The tower stones shook beneath my feet as I ran and with a mighty leap, I was over the stone wall, spreading my wings over my back. The feeling was euphoric, as the wind blew past me. The power felt epic, as if I was the first to ever experience it.

  Why don’t we just stay in our dragon form? The feeling is pure adrenaline…don’t want to ever change back.

  But I also knew that wasn’t possible. Too bad.

  Rose bushes and trees became small dots below me as I soared above the landscape. Once I found my rhythm and took command of my shape, I scanned the area.

  My parents’ estate lay on the west side of the thick forest. Our family had a dozen more mansions surrounding the forest, creating a sort of reservation for our kind, complete with radar jammers which kept the entire mountain protected from human technology. The rules dictated that we were to fly and hunt only on our mountain, which was fair. Here, we were hidden, and there was plenty of room for all of us.

  But I was bored with it. What was there to see on a mountain? Nothing but trees and skinny deer. I wanted more. We were powerful creatures. Our nest alone could take out the entire Air Force without breaking a sweat, so why were we allowing ourselves to be confined? At times, I completely understood the need for secrecy, but at other times, it frustrated me beyond measure.

  What the hell, I’m already in deep trouble. I turned away from the forest and looked out over the distant lights of town. I didn’t need to go that far. I could stay out of commercial air space. The one place I wanted to visit was much, much closer. Baring my fangs in a reckless grin, I pointed my nose toward the suburbs.

  Chapter Three

  Jenna

  I was having that dream again. I knew it even as it was happening, but I couldn’t seem to control it. Honestly, I didn’t really want to. Derek stood across from me in a dark, misty garden, gazing at me with those intense green eyes. He reached a hand out to me.

  “It’s you, Jenna. It’s always been you.”

  I wanted to ask him, if that was true, why he kept breaking my heart. Instead, I floated across the dewy grass to take his hand. It felt cold under mine, but his eyes were so very warm…

  “I want to show you something.” His words echoed in the mist. I knew what was going to happen next. He would kiss me, and I would wake up in tears. It happened every time.

  “Wait,” I said. “Don’t kiss me. Just show me.”

  “But the kiss is what I want to show you.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  A grin spread across his face, then kept spreading, unnaturally wide. His teeth grew into sharp fangs and his eyes yellowed, the pupils narrowing into the thin slits of a predator. I screamed.

  “Jenna, wake up, you’re dreaming.”

  When I felt a hand stroke my hair, I shot up. His voice was still in my ears, but that couldn’t have been—

  “Derek!” He was sitting on my bed, one hand now on my thigh. I clutched the covers close, over my barely-concealed breasts. “How did you get in here?”

  He shrugged and grinned. “You left your window open.”

  “On the third floor?”

  He chuckled softly. “I know why you were hesitating earlier.”

  “Because you’re insane?” I was still shaky from that nightmare, and the shock of seeing him here made me feel like I was still asleep, which in turn made me irritable.

  He calmly shook his head. “No. It’s because you don’t think I’m serious about you. Neither does Jason.”

  I crossed my arms over the blanket, keeping it tight against my chest. “Can you blame us? Derek. You’ve had a hundred girlfriends this year alone, and you’ve never once showed me that you were interested in me at all, except as a third party member for your games with Jason.”

  He touched my face and I shivered. “I wasn’t ready,” he said. “I knew if I fell in love with you, it would be forever. I wasn’t ready for forever.”

  I scoffed. “And now you are? Please. You just want me because it means you get paid.”

  He shrugged. “So NASA moved my personal timeline up. But don’t be fooled, Jenna … I always intended for it to be you. It’s always been you.”

  He was echoing the words he’d whispered in my dream, and now I was certain that I couldn’t possibly be awake right now. I needed to be sure. I reached out a hand for him, and found him cold to my touch. As the sleep and shock faded from my awareness, I saw that he was shirtless. I had been so concerned about my own modesty that I hadn’t noticed his lack of it in the dark room.

