“My beast is offended by the man who tried to hurt you,” Wyatt went on. “It both wants to take you someplace safe and hunt down the other dragon shifter. I’m smart enough to know I shouldn’t do either, but that leaves me battling my own desires. It takes a lot out of me and I’m sorry that I’m not doing better to control myself.”
“Is that what you’re called? Dragon shifters?” It was simple and to the point. Their bodies shifted from one form to another. It wasn’t so hard to understand. “Wait. What is it about me that set all this off? Do I smell like raw meat? Am I made of gold and I just don’t know it? I don’t get why everyone is freaking out over me.”
Kennedy made a show of looking for a patch of gold on her dusky skin, twisting this way and that, pulling up the hem of her shirt to check her waist. When she turned back to Wyatt, he was watching her with an amused smile. She breathed easier, seeing him happier. It wasn’t that she feared him and his wrath, but that she just wanted him to be happy. She didn’t think that was wrong.
She plucked the lens cap from her camera and stood on her chair to start taking pictures. Wyatt balked at her brazenness, but the smile was worth it. She found a bit of her own happiness returning. The stranger was gone. Wyatt would make sure he never came back.
Still, she wanted to know why he felt so strongly about her. She couldn’t help but wonder while something similar was growing inside herself. The need to see him smile filled her. It was tied tightly to the same instinct that made her follow him through town.
Wyatt wasn’t going to tell her, though. His lips were sealed. Well, more accurately, his mouth was full of the cocoa and espresso rubbed rib-eye she’d ordered for him. He groaned with pleasure, a sound that tightened her core and made her shift in her seat when a warmth pooled between her legs.
While Wyatt slowly devoured his massive steak, Kennedy collected snapshots of her tasting menu courses. They were small, nothing more than a dainty mouthful, but packed with unimaginable flavor. The rest of their meal passed by without event, even though her mind still reeled with questions.
Every so often, she glanced at the door. She knew at some point they would have to part. Kennedy would be left on her own again. She refused to live in fear of the stranger, but there was no telling when he would return. Wyatt couldn’t live by her side. Even if it seemed like there was the possibility of something between them, he made no move to cross the line and make it anything more than attraction.
Which saddened Kennedy. She truly wanted to see what his cock looked like while he was excited. Her core throbbed at the thought. It begged for more of Wyatt. Not only his body, which she’d seen in glimpses, but every other part of him. Her fascination with the beast inside him and the pure beauty of it could be very bad.
Grove, despite its charming beauty, was a place of danger for someone like her. If Kennedy had been smarter, she would be preparing to pack her bags and booking the first ticket out of the mountains. Kennedy was not all that smart. Determination rooted her to the spot. She would stay until she overturned every secret about this town and somehow managed to weave herself into it.
When the last plate was served and she’d taken enough photos, she set down her silverware and leveled her gaze at Wyatt. He paused, wary of whatever she might have to say. He was getting better at reading her, she noticed.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she declared. Looking around, she saw people. Humans that lived among the dragons without fear. Dragons who happily lived among humans. “I’d like to believe that if there were a way to ward off losers like that creep, then you would help me with it.”
She was leading him, trying to pull information out of him. He kept it guarded, but if she was clever, Kennedy could convince him to help her. She’d already done so much for him. It was only fair.
“I’m going to pay for you to leave. Don’t worry.”
She gritted her teeth. That was not the reaction she’d wanted. Then, she jutted out her chin and looked him in his bronze eyes. “Do you plan on carrying me through airport security? Are you going to drag me aboard the plane, kicking and screaming?”
She thought she saw smoke curl out from his nostrils. Kennedy was not daunted. The threat of smoke held no actual fire. Wyatt wouldn’t burn her, nor would he force her to leave. No one in this world could make her leave Grove. She needed the time to figure out what it was that called to her, if it was the town itself or if it was indeed the dragon shifter across from her.
Never before had she known this feeling. No place in the world had ever been home to her. Not even the place where she grew up. The first chance she had, she’d left for a different town, a different life. Her life had been one move after another. Sometimes she would stay for a year or two, other times she could only bear a week before her feet itched to move again.
Grove seemed to reach out and tangle her in vines. It drew her in with its secrets, with its glittering lights and wacky sushi bars. With chivalrous men posing as dangerous rebels.
“You really aren’t going to leave? After that?” He gestured to where the stranger had gone.
Kennedy sucked in a breath through her nose and straightened her spine. When she leaned forward, her voice was low. “You won’t let him hurt me. Will you?”
“Listen here. I have enough duties on my plate as it is. I can’t baby sit both you and Jasper. Do you want me hanging out over your shoulder every day? I’m a god-awful bore. I’ll suck the fun out of everything you do.”
She highly doubted that.
Before Kennedy could say more, the waiter came back with the bill. Wyatt was quick, claiming it before she could even blink at it. She opened her mouth to argue, but he held up a hand. The waiter just nodded and left. She looked between the two, wondering at the interaction.
