Flame Daddies Read online

  Alora had never been especially attracted to humanoid males. Given her devotion to personal fitness, it was easy to dismiss most men as weak—both of mind and body. They lacked the self-discipline she possessed to work and hone her skills every day, always looking for a way to improve. They got comfortable, then they grew lazy. Even now, when she was so out of practice, she didn’t want to settle. She wanted someone to take over and hold her accountable for the fact she hadn’t done much exercise, lately.

  She needed a man who could outsmart her and overpower her. Someone who could force her to submit to him even when she didn’t want to. But she also needed a man who would be delicate with her heart. Someone who knew when it was time to give her a blankie or a glass of hot chocolate.

  It was such a tall order and so utterly unlikely such a man existed, she had put her longings out of her mind and replaced her loneliness with eating lots of chocolate and visiting orphanages. Even her father didn’t know she was still a virgin.

  Propriety was important on Nidia, but it was also expected that someone of her station was supposed to be able to—extremely discreetly—use sex to her advantage to get men from other planets to obey her command. It was a bit difficult to do that when she’d never actually popped her cherry—any cherries, for that matter. She hadn’t so much as popped the space between her cherry-scented lip gloss. Whenever she was supposed to show alien dignitaries around Nidia, they always seemed surprised she actually gave them a tour instead of taking them to her bedchamber for an hour.

  But here was Sharpe, and he seemed to have interesting things to tell her about a world she’d never encountered before. He hadn’t put a shirt on the whole time she’d been around him, and she watched in awe as his muscles rippled. Her guess was he must eat eight meals a day of a high protein diet. At least, that would be the case with humanoid physiology. Were these big, dragon bodies easier or harder to keep in shape? She wished she knew.

  The more time Alora spent with Sharpe, the more she realized she liked him. He was softly spoken, but she was willing to bet he could be super-fierce if he wanted. And when he leaned over her like this, her breath caught in her throat.

  He cradled the back of her head, and her heart melted. His touch was so gentle and careful despite his size and obvious strength. When he took a deep breath, her eyes widened. Fear chilled her blood, and she wanted to fight him, but she still couldn’t move. She was utterly in awe of the physical power she sensed in his body. How easy it would be for him to snap her like a brittle twig.

  “Please, don’t hurt me,” she whispered.

  “Shhh, you’re safe with me, little one,” he replied softly. Then he breathed his green fire over her, and she gasped first with terror, then amazement as the flames covered her body, just as they had before—she hadn’t imagined this after all—only instead of burning her to a crisp and killing her, they just tingled, igniting the nerve endings all over her naked body and eliciting a glowing sensation from every inch of her skin.

  As the fire continued, she giggled, elated as her body responded to this gentle, soothing flame. How was it possible something like this even existed? She had never been outstanding at science, but she was sure fire was supposed to be hot, no exceptions. Yet this fire ensconced her body, and it wasn’t burning her. At least, not on the outside. Her core was clenching and working up an inferno of its very own, and if she’d been wearing panties, she was sure they would have melted by now.

  For a moment, she forgot who she was, where she was, what she was doing here, and emitted a deep, soulful moan of desire, begging him with her eyes to seize control of her and give her the release she craved. Sharpe paused, and her heart skipped a beat as she realized she’d made the noise out loud. She pressed her lips together, trying to show him she wouldn’t do it again; she could be good and lie quietly while he worked.

  As he took another breath and continued healing her, the expression on his face was nothing short of confusing. Was he amused, aroused, or disinterested in her? If only she knew.

  ***

  When the tiny human had made that sound, voicing her desire and her need for submission, it had taken all of Sharpe’s self-control to continue working on the task at hand. He hadn’t given in to her wordless plea for sex for two reasons. First, he didn’t know if he would break her. Second, currently, she couldn’t actually move. That was guaranteed to throw a massive spanner in the works of anything fun he might have wanted to do. His cock protested he could move enough for both of them, but Sharpe did his best to ignore it.