  “Where are your clothes?”

  He leaned forward with a wicked grin. “I left them at home.”

  “What? You didn’t drive here naked?”

  “Drive?” He shook his head. “I don’t need to drive.”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t walk. Are you high right now? Or just drunk still?”

  “I’m not high or drunk. But you are a bit intoxicating.” He moved closer to me and his bare thighs caught the moonlight. Good lord, he was completely naked. Face flushing, I looked away from him.

  “You aren’t embarrassed, are you?” He murmured. “There’s no reason to be.”

  “My brother’s best friend is naked in my bed and acting completely crazy,” I said primly. “Embarrassed isn’t exactly how I would describe my feelings.”

  “Oh? How about…aroused? Enticed? Excited?” He ran a finger up my arm as he spoke in a low, warm, steady voice.

  “Confused, irritated, and annoyed are more like it,” I said, but the lie caught in my dry throat.

  “Little liar.” He chuckled and kissed my shoulder. “Tell the truth.”

  My heart was beating so hard I was sure he could hear it. He always could see right through me.

  “It’s not fair,” I whispered.

  “What isn’t?”

  “You’ve always been able to see right through me,” I said. “And I could never figure you out.”

  “You’re just missing a piece of the puzzle,” he said, running a hand down my spine. “If you marry me, I’ll tell you all of my secrets.”

  “More bribery,” I sighed. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

  “No,” he confessed. “Teach me. Make me understand.” His lips were still pressed against my shoulder, his hand still playing at my spine—my head spun with the pleasure of his touch, and words ran from my grasping thoughts before I could catch them.

  “Stop,” I said. “I can’t think.”

  To my great relief, he did. He moved off of the bed and walked to the window, shamelessly displaying his muscular body.

  “My world works in bribes and negotiations,” he said after a moment. “Emotions are only useful if they reveal your opponent’s weakness.”

  “So that’s how you see me? As your opponent?” A flash of indignation broke his spell.

  He turned to me, his hands clasped behind his back. I couldn’t help but look, and I almost gasped out loud when I saw it. He wasn’t even aroused and it was the biggest I’d ever seen. A thirst welled up in me which could not be quenched through reason alone, and it refused to be ignored. I struggled to focus on what he was saying.

  “No,” he said. “You are…the other half of a proposed merger. I want you to be my partner, for as long as that partnership is mutually beneficial.”

  I shivered. “You make it sound so cold. Where’s the romance? The heat?”

  He shrugged. “I make cold-blooded decisions, Jenna. That’s the only way to make sure I don’t get burned by them.”

  My eyes flashed as I tilted my chin in his direction. “And what makes you so sure I won’t burn you?”

  His eyes bored into mine and his voice was low when he asked, “Who says I am?”

  He was taking a risk with me, I realized. I could easily out him to his family and investors, tell all the tabloids that the marriage is fake, a ploy to get his hands on his dad’s cash. I could ruin his life with a word, and he knew it. He wanted to do it anyway.

  “Then why risk it?”

  He crossed the room to me, all glistening and rippling in the moonlight, enticing my senses with his essence. I craved him, but my mind wouldn’t shut up long enough for me to accept the gift laid at my feet. He knelt beside my bed and took my hands in his. The blanket fell, but I didn’t care; his eyes captured every bit of my attention.

  “Because I want to,” he said. “And I want you. You know what they say about spoiled rich kids, right?”

  “They always get what they want?” I hated my voice for shaking.

  He turned my wrist over and kissed the thin, sensitive skin. “Exactly.”

  “Oh,” I breathed. “I feel like I should tell you ‘no’ just to teach you a lesson.”

  I expected that cocky grin, but he only gazed somberly up at me – is that a look of hurt in his eyes?

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  God, no. I wanted to wrap myself around him and taste every bit of him. I wanted to explode with the pent-up desire of ten thirsty years. I wanted him desperately, and I could not for the life of me remember why I was hesitating.

