Kiss of a Dragon(24)

Although “date” was a pretty loose term. He was going to hook up with a green-eyed girl in a hotel. A girl who was definitely not named Arabella.

This shouldn’t bother her in the slightest—okay, maybe she was due a small amount of envy of the hot sex the two of them would have—but there was nothing to account for the quiver of nerves in her stomach. Was she worried this girl wouldn’t fall madly in love with Lucian like Arabella needed her to? She honestly had a hard time picturing that happening. The man had the face of a god, the body of an angel—even when not in dragon form—and oozed sex appeal. Plus he was kind and decent, in spite of the weird situation they were in. Or maybe even more so because of it. This woman—Sandra was her name—was getting far more than the hot action she signed up for on the WildLove app. If Arabella had any money to spare beyond paying the rent, she would totally bet on Sandra losing her heart to Lucian’s charms with the first orgasm—that was like money in the bank.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t take her to coffee first?” Lucian was asking for the third time.

“If a woman says meet me at this hotel room, and you take her to coffee instead, she’s going to rightly wonder what’s wrong with you.” She swallowed down the dryness in her throat. “You don’t want her to think you’re not hot for her. Not a good way to start.”

His gaze dropped to examine her hands, which lay in her lap, the knuckles of one pounding the flat palm of the other—it was her nervous tic, the one she subconsciously deployed whenever she was agitated.

Lucian gently laid a hand on top of hers. “Are you all right?”

She forced her hands to lie still. “I’m fine.” Only she wasn’t. She needed to hit the gym and kick the shit out of something for a while. Or find a partner for some judo and expend energy that way. That was her go-to relief when the endless stretches of sexual tension had built up and needed more release than her vibrator could give. And she’d built up a lifetime’s worth of sexual tension over the last three days in the presence of Lucian Smoke. Every time he was near, he kept giving her these intense looks and small touches, and dammit, that manly smell of his… it was like she was constantly floating in a sea of testosterone, and her body was in a perpetual state of heat. Agitation. Need. For God’s sake—the man was undeniably hot, but this unrelenting sexual tension was driving her insane. She could hardly think straight.

“Are you worried about returning to the city?” he asked, the concern deep on his face.

“No.”

Lucian was convinced that Seattle wasn’t safe, going on round after round of patrols for demons like the one who attacked her. She’d tried to explain the guy was just a client’s maniac boyfriend, but Lucian was having none of it. So, when he finally settled on a WildLove hookup—after she pestered him for days to accept someone; for some reason, he kept stalling—she’d talked him into letting her return to her office as well, just for a few hours. She’d get some work done while he was off screwing his potential future mate in a hotel. And that really shouldn’t bother her. Because dammit, it was her idea. But it did. “I really do have a life, you know.” Shit. Even she could hear the defensiveness in that.

His eyes blazed a little. “A lover?”

Damn him. “Like that’s any of your business.”

He leaned forward a little. “I need to know everything about you, Arabella. To know if I can trust you with our secret.”

“Still none of your business.” Her agitation was making her legs jumpy. And her body flushed again with his nearness, betraying her. God, she needed to work—something, anything, to distract from his insane hotness. But her thoughts strayed like the little traitors they were to the fancy downtown hotel that Lucian would soon be sharing with this woman he didn’t know. When an image of Lucian laying her—Arabella—back on an enormous high-class white-pillow-covered bed invaded her mind, she forcefully closed her eyes to ward it off. And went back to pounding her hand into her fist. And biting her lip—hard.

Those thoughts were not welcome. Lucian would be banging someone today, and it would not be her. Not today or the next day. Or the day after that. This was a simple fact. And this rendezvous with Sandra needed to happen. So Arabella could get back her freedom and get on with her life.

She felt the heat of his hand a moment before it landed on her cheek. Her eyes jerked open, but she didn’t pull away. His touch was gentle… and red hot. It was just the backs of his fingers lightly brushing her cheek as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, but it trailed a hot line across her skin.