  Patiently, methodically, he recited the names of the restorative plants on Telia II as he breathed his green healing flame onto his mate—wait! No! Not his mate! Just a humanoid he found—and waited for the radiant energy in his breath to repair her injuries.

  When she sighed a second time, she slowly raised her arm, and he wondered why until she opened her hand carefully and stroked his cheek. Her touch was soft and delicate. Utterly feminine. He shivered with delight as a warm glow surged through his cock.

  “Sharpe! Your watch is over! I’ll keep an eye on her next. Oh, great, you got her moving,” Brynn’s voice grated as it cut into Sharpe’s private reverie with Alora.

  He didn’t want to leave her. Something about her appealed to his instincts to protect and care for her. How could he let his brother be alone with her? Wait... was he jealous? Sharpe frowned and shook his head as he gently placed her down on the sand.

  “Go easy on your body, little one. It’s going to need time to recover. I’ve done what I can. Now it’s your turn. Rest.”

  “I’m sleepy,” Alora replied thickly.

  “Give in to it,” Sharpe told her. It pained him to leave her when he wanted to hold her, to surround her with his warm body, so she slept cozy and protected.

  “Sharpe! Go eat!” Brynn barked. With a sigh and one final glance over his shoulder, Sharpe walked away from Alora, wishing they were alone.

  Chapter 3:

  Alora felt a sense of loss the moment Sharpe walked away. They’d been getting along so well, why would he leave her? Was it just because his brother told him to? Why did he listen to him? She didn’t understand.

  Every inch of her body burned as sensation returned to her limbs which had been numb for hours. Then after several minutes of agony, she grew even more tired. Coldness seeped in, but she was too sleepy to do anything about it, so she lay on the sandy ground and drifted in and out of sleep as she shook and shivered, wishing she had a blankie or a temperature controller.

  ***

  Brynn watched the humanoid girl. Her face had visibly crumpled when Brynn ordered Sharpe to leave, but the man needed food to live. Then her fists had balled up, and she pressed her lips together, clearly in a lot of pain, followed by quivering. He guessed she was cold. Brynn wished, not for the first time, he had the same sort of fire as Sharpe or Canavan, both of whom could carefully use their flames for warmth. If Brynn tried that, he’d blow her up. Aside from cooking bacon quickly, his flame was pretty much only good for looking cool and causing explosions—worthy causes, but not much help right now.

  There was only one solution, and he didn’t especially want to use it but he saw no choice. He would have to lay down with her and use his body heat to help her. Humanoids went into shock so easily, and she’d had quite an ordeal with the slavers who had kidnapped her.

  Reluctantly, Brynn got down onto the sand-covered ground and curled his tall body around her ball of ice. Part-shifting, he elongated his coccyx until his tail was almost the same length as the rest of his height, wrapping it over her carefully. It was the closest thing he had to a blankie. When she roused for a moment, he wondered if she’d be mad at him for touching her, but she just smiled, then put her arms around the tip of his tail, cuddling it like a soft toy as she rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Adorable. Brynn raised a brow in surprise. He spent half his life chasing after girls of any species who got within hearing range, but this was the first time s
omeone had stirred his heart. He wanted to take care of her and make her happy. She was so soft and vulnerable when she was asleep, but would she be the same once she wasn’t in a healing slumber?

  ***

  Alora awakened to find herself held in place by something heavy. Had they tied her up? She pushed at whatever was on top of her—not restraints. She followed it with her eyes, then stared at Brynn who watched her with an amused expression.

  “You have a tail,” she remarked. “Of course you do. Who doesn’t?”

  “You don’t,” Brynn said with a wink. “You were cold. I needed to stabilize your temperature.”

  “It makes sense.” She couldn’t help giggling. “Although a blankie or a cup of hot chocolate would have worked just fine too, you know.”

  “If we had those things, indeed,” Brynn retorted.

  Alora sighed. She hated the various civilizations around the galaxy that didn’t have blankies. This was the first one she’d come across with no hot chocolate.