  I shook my head and slid my hand over his now-warmed skin, over his bulging biceps and toned shoulder, up his neck to tangle my fingers in his shaggy black hair. My silk nightgown rustled against the peaks of my breasts, sending shivers of heat over my body to pool between my hips. Derek didn’t move.

  “Touch me,” I whispered hoarsely. “Kiss me.”

  He took my mouth fiercely with his, running his powerful hands over my thighs, under the hem of my nightgown. I gasped into his mouth as white-hot pleasure coursed over me and we tumbled into bed, nothing between our bodies but gossamer-thin silk. He rose, hot and ready, and I ached for him to just take me.

  Derek wasn’t in such a hurry. His sensitive mouth trailed over my jaw to my earlobe, igniting my senses with a flick of his tongue. I swallowed a cry; I couldn’t very well wake the house with my passion, Jason would murder someone. Derek didn’t make it easy. His hands were as skilled as his mouth as they slid over my breasts, kneading and teasing, making me arch into him under waves of intense pleasure.

  His mouth moved down to my shoulders, and he slipped the straps down to expose the creamy flesh of my heaving bosom. Tongue twirling, strong hands molding, fingers teasing, he started a fire across my chest which spread across my body. Trembling, I held him close, twining my legs around his.

  As I arched against his hips, he pulled away with a grin and pressed a finger to my lips. “Not yet, Jenna. Patience.”

  “I’ve been patient,” I said in a low growl. “For years.”

  “Yes,” he whispered, his warm eyes glowing. He touched my cheek softly. “Yes, I know.”

  My nightgown fell away under his hands as he trailed kisses down my belly to my hips, to be tossed unceremoniously aside as he bared me to him. He groaned low in his throat as he lowered his head between my thighs. I smothered a scream behind my hands as his hot mouth touched me in an open-mouthed kiss.

  He was magic, working my body like no one ever had. Limp with pleasure, then stiff with it, I undulated and danced against his mouth, legs shaking as I exchanged my hands for a pillow, drowning my cries in its downy softness. God, his fingers! Working with his tongue, he coaxed me to the very edge of ecstasy only to back down at the last moment and build me up again until I was sobbing with the intensity of my pleasurable, aching need.

  I was beyond words, dying for release. I grabbed a fist of his hair and pulled him up toward my trembling mouth, arching up to meet his hips as he slid over my body. My own taste on his hot, slick lips drove me wild. Overtaken with the wild abandon of passion, I cried out as he entered me. He broke the kiss with a savage growl and fell on my neck, kissing and biting as he thrust deeper and deeper, clutching me in a strong embrace. Losing all control, I buried my teeth in his shoulder as my orgasm shook me to my core.

  He was trembling, sweating, keeping his breathing under tight control. I touched his face, gazing up into his dark green eyes.

  “Let go, baby,” I murmured. “Come with me.”

  A look of shock, wonder and yes, even panic swept over his face. He thrust deeply, roughly, his rigid shaft filling me up before spewing his hot load inside of me.

  “You rob me of my senses.” He growled at me, accusingly, as his breath caught in his throat. Following a series of small, hot exhales and one long, controlled inhale, he rolled off of the bed. Why was he so upset … Almost angry and still breathing so hard?

  “Derek?” I rose to go to him, but he waved furiously at me.

  “Back up.” His voice was hoarse and smoky, a deep growl which seemed to be bigger than he was. I froze to the spot, confused and terrified. He inhaled deeply again, and his eyes began to glow yellow. A bright light appeared in the center of his chest, spiraling out toward his fingertips. He stumbled toward my open window, snarling in pain, and propped himself up against the sill.

  “Derek, what are you doing? What’s happening?” I wanted to scream, but it came out a whisper.

  He only shook his head. Then, with a powerful, painful jump, he tumbled out of the window.

  “Derek!”

