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He blinked. “Your thought processes really don’t follow any logical path, do they?”
“No. Are you going to answer the question?”
He leaned forward and crossed his arms on the railing. He was so close that my skin tingled with awareness. “I kissed you because I wanted to.”
Part of me wanted to do a happy little dance, but I resisted the urge. “And now that you know I’m draman?”
He glanced at me, eyebrow raised. “You being draman doesn’t alter the enjoyment of that kiss, however brief it might have been.”
“So you don’t regret the action?”
“No.”
“Then why keep bringing up the fact I’m draman like it’s some kind of problem?”
“It’s just that you’re constantly surprising me, Mercy.” He hesitated and raised a hand, his fingertips lightly touching my cheek. “My reaction has nothing to do with you personally.”
His caress sparked the fires deep inside and a shudder that was all pleasure ran through me. But I stepped away from him, even though it was the last thing I really wanted to do. I needed to make him understand. Needed him to see me. Not just the draman. Not just the woman. Me.
Why, I don’t really know. It wasn’t like we had the possibility of a future.
Maybe it was just some perverse idea that if a man who didn’t believe draman should exist could see me—the person rather than the draman—then maybe there was some hope of a better future for us all.
“But it does, Damon,” I said softly. “It makes me feel like I’m a second-class citizen. Like I’m never going to be good enough, no matter what I do.”
He frowned and clasped his hands together on the railing again. “Draman are not dragons, and that is something you’re never going to change.”
“No, but we can change the attitudes that go with it.” I waited until a young couple had walked past, then added, “Because what you’re saying now is that despite the fact that some of us can do exactly the same things as full-blood dragons, we don’t deserve an equal footing. That we indeed deserve the punishments and death.”
“I’m not saying that at all, but—”
“There are no buts here, Damon. We live and breathe fire just like you full-bloods, and we deserve the same sort of respect.”
“You’re never going to get that respect easily, Mercy. The old ones are too set in their ways.”
“But I’m not standing here talking to an old one, am I?”
He studied me for a moment, his dark eyes as unreadable as his expression, then he glanced away again.
I sighed. “If you can’t respect me, what’s the point of kissing me?”
Still he didn’t say anything.
Way to go, Mercy. Open your big mouth, make your point, and lose any chance of getting down and dirty with Mr. Dark and Dangerous. Maybe one of these days I’d learn to shut the above-mentioned mouth.
But then again, maybe not.
Because really, it needed to be said. I was sick to death of full-bloods thinking I was a quick and easy lay just because I was draman. Granted, I enjoyed sex as much as any other dragon—or draman, for that matter—but there had to be something there. And that something wasn’t disdain for what I was.
Unfortunately, full-bloods could be great deceivers, and sometimes not even those of us who had spent our whole lives around them could tell truth from lie. I wasn’t even sure they knew the difference, sometimes.
And I was fervently hoping Damon wasn’t one of those deceivers, because I had a feeling he could cause me a whole lot more heartbreak than any of the full-bloods in my past.
I dropped my gaze back to the sea lions, who were doing little more than lying on their blubbery bellies, soaking up the last few embers of sunlight.
As the last of dusk’s energy and music faded, I pushed away from the railing and said, “Let’s walk toward the boat, just in case he gets there early.” Anything was better than standing in that depressing silence.
“Do you know the mooring number?” he said, walking close enough that the heat of him washed over me, chasing away the growing chill of the night.