  “Wait, what do you have? So far, I’ve seen cave walls and sand.”

  “That’s about all there is in the cave.” He sounded like there was something he wasn’t telling her and she wasn’t sure what it was.

  Alora tried to make sense of this. Her life before she was kidnapped included dressing for dinner, ensuring she always had the latest accessories on display—so photographers didn’t tell the galaxy she was out of style—buying expensive foods, wearing different shoes each day...

  She didn’t even have a pair of shoes here; the slavers had taken them. All through life, she’d been surrounded by so many objects, she used to have nightmares of drowning in them, and now, she didn’t even have the basics. It was going to take some adjustment. One thing made her more curious than the rest though.

  “Where is your fitness suite?”

  Brynn gave her a strange look with his glittering, golden eyes, then threw his head back and laughed. “We do not have such a thing.”

  “But your bodies are so hot...” She caught herself quickly as she eyed his strange tattoos. “I mean, how do you stay in shape?”

  “We are dragons. We shift, then we fly. Flying is like being an acrobat.”

  Alora was sure she should be afraid when she imagined the dragons flying, but for some reason, she was mostly curious. She had never come across anything like these men before. She eyed Brynn’s body as he sat near her. His skin was a beautiful tanned color, complimenting his spun gold hair and glimmering eyes. She wanted to touch him, to discover if he was real, then run her hands all over his body, feeling the crests and ridges of his form... wait. Did dragon-men have normal shaped cocks? She flushed furiously as she wondered what was beneath his pants.

  “Are you moving now? Because if you are feeling better, I can totally show you what we do when we fly.”

  Alora flexed her fingers and toes. They felt normal. Her arms and legs ached with stiffness, but that was nothing new, an inconvenience at best. Moving might help shake it off, anyway.

  “I’m good to go,” she spoke more gruffly than she intended.

  “Sweet! Stay there a moment.” Brynn moved away from her, and she got the impression he was about to do a run-up. Before her eyes, his body changed shape and size until he was about twenty feet long with a huge snout and powerful jaws. His eyes were at the side of his head, with small, pointy ears above them. There were wings, glimmering golden and nearly transparent. His skin was now completely covered in shimmering golden scales, and his tail was topped with jagged looking spikes of gold, matching his curved, sharp claws. He was badass, and she stared in astonishment.

  “Did that hurt?” She couldn’t stop staring.

  “Nope, it’s like stretching. Feels good. I get crampy if I don’t stretch out into my dragon form often enough.” His voice was now deep and roiling, but he still spoke like one of the hotshot spaceship pilots who used to ferry Alora around.

  “Do I climb on your back?” She eyed his shiny scales doubtfully.

  “Nah, I have a pouch for carrying stuff. You can go in there.” He picked her up, and his touch was surprisingly delicate as he lifted her body and slid her, feet-first, into the pouch on his underbelly. Despite what numerous myths and legends said, this dragon’s underside was the same smooth, beautiful golden color as the rest of him. Her feet reached the bottom of the pouch, and she felt restrained up to her breasts where the pouch ended, so she had a good oblique view of things. Her hands popped out, one on either side of her, and she gripped the top of his pouch. It was like being in a really snug, tight bed, tucked into a comfortable blanket that stopped her from moving. Behind her back, she felt his body move as he breathed.

  “You comfy?”

  “Yep.” She didn’t think she needed to hold on, but she gripped him with her hands, anyway as he began to move.

  “I can’t see you down there, so tap my belly three times if you have a problem, and I’ll try to land.” He was so considerate. All the same, she was a little afraid as they reached the mouth of the cave.

  “Oh, my...” She stared out of the opening. For some reason, she’d expected them to be at ground level, but they were hundreds of feet high, in the side of a rocky mountain while other, rocky, snowy mountains extended ahead of them.

