by Starla Night
Mal waited for her answer.
She pinched the sleeves of her hoodie, worrying the soft fabric.
He was not asking her to make babies together. No. There was no way. This was a misunderstanding. He wanted her to design invitations. With baby dragonlets. Yes, that was what it was.
“Um…” Her throat closed, and she cleared it. “You mean… uh, do I want, uh…”
“Sex,” he supplied.
Her heart thundered. His direct answer seemed clear. She squeezed the hoodie sleeve. “With, uh, me and you? Us?”
“Yes.”
No way. No way. No way.
“Er….”
“Yes or no,” he said. “Answer.”
Her voice squeezed higher. It came out a squeak. “Maybe?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” His eyes narrowed. “Have you ever bit the snout, or any other body part, off of a male?”
That made her start. “What?”
“You heard the question.”
“Yeah, but…”
His collar was open, giving her a hard display of his powerful neck connecting to the rippling muscle of his chest and the upper curves of two gorgeous pectorals.
She swallowed. “Do you mean, like, did I ever bite someone’s head off?”
His striking green eyes widened. “You bite heads off?”
“Not literally.”
His shoulders dropped with visible relief.
She snorted. “It means yelling at someone, and no, not really.”
Wait. Did that mean the dragon shifters literally bit things off each other? Yikes.
But she didn’t ask.
His gaze intensified. He studied her from top to bottom and back up again. Heat, which was always burning in her body every time Mal was around, stoked from coals to pulsing, hungry flames. She sucked in a breath, feeding them oxygen.
His gaze tracked on her chest. Rising, falling, rising.
The heat in her body burned brighter.
Could this fantasy be real? She licked her lips.
He saw that. His own lips parted and his eyes glimmered a brighter green.
Alex knocked at the doorway, shattering the moment, and placed a file on Mal’s desk. “Here is the marriage contract.”
She took a deep breath. Her body glowed and tingled. She rubbed her arms.
Mal growled and thumbed through the papers. Green scales shimmered on his wrists, the same color as his eyes, and disappeared again. Alex bowed and closed the door behind him.
Mal turned the contract to her and forced a pen into her lax hand. “Sign on the line.”
The contract read, “Application for Marriage.”
Her head reeled.
So… she didn’t misunderstand? He meant what he’d said? It wasn’t a hallucination caused by her long-held desires, or she’d hit her head, or spending hours a week near intolerably delicious dragon hotness caused her mind to snap?
The crisp paper in her hands felt real.
The heavy pen felt real.
The dark, crackling focus in his green eyes and the power in his lithe movements had her heart thumping in a way that was undeniably real.
This couldn’t be real.
She set the pen next to the unsigned application.
He looked up. “What?”
“Do you mean it?”
“What? Marriage? Yes.”
It did not compute. “For how long?”
“Forever.”
So much intent male focused on her. The gorgeous body. The sharp mind. His abruptness, which was both rough and endearing. Offering to become hers forever. In matrimony?
She swallowed. “Can I think about it?”
“No. Answer now.”
She didn’t know how to process this. She didn’t know where to begin or what questions to ask.
He read the resistance in her manner. Something vulnerable flashed in his face. His jaw tightened.
“Fine.” He shoved the contract into a manila folder and slammed it on the desk in front of her. His pens rattled. “I want it back on my desk, signed, by 5 PM tonight. Understood?”
She understood the words. And his tone almost sounded like he was hurt by her hesitation. As if he really did like her and was trying to propose, but she wasn’t responding, and he didn’t know how to make it right.
But that was crazy.
Wasn’t it?
“Good.” He nodded to confirm she had comprehended his deadline, then sat in his seat and reached for the phone.
She stood and started for the door on autopilot. Her head reeled.
“Hey!” He held the phone in one hand and smacked his other palm on the folder containing the contract. Just like any old assignment file. “You forgot the application.”
Ah. “Well, I don’t know…”
“Take it.”
She obeyed, still not really sure what she was doing.
“Now you can get out.” He dialed his secure, private number. “Amber? Jeanine, tell Amber I found the solution. It was much closer than we realized.”
Cheryl stumbled out of his office. The door slammed shut behind her.
She returned to her desk, tingling with pixie dust excitement. She’d been chosen? By Mal? For marriage?
It meant he liked her. A lot. And he didn’t mind imagining her naked with him in bed, making all of her fantasies come true. That was what it meant.
But reality filtered in.
Now you can get out. Those last words weren’t exactly the sweetness of a male overwhelmingly in love. Were they?
She’d never had a real relationship before. She didn’t know. But she didn’t think so.
Mal treated her like normal. Like getting married was the same as any other assignment. Like, “Have that new logo on my desk by 5 PM!” was the same as “Have that signed marriage application on my desk by 5 PM!” Like designing a new logo was the same as getting engaged.
That wasn’t right. Right? He was an alien, but still.
This was her he was talking about marrying.
Impossible.
In fact, as the day passed and Cheryl finished her revised logo and submitted it to Jasper, her mistake became clearer and clearer. She had it wrong. This marriage application was a joke. Mal was trying to communicate something else.
