“Neither was I, to be quite honest. I rather hoped it could be avoided. For your sake, at least.”
Flick’s heart sank. Avoided? She’d literally dreamed of having him by her side. How could he think that avoidance was a desirable option? “For my sake? Then why did you seek me out?”
“I suppose I wanted to make sure you were all right.” The right side of his mouth ticked up in a crooked smile that was enough to force her into an immediate state of forgiveness for any offence he might have caused.
“And why wouldn’t I be all right?” She suppressed a smile, her body responding to his declaration of protectiveness with a flood of trembling nerves.
“To be quite honest, I don’t entirely know. Call it intuition, instinct, whatever you like.” He leaned forward to speak quietly into her left ear. “My Dragon told me to look for you. Now I’ve done it, so I suppose I can take my leave.”
Disappointment clawed at Flick again, like an unruly cat. No, please don’t go. “Are you going to fly off and desert me like you did last night?”
“Absolutely not. I’ll probably walk this time,” he said. “I don’t live too far from here. Of course, neither do you.”
“True,” said Flick, nodding in the direction of her neighbourhood. “I’m meant to be working, but I was considering heading home early today.”
“Well,” he said, “how convenient for us. Shall I walk you home?”
She nodded, trying hard to seem casual even though she was convinced that he could hear her pounding heart. “I’d like that.”
“So, tell me more about yourself,” Dex said as they strolled. “I know you like to hang about with shifters. What else should I know?”
“Nothing, really. I was born and raised in London. My parents were a doctor and a teacher.”
“Were?” he asked.
“They died in the war,” she replied, her voice tightening slightly with the all-too-fresh memory. “A mortar shell that hit too close.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Dex, looking her way.
“It’s all right. All of London was dealt many blows. I’m just grateful that they didn’t suffer.”
“As am I. And as for you, the reporter who doesn’t take advantage of scoops, even when they fall into her lap.”
“Not when they put people like you at risk, no,” she replied. “I’m not in this for fame and glory. I’m in it for the meagre paycheque and regular hours. It wasn’t so long ago that women couldn’t find any work to speak of. I’m grateful to be able to support myself. Whatever the case, I will never betray shifters.”
“I believe you,” he said, keeping his gaze set ahead. “I trust you.”
“Yes, I think you do,” said Flick. “I think you see right through me, in fact.” His trust was deeply meaningful. Dex seemed able to read the world around him layer by layer, reading faces, voices and even bodies in a way she’d never seen. His senses were heightened, his mind attuned to hers and everyone else’s.
“Tell me something, are you psychic?” she asked.
Dex laughed. “Not really, though it’s not such a silly question. I suppose it would be accurate to say that I can read people’s inner workings.”
“Oh, really? And what do my inner workings tell you?”
He turned and studied her for a moment before responding. “That you’re honest, for one thing.”
“Well, that’s rather dull, isn’t it? Is that all?”
The back of Dex’s hand touched hers for a brief moment before he replied, and Flick wondered if it was deliberate. “You know it’s not,” he said.
“So what else?”
The shifter stopped walking, halting her in her tracks. She turned his way, shyly glancing up into his eyes, which were piercing their way through her again in a way that made her feel naked, vulnerable and so, so strong, all at once.
“That you’re beautiful, on the inside as well as the outside” he said. “You’re desirable. Perfect. But there are other things as well.”
Flick stared at his face, searching for signs that he was teasing her. But there was no smile, no hint at playing with her mind.
“You still find my forwardness surprising,” Dex added. “Even after our conversation last night.”
“Yes, I’ll admit that I do. Most men aren’t so forthcoming with their language as you are.”
“I’m not most men.”
“No, you’re not, are you?” Flick breathed in his scent like a taste that lingered on the air, relishing the sensation on her tongue. He was a walking aphrodisiac, a knee-weakening sex god who gifted her dreams of gentle caresses.
“I believe in honesty,” he told her. “But you already know that I find you attractive; I told you so last night. You needn’t worry that I’ll make a move on you. Not unless you ask me to.”
Oh, I’m more worried that you won’t. “And if I asked you to?”
“I feel protective of you, Flicka…I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you, much as I would love to take advantage of you.”
“Well, there’s no need for you to protect me. It would seem that I’m not under threat.”
“Not from me. And not from someone else, not immediately at least. Still, a feeling has been rising up inside me since I left you last night…” Dex didn’t finish the thought, but for a moment Flick shivered as she felt a shadow pass between them. “I just want you to be safe.”
“I am safe,” she said, trying to convince herself that she was right. “At least, I feel safe when I’m with you.”
“Good. Then I’ll have to see to it that you’re with me from time to time. At the very least I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
Dex began to walk again, Flick doing her best to match his stride. After several minutes, she stopped in front of a red brick building. “This is me,” she said, pointing up to a second storey window on the façade of a three-level row house. A small wrought iron balcony jutted out from its frame. “That’s my living room.”
“May I walk you to the door?”