  “Here we gooooooo!” Brynn leaped from the cave mouth and swallow-dived toward the ground. Alora screamed, but her voice was lost in the howling, icy wind as they tumbled in a freefall toward sharp, jagged rocks. He unfurled his wings and glided in a smooth curve before ascending once more. He flapped a couple of times to gain altitude, and she watched the ground fall away again.

  It was breathtaking, quite literally, she decided as she gasped for air.

  They seemed to follow a warm current of air as they glided out, away from the cold mountains. Alora had no idea how fast they traveled, but the air whipped her silver hair back from her face, spreading it against Brynn’s golden scales as they hovered above clouds and mountains.

  The clouds were the thin sort that caused fog and mist and stuck to the mountaintops like fat stuck to venison. The mountains seemed to get progressively shorter as Brynn flew in that direction, and when he turned in a wide circle, she saw the mountains they had come from were by no means the tallest ones in this range.

  She had never been to Telia II before. Generally, her father and his advisors had encouraged her to travel to the Prime planets and avoid the outer ones, for her personal safety. Now, she felt privileged, to not only be on a planet everyone fantasized about visiting, but to be here with four guides who could fly like this, showing her so much more than what she would ever see on a tour.

  With a little wobble in her stomach, Alora wondered if she might spend the rest of her life here. It was spectacularly beautiful, but she was not the sort of woman to settle on a backwater eco-planet such as this. Did they even have electricity here? She shuddered as she thought of Pombos. Was society here any better? She already knew the elves hunted the dragons for an ancient feud. There were probably all sorts of other sticking points.

  Lost in thought, she watched as they cleared the mountain range, and the terrain turned to treetops—enormous trees with red trunks, interspersed by sparkling purple rivers. It truly was beautiful here.

  ***

  Brynn floated on thermals and let them carry him gently down. One of his favorite techniques for long-distance flying was to let the atmosphere do most of the work. That way, he had the energy for aerobatics.

  He wanted Alora to see though, first. To understand. Telia II wasn’t just some crappy planet that wasn’t well-behaved or rich enough to be a Prime planet. It was so much more than that. Dragons fought hard to retain their place here—their planet was truly special.

  He’d heard people say there was another planet, Telia I, that was just like this only without elves. Plantlife, water, mountains, weather... it had all evolved the same and adapted to the difference in temperature. It was thirty degrees warmer there, and elves couldn’t stand the clima
te.

  It wasn’t often dragons were permitted to own space-faring vessels, so he hadn’t seen it up close, but now that Argon had “acquired” an unregistered spaceship, Brynn was certain they would explore their solar system over the coming months and find out if the rumors about Telia I were true. He knew it was definitely a real planet, and closer to their sun than Telia II, hence its name, but whether it was livable for dragons or not, that was the real question.

  The idea there might be a planet just like this, but too warm for elves to live on was tantalizing. The fuckers couldn’t steal his shit if they couldn’t stand the heat.

  He’d flame every last one of them if he thought it would help, but Brynn knew if the elves were extinct, some other pseudo-monkey species would appear and overrun Telia II instead. The galaxy was full of humanoids. His own species had evolved a way of taking on a humanoid appearance by manipulating the energy around them, just to survive. Still, the other form had its perks. In his dragon form, he was extremely limited in the ways he could interact with the little humanoid woman currently snuggled in his pouch. She was so tiny, it would be easy to shatter her. In his humanoid form... oh, there were so many things he wanted to do with her. She smelled so good.

  What would his brothers think if they knew he was falling for a humanoid?

  Who cared? He was Brynn. He was second after Argon. He would do what he wanted. The others would deal. When they returned to the cave, he was resolved to claim her as his own. He would treasure her like the tiny humanoid she was. Something about her size seemed to draw out his daddy instincts, and he wanted to take care of her as though she were his young. But since she wasn’t really his young, he had no big qualms. Also, he wanted to bone her hard. Maybe he’d tie her up and make her beg him to stop. Yeah. That sounded hot. And she was so tiny, his cock was the same width as one of her arms. She’d have to be very turned on to take him. He looked forward to the foreplay, to piercing her tiny body with his huge member.