Right?
The end of her shift arrived. She stuffed her unfinished portfolio work into her messenger bag, snapped it closed, and stood.
He hadn’t come out to cajole her or even speak to her. If a man was in love and the woman had doubts, wouldn’t the man try to woo her?
Mal didn’t really like her. What was to like? Cheryl was big, fat, shy, and not particularly talented. Below average, really. He probably came to his senses and was praying she shredded the application but was too busy to come out and tell her never mind.
Yeah.
That made way more sense than proposing out of nowhere and expecting her to become his wife.
She backed away from the application folder on her desk and left.
Chapter Five
Mal was finishing another call to Shanghai when Amber barged into his office, her dark red hair crackling with suppressed flames.
Uh oh.
He held the phone up as a warning to forestall her. It didn’t work.
She slammed her palms on his desk, leaving heated prints. “I told you we’re taking over your responsibilities.”
He dropped the phone and leaped to his feet. “Jeanine was supposed to tell you—”
“Tell me yourself!”
“I found the solution. It’s closer than we realized. I can do both.”
“You cannot manage the next product launch and find a wife.”
“I can. And I have.”
Her cheeks warmed with inner flames. “Do you want to lose this company and marry Empress Horribus?”
“I already found a wife!” He darted behind the office chair. It wasn’t much cover but it would buy him a few seconds. “I will marry Cheryl.”
The deadly glow went out of her cheeks and her skin returned to normal. “Oh. You mean Cheryl the intern?”
“That one.”
Amber shifted her weight onto her heels. She wore dark red Mary Jane shoes, green tights, and a black dress with a matching green belt. An outfit from their last product launch. “And she agreed?”
He straightened and reached for the phone to start his next round of calls. “The signed marriage application will be on my desk by five tonight.”
Amber looked at his desk.
“So it’s fine for me to keep managing the next launch.” He dialed.
She ripped the phone cord out of the wall.
He growled. “Amber.”
“It’s after seven,” Amber said.
“And?”
Her eyes glowed black and gold. Like liquid, molten fury. “Where’s the signed marriage application?”
“It’s here.”
“Where?”
He stared at the desk. Yes, where was it?
Cheryl always turned in her work early. Quick, quiet, efficient. That was Cheryl. So when he gave her a deadline, she must have met it. Especially one so easy as filling in her name, date of birth, and signature. He assumed she’d slipped that folder in with the others while he’d been working, too busy to notice.
“Mal,” Amber growled low with warning.
“I’ll find it.” He stormed out of the office. “Cheryl? Where the hell—”
She wasn’t at her desk.
“Alex!” Mal yelled. His younger sibling emerged from his office, Darcy a few curious steps behind him. “Where is Cheryl? She didn’t turn in the application.”
Alex strode to Cheryl’s desk and opened drawers.
Jasper poked out from his office. “Cheryl left hours ago. At her usual time.”
Mal turned on him with fury. “How do you know?”
“I am friendly with all our human employees.” Jasper endured his anger stoically. Not much ruffled the Operations Manager. “She seemed upset. I wished her good luck with her class.”
Upset? And Jasper noticed?
What else had Jasper noticed about his Cheryl?
A new thought occurred to Mal. One that made his blood alternate between heat and cold and his lips curl back from his sharpening teeth. “Cheryl isn’t the female you’re pursuing.”
It was not a question nor a statement. It was a challenge.
Jasper’s reply, which came instantly, still took too long. Mal fought his muscles, twitching, and bunching as though he were about to tear into the mating frenzy.
“No,” Jasper said, and the murderous red edge to Mal’s vision receded. “Cheryl is a nice female, but she is not the one I wish to protect.”
“Good,” he snarled. Cheryl was the one that Mal suddenly understood he needed to protect. “So where the hell is she?”
“Her class,” Jasper said. “They are critiquing the draft of her final portfolio. It is an important graduation requirement for her university.”
“Which is where?”
“Her university.” Jasper frowned. “Mal, you are not going to disturb her, are you? This event could determine her—”
“The marriage application is here.” Alex interrupted smoothly, holding up the folder. “She didn’t sign it.”
Heat emanated from his sister, a fully functioning female dragon with fully functioning fire-breathing capabilities.
The males all stepped back.
Amber flexed her claws, her eyes descending to furious crescents and her hair popping. “You worked all day and did not secure your wife?”
“I’m securing her now.” Mal snatched the folder with the application inside and bolted for the glass shaft in his office, barreling for the roof exit.
Humans preferred dragons to wear clothes in public, so Mal held onto his human form. Barely. The ominous ripping sounds beneath him suggested his sister had shredded hers to chase after him as a deadly dragon.
He poured on the speed, clenching to keep his scales inside his skin as he burst into the twilit sky.
His sister screeched his name as she flew after him. “Malachite!”
Chapter Six
Cheryl caught her breath in the historic brick atrium of her university’s gallery complex.