Apparently, being a dragon meant he got free food. That, or the Drake family had a running tab in every establishment in town. As she got to her feet, Wyatt gently laid her coat over her shoulders and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“Jasper, my asshole of a cousin, can pay for lunch after the trouble he put us through earlier.”
She smiled, despite the subject change. Thinking back to the night before, she remembered one of Wyatt’s friends going ballistic on a piece of karaoke equipment at the bar. Perhaps that had been Jasper. From the way he spoke, she guessed he was also the dragon they’d chased out of the sky, the one with golden scales.
Outside, they walked with Wyatt’s hand on her back. His touch was gentle, but she felt it held more than he was willing to say. It was a claim the whole world could see. Wyatt glared at each person that passed them. They all gave her and Wyatt a wide berth, reading his intentions one way or another. Whether the pedestrians were human or dragon shifter, Kennedy didn’t know.
Her hotel came into view. He led her into the lobby, his hand slipping down her back but not yet disappearing. She wanted to lean into the touch, to make it real and not just some show. Before she could say anything, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She twisted and saw a man staring at her from behind the counter.
Wyatt’s chest rumbled. His attention was on the man, another dragon shifter, she guessed.
“The men in this town sure are horny for women,” Kennedy quipped, even though she’d reached for Wyatt’s sleeve and was holding him tight. She put her back to the counter. “Tell me there’s something you can do to make them ignore me.”
“I could put my fist through their faces,” he growled. He held her now, his hands on her hips so she could hide in the shadow of his frame.
The feeling of being watched slowly went away, probably because of Wyatt. The moment he left her side, the other dragon shifter would seek her out and try to hit on her just like the last one had. They were seeking women to mate, she recalled. Perhaps it was part of the beast’s instinct. Either way, she was not interested.
Her attention was on one man, and at this point she would do whatever he asked just to make the others
go away.
“There’s…” He paused. “There’s one thing I could do, but I don’t know if that’s the smartest option. It might be better if I just hang out in the lobby.”
Kennedy almost told him he could go up to her hotel room. She didn’t. A small part of her knew he wasn’t ready. It was in the way he’d raced to the bathroom earlier. In the way he dodged her questions and retreated into his own thoughts. Wyatt was working through something and if she pushed him, she could destroy their relationship before it even begun.
“If it means you don’t have to waste your time with me, then I’m willing to do anything.”
Wyatt looked pained. “My time with you isn’t a waste, Kennedy. To be honest, being with you is the only time I’ve enjoyed since I’ve come back.”
Her heart swelled. It gave her hope that they could move forward. Perhaps it wouldn’t be just then, but soon. She wanted nothing more than the chance to know him. It seemed, he felt something similar.
“Then help me stay,” she pleaded. “Do what you have to.” It occurred to Kennedy that she had no idea what she was asking for. Her trust in Wyatt ran deep, but she could have been asking him to burn her face off.
Her heart thumped, slamming hard inside her ribs. Wyatt’s hands slid up her arms. In his grasp, she felt safe. She felt like she was home. She let him lead her away from the lobby and from prying eyes. He found a door that led outside to a small courtyard. The smell of mountain air, laden with pine and ozone, comforted her.
“I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” Wyatt muttered. His eyes were on her throat.
Her pulse quickened. A primal urge filled her, making her pull him tighter to her body. She couldn’t get close enough. She hadn’t been able to the last time they’d come together like this. She couldn’t now. Nothing would be close enough until he was inside her.
Kennedy knew her head was a mess. Desire addled her mind and tightened parts of her body until they throbbed, a heavy demand she couldn’t ignore. Wyatt leaned into her, and she wove her arms around the back of his neck. The position was intimate and set her skin on fire.
More. More. More, her body demanded.
Wyatt gently cradled the side of her head. His lips pressed against her neck once more, familiar and thrilling. Her breath came short as she waited. She didn’t know what to expect. This certainly hadn’t been what she thought he would do. Then, his teeth sank into her flesh. At first, she cried out. Then the sound softened into a moan and she melted into his body as the pain became orgasmic.
Her knees buckled, and Wyatt had to grasp her to keep her from falling. His breath came fast and heavy. He kept his head bent, tucked into her shoulder. The wound on her neck pulsed with sensation as his breath washed over it. She moaned and dug her nails into his arms.
More than ever, she wanted to drag him up to her hotel room and push him back onto the bed. Her whole body begged for more. It screamed for him over and over.
Home. Home. Home.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” Wyatt whispered.
Kennedy had to find her voice before she could answer. It’d been lost in the waves of pleasure radiating through her body. “Oh no,” she rasped. “We should do that and a whole lot more.”
Wyatt tensed. Immediately, she knew she’d said the wrong thing.
He leaped back from her. She was left leaning against the brick wall of the building for support. Wyatt hesitated at the door, sparing one last lingering look at her. She could say nothing that would make him stay.
“I hope you come back after you’ve worked through whatever is bothering you,” she said instead. An invitation.
Wyatt looked like he was about to say something but thought better of it. He vanished, the door swinging behind him. The air still smelled of him, of them. The musk of her orgasm and the tang of blood filled her nostrils.
She didn’t bother hiding the bite on her neck when she went back inside.
