His skin was smooth, what she could see of him, and her fingers reached toward his bare shoulder.
Oh my God. Touching Math when he was a dragon was one thing. Molesting him when he was a vulnerable, nude man was something else altogether.
She snatched her hand back and looked toward the casino, where a few other employees had gathered. One woman started to clap slowly.
Bethany did not want all those people staring at Math. He should be protected. He should be sheltered from their raking gazes.
She kept her eyes averted and flicked her fingers, flinging magical clothes at him from the ether.
The cloth wrapped around his body, forming into slim-fitting denim jeans, a white shirt that hugged his wide chest and flat belly, and loafers for his feet.
The cement was hot. The scalding sidewalk probably had felt good to a fire-breathing dragon, but it would be ouchy to human skin. So, loafers.
Math sat back on his heels and examined the shirt she’d conjured for him. “Cool. Thanks!”
She was pretty surprised her spell had worked. “It’s nothing. I’m just glad there was enough magic left in my battery to produce them.”
Math tugged at the shirt’s open collar. “I cannot express how much I appreciate these.”
“It’s nothing. Magical inanimate objects are easy. Most witches can poof them up. They aren’t going to last, though.”
His eyebrows dipped. “Do I need to get back to my suite right away?”
“Oh, no. They’re stable for a while. When you take them off, it’ll trigger the counterspell, and they’ll disintegrate back into the ether. Or midnight. Conjuring spells often end at midnight. You know, pumpkins into carriages and mice into horses? Midnight.”
“I appreciate it. Shifting back to human form is the worst part of shifting. When I shift to dragon mode, it shreds my clothes. When I turn back, I’m—well, you saw what happened.”
Oh, heck, yeah, she had. She’d seen six feet and six inches of glorious manflesh crouching at her feet, broad and strong and ripped in all the right ways.
Too bad his legs had been strategically positioned when he’d transformed back. Bethany suspected she could have seen quite a bit more.
She looked back over to the casino, where the crowd was dispersing. “I’m really sorry,” she said, unable to look at him in her abject shame. “I put sea monsters in the fountain.”
“Yeah,” Math said, staring back at the fountain, though the sludge seemed to be just sloshing slightly in the pool. “That might be a problem when the angel investors come.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Accidents happen. I’m more concerned with the deliberate malfeasance and outright theft occurring on the top floor of this place. Come on. Let’s get some lunch.”
Her stomach rumbled at the thought of lunch. “But we can’t just leave six hungry sea monsters in the fountain. What if they eat someone?”
Math shrugged. “They aren’t going to eat anyone.”
“They might. Evidently, they can get out of the fountain and slither around.”
“Nah. They’ll stay in there now. They won’t bother anyone.”
“They could eat people or bite them or sting them with those jellyfish tentacles. Their stings really hurt.”
His head whipped around, dark hair moving, and he looked down at her. “Did one of those jerks sting you?”
“While I was running.” She lifted her trouser leg, revealing an angry burn that wrapped her ankle and up her shin. When the air hit the wound, worse pain lanced into her muscles and skin. Red lines were spreading from the edges into her surrounding flesh. “It’ll be okay, though. Right?”
“Jeez, Bethany.” He whipped her up into his strong arms again and carried her over to a tall sculpture in the shade of the casino, setting her down on the wall around it. “Let me see.”
“It’s fine. I’ll call my friend Willow. She can whip up a potion to heal that.” Assuming Willow’s potion worked like it was supposed to, rather than turn Bethany’s foot into an enormous raven’s claw. Again.
Math sat beside her and lifted her leg in his hands, carefully peeling her pant leg back to expose the raw flesh.
Bethany leaned back on her hands, balancing because he was holding her leg in the air. “Um, don’t touch it, okay? It kind of hurts.”
He glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes. “Dragons don’t have much magic other than the shifting thing, but there are a few things we can do.”
Yeah, she’d heard the stories. They were specific and explicit. “Oh? Like what?”
Still gazing into her eyes, Math lifted her leg to his lips and kissed her ankle.
Good thing Bethany had shaved her legs that morning. Otherwise, Math would’ve gotten a mouthful of shin bristle.
Soothing energy flowed over her skin and sank into her flesh. The wound rippled and closed, healing with clean, new skin and only the faintest of scars.
She said, “That feels so much better. You’re a healer?”
“Not with anything else. Sea serpents are a type of dragon. I can neutralize their venom.”
He examined her leg as the skin healed, watching it turn pink and smooth. A few faint lines marked where the wound had been.
One lash near her knee had formed an open sore.
He rolled her trouser leg up farther, lifted her leg, and brushed his lips over that spot, the skin up by her knee, on the inside of her leg, where her skin was maybe two inches from being classified as her thigh.
He opened his eyes and looked at her, his lips still almost caressing the inside of her thigh.
Bethany held his gaze, her lips open, and she couldn’t think of a word to say, certainly nothing like Stop or Don’t. Those words seemed to have entirely fled from her vocabulary.
Math raised his head, still staring into her eyes. His irises were about half sparkling gold.
