by Starla Night
Alex’s nostrils flared. “There wasn’t time.”
“Tell me what?”
Jasper steadied himself and spoke plainly. “You need to find a new wife, Mal.”
Fear spiked into his chest. He couldn’t breathe.
Cheryl didn’t want to marry him. She realized he would never reach number one. He would be worthless once his company was sold and he had nothing again. She had no reason to stay with him.
Denial flushed into rage. Mal shot from his chair and slammed his fists into the mahogany desk. “I’m marrying Cheryl!”
Alex shut his lips tight. Jasper squared his shoulders.
“Congratulations.” Pyro ambled out the door and disappeared down the hall.
Mal fixed on Alex. He’d heard wrong. They had already been through this. His second-youngest sibling was in error. “You made the appointment with the Justice of the Peace.”
Alex swallowed, white. Then, fighting his grimace, he spoke the words Mal most feared. “She changed her mind.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
15 minutes earlier…
Cheryl concentrated on crossing the smooth, even carpet from the warehouse dressing rooms into the elevator in her new dark red stripper heels.
Well, okay, they weren’t that tall. But for a woman who wore tennis shoes, even a tiny heel felt like walking on toothpicks.
They were also hell to run in, as she’d discovered when she’d escaped from Amber moments ago. Now, as the elevator doors opened, she raced to the front lobby and found…
No one.
Crud. She’d taken too long and missed DragonLord C. Well, she was ten minutes late. Of course he wouldn’t have waited. Nobody wanted her signed print that badly.
Jeanine looked up. “There’s a new look.”
“Thanks.” Cheryl hugged herself. Jeanine hadn’t called it a good look, just new. “Did anyone ask for me?”
“No.”
“Oh. Well, thanks—”
“There’s someone in the parking lot that hasn’t come inside yet.”
Cheryl pushed open the glass doors and crossed the parking lot, passing the cars she knew. Wind blew her hair around her face. At the end of the lot, a tall man in a dark suit stared up at the roof of the office building as though studying how to assault it. Expensive sunglasses shaded his eyes and wireless black earbuds rested in his ears.
She sucked in a breath. “DragonLord C?”
He turned. A cold expression masked his face. “I am Syen.”
“Simon?”
He remained silent for a moment. She’d gotten his name wrong, but she wasn’t sure how, and he did not correct her or change expressions.
Embarrassment heated her in a wave. “So, you’re not DragonLord C?”
“No.”
Oh god, she was walking up to random strangers in this vintage rockabilly outfit looking and acting completely unlike herself. “Sorry, I—”
“He’s my boss.” The implacable, cold man removed a small folder from his suit. Inside was a greeting card sized print of chibi Mal in silk pajamas. “Please sign.”
Her heart thumped in her ears. She uncapped his pen, balanced the folder on his hands, and scrawled her name. Her fan had an employee collect her signature! He must be a businessman with no free time, like Mal.
She handed the pen back, wished him well, and hurried back inside.
“Was that your person?” Jeanine asked.
Cheryl nodded and ran for the elevator. Amber was probably already at Mal’s office, wondering where she was.
The elevator was in use, so Cheryl ducked into the reception bathroom and checked her hair. Not bad. She smoothed her vintage T-shirt. With these clothes on, signing autographs, she almost felt like a rock star.
When she came out again, the elevator was standing open. Lucky! She ducked inside and turned around. As the doors closed, she saw Kyan, the scariest dragon, was escorting a stranger outside.
Huh.
The elevator ascended to her floor, and she stepped out.
Pyro, Mal’s closest brother, was walking down the hall in her direction. “Hey, Cheryl.”
“Hey,” she said. “You’re back.”
“Just got in.”
“Welcome.”
“Yeah, thanks.” He lifted his shirt and scratched his abs. “Feels weird. A lot of stuff has changed.”
Pyro was one of the few model-hot dragons who didn’t tie her tongue in knots. Jasper and Alex were attentive, gorgeous, and made her uneasy. Towering Kyan was simply terrifying. But Pyro was like the hot cousin who didn’t notice she was female. On his scale of hot-or-not, she had fallen off the bottom. And that was okay. Really.
Take now, for instance. She was wearing a new curve-hugging outfit and heels that would ordinarily make her want to crawl under a rock.
