Up In Smoke by Katie MacAlister Page B

to catch up before things get out of hand?”
    Gabriel looked at me as if I had suddenly turned into a frog in his arms, his silver eyes so beautiful, I wanted to dive into their mercurial depths.
    â€œIt’s just that we’ve been apart for so long. I have so much to tell you, so much I want to ask you. How have you been? Where have you been? How are Maata and Tipene, and all the other silver dragons? Things like that.” I put my hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned into the caress. “I appreciate more than I can say how much you want to physically join, but Gabriel, I want so much more than to just make love to you. I want to be with you. I want to know what you’re thinking, what you’ve done while I was gone, and I want to tell you about the things that happened to me. Couldn’t we have just a smidgen of conversation before things get too carried away?”
    â€œNo,” Gabriel said simply, and dropped me onto the bed.
    I looked up the long length of his body as he silently pulled off his clothing. Gabriel was tall, a foot and then some more than my five foot nothing, with long, muscled legs, a chest that had just enough hair on it to make it sexy without being hirsute, and shoulders broad enough to make me feel very feminine in comparison. I looked at all that and threw conversation to the wind. “OK,” I said as I held my arms open.
    To my utter surprise, he didn’t immediately pounce on me.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” I asked, confused.
    He glanced down at my body lying supine before him.
    â€œIf it’s about the outfit, that was Magoth’s choice, not mine. I had nothing to do with it—”
    â€œNo,” he interrupted, his gaze molten as it crawled its way up my mostly exposed skin. I did a rather clumsy shimmy to rid myself of the upper part of the outfit, tossing it to a nearby chair with a come-hither look that could probably have steamed a carpet. “It’s not that, although I have to admit that Magoth’s taste in clothing is . . .”
    â€œHorrendous?” I said as Gabriel’s sentence petered off. “Appallingly hideous? Utterly and completely inappropriate?”
    â€œExceptionally fine,” Gabriel said, his fingers giving little spasmodic jerks as he stood naked—and aroused—next to the bed, watching me.
    â€œWe’ll discuss that point later. What I’d like to know now is why you aren’t, at this very moment, pleasuring me like I’ve never been pleasured before.” A thought occurred to me as the memory of a similar experience came to mind. “You’re not still worked up about the fact that we never seem to get time to indulge in foreplay, are you? Because I told you the last time this came up”—I eyed his penis, which bobbed merrily at me—“that it really isn’t an issue.”
    A muscle in his jaw worked. “I talked to my mother about you. She agreed that this lack of self-control I exhibit around you is not fair to you.”
    I sat up, glaring at him. “You talked to your mother about our sex life?”
    An odd sort of wary look crossed his face. “She sensed something profound had changed my life. I told her about you. She was very pleased that you are my mate, and looks forward to meeting you. Do you have an issue with my mother? You would like her, Mayling. She is not at all like Drake’s mother—she would never try to have you killed.”
    Startled, I got off the bed and marched around it to poke him on his chest. “That’s not the point. What is the point is . . . Drake’s mom tried to have Aisling killed?”
    Gabriel’s brows pulled together, his hands on his hips. “Little bird, now is not the time to discuss Aisling and Drake. You have been separated from me for six weeks. I must rejoin with you. It is the way of the dragons.”
    â€œI’m not the one who brought up the subject of