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The rest of her sentence was stolen when he captured her mouth with his. His lips were as soft as she’d imagined they’d be, hot velvet pressure that made her moan. Like his other touches, it was like nothing else. He kissed all parts of her mouth, both corners and the dip below her nose, the little ledge above her chin. Everything in between, too, all punctuated with the lightest flicks of his tongue, like he couldn’t help it. Her eyes pricked with unshed tears, it was so strange and perfect.
“Gods, your mouth,” he breathed, pulling back only the barest distance to make room for the words. “I understand why you humans do this now.”
Then his tongue, forked and muscular, invaded, slicking against hers in the hottest, filthiest kiss she’d experienced in her life. He filled and fucked her mouth with it, its length and strength overwhelming everything she knew about kissing. She couldn’t help grinding back against his cock as he gave and took, promised and delivered, and her sleepy, sated clit buzzed back to life.
“Inside me,” she gasped against his mouth when he paused for breath. “Please.”
He wrapped his arms around her, crushing her to his chest. “I wish,” he rumbled in her ear. “I didn’t bring condoms, though. I didn’t expect this to happen, and you smell—”
“I smell?!” she squeaked, interrupting him. How mortifying! She never should have worn that stupid, acrylic Christmas sweater to work. She’d been sweating in it all morning.
“You smellfertile,” he finished, chuffing a laugh into her hair. “Trust me, it’s a nice smell. As much as I’d like to seed you—gods, I can’t believe I can finally say those words out loud to you—making a baby is definitely moving too fast. Not even you can argue with that.”
“I have an IUD,” she offered. “And I’m—damnit. I was going to say I’m clean, but James has been sleeping around, so I don’t even know. Ugh, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“This won’t exactly be the hot holiday hookup I was offering. I don’t blame you if you want to head back to town. But if you decide to stay, I’ll do my best to make it worth your while.” She lifted her hands out of the water to wiggle ten pruney fingers where he could see them.
“Any time with you is worth my while.” He tapped his way up her spine, counting her vertebrae all the way up to her hairline. Then, like he was choosing his words very carefully, he said, “Maybe I don’t want a hookup, anyway.”
How could he say that? His cock was still prodding her ass, swollen and unfulfilled. “I don’t know. Feels like you do,” she teased.
He cradled the back of her head, pulling her even closer so her nose was buried in the hollow of his throat, and she felt his tongue flick over her forehead and trace along her part line. A dragonish version of a kiss on the head. It was so weird and so nice, and it made her smile into his skin.
“Let me rephrase. I don’t wantjusta hookup. I’ve waited…a long time for this. My species, we…there are things you should know before…” he trailed off, sounding reluctant to continue. “Sorry. I’m trying not to scare you again.”
“Just tell me.”
“How can I put this in human terms? We dragonsfixateon our partners. So casual sex is not something we do.”
“Oh! So if we hook up, you’ll be…what? Obsessed with me? In puppy love? Follow me around everywhere like a stalker?” She giggled.
“Ahhh…” He drew out the embarrassed sound, and his hand left her back as he reached up to rub his horns. She could hear the grimace in his voice. “It’s a little late for that, I’m afraid.”
She sat up, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“I’m saying…it wasn’t a coincidence I was on your corner this afternoon.” He exhaled, his breath frosting in the air to mingle with the steam rising from the water. The sky above was completely dark now, light from the cabin windows striping the patio snow in shades of gold. A few stray snowflakes still tumbled down, glittering in the edges of the light.
“But I see you there all the time,” she protested, not wanting to fully process what he was saying. He just looked at her, so she tried again. “You live in the neighborhood.”
“No, I don’t,” he said patiently.
“Yes, you do. I’ve seen you around for years.” Realization stretched and grew inside her, fragile and tremulous like a soap bubble. “Wait. All this time…you’ve been…watching me?”
“I tried to stay out of your way,” he ground out, scrubbing his tattooed forearms self-consciously. “It’s hard to keep our distance once…”
“You fixate,” she blurted out, finishing the sentence he seemed unwilling to. “Oh my god. I had no idea.”
“Yeah,” he said unhappily. “I’m sorry.”
Her mind whirred, running over all their interactions with a new perspective. The daily ones over the counter at work. Glimpses of his bike parked on the street almost as regularly. Steering carts around each other at the grocery store as they exchanged awkward smiles. She’d thought they were meaningless little coincidences, not…important. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His mouth twisted. “What could I say? ‘Hi, don’t mind me, I’m Tairon, your new dragon stalker?’ I tried to keep our interactions somewhere you felt safe—”
“The bakery,” she butted in, nodding.
“Yeah. Until you got to know me. I thought it wouldn’t be so off-putting when I broke the news if you already knew me and were sure I wasn’t a creep. I was going to tell you everything that time when I asked you out. But then I found out you had a boyfriend, so…” he shrugged. “I figured it’d be unwelcome information and backed off as much as I could.”