His lips were still an inch from her knee.
The wound was gone.
She didn’t say a word, even though they were sitting out in the middle of a courtyard in the shadow of an enormous casino, just a dozen yards from where a crowd was rushing by on the Las Vegas Strip.
Math finally shook his head a little and lowered her leg. “I suppose I can put this down now.”
“Yep, it seems to be entirely healed. We could probably stand up, if we wanted to, and go do something else. Probably. If we wanted to.” Dammit, she was blathering.
“Yes, that would probably be the best option. I have meetings scheduled, and you probably have an agenda to see to.”
“Yeah, that’s what should probably happen. We should go to our meetings and agendas.” Her prattle made no sense. She should stop talking.
Math hadn’t let go of her ankle, and she hadn’t pulled away.
He ran his fingers up her calf, sending shivers farther up her leg. “It feels better now, right?”
“That feels great. I mean, it’s totally healed up. Thank you. For healing it. With your magic anti-venom mouth. Thanks.”
Bethany prayed to all the gods of magic for a case of sudden-onset laryngitis.
“My pleasure.” His voice had dropped an octave.
“Mine, too.”
Or the end of the world. Anything to make her stop talking.
Math looked over at her and lowered her leg to his lap. “We should probably get back to work.”
“Yeah. Probably.” She dragged her leg over his knees and to the ground, feeling the friction of their trousers against her leg. “I am really sorry about the sea monsters.”
He shrugged. “We’ll figure out how to get rid of them and the algae. We have two weeks until the angel investors get here. It’s not like they’re going to be here in a few days. In the meantime, those serpents aren’t going to bother anyone.”
“They have big teeth and jellyfish tentacles,” she said. “I still worry that they might eat a person or two.”
He smiled, though it seemed a little rueful or embarrassed.
“Nah. I told them not to.”
She was impressed. “I guess it makes sense that you speak dragon.”
“It’s a little more than that,” he said. “I’ve been told I’m kind of an alpha dragon.”
“Is it because you’re so big? You can threaten to beat them up or eat them?”
He laughed. “Not really. It’s not the size of the dragon in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the dragon. Queen Elizabeth is a tiny, little reptile, but she’s an alpha. When she roars, dragons listen. But let’s eat some lunch. I’m starving. Transforming makes me hungry.”
“I’ll bet. It looked like a lot of effort.”
“Thanks for the clothes again. That trick is handy. Public nudity can be a problem for shifters. I should keep you with me.”
Bethany would like that very much, but she didn’t say anything.
Math looked startled. “I mean, not locked up in my lair or anything. Because I’m a dragon. So, I might steal a beautiful woman away and lock her in my lair. But I wouldn’t say that because that would be an inappropriate thing to say at work. And I wouldn’t want to offend you.” He looked up at the cloudless expanse of blue sky above the towering casinos. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
She turned to him and considered how to phrase her reply. “What if I wasn’t offended?”
He faced her and looked down at her from his tall, tall height. “Then whatever I said wouldn’t be a problem.”
Bethany smiled up at him, really hoping this conversation didn’t go south. “So, you think I’m a beautiful woman?”
“I thought you were beautiful the moment I saw you in the HR office, but that’s not something I could say then.”
“Do you still think so?” Yeah, she knew she was fishing.
He smiled and smoothed a lock of her dark hair from her ear to her shoulder. “I can’t take my eyes off of you.”
She smiled up at him some more, really putting her eyes into it. “Do you really have a dragon lair?”
“Maybe.” His voice had lowered to a gravelly growl again.
“Do you steal beautiful women away and lock them up in your lair?”
“Would you like to see my lair? Or at least my penthouse suite again?”
Yep, he was definitely inviting her up. “Maybe.”
“How about we have supper tonight and discuss alpha dragons stealing you away to lairs and anything else that comes to mind?”
“I’d like that,” she said.
He smiled. “I’ll clear my calendar for the evening.”
Supper For A Dragon
BETHANY scurried around her small apartment, picking up and discarding dresses and overthinking every single word that Math Draco had ever said.
For the evening.
He’d clear his calendar for the evening.
Not that he’d clear his calendar for the night.
Just the evening.
So, maybe he hadn’t meant anything by it.
But he said he’d clear it for the evening.
But those cracks about his lair and his penthouse suite must have meant something.
His words went around and around in Bethany’s head as she walked around her apartment, getting ready for their date that might not be a date, and she rehashed every second of every conversation she’d ever had with him until it was mincemeat, looking for clues.
There weren’t enough clues.
He was her boss, and he’d been very careful not to leave clues.
Other than running his lips over her inner thigh.
Because she’d had a sea-monster-jellyfish sting.
And kissing her after the algae had tried to kill her with poison gas.
Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
And she’d sucked his thumb first.
Maybe it had been a pity kiss.
After all, he’d stopped her from going further.
It had all the hallmarks of a pity kiss.
See? It could all be explained away.
Her doorbell rang.
Oh, gods of magic, who could this be? She was supposed to meet Math at the restaurant in two hours.
