by Tessa Adams
Gabe took the comfort for a moment, then pulled away. He ran his hands over his face. Climbed to his feet. Shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away.
“I can’t be here right now, Dylan. I know it’s a crappy time for me to just bail, but I can’t be here.” He looked out over the desert, his dragon eyes capable of taking in the smallest movement in the dark.
“Okay.”
“Maybe . . . maybe. Someday. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s not today.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I have to be alone.” It was almost a yell. But the next words were so soft Dylan had to strain to hear them. “I am alone. You can’t change that no matter how much you want to.”
“Gabe.”
“Good-bye, Dylan. Don’t follow me.”
“But—”
“Don’t.” And then he launched himself straight into the air. He hovered over Dylan for a second in midshift. “I can’t go back to the house I shared with them, can’t sleep in the bed I shared with Marta. I need to be alone.”
And then he was changing, shifting, becoming the ice blue dragon Dylan knew so well, and streaking away through the night.
Exhausted, disheartened, miserable, Dylan watched him fly away until he was nothing more than another light in the starstudded sky. It stretched him to the breaking point to do as Gabe asked; nearly killed him not to follow. But Gabe’s agony was too overwhelming to ignore, his beast far too close to overwhelming his humanity. Time alone to lick his wounds might be the only thing that would save him.
Ignoring the pain that was racking his own soul—after all this time, he was used to it—Dylan launched himself once again into the air, in the opposite direction from where Gabe had flown. Never had a solo flight felt so lonely.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Thanks, Logan.” Phoebe flashed Dylan’s friend a tired smile. It was late, she had been up far too long and she wanted nothing as much as a shower and a bed. But as Logan showed her to her room—in Dylan’s very large, very impressive house—her eyes nearly crossed with exhaustion. Maybe the shower could wait until the morning.
“No problem. I know Dylan wanted to bring you here himself. But Gabe—”
“I understand.” She managed a quick look out of one of Dylan’s incredible picture windows to the darkness beyond, tried to ignore the fact that it was rimmed with what looked like gemstones. “I wonder where they are.”
“Gabe was in rough shape. He’s probably somewhere blowing off steam, and Dylan’s probably listening to him.”
“I can’t imagine losing my whole family one after the other. He didn’t even have a chance to catch his breath from losing his wife before his daughter got sick.”
“It’s awful.” The pilot’s handsome face was grim. “Losing your mate and then your daughter—Gabe’s really been through the wringer.”
Mate, Phoebe noted, not wife. Mate. A slip of the tongue, perhaps, or something more? She couldn’t help remembering those last minutes in Lana’s room, when Gabe had seemed to lose all control. Horrible sounds had come from his chest—sounds that were barely human. She understood grief better than many, but even she had never heard those sounds before. And when she’d glanced up . . . She slammed the door shut on those thoughts. No use freaking herself out when Dylan wasn’t around to answer her questions.
Moving past the windows and what had to be an incredible view of the desert during the day, she asked, “He and Dylan are close?”
“They’ve been best friends for—” Logan broke off abruptly, flashed his killer smile. “For what seems like forever.”
“And you?” she asked, as he shuttled her and her suitcase down a long hallway. “How do you and Liam and Shawn fit in?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“It’s the scientist in me. I like to figure out how things work.”
At the end of the hallway, he turned to the left, then pushed open the first door they came to. Phoebe followed him inside, nearly sobbing with relief when she saw the huge lake of a bed in the center of the room, covered in a ruby-colored comforter. Thoughts of anything but sleep abruptly left her head.
Her ponytail holder came off right after her shoes, and she was almost incoherent before she even hit the bed.
Logan laughed. “I guess I don’t have to ask if the room suits you.”
“You can ask, but if you expect me to carry on a conversation for much longer, I’m going to be speaking in tongues.” It came out garbled, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“I’ll leave you to it, then. If you wake up before Dylan gets back and want to get started, call me. I’ll take you over to the lab, help you get set up.”
“Mm-hmm.” She curled herself around a throw pillow.
“Sleep tight, Phoebe.”
“You, too.”
Logan closed the door behind him, and she lay there for a second, trying to work up the energy to open her suitcase and take out her pajamas. In the end, however, all she managed to do was shimmy out of her clothes and burrow under the covers before sleep swamped her.
Dylan let himself into the house slowly, misery weighing on him like lead shackles. Striding through the entryway and down the hall to his study, with every ounce of strength he still had left in his body he cursed the damn disease that was ravaging his people.
Lana, with her bright eyes and endless questions, was gone. Never again would he walk into Gabe’s house and find her making some weird and exotic recipe. Never again would he and Gabe get to threaten some young dragon stud who came sniffing around her.
Never again would she beat him at Monopoly.
He grabbed a glass decanter off the side bar and poured himself three fingers of his favorite Scotch. He slammed it back, then poured himself another. By the time he’d finished the second, the block of ice that was currently doubling for his stomach had begun to thaw.
He stared at the decanter for a moment, debated whether he wanted to pour himself a third. Deciding against it—it was never a good sign when the clan leader passed out in a drunken stupor—he flopped down on the long, black leather sofa in the middle of the room. Stretched out and closed his eyes.
