, a healing witch about it but Jennet had been unable to offer any suggestions for getting rid of it. All she'd said was that the wound seemed healed but there was something magically wonky about the scar. Dana could have contacted another dragon but she'd hesitated. She got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought about it and she wasn't ready to discuss the possibilities with anyone else.
Beau had a similar scar, she noticed. She trailed her fingers along the line of his shoulder. There were two small spots on his skin, just the width of her fangs apart, right where she'd bitten down on him the first time they'd had sex.
Shit.
She was going to have to talk to another dragon about this. Their wounds looked an awful lot like dragon mating marks. How the hell had she let that happen? There was a distinct series of things that had to happen for dragons to mate...and not all of those had happened that night with Beau. Had they? Dana ticked things off on her fingers.
They had bitten each other. That was a biggie. When a dragon's body sensed the presence of a possible mate, certain hormones were produced. One of those was in the saliva, which acted as a healing and pain-killing agent, since dragons were known for getting more than a little rough during sex. When they bit their partner, the saliva turned into sort of a metaphysical stain - acting as a marker, labeling their mate as hands-off to other dragons.
The mating bond was not involuntary and not a once-in-a-lifetime possibility, thank the gods. Dragons didn't believe in anything like a destined soul mate. The hormonal response could theoretically occur with any possible candidate who was both physically and magically compatible but Dana had never had it happen before.
Her brother Bram had known it was happening, he'd said, when he met Twyla but the spark between them had been so incredible that he'd gone with it, warning Twyla and letting her decide that first night if they were going to stay together for life. Dana hadn't had any idea that she was in that situation with Beau. All she'd known that night was that she couldn't get enough of him.
He'd come inside her pussy. That was one of the ways a dragon marked his mate. She'd gone down on him too...and swallowed. That was two. Besides the bite, a dragon took his mate orally, vaginally and anally then coated her skin in his seed. That last, interrupted round last February had been all hands but he had come on her skin and his fingers had been inside her ass - lubed with her cream, which had probably contained a whole lot of swimmers from their earlier bout. So unknowingly, yeah, they had completed the mating sequence, at least to some extent. It wouldn't be binding unless they both acknowledged and accepted it but it would take a while, she supposed, before her body and magic gave up hope and turned off the hormones.
Dana squeezed her eyes shut. Mating heat, that's what they called it, this continual desire to reaffirm the bond. At least now she understood why she'd been constantly horny for the last five months - and why no other male had remotely appealed to her. How the hell long would it take before she got over this? Judging by the way her pussy heated and creamed just from her lying here looking at him, it wasn't going to be any time soon.
So what should she do? Tell him? Yeah that would be good. Probably send him running for the hills and truth be told, she was kind of glad to have some kind of backup in place as she finished unraveling this antiques smuggling ring. Dana didn't have any delusions about a long-term relationship with Beau. He hadn't given her any false signals on that one. He was a good man, she was sure of that, but he wasn't looking for a mate. Dana hadn't thought she was either but apparently her subconscious had thought otherwise. She was only thirty-five, young for a half-dragon but the magic had come from within herself, so somewhere, in the back of her mind, she must have approved. Goddess, what a mess!
Beau stirred in his sleep, pulling her back down to his side and cuddling her like a giant teddy bear. Dana sighed. There wasn't much she could do about anything now and there were still several hours until daylight. With Beau's breath soft on her neck, she allowed herself to once again fall asleep in his arms.