She snorted but didn’t remove her hand. She kept it right where it was, nice and warm and teasing.
“So refreshing to find a guy who’s not full of himself.”
I shrugged. “How else should I put it?”
“You could tryagile as a cat.”
I grimaced. “Agile as a dragon.”
She chuckled. “Making you jealous, am I?”
“You want Bene? You can have him. Or Roux, for all I care.” I said, lying through my teeth. If she so much as looked at either of them, I would kill them — in or outside the house, grandma’s china be damned.
Her eyes made another orbit. “I don’t want Bene. Or Roux.”
Silence ensued — heavy silence, punctuated only by our panting breaths — making me hyperaware of her warm hand, resting comfortably on my ribs. Ribs that felt a lot better now, though the ache hadn’t disappeared. It had just migrated south, where my cock swelled against my jeans.
“Who do you want, then?” I whispered.
She moved her lips, and I braced myself for her retort.
Wrong way to brace myself, as it turned out. Because a split second later, she covered my mouth in a deep, bruising kiss.
A-plus answer,my dragon hummed.
I kissed back just as hard in a furious, messy clash.
Destiny,my dragon crooned, though my brain was running on two cylinders, at best. Not a good time to analyze whether this was destiny, pure chance, or plain old lust.
Destiny,an earthy voice grumbled in my mind.
Her hands fisted, crushed, and released my shirt — only to repeat the cycle all over again. I inhaled her rose-and-lilac scent while doing a little fisting and crushing of my own.
When I pushed my hips against hers, she gasped against my mouth. I caught that sound and swallowed it, deepening the kiss until her fingers dug into my shoulders.
I broke away. “You want me to stop?”
“Absolutely not,” she panted, diving straight into another kiss.
My inner dragon roared in approval, and my last shreds of control tumbled away in the hurricane Mina unleashed.
We’d been tiptoeing around each other long enough. Pretending we didn’t have chemistry, when the truth was, we had enough to blow the roof off a research facility.
The stone wall at my back was cool, but her body was a wall of heat, pressing against my chest. My stomach. My hips…
We broke off for air and ended up staring into each other’s eyes.
“You still mad?” I murmured, my lips moving against hers.
“Furious,” she whispered.
I chuckled, a low, rumbly sound that made her shiver. Sliding her arms behind my neck, she pulled me into a deep, hungry kiss. I leaned forward greedily. Too greedily, because we teetered on the edge of the stairs again.
She clutched at me. “Oh! Watch out.”
Nice of her to think I was capable of such a thing, given the haze that had taken over my mind. Especially now, with her scent curling around me, spiced with sweet frustration.
“Hang on,” I ordered. Without waiting for an answer, I hustled her up the stairs and into the safety of the upper hallway.