He was tired, exhausted, but images of Lana as he’d last seen her—pale, bloody, face contorted in pain—wouldn’t allow him to settle. Fighting them, and the sadness that clung to him like a limpet, he tried to concentrate on something else.
Anything else.
It didn’t work . . . until he smelled her.
He sat up so abruptly that the Scotch splashed sickly in his stomach, but that didn’t stop Dylan from trying to search her out. Even as he told himself it was his imagination—surely Logan had gotten Phoebe settled at the hotel a few streets over—his senses were flaring out, searching for another elusive trace of her.
A few breaths later, he found it. He was on his feet and tearing down the hall before he could think better of it, turning corners in the labyrinthine halls until her scent—warm honey and wildflowers—nearly overwhelmed him. Pausing outside the door of his favorite guest room, he drank in her scent for long seconds, getting drunk on it in a way he never had on the Scotch. If he could, he’d simply roll around in it. Let it cover him—and the dragon—until they both were sated. Until they could carry it with them everywhere they went.
His thoughts should have put him on red alert, but at the moment he was too tired, too heartsick, too devastated to worry about anything but Phoebe. The dragon was clawing at him again, eager to get at her, and he didn’t blame it. Right now, the idea of pulling her into his arms and just holding her had incredible appeal.
He knocked on the door lightly, told himself that if she didn’t answer he would walk away and let her get some rest. He waited a few seconds, knocked again. Repeated the process a third time, and when there was still no answer, he ordered himself to leave her be.
But even as he promised himself he would do just that, he was turning the knob. Pushing the door open. Walking into the room
, his eyes fastened on the bed on the other side of the room—and the woman sound asleep in the center of it.
His dragon shuddered at the sight of her, as did the man. She had crawled into bed naked and pulled the covers over her, but as she’d slept, the comforter had fallen around her waist, exposing one apricot shoulder covered with a light dusting of freckles. Her freckles taunted him again, promised paradise beneath his mouth, and his mouth actually watered with the need to get to her.
Phoebe whimpered in her sleep, rolling over onto her back. His first unobstructed sight of her caused him to break out in a cold sweat, his cock hardening to the point of insanity. For a second, all he could think about was climbing on top of her and sucking her gorgeous, raspberry-colored nipples into his mouth as he slipped inside her.
She whimpered again—the same sound she’d made the day before when he had thrust inside her for the first time—and need overwhelmed him.
He moved closer to the bed, closer to her, shucking off a piece of clothing with each step he took. By the time he got to the bed, Dylan was as naked as she was, his cock so hard that he feared he might lose control as soon as he touched her.
But when he slipped into bed beside her, when he lowered his mouth to her fragile jaw, he was struck by the dark circles under her eyes. Skimming his lips up her jaw to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, he kissed her softly, then pulled just a little bit away.
She was exhausted, completely worn-out, and he couldn’t blame her. She’d spent a day getting ready for the trip, and then, when she’d been resting on the airplane, he’d come at her like a freight train. And yesterday, instead of coming back here and resting after her frantic preparations, she’d spent the day and half the night in Lana’s room, observing and assisting.
Though his hands shook at the effort and a fine sheen of sweat covered him from head to toe—and the dragon snapped and bit at him in an effort to change his mind—Dylan settled on the bed next to Phoebe and pulled her into an embrace that was far too platonic for his liking. Then he closed his eyes and did his damnedest to fall asleep, despite the fact that he was so aroused he could barely think.
Morning would come soon enough, he reminded himself, and with it his mountain of responsibilities. Tonight—what little of it was left—he would let them all go, and do nothing more than enjoy the feel of Phoebe in his arms.
For the first time in far too long, it was enough. Perhaps if he’d been less aroused or more alert, the thought would have alarmed him. Instead, it comforted him and he relaxed slowly, letting Phoebe’s sleep-warmed body chase the unfamiliar chill away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Phoebe woke to a hard male arm draped across her waist, a rough palm curved around her breast. She squirmed a little, fought toward consciousness, and realized that someone was pressed against her, holding her tightly enough to make her feel trapped.
Alarm raced through her at the realization, followed by panic that made her heart race and her mouth grow dry.
Memories swamped her, ancient history that in guarded moments she liked to pretend had never happened. Her muscles tightened to the point of pain; her mind sought desperately for a way to escape. Shoving the heavy arm off her, she scrambled to her feet and backed rapidly away from the bed.
So acute was her panic that she was halfway across the room, her breath coming in heavy, uncontrolled pants, before she realized she was safe. That the memories were just that, and the heavy male body pressed against her own belonged to Dylan. As the knowledge flowed through her—ripe with relief and a shaky desperation she was ashamed to feel—she slammed the door shut on the memories before any more could escape. Before she could think his name and be totally overwhelmed.
Still, she was naked, and so was Dylan. Anger began to rise. Yes, she’d slept with him on the airplane; yes, she’d chosen to take him for a lover. But that didn’t give him the right to take advantage of her while she was in a sleep so deep she’d been almost unconscious. Didn’t give him the right to make love to her when she was unaware.