  An explosion shook the house as he fell. Terrified, I rushed to the window, not understanding the light show that was happening outside, greens and golds dancing up from the ground like an upside-down aurora borealis. It faded as I poked my head through the window, but I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Where Derek should have been lying broken, there was a dragon, barely missing the ground below him, before his wingspan carried him upward, magnificently.

  I loved dragons. I read about them, I collected dragon art, I even had a stuffed dragon that I’d slept with since I was a child. But I had never actually believed that dragons existed, because that would have been insane. But here I was, standing naked in my room, watching a glorious dragon soar to the dark skies above.

  My first thought was that the beast had eaten Derek. I would have wept, if I hadn’t been in shock. But then before leaving me alone with this unbelievable wonder, he glanced back at me. There was something in that shiny, smooth-scaled face that I recognized.

  Maybe it was the color of his eyes, or the way his eye ridges furrowed like brows in that particular way, but I saw Derek in him. My mind fought against what I was seeing. Of course this was impossible.

  “I’m dreaming,” I said out loud.

  The dragon shook his head. I was about to argue with him, but then my bedroom door slammed open.

  “Jenna! Are you okay? Did you feel that earthquake? It almost knocked me out of bed! Oh my god, you’re naked! I’m sorry, get away from the window or the aftershocks will knock you out!” Jason turned around the instant that he noticed my state, but kept talking to the wall.

  “It wasn’t an earthquake,” I said as I reached for my robe. “It was –”

  I chanced a glance out of the window, then stopped mid-sentence. If that really was Derek, he probably wouldn’t want me telling everybody his secrets, would he? But Jason had been his best friend for basically ever, wouldn’t he know already?

  What am I thinking?! That can’t possibly be Derek. I’m dreaming. Or hallucinating.

  “If it wasn’t an earthquake then I would really like to know what you think it was, because that was the craziest thing I’ve felt since I went to California that one time, you remember that? Books flying off the walls, and--!”

  “What the hell? Was that an earthquake?” Brandon, our downstairs roommate, lurched into my room wearing a pink satin dressing gown lined with faux fur.

  “God, doesn’t anybody knock anymore? This is my room!”

  “Please, girl, you don’t have anything I want to see anyway. God, I hope my Geignman collection is okay! Do we even get earthquakes? I mean, obviously, but I have never ever, in my entire life, felt anything like that before. Well, except for that one night with –” Brandon’s fear seemed wired to his mouth, and all the emotions were pouring out of him in wave after unorganized wave.

  “Nobody wants to hear it, Brandon! Are you decent yet, Jen?”

  “Yes, you can turn around. But seriously, guys, knock. You don’t know what I’m doing in here.”

  “Right, like little miss career goals has a social life.”

  “Shut up, Brandon.”

  “Actually, somebody just asked her to marry him yesterday,” Jason said, jumping to my defense.

  “Oh?” Brandon raised a perfectly manicured, inquisitive brow. “And what did you say?”

  “I told him that I would think about it,” I said haughtily. “Now get out of my room before I sic a dragon on you.”

  “Drama queen! Fine, but tomorrow, I’m making waffles and you’re going to tell me all about him so I can tell you what to do. Cheat day!” Brandon flounced out of the room, leaving me with a pounding headache.

  “So, um…what are you going to do about Derek?” Jason asked. “Just so I can prepare. This is going to be huge for me if it happens, being the bride’s brother and the best man and all,” he joked. “So? Did you decide?”

  Good question. On the one hand, I had just had the best sex of my entire life, better than I even imagined it could be. On the other hand, Derek had obviously been upset, jumped out of my window, and then turned into a dragon?

  Jesus, was that an endorsement, or a great big, damn, FAIL stamp?

  They say you shouldn’t get married with big secrets, and I was pretty sure that my secret obsession with bad TV was a much smaller secret than turning into a freaking dragon.

  And how was I even entertaining the whole dragon thing? It was crazy.

  Sleep. I obviously needed it. A lot of it.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to figure it out when I hear it come out of my mouth.”

 

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