She wiped her sweat, heaved a great sigh, and crossed the marble hall. Today she’d forgotten class was being held in a gallery. It simulated the real environment well. She was confused, late, and about to fall apart with nerves.
She burst into the student gallery. As usual, no one noticed. Her classmates bustled around the space, their portfolios already set up on tables and ready for review.
She found her assigned table, propped her tablet on its white wire stand, connected it via HDMI cable to the monitor on the whitewashed wall behind her, and set it to cycle through her best art.
She had gone from work to home and then jumped on the MAX train for her university, arriving in the nick of time for class.
Except she’d gone to their regular classroom and sat alone for a few minutes before she figured out her mistake.
One reason for going home was to see her mom. She wanted to talk about what had happened at work—she had received a proposal, sort of—and she wanted to ask which of her for-fun drawings might be commercial enough to be acceptable for her portfolio.
But her mom had been in bed already. She worked swing shift at the hospital and they never saw each other anymore.
“You’re the artist,” she’d responded tiredly the last time Cheryl had said she needed help deciding. Actually, Cheryl had been asking for her mother’s approval. Instead, her mother had closed her exhausted red eyes and shook her head, dismissing her. “You decide.”
Probably her mother would have said that again.
Maybe she would have said the same about Mal’s proposal. “You’re the affected person, you decide if he’s serious.” She could hear her mother saying that in a tired, too-busy, distracted voice as she carried her reheated freezer burrito to the ripped living room couch and flicked on the TV.
They used to have fun. Cheryl used to do everything with her mom, but now her mom was working extra shifts to help Cheryl reduce her student loans, and she didn’t have time to share anything more than a quick greeting. Or, like tonight, a scrawled note that she was sleeping so not to make too much noise.
It was all for Cheryl, which meant she couldn’t complain. She couldn’t mope about the dark, empty house. She couldn’t plead that she’d rather have ten thousand dollars more debt if it meant going back to the closeness they used to have.
Oh well.
Maybe, if she went last, her professor wouldn’t notice she was three commercial pieces short. Maybe he’d let the dragon logo she’d “accidentally” put in her portfolio count. Maybe she could slip, bump her head, fake a coma, and get out of the excruciatingly public portfolio review.
No luck.
Professor Jon headed straight to her display. He wore a tweed jacket, khaki shorts, and sandals with fuzzy socks. Quintessential Pacific Northwest attire. The rest of the senior-level Digital Products for the Workplace class crowded around.
“Hello, Cheryl.” Professor Jon smiled tightly. His expression said this review would be as painful for him as it was for her. “Show us your most commercial work and explain how it will make you a millionaire.”
She cleared her throat.
Twelve pairs of eyes stared at her.
A wave of heat wafted up her body like someone had turned on a gas fire under her feet. But even though it, and the bitter taste in her mouth, were too familiar, that didn’t make it any easier.
If only some kind god would make her pass out, or pull the fire alarm, or crash a truck into the side of the building, she would be so, so grateful…
“Go ahead,” her professor said.
“Uh, sure.” She paused the display on the first piece. Oops. It was the dragon torso she’d done today. “This is a sports image. Uh, it could be u
sed for body building or nutritional supplements.”
Her professor’s lips drew to the side. “Right. Class?”
One of the loud overachievers spoke first. “I wouldn’t. Look at the rounded lines. He’s supposed to be ferocious, but he feels kind of… I don’t know, friendly. Like you want to give him a big hug.”
The others nodded.
“A huggable pro sports athlete.” Her professor’s disapproval made Cheryl’s cheeks hotter. “Class, when you work in advertising, you are the first client. Construct your ads to appeal to both your future employers and to their target audience. Remember, the final gallery show will be visited by actual employers, some of whom may or may not hire you.”
The harsh sarcasm brought tears to Cheryl’s eyes. The emphasis in his phrase seemed to be directed solely at her.
God. She was tired, and it had been a long, strange day already.
She fought to keep the moisture from spilling down her cheeks. The only thing Professor Jon harped on more than making commercial art was having a thick skin because he’d worked for real companies and they didn’t have time for personal meltdowns.
Anyway, her classmates and her professor weren’t wrong. Mal was ferocious and huggable at the same time. But she’d tried to focus only on his powerful aspects for this image. If they didn’t like it, her most commercial picture, they weren’t going to like the rest.
He nodded at Cheryl. “Next image.”
She swallowed back her sadness and cycled to her logo. She had cleaned it up so the placard-holding dragon was cleaner and leaner, and the phrase on the placard was the Onyx Corporation instead of “Please Hire Me.”
Her professor’s brow curdled. “I thought we discussed the limited applications of little animals, Cheryl. Refresh my memory. Do your after-college plans include applying for a greeting card company?”
“No.” She swallowed. “It’s the, uh, logo for the Onyx Corporation.”
Her classmates snickered.
“As designed by Precious Moments?” the professor asked.
Ah. Right.
She knew she wasn’t good enough. Her art would never be commercial. It was too cutesy, too silly, too precious.
“You do realize they’re powerful aliens.” He lectured her as if she didn’t work with them every day. “This could be seen as disrespectful.”