Read Online Dragons Realm by Tessa Dawn - Free Book Online

shut, try­ing to re­call her train­ing, strug­gling to re­mem­ber her duty, en­deavor­ing to re­turn to the rhythm of her breath­ing.
    When he took a step back, mov­ing sev­eral inches away, she nearly col­lapsed with re­lief, but then he placed both of his hands on her shoulders and began to slowly mas­sage her muscles. It was al­most as if he were a pot­ter and she were a lump of clay as he kneaded her arms, slowly ran his palms down her bi­ceps to her el­bows, and then gently traced the out­line of her fore­arms to the junc­tion of her wrists. He lif­ted his hands and re­posi­tioned them at her waist, meas­ur­ing her slender mid­riff with ten splayed fin­gers, cup­ping her belly with his out­stretched hands. When his palms brushed over the curves of her hips and his thumbs slid ab­sently over her but­tocks, she panted in near des­per­a­tion, try­ing to dis­pel her fear.
    He knelt be­hind her, and Mina’s eyes grew wide.
    Dear god­dess of mercy , she was na­ked!
    What was he about to do?
    Her eyes flit­ted across the room as she des­per­ately searched for a fo­cal point, an ob­ject to fix her at­ten­tion upon. She quickly settled on a brass oil lamp, situ­ated next to a tattered tome on the fire­place man­tel, and she could prac­tic­ally hear the gov­erness at the Keep whis­per­ing in her ear: When you’re stand­ing be­fore him, and he is touch­ing you; when the pain is too in­tense, or the de­grad­a­tion is too severe; when the de­mands he makes of your body feel too ex­treme, like you can­not com­ply, find a fo­cal point or an ob­ject across the room and place your full at­ten­tion upon it. Study it. Mem­or­ize it. Name its vari­ous parts in me­tic­u­lous or­der. Count down the seconds, the minutes, or the hour; and do it in meas­ur­able in­cre­ments.
    Mina stud­ied the lan­tern and began to re­cite the vari­ous com­pon­ents in her head: Burner. Wick. Col­lar. Chim­ney. Shade —
    And then Dante reached out to grasp her ankles, and she al­most jumped in place. For the love of the Spirit Keep­ers , what would have happened if she had kicked him?
    She swal­lowed her anxi­ety and stood as still as she could as he re­peated the earlier pro­cess, only this time, per­form­ing the min­is­tra­tions on her legs. He slowly ran his hands up the backs of her calves, mas­sa­ging her muscles as he moved along, and then he ro­tated his thumbs over the backs of her knees and slid his palms along the out­side of her thighs.
    Mina cringed when Dante’s seek­ing fin­gers came to rest at the crease of her roun­ded bot­tom, their pro­gress all at once im­peded by the soft, cir­cu­lar globes. His prox­im­ity to her most in­tim­ate re­gion was far too close for com­fort. She had never felt more ex­posed—or hu­mi­li­ated—in her en­tire life. When at last she couldn’t stand an­other mo­ment, she slapped at his wrists. “Prince Dante!” Catch­ing her­self, she im­me­di­ately with­drew her hands and softened her voice. “I mean, mi­lord …what are you do­ing?”
    Ig­nor­ing her dis­obedi­ence, Dante chuckled low in his throat, the tenor a raspy, mas­cu­line sound. “I am meas­ur­ing your heat, sweet Mina. I am check­ing for any block­ages that may have gone un­detec­ted at the Keep, try­ing to dis­cern how much of your es­sence I can take without do­ing you ir­re­par­able harm.”
    How much of her es­sence he could take without do­ing her ir­re­par­able harm?
    Oh gods…
    She trembled.
    “I must say,” he ad­ded softly, “it is hard not to be­come…dis­trac­ted.” He purred low in his throat and then groaned. “By all that is sac­red, my Ahavi, you are more beau­ti­ful than I ima­gined.” He placed a soft kiss on her der­ri­ere , and then he rose to his feet in one smooth, agile mo­tion. He lightly trailed the backs of his fin­gers up, along her spine and across