He grunted. “Nick and Casey are smart. Especially when it comes to video games. My friend, Beast, has helped them become more disciplined, too, and their behavior has improved.”
“You have a friend named Beast?”
He nodded and trailed his finger down my side. I could feel his erection growing again against my thigh. We’d had sex so many times already that I was sore. I didn’t want to, but I had to take a break. My body wasn’t used to the erotic gymnastics that sex with Remy was.
“I do not want to talk about other males.”
So, he was feeling as possessive as I was. I liked that. Grinning, I ran a finger over his frown. “You brought him up.”
“I regret it.”
“What do you do?”
Remy’s frown deepened, and he averted his gaze. “It is complicated.”
“Try me.”
“I am not really from around here.” When he met my eyes, he seemed to be watching my response carefully. “Where I am from, my brother and I were leaders in our…area.”
“Leaders…like CEOs or elected officials or law enforcement, what?”
“I don’t think so.”
I frowned. “Like what, then?”
“I do not want to say. I don’t want you to think less of me. I only want to make you proud. I am not that person anymore, so it does not matter.”
I wrapped my arm over his waist and hugged him tightly. He was right. It didn’t matter who he’d been, but whatever it was in me that had convinced me that he was the man for me was also damned sure that he was a good guy. “Right. We can talk about it later. I won’t judge, Remy.”
“My people… We are very different. I have much to tell you.” He paused. “I am hesitant.”
His admission elicited a grin from me. “What are you afraid of?”
“My brother and friends are like me, but their mates are like you. When their mates found out about them…some found it difficult to accept. I do not want you to push me away.”
I was pretty sure he was a fierce badass dragon, yet he was speaking with such vulnerability. It was doing things to my heart. I held out my pinky. “I promise that I won’t judge you over what you tell me.”
He stared at my pinky. “What’s that?”
Laughing, I took his little finger and linked mine to his. “It’s a pinky promise. A little immature, but I’m around more teenagers than adults, so it’s all I’ve got. It’s a symbolic way of solidifying a promise.”
Sitting up, his pinky held mine tightly, and his gaze turned serious. “I pinky promise that I will care for you always, mate. I will never leave your side.”
Again, I should’ve been weirded out. True, undying love didn’t happen overnight. I watched my teenagers think they were in love with someone new every other week. I knew love didn’t bloom instantly, but what I knew and what I felt... As soon as I saw Remy, I’d felt like I knew him. Something in me had recognized him, and that something had no doubts. Maybe my soul had been waiting on him for so long it had almost given up. But he’d magically appeared, right out of the sky, just in the nick of time.
“Is this magic?” My eyes blinked to clear away the emotional tears forming in the corners. “It feels like something magical. Enchanted.”
We sat facing one another, my legs over his, our stomachs almost touching. “Ancient magic. Mate, long before either of us were born, we were designed for each other. Designed and created to seek out one another. My people hold mates in the highest regard. A mate is the best thing that will ever happen to a male and this is the best day of my existence.
Wow, okay, was I suddenly in one of those old-time Disney animations with fluttery butterflies and chirpy bluebirds and little forest animals dancing around? Sure felt that way—like I was a princess in a fairy tale.
“I’m sorry I almost messed up and married David.”
He growled. “I would have killed him.”
I just raised my eyebrows.
“You. Are. Mine.”
Nope, that didn’t even scare me. Because he was right. I was his. “I was backing out of the wedding even before I saw you, you know. I couldn’t go through with it.”
“I know.”
“I don’t pretend to understand this thing between us. Not really. I hear what you’re saying, but it’s all very foreign to me. Still, it didn’t take me long to recognize that this was what I’d been waiting for. I didn’t love David. I don’t think I even liked him very much. I just got caught up in all the hoopla and… I was afraid that no one else would marry me.”
“Any male would be lucky to marry you. I would marry you right now.”
I grinned. “I snore.”
“And?”
“Not just light snoring. I snore like a grizzly. So loud you might never get a good night’s sleep again.”
He simply shrugged. “I don’t care. It will be worth it.”
“What if I have other bad habits? Like not putting the top back on the toothpaste?”
“Is that something you are supposed to do?”
I hissed. “Yeah. Put the lid back on the toothpaste.”
“Fine.”
“Only a barbarian wouldn’t put the lid back on,” I teased.
He looked away. “Yeah.”
Catching his face between my hands, I made him look at me. “I saw you—”
A loud pounding at the door startled me silent. Instantly, I had an urge to dive under the covers and bury myself—hide. Whoever it was, they were an intrusion and I didn’t want to face a soul.
My cell started ringing on the end table. Between the pounding and the ringing, the sudden chaos shot my anxiety level skyrocketing. It had been so great, Remy and me all alone on our very own “hotel room island” before the world started closing in on us.
“You are trembling, Lennox.” Remy growled at the door and easily slipped out of bed, leaving me in it and pulling the blanket over my naked body. “I will tell them to go away.”
Afraid of who was at the door, I pulled the blanket over my head and tried to be as still as possible. I hated confrontation. I just wanted to wimp out.