Lords above, she hoped it wasn’t Willow and Ember wanting a girls’ night because then she’d have to admit she had a date.
But she didn’t have a date.
Not unless Math thought it was a date.
But what was she, chopped liver of newt? What she thought mattered just as much as what he thought, and she thought tonight was a date.
She hoped it was a date.
Bethany should have looked out the peephole.
Later, she thought about that.
She wasn’t expecting anybody to show up on her doorstep, certainly not Math, because they were supposed to meet at the restaurant an hour and a half later. There was no way that he would show up at her messy apartment while she was still fresh from the shower and wearing nothing but a towel tucked under her armpits. She shouldn’t have opened the door like that at all.
But just then, her mind was whirling—analyzing every word that Math had ever uttered, all the choices of dresses or slacks in her closet to wear on the date that night, what type of makeup she should put on like demure natural pinks and peaches or smoky eyes and scarlet lips, whether she should put on perfume or whether he might be allergic to it, and the fact that she really should pick up her small apartment in case she was hit by a car and killed while she was on the date with Math because Bethany wouldn’t want her mother to see her clothes strewn over the furniture or the paperbacks straddling every arm on every chair but she wasn’t going to conjure some apparitions to do it because her spell might summon another glitterbomb—so she just grabbed the doorknob and flung her front door open.
Math stood outside.
He wore dark, slim pants that clung to his long legs and muscled thighs and a white shirt, open at his throat.
At least two dozen red roses filled his arms, wrapped in paper.
He looked at her from over the top of the flowers, his golden eyes wary. “I couldn’t wait.”
Bethany stepped back, grabbing the towel wrapped around her naked body just in case it loosened because she was breathing too fast. “I’m not ready yet.”
He glanced down at her skinny legs sticking out of the dingy towel, and then looked right back at her eyes. “I don’t mind. I’ll wait in the car or something. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”
“Don’t you have spreadsheets to look at?”
“I don’t care,” he said.
“Don’t you have thieves to stop from stealing your hoard?”
“I don’t care.”
“Doesn’t the very important Chief Financial Officer have important places to go and people to see?”
“I couldn’t wait until tonight. I just wanted to see you.”
“Well, you’d better come in, then.”
Math walked inside her apartment, his eyes locked on hers. At first, Bethany was impressed that he hadn’t ogled her in the towel even once, but his eyes staring into hers were becoming more predatory by the minute.
Math held the enormous bouquet of red roses out to her. “I thought you might like these. You’re not allergic, right?”
“I love roses. You’re not allergic to perfume, are you?”
“I love perfume. On girls, I mean. But it’s not like I’m running around sniffing women, looking for perfume. But I’d like perfume on you. I mean, no, I’m not allergic to it.”
Bethany took the bouquet from his arms and asked him, “Are we both really nervous?”
Math laughed. He laughed so hard that he leaned over and braced his hands on his knees. “I knew coming over here so early was a bad idea, but just like every bad idea, it sounded like a great idea at the time. I knew it would be crazy to show up at your apartment when we were supposed to meet at the restaurant. I knew it would be worse to get here two hours before we were supposed to meet at the restaurant. But I couldn’t help myself. It’s like I watched myself walk to my
rental car, get in, buy the flowers, and drive over here, howling at myself all the way that this was a terrible idea and you were going to think that I was stalking you. Do you think I’m stalking you?”
Bethany carried the roses into the kitchen area, over to one side of her tiny apartment. “No, but the night’s not over yet.”
“That’s encouraging. At least I haven’t scared you off yet.”
Bethany felt like she should pursue this, at least a little. “Do you have a problem with scaring off girls?”
“I’ve never done anything like coming over to a girl’s place two hours before a date before. I mean, I show up for dates. I wouldn’t stand someone up or ghost on them. I’m not a jerk. But I don’t do stuff like this.”
She hunted in the cabinets for a minute, just in case her kitchen had grown a huge vase, and then snapped her fingers to summon one out of the ether, already half-full of water. She stuffed the rose stems into the vase. There were so many of them, they barely fit. “Okay, if it gets weird, I’ll tell you.”
He walked around behind her, probably perusing her small and messy apartment. “Deal.”
Bethany was a little steamy from the hot shower and a little warm from seeing Math in clingy, casual clothes instead of a more concealing suit. “You know what is weird? Me, standing here in a towel. I think I’ll get dressed and put on some makeup. I’ll get ready as soon as I can.”
When she turned, she expected to find that Math had walked past her and was heading for her living room.
She had kind of hoped that he would be standing right behind her, so that when she turned, he would take her into his arms. Her towel might fall off. Things like that could happen.
Instead, Math was leaning against the other kitchen counter, just a little farther away than she had hoped. His glittering eyes held fire. He was so tall that the backs of his thighs rested against the kitchen countertop. His fingers were clenched around the counter as if it were the edge of a cliff, and he might fall.
The intensity on his face didn’t make him look angry at all, but he looked hungry. “Don’t get dressed on my account.”
Dragons and Magic Page 8