Page 13 of Desired By the Dragon

“Anyway,” I said, retreating one step and then another with difficulty as amusement shone in his eyes, making them sparkle.

Sparkle?! Flames above, the heat was making me lose my mind.

“I’ll see you around,” I forced out and he hummed, the deep rumble making me forget myself for a moment as the urge to stretch and rub up on him like a cat became overwhelming. “Bye,” I choked and I rushed through the door before he could say another word or I could do something stupid. The faint sound of his laughter followed me as my skin flushed hot and then cold, the crisp autumn air not doing much to wrangle the heat burning me up from the inside.

Claws flew out, puncturing my coffee cup, and I swore as cinnamon coffee poured out of the sides of the paper like little spouts, soaking my hand.

“Damn it,” I growled, shoving the soggy cup in the trash can a few paces from the café door. Now I was horny and I didn’t have any coffee.

I looked up at the gray sky in time for the first few drops of rain to let loose and huffed a humorless laugh. Fuck it. Fuck decorum, fuck the heat, and fuck Max, the mysterious dragon who finger-fucked like a god.

Why was fate trying to set me up to fail?

Giving up on any air of casualness, I started to run. The deluge of rain fell faster and heavier, turning the sidewalk into a slick stream of gray and brown as the cobblestones blurred together and I rushed toward the edge of town and the cover of the woods. My enhanced speed made it easy to escape, and within moments I was inside the tree line as the shift rippled over me and I leaped into the air.

Wings flaring, I pushed up higher, careful to stay inside the town’s wards that would keep me hidden from nosy mortals. I pressed myself to go faster, to take that want that Max had stoked and use it to fuel my flight.

The rain slapped at my scales, making their orange gradient from dark to light look like gemstones as the streetlights popped on and glinted off of my hide. I could barely feel the droplets, not in this form where I was nearly invulnerable.

Treetops brushed my wings and I reveled in the sound, the rustle of the turning leaves against my flank as I banked to the left and dove toward the cove, tucking my wings in tightly and sinking beneath the water in one smooth motion.

Kennie, the resident kraken, wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t bother him, and the rush of cold water felt good, enlivening.

By the time I approached the shore, I’d slipped back into my humanoid form with ease, some of the energy spent up in my transformation and flight, and I waved to one of the merfolk watching me cautiously from a distance.

My skin heated, the water flooding off of me as steam as my clothes and hair dried. It was likely going to be a frizzy mess, but I hadn’t jumped anyone while I’d been out — so a win was a win.

Unbidden, my mind flashed back to Max and I frowned.

That one was going to be a problem, wasn’t he?

Chapter Six

Max

Fingers snapped in my face and I jerked back instinctively.

“Damn, where are you today?” Taylor said and I frowned. “You could at least pretend to be interested in what I’m saying.”

Truth be told, I’d thought I had been pretending. Clearly not well.

I sipped the lukewarm coffee in my mug and grimaced. It was fuel, nothing more. Anything to get me through today’s classes. More and more I’d found myself drifting off, my mind occupied by the memories of Kiernan, the way she’d gasped when I’d touched her in that bathroom stall, the heat in her eyes as she chewed me out at the coffee shop… It was distracting in all the best, and worst, ways.

“Forget it,” Taylor muttered and I raised a hand absently when he stood up from the table between us and dumped his empty plate in the staff room sink before walking out and toward the archway that led back to the classrooms. He would get over it. We’d been friends for a long time and he was used to my mercurial moods, though usually it was some academic problem or hypothesis that had me distracted, tangled in my own thoughts.

Not a girl. Not a dragon.

I couldn’t deny it though. The phantom scent of Kiernan kept swimming through my mind, messing with my senses, and I didn’t know what to do about it. The heat was torturing me like it never had before, and the person I wanted to see it through with didn’t want me back. Or, that’s what she’d said — her racing heart and wandering eyes had told me something different altogether, not that it did me much good to know she wanted me as much as I did, her. Not if she wouldn’t act on it.

Did I want her to act on it?

The bell rang and I glanced up, realizing the entire lunch break had passed while I’d been ruminating over the likelihood of tasting Kiernan’s pussy again.

There had been a class this morning, but I couldn’t have recounted what I’d taught my students. Hopefully something worth their tuition, but there were no guarantees. I was useless like this.

It was why I tended to avoid going out with my colleagues after work, or do anything more than attend family dinner, really. If I wanted to reach extraordinary heights and live up to the legacy of the dragons who came before me, then I didn’t have time for frivolous things like love.

Lust, I could do though. Just this once, because of the heat. Plus, obsessing over one dragon was better than the sex-fueled bender I’d been on before. That one had taken some recovering from.