No, she did not just say that.
Did she? She cringed in mortification, screwed her eyes shut and waited to be splattered all over the beach.
Nothing happened, good or bad. Yet. Maybe if she kept her eyes closed it wouldn’t.
She whispered through shaking lips, “I didn’t mean to say that. Um, pay no attention to the lunatic inhabiting this body.”
As silence continued she opened one cautious eye. He studied her, lava gaze alert with interest. “Are you possessed?” he asked.
She had to clear her throat twice before she could answer. “You would think so, wouldn’t you, with all the dumbass moves I’ve made over the last couple of months. I’ve been acting out a lot with all the stress. This stranger seems to have taken over my mouth. She doesn’t seem to come installed with a brake. No offense.” The corners of her lips lifted in a tremulous smile. “I bet you want your penny back, huh?”
He shifted with sinuous grace, letting go of her hands to kneel over her. His predator’s stare narrowed further. “What do you think?”
Her hands fluttered up and, unable to help herself, she straightened his shirt collar with shaky fingers. Her fingers looked like delicate white twigs against the thick column of his neck.
Dragos stared down at her hands. She let them fall to her chest and clasped her hands together. “I think,” she said in a low voice, “that you would do anything to get your property back. No matter what was taken, no matter what it took, no matter where you would have to go to find it.”
“No one takes what is mine.” His growl reverberated through the ground. He bared his teeth and bent down until he was nose to nose with her. “No one.”
Holy mother, he was terrifying and magnificent. He disappeared in a blur as her eyes watered again. She nodded and whispered, “I know. I—I don’t suppose this matters much to you, and I don’t expect it to change anything, but I am sorry.”
Dragos cocked his head, his attention sharpening. “So your note said.”
Voices grew closer. She craned her neck and saw a couple walking hand in hand toward them. Dragos put a hand over her mouth to keep her silent. As they both watched the oblivious couple pass not five feet away from them, she realized he had to be shielding them from curious eyes. Only thing to do. Otherwise someone might call the cops if they saw a man assaulting a woman on the beach. Then there might be a wholly avoidable massacre.
After the couple walked away, Dragos shifted his weight onto one hand and traced a finger down her cheek, followed her jaw down the side of her neck. He watched the path his finger took as it traced the delicate curve of her collarbone down to the edge of her shirt.
His finger felt hot and abrasive against the softness of her skin. She shivered harder and bit back a moan. Wow, she’d had no idea her sexuality was so messed up. Here was this predator of all predators exuding menace as he crouched over her. He was the only known real dragon in existence. It was like he was a natural monument or something.
Oh my God, not only is he older than the Grand Canyon, but he’s like the pope and the Fae King and the president of the United States all rolled up into one. To some ancient cultures he had been a god.
He was going to hurt her so bad before he killed her so dead, and all she could think of was how hot his kiss had been in the dream and how delicate the touch of his finger was as it traced down her body. Her mind stuttered. She looked down at his hand. Her breathing roughened as her heart raced.
Dragos picked up a lock of her hair and fingered it. Then he held it up to the evening sunlight. He turned it this way and that, staring at the strands. He did nothing at all to keep her pinned in place. The possibility of her escaping from him was that inconceivable. The force of his regard was such that her whole body trembled. A flush of sensual heat torched any coherent thought she might have had left. Her sex moistened in a liquid rush.
She couldn’t have been more humbled, more mortified, or felt more naked. With a Wyr’s ultrasensitive nose, of course he could smell every minuscule body change. He had to be aware of her growing arousal. He could no doubt read every passing emotion in the pheromones she exuded, whereas she couldn’t tell anything about him. His gaze was so shuttered, his expression so severe, she knew nothing at all about what he was thinking—except—
Pia looked down the length of that tremendous male body as he held himself poised over her, down the long torso that tapered from those wide shoulders to the hips that looked so lean and tight. He was dressed for function not fashion, in jeans and a plain white Armani button-down silk shirt, rolled at the arms and tucked at the waist.