Chapter Seven
Wyatt had spent too long in the bathroom. He’d leaned against the counter and tried to separate his past from his present. It wasn’t fair to Kennedy to compare her to his previous relationship. He needed to know if what he felt for her was real or if it was only the excitement of a revelation. She was slowly showing him what it should have felt like all along.
He realized he had been living the wrong life, doing everything for the wrong reasons, but while he’d been getting his thoughts together the lower shifter had returned. He didn’t know how long Kennedy had suffered the shifter’s presence before Wyatt returned.
Then, another had sniffed her out at the hotel. The lesser dragons were all hungering for mates, probably having run through the list of local options. He didn’t blame the local ladies for turning them down. The lesser shifters were not behaving themselves.
Wyatt ran his hand through his hair, knotting his fingers in it and tugging. His body still thrummed with what he’d done. The mark had rippled through him like waves in an ocean. It should have been nothing, just a bite to pretend that they were courting. The idea was to mark a woman so that no other shifter interrupted the courting.
What happened between him and Kennedy had been unlike anything he’d experienced before. It left him shaken. Over and over, he told himself he was not ready for a relationship. Not enough time had passed since his rejection. Wyatt couldn’t tell what was real. He could have been enamored with Kennedy, because she was all the things Nicole had not been.
If he threw himself into a new relationship and she was not his fated mate, Wyatt worried he would lie to himself again. How many years would go by before they grew to hate one another? He didn’t want to live in that kind of anger and resentment.
Ahead, he caught sight of Ashton and Makenna. They were skating on the open rink in the park. Ashton held Makenna’s hand while she struggled to stay upright. Wyatt paused, his chest constricting to the point of pain. He wanted what they had. Despite everything the two had been through, they managed to love each other unconditionally.
He feared he would never find it. Because of his parents, Wyatt worried that he would truly never know how to find a mate. He thought the wiring in his head was wrong, that he wouldn’t know love if it was standing right in front of him.
Kennedy, leaning against the wall after he’d torn open her skin, had asked him to come back. She hadn’t been angry with him. There had been no look of betrayal in her eyes. Instead, she’d wanted more. The woman had even run into the woods and picked his ass off the ground after Jasper shredded his wings.
He rolled his shoulders, wondering if his wings would be healed once he shifted again, or if he would be grounded until they managed to knit back together. He’d barely thought about it all day. When he should have been angry with Jasper, Kennedy had distracted him. For a short while, he’d thought of nothing but her.
The urge to turn around and go back was nearly overwhelming. The beast wanted her. It demanded her. But she was an unsuspecting human, and Wyatt would not unleash the creature upon her. He held it down and kept walking in the other direction.
He needed time.
***
Kennedy did her best to write a post about the restaurant she’d visited with Wyatt. All her pictures had turned out amazing. They should have inspired her to write a raving review. Instead, she flung her laptop away and flopped back onto the bed.
The clock on the nearby nightstand told her four hours had passed since Wyatt dropped her off. Four hours had passed since he’d marked her. She reached and touched her neck. The wound was still fresh and stung. She’d cleaned it once she got back to her hotel room but hadn’t covered it. It would keep the others away.
But it wouldn’t bring Wyatt closer. She didn’t know what would bring him back to her.
The phone on the nightstand rang. Kennedy eyed it warily. No one should be calling her. She didn’t have any friends who knew where she was. Her family were all caught up in their own lives. No one e
ver bothered checking in on her.
Still, she answered it and she was glad she did. The hotel employee on the other end informed her she had a phone call from a Mr. Drake. Her heart leapt. The employee connected the call for her.
There was a split second before the call connected where she worried it would be Jasper on the other end, angry that she’d put her bill on his tab, but the voice that answered set her heart at ease.
“Is it alright that I call you?” Wyatt asked.
She sprawled out on the bed, grinning. “You could have just visited me if you wanted to talk.”
His growl turned into a groan. “I thought it would be safer for both of us if I called. I want to…keep space between us for now. I wanted to hear your voice again.”
Kennedy didn’t understand what that meant, but she would wait as he worked through whatever troubled him. She’d wait impatiently, but she’d wait all the same.
“What are you doing right now?”
“Aren’t you supposed to ask what I’m wearing right now?” she teased.
He choked. After a moment, he blew out a long breath. “Let’s avoid that. For now.”
Kennedy pouted. She’d been this forward with other men, but never had she wanted it so bad. Normally, she scratched an itch and moved on. Wyatt, on the other hand, made her dream of things she previously never thought possible.
He made her dream of being stationary. She thought of sharing a space with him, of cuddling on cold nights, and binge watching their favorite tv shows while the scenery outside remained unchanged. Never before had Kennedy wanted so badly to settle down.
She didn’t even know if that was what Wyatt would want. She was rushing into this without thinking. After a few slow breaths to settle herself, she apologized.
“I’ll be honest,” she confessed. “You do things to me that I don’t understand. Just being around you makes me happy and I don’t even know what your favorite meal is. That seems like an important thing to know about a man.”
Aurum Court Dragons: Boxset Books 1-5 Page 18