Muffled sounds penetrated the blanket: Remy yanking open the door, a startled gasp from the other side, a low, ominous growl…
“Where’s my wife, asshole?” David’s words were slurred. Besides being an unwelcome intrusion, he was clearly three sheets to the wind.
A few seconds after the door closed, the bed dipped beside me. Remy pulled the cover away from my face, smiling down at me. “It was no one important. We should play some music, just in case ‘no one’ comes back. I believe I might almost feel bad about punching ‘no one.’ He has just lost the best thing that he will ever have.”
I grabbed for the remote on the bedside table while also reaching for Remy. “You’re sweet.”
“Hardly.”
I poked buttons until music started playing. “I think you are sweet.”
“Did you forget what I have been doing to you? Was that sweet?” He said it like being called sweet was an insult. “Maybe I need to refresh your memory.”
Refresh away. Who was I to stop him?
13
Lennox
“I must feed you,” Remy spoke from the chair next to the bed where he sat watching me. In only black trousers, he was leaning back with his hands folded across his stomach. I vaguely thought about reaching for my phone so I could capture the moment and snap a pic of him like that. Then I could sneak glances at it while I was in the middle of teaching geometry proofs. Like a midday pick me up.
“I am hungry, now that you mention it.”
The minibar snacks we’d been devouring weren’t enough to sustain us. Not with the energy we were burning. I reached for the packet of peanuts. Crumbs.
“You finished the peanuts.”
He shook his head. “That was you.”
Oh, yeah, it had been. Sleeping with Remy had me a little disoriented. I wasn’t even sure what time it was, or if it was still my ex-we
dding day. It might still be daytime, but the hotel drapes were thick and closed. I stood and walked to the windows.
“Blazing scales, you’re stunning.”
Flashing a grin over my shoulder, I pulled the curtains open a crack—just enough to see out. Twinkling city lights peppered the blanket of twilight. As I wrapped my arms around myself, watching the headlights of cars passing under us, I felt a heaviness on my chest that had something to do with coming back down to the real world and what I had yet to face.
“What were your parents like, Remy?” When he didn’t answer, I turned away from the window and found him standing a few feet behind me, his warm, golden eyes suddenly cooler. “Forget I asked.” Reaching out to touch his chest, I shrugged the question off.
He caught my arm and pulled me into him. “No, it’s okay. It has been a long time since they passed. It is still a sore topic, I suppose.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You did not do it.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “We need food. I do not want to leave you here alone. Will you go with me?”
Feeling the heaviness on my chest press down harder, I turned back to the window. “I’ll be fine here, Remy. Honest.”
Hugging me from behind, he rested his chin atop my head. “What is wrong, mate? I can feel your melancholy like a dagger to my heart. Did I not please you?”
I laughed. “Is that a legit question?”
He shrugged.
I turned to look up at him. “It’s not you. It’s my parents. They’re horrid sometimes. That’s probably not the nicest thing to say around a person who’s lost his parents, but mine are…awful. My mother is pushy, and she knows that if she nags me enough, she’ll get her way. I don’t like fighting with her, so I just cave.
She pushed me into dating David and then into the engagement. I should’ve said no at some point. I just went along with it all. Even when I had second thoughts and mentioned slowing things down, she was livid. She wanted to tie our family to David’s. Now, she’s going to be a living nightmare.”
“We will face her together.”
I shook my head. “That would just make it worse. And I don’t want you to see me get ripped apart by my mother. It’s embarrassing that I’m almost thirty and she still treats me like I’m a child. My dad’s no better. He just nods along in agreement to whatever she says. The only time he ever speaks up is when she’s on a rant and asks him to agree. He doesn’t care about me or what happens, as long as I don’t make Mom angry enough that he has to deal with her.
It’s pretty messed up, I guess. I almost married a man who I would have been miserable with because she insisted on it. I should be livid, too. I should be so angry that I throw a temper tantrum right back at her. Instead, I just feel sad. I don’t want to fight. I hate fighting.” I blew out a big gust of breath. “I just wish she was a normal mother who would support me and love me for who I am. That would be awesome.”
Wearing a pained look, Remy ran his hand through his hair and then pulled me back into his body, hugging me tight again. “It is difficult for me to witness your pain without doing something to fix it. Tell me what I can do.”
I smiled into his chest. “Feed me. Maybe I’m just hangry.”
“Hangry?”
“Hungry-angry.”
“Is that something that happens to you?”
“You have no idea.”
Remy hesitated and then stooped lower to be eye to eye with me. “My mother was an angel to my brother and me. She did everything that was asked of her and never fought back when my father was a demon to her. I loved her, but I wish she would have left us. It would have been the only way to fight him, to leave, and she deserved her own happiness. You deserve your own happiness, too. Sometimes, you must run—or fight. Whatever you feel is necessary to do regarding your parents, I will be beside you.”