When Flick nodded, Dex accompanied her the few steps up to the building’s entrance and turned to face her again. “Right, then,” he said. “I suppose it’s time to say good-bye.”
“Would you like…” she began, hesitant to complete the question. But if she didn’t ask now, when would she ever get a chance again? “Would you like to come up?”
Dex nodded, that sexy smile of his slipping over his lips. “Yes, I would. Very much.” His right hand reached for her cheek and he brushed his fingers over her skin gently, drawing a shiver from her body. “But no. Thank you, I’d better not.”
“Because I might try to get you intoxicated and take advantage of you?”
“No. Because before having a sip of anything, I would be very tempted to tear your clothes off and kiss you between the thighs.”
A hard shiver of sheer pleasure pulsed through Flick as sensations from her dream flooded her mind and body. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Well, the thing is, you have very nice clothes. I’d hate to ruin them when I ripped them to shreds.”
Flick chewed the inside of her cheek, resisting the desire to reach for him. She would have been only too pleased to tear her clothing off for him and toss every piece of it to the ground. He was a frustrating sexual magician, this one. He could seduce her with a glance, yet he insisted on stopping just short of it.
“I’d better go,” he said, pulling away, but this time she reached out and stopped him, her hand on his arm.
“I want you, Dex,” she said softly, her gaze landing on the marble step at her feet. “I need to say it, even if I feel like an arse for it.”
“I know,” he replied, slipping his fingers under her chin, just as he’d done the previous evening, raising it to force her eyes to meet his. “I want you, too, Flicka. More than you’ll ever understand.”
Her insides buzzed with the anticipation of pleasure. “So come inside. Be with me.”
“You don’t unde
rstand. If I do, and if we’re…together…” he said.
“Then what?” she asked, seeing that he was hesitant to finish the thought.
“It will be forever.”
“Well, that would be shame, wouldn’t it?” A smile passed over Flick’s features, but disappeared almost as quickly. “You’re not joking, are you?”
He shook his head. “It’s difficult for me to explain.”
“Try. Please.” She was shaking now, her teeth all but chattering in her mouth. “I want to understand.”
Dex turned his gaze towards the small park across the street, his eyes narrowing. “Ever since I first met you, I’ve known what you were to me. Perhaps you’ll think me as horrible as Eldrich, but I could feel immediately that you were more to me than an attractive woman. I tried to fight the sensation, but…I’ve seen things, Flicka. I’ve seen a future that could come to life, if we chose it.”
Something exploded inside Flick’s chest, sending delight flooding her body. If any other man had said these things to her before they’d ever so much as kissed, she would have run a thousand miles from him. But Dex’s words didn’t frighten her. She’d seen the same future. She knew what they meant to each other.
“Me too,” she said. “Dex, I should tell you, I had a dream last night…”
“A dream about me,” he replied. “Yes, I know.”
She nodded. “About us. We were together. We were happy. We…”
“We made love.” He raked his eyes over her body before meeting her gaze again. “Over and over again. I know. I had the same dream.”
“I want it to come true,” she told him. “Very much.”
“As I said, I know. But you need to think about this. I can’t bring myself to rush you on this. We only met last night, my beauty. Dreams and reality don’t alway mix.”
“You’re not rushing me,” she said, reaching for his hand. She pulled it to her mouth and kissed his fingers one by one. “I’m telling you what I want.”
“You’re human,” he replied softly. “So very human.”
She pulled away and let his arm drop, a defensive hostility invading her features. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“It means that I would be a horrible man—a horrible shifter—if I didn’t give you a chance to process what’s happened between us. Give it a day or two before you leap into an entire lifetime with the likes of me.”
“I…” Flick wanted to protest again, but she knew he was right. If they did end up together, it wouldn’t be a commitment that either of them took lightly. There was no need to rush. “All right.”
“In the meantime, I will never be far away, Flicka.” With that, Dex pressed his lips to her forehead and turned away. She watched him walk down the stairs, her heart aching with a strange sense of loss for the man she’d never had.
She would miss him tonight, and every night until she saw him again.
Once again Dex had left the beauty behind. He’d forced himself to say good-bye to the sexy woman with the charming name who was so entirely his, and yet not his at all.
He hated walking away, but getting too close for too long would only mean torturing himself. She was everything he wanted, everything he and his déor needed. But sod it, it didn’t matter what he desired; the only one who could decide their future was her—and he didn’t want her to make the decision lightly. He needed her to understand the gravity of their bond, the permanence of their connection. She was human, and her world was different. Her very instincts were different. She might only want him because he was exotic, strange, intriguing. That wasn’t enough to sustain a lifelong bond.
She needed to be sure.
But there was another problem, as well, one that meant that he needed to stay close by. Eldrich was still out there somewhere. That bastard, too, was convinced that Flick belonged to him, and he wasn’t one to give up easily. For all his flaws, he was relentless in his pursuit of what he desired, which meant that Flick could very well be in some kind of imminent danger.