Part of her wanted to scream at him, to wake him up and demand to know what had happened. Before she could do that, though, sanity slowly seeped back in, kick-starting her brain into actual, nonpanicked thought. Judging from the feel of her body, nothing had happened between them—despite the fact that they were both naked. She wasn’t sore or tender; there was no telltale wetness between her thighs. Maybe he really had just climbed in behind her and held her through the waning hours of the night.
It was a strange thought. Yet the more it settled around her, the more sure Phoebe became that that was exactly what had happened.
She should get some clothes out of her suitcase, find a bathroom that wasn’t attached to this room and take a shower. She would feel better when she was girded by her usual work uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. Less vulnerable. More in control.
Sure, she’d let him in yesterday when she’d fucked him—she deliberately used the crude word to describe what had passed between them—but that didn’t mean she had to keep the door open. She could close it, lock it, refuse to lower her guard again. Having sex with him certainly didn’t mean she had to let him inside more than her body.
Convinced she’d come up with a plan to keep her emotional distance, Phoebe headed toward her suitcase with absolute resolve. Take a shower. Get to work. Do what Dylan had paid her very well to do. And keep her mind and heart locked away where no one could reach them. It was the only safe thing to do.
And yet she walked right by her suitcase, moved closer to the bed—to Dylan—despite her plan to the contrary.
Every instinct she had told Phoebe to move back, to leave him be, but she couldn’t do it. Even knowing that she was invading his privacy, as she feared he had invaded hers, didn’t stop her. Instead, she stood over him and just looked, her eyes cataloging his features in the already overfull Rolodex of her memory.
He looked different in sleep—not younger, but more relaxed. Less guarded. Happier, the lines that bracketed his mouth and the corners of his mouth easing just a little.
She reached out a hand to trace the remnants of the line, stopped herself right before her finger connected with those too-pretty features. Sex is one thing, she reminded herself. Tenderness was quite another.
Still, she was transfixed by him, unable to look away until she’d memorized every individual piece of him—though she didn’t know why it mattered, any more than she understood the strange pull she felt toward him.
Her eyes swept down his chest, and once again she was struck by how battered he was, by how many, many scars he carried on his chest and arms and stomach. The doctor in her recoiled at the knowledge of the pain he had suffered, even as she was fascinated by how he’d survived. The shapes of the scars, the locations; more than one should have been a killing blow. And yet here he was. Hot, sexy and more alive than any man had the right to be.
Shaking herself out of what she could only hope was a lust-induced stupor, Phoebe started to turn away. And then froze as she caught sight of the tattoo around his arm. The tattoo she’d been fascinated with since the first time she’d seen it—the one that she had spent more than a few minutes studying and kissing the day before.
It looked different this morning, thicker, though the rational side of her brain told her that was impossible. It wasn’t like he’d left his niece’s deathbed the night before and headed to the nearest tattoo parlor. Even if he had, it would be much redder, bumpier.
She did touch him then, unable to resist any longer, particularly with this new puzzle to solve. Keeping her touch light, she traced one finger around the fascinating symbols that made up his arm-band. She moved slowly over a familiar curlicue, one she had spent much too long the day before tracing with her tongue. Moved on to the strange pattern of angular shapes that had fascinated her.
And knew, with a strange and eerie certainty, that his tattoo had indeed changed between the last time she had seen it and now. There were more symbols, symbols she s
wore she had never seen before. Symbols that flowed in a straight line and wrapped all the way around his arm, forming a second band that had definitely not been there the day before.
Phoebe jerked backward, a little frightened and more than a little leery. Her suspicions were impossible, ridiculous really, and yet the proof was right in front of her. Stomach jumping, already-frazzled nerves now completely shot, Phoebe stumbled to her suitcase. She grabbed her toiletry case and the first outfit she came to, then fled the room like the hounds of hell were after her.
She found a bathroom attached to the next bedroom, and turned the shower on. As she waited for it to warm up, she focused on everything—anything—but the suspicions that were battering her mind from the inside out. Did everything she could to ignore the picture Gabe had presented before he’d fled the room the night before. Tried to convince herself that the image formed by the shapes in Dylan’s tattoo were simply her imagination.
The room around her was extravagant, a deep, dark green that matched the bedroom it was attached to. Emeralds the size of a baby’s fist were embedded in the walls, forming a kind of crown molding that was as awe-inspiring as it was beautiful. Even the shelves next to the sink were beautifully made, each one holding a variety of rich creams and soaps and shower gels to choose from.
She sniffed a few in an effort to find the one most pleasing to her. After deciding on a vanilla, ginger and honey concoction, she reached into the towel closet and came out with the softest, most luxurious towel she’d ever felt. Dylan certainly knew how to live; even the shower itself was a hedonist’s delight, with six showerheads located at different spots on its marble walls, all designed to hit her body at a different spot.
But when she stepped into the now-steaming water and let it run over her hair and down her back, she couldn’t help going back over the puzzle that was Dylan. Blood with unknown properties that no one had ever documented before. Skin that looked and felt normal, but that was thicker than anything she’d ever tried to pierce with a needle. Tattoos that shifted from one day to the next.