I blinked rapidly, but it did nothing to stop tears from falling. An overwhelming abundance of emotion bubbled up from his words and from the support he offered. It didn’t make any sense, the tether binding my heart, mind, and emotions to this man whom I just met. I’d dated David for over two years, and I’d never felt anything like this. With Remy, after a little over twenty-four hours, I was already thinking that this must be what that four-letter word I’d never said to a man before felt like.
“Is this more hanger?”
I laughed and hiccupped. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Come on. Get dressed. We are going to go out for dinner.”
“What if we run into my parents in the hotel lobby? Or worse, David’s parents?” I felt my face going red. “Or any of the many hotel guests that were supposed to be at my wedding this morning? Oh, god. I really did that this morning. I ran away from my own wedding and left David at the altar in front of just about everyone I know.”
“Technically, I carried you away.”
I gave him a wide-eyed look. “What do I do if we run into someone? They’re going to treat me like I’m some horrible, nasty person. Everyone loves David.”
“If so, I will eat them.”
“Remy, I’m serious.”
“I am, too.”
14
Remy
I studied Lennox as the elevator ascended to the third floor, where her room was located. She was staring at the doors, a look of worry clouding her face. She’d been anxious the entire time we dined. Terrified to run into someone she knew, I suspected. I couldn’t say I completely understood, but I had not been kidding when I’d told her that I would eat anyone who upset her. She was such a kind and gentle female. I would protect her at any cost.
My mate. I smiled when she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth and squeezed my hand. She was stronger than she looked if her grip was any indication. “It is okay, mate.”
She looked up at me and offered a tight smile, then back at the door, like she was afraid it was going to open and catch her off guard. “I have a feeling…”
“What is it?”
“I just feel like my parents are going to be up there, waiting.” She sighed heavily and pushed her shoulders back. “There’s no way they’re gonna let this go. And when I am forced to face them, it isn’t going to be pretty.”
Like she’d spoken the words into existence, the doors slid open and she stiffened, emitting a little gasp. Her beautiful face paled, and her fingers tightened like a vice grip on my hand.
“Mom. Dad.”
The couple in front of us looked like normal humans except for the expressions on their faces. Those were the faces of potential murderers. Responding to the hostility on the older female’s face, I stepped in front of Lennox and growled a warning. She would not threaten my mate, mother or not.
“Lennox Danielle Ledoux. I need to speak to you in your room, pronto.” The woman hissed the words out, her teeth bared as she glared around me. “Your, ahem, escort, can leave now. He’s done quite enough damage.”
“I will not leave.”
Lennox’s fingernails were cutting into my palm. Instead of saying anything to the harsh female, she just stepped out of the elevator, doing everything she could to make herself appear smaller. With slumped shoulders, she led the group of us down to her hotel room. Her hands trembled as she slid the keycard into the slot and opened the door.
I stepped into the room after her and quickly closed the door before her parents could come in. “Say you don’t want them in here and I will keep them out, Lennox. It is your choice.”
Her eyes grew wider, her shock quickly turning to horror. “It’s going to be worse. Just…just let them in and it’ll be over soon.”
I pulled her into a tight hug and kissed her. “Alright, but remember, say the word...”
“And you’ll eat them?”
I gave her a predatory grin. “Try me.”
“Okay, let them in. It’ll be okay.” She crossed to the bed and sat on the edge of it, looking like a youngling preparing for a scolding.
That look sent a pang that felt like an arro
w through my heart. It brought back memories of the way my mother looked sitting, waiting for my father to come and dole out the punishment he deemed appropriate for whatever imagined slight she’d committed. The thought triggered a white-hot rage in my veins, and I had to pause with my hand on the doorknob for a second in order to get my dragon under control.
With a deep breath, I pulled the door open and was met by twin glares of fury. I was pleased that their fury was focused on me. I could certainly bear it. As soon as they turned to their daughter, I would have difficulty restraining myself from ripping out their throats.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Lennox stood up, a polite smile on her face. You’d almost never know that the room was filled with so much tension. “Mom, Dad, this is Remy. Remy, this is my mom and dad, Lisa and Doug.”
“Do not introduce us. I don’t care who he is, or what rock he crawled out from under. You, young lady, have done so much damage. Do you even know the trouble you’ve caused? You’ve disappointed us before, but this goes far beyond anything you’ve pulled in the past. What in the world possessed you to run out of the cathedral this morning?” Lisa, the mother, glared and waved her hands in the air, emphasizing her ire. “Obviously, you were out of your mind to run away from a prestigious marriage like that. Most young ladies would kill to have a husband like David. Do you know how long we’ve been trying to get into business with the Thibodeaux family? Do you?
“They’ve already walked away from the deal. Two million dollars, down the drain like it was water. And you with barely a penny to your name. A teacher. You’ll never see two million in your entire career. How dare you pull a stunt like that!
“Not to mention you leaving in the arms of another man—like some common street whore!”
I jerked the door open so hard the top part of it came off the hinges. “Get out!”
Lennox steepled her fingers over her mouth, her eyes so wide they looked like they might fall out of her head. “Remy…”
Fire Breathing Remy Page 6