At least now that Dex knew where she lived, he’d be able to keep an eye on her from afar. His protective Dragon could take care of her without getting close enough to pressure her. He would be her distant guardian, her knight in shining armour.
Only it was supposed to be the other way around. Knights were meant to save lovely young things like her from scary Dragons such as him.
Fuck knights.
Only a Dragon deserved such a beautiful prize. Only a Dragon understood a treasure like Flicka.
Chapter 9
One Week Later
Flick stared out her window at seven p.m. the following Saturday, a glass of white wine in hand. She was aware of the mad cab driver who was speeding down the street outside, honking occasionally at a slow motorist or an even slower pedestrian. But her mind wasn’t focused on them, or on anything in front of her. Her thoughts had wandered off once again to a faraway place, a fantasy land where a certain gorgeous Dragon shifter lived.
She hadn’t seen him in days, and despite the fact that they’d spent little time together, she missed him more than she’d ever missed anyone in her life. Each night she’d looked forward to sleep, because sleep brought dreams of him, of them. Erotic tapestries of touch, scent, taste that sustained her until morning.
Still, the visions didn’t come close to making up for his absence. Dex was out there somewhere, a living, walking dream of flesh and blood. Something unreal yet wholly real at the same time. He aroused emotions and desires that unfurled inside her in streams of sensual delight, yet she had no idea where he was, or if she’d see him again.
All she knew was that her attraction to him wasn’t fading with the passage of time. If anything, it seemed to increase with each day that passed. In the short time since they’d met, she’d learned to crave him like food or water.
She told herself again and again that the desire would eventually fade if they remained apart. Letting go was for the best, her mind insisted. Best to loosen the thoughts and shake them off, releasing them into the air. Surely it wasn’t healthy to have grown so attached to a man so quickly.
But for each argument that raged inside her mind, a counter-argument presented itself. Yes, damn it, her attachment to him was healthy. It was the most healthy feeling in the world, and to be robbed of it seemed criminal. How could she ever be expected to let go of something that had become a part of her? The thought of it was like considering losing a vital organ. Dex was inside her now, integral to her very being. He was everything. The past, the future and the present. He’d moved into her mind and taken up residence.
More than anything, she wished to keep him there.
She’d let out a long sigh and turned back to face her living room when a hard series of knocks sounded at the door. No one ever dropped in for visits, certainly not on Friday evenings. Her heart leapt with excitement, just as it had the first time she’d found herself face to face with Dex.
Please tell me he’s come back. He’s come to ask if I still want him, and the answer is yes.
The faint aroma of hot embers met her nose as she approached the door, confirming her suspicions that a Dragon shifter had come to call. She skipped forward, an enormous smile lighting up her features.
She was already speaking as she pulled the door open. “I was hoping you’d come ba…”
As if a hand had grabbed her by the throat, her voice cut itself off, the smile on her lips dying a quick death.
“Hello there,” said the enormous man who stood framed in her doorway. “Did you miss me?”
Eldrich, the aggressive bastard from the Underground Club, was standing in front of her. He wore a dark suit and a fedora pulled low over his brow, giving him the appearance of a Chicago mobster. He stepped inside uninvited, all but pushing Flick to the side, and slid over to her couch before throwing himself down, his arms outstretched along its back.
“What are you doing here?” Flick asked, positioning herself between her uninvited guest an
d the open door, ready to run. Only fear and stubbornness held her in place.
“I thought it was obvious. I’ve come to get what’s rightfully mine,” he said, staring at her blankly as though he’d just uttered the simplest statement in the history of the English language.
“I’m sorry,” Flick replied, letting out a nervous laugh. “What’s yours, you say? Did I accidentally steal your pencil last week, before you threatened to kidnap me in front of hundreds of witnesses?”
A deep laugh rose up from Eldrich’s chest, sending the hairs on the back of Flick’s neck standing on end. “If only it were that simple.” He smacked the couch cushion next to him with his palm. “Come, sit,” he said. “Let’s get to know one another. If we’re to be mates, then we should spend some time together.”
“We’re not mates. We’ll never be mates,” she told him, stepping backwards, wondering if she should sprint down the hall. He’d catch her, but at least she could scream her way out of her flat loudly enough to grab a neighbour’s attention. But then, what could a neighbour do in the face of a man such as this? If he shifted, he could kill everyone in the building.
“Oh, I beg to differ,” Eldrich replied, examining his cuticles for a moment before locking his gaze on hers once again. “I realize that human custom is a little different, but my Dragon has chosen you, you see,” he said. “That makes it official for us, whether you’ve come to realize it or not.”
“I don’t suppose I have a say in any of this,” Flick snarled. “It is my life, after all.”
“Of course you have a say,” he replied, his voice softening only a little. A wicked smile had set itself on his lips, warning her that she wouldn’t like his next words. “I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition. Oh, jolly good. I can’t wait to hear it.” Flick crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m sure it’ll change everything.”
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