Pyro barely glanced at her.
“How was prison?” she asked.
“Relaxing.” He yawned. “I caught up on some sleep.”
“Only you would think a Thai prison was relaxing.”
Amber had told her all about Pyro’s night out while they were getting ready in the warehouse. It had involved strippers, smuggling, and lighting a nightclub on fire.
But he was still a good person. Er, dragon. Whatever.
“Nah.” He grinned. One side went down. And he had dimples. He was a bad girl’s wet dream. “You should try it.”
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll get right on breaking the law. Hey, did you hear I’m supposed to be the head of the company or something?”
“I heard that.” His brows lifted sympathetically. “Sucks to be you.”
“I know!” Finally, someone else got it. Pyro had no wish to take on added responsibilities either. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The elevator binged and Amber stepped out into the hall. Pyro tensed. She passed them and moved quietly to Mal’s office doorway. Pyro relaxed and rubbed his shoulder. “Well, I better get a move on.”
“Yeah.”
Huh.
Cheryl used to think Amber’s quietness was cold or dangerous. But all the guys tensed whenever she was around. Pyro, just now. Jasper and Alex earlier. And Pyro wasn’t afraid of anything.
Amber was trying so hard to live quietly. She hadn’t been lying. Every word she spoke hugely affected those around her. It seemed lonely.
Amber motioned to Cheryl to join her at Mal’s office.
Okay. This was it.
Cheryl turned. Her heels scuffed the carpet and her ankles wobbled. She lurched.
Pyro caught her.
She held on for dear life.
“Careful.” He gripped her forearm in his steady palm. He smelled like sunlight and his yellow-brown eyes gleamed with the hint of bad boy. “Those stilts are deadly.”
Her cheeks heated. He was so good looking.
She straightened. “Yeah.”
Pyro released her and ambled down the hall to his office.
“Where is she?” Mal roared from inside his office. “Cheryl?”
Well, it was nice to be missed.
And, was Mal roaring at Amber? He was the only one who had ever pushed his sister to the point of breathing fire. Maybe it meant more than his bluntness. Maybe insulting his sibling to the point of fury was his way of treating Amber like one of the gang.
Cheryl had learned a lot about her future in-laws in a short time today.
“Find her!” Mal roared.
“You’re so impatient,” Amber said. “She’s right here.”
Cheryl wobbled into Mal’s office.
Mal paced by his desk. He came to a stop. His casual jacket was open and his powerful frame fixed on her. His green eyes glowed like embers. “You will marry me.”
She stopped. He was still going on about that? “I already agreed.”
“You changed your mind.”
“I don’t want that huge office.”
His brows drew together. “Who said you had to?”
Well. That was a relief.
Alex jostled Jasper and Amber to escape into the hall. “I will set the new appointment with the Justice of the Peace.”
Mal ignored him. He ignored all of them. He seemed unable to take his eyes off her. “Something about you is different.”
He noticed.
His gaze dropped to her sinful red heels and headed up. Up the curve of her rockabilly capris to the tight, braless T-shirt where she could feel her nipples pushing out. Amber had applied luscious red nail polish and matching scarlet lipstick. Her hair, which usually covered her face, Amber had curled and pulled back into a yellow kerchief.
For the second time in two days, Cheryl felt new. Remade.
And the growing intensity of Mal’s growl as his gaze stroked her cemented the feeling. Mal stepped closer, inspecting her. “Something is very different.”
Amber cleared her throat.
Right.
Cheryl put one hand on her hip like she’d seen in a vintage print. The woman in that print had looked like she could do anything. Maybe so could Cheryl.
The future of the company was on the line.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cheryl posed like a pin up model because it gave her the extra boost she needed to sell her idea. She hadn’t talked Mal out of the cutesy logo. But maybe, if she were as confident as the models in the vintage art prints, she could talk him into making his last product launch these outfits.
Amber had faith in her.
Cheryl did think pin-up outfits were better than lingerie. “We have a, uh, proposal.”
Mal circled around so he was standing behind her. His breath made her skin prickle with awareness. His predatory stroll said he was going to take her now, in this office, and fulfill another of her fantasies with his hard masculine shaft.
“I’m listening.”
“We think you should use these outfits.” She indicated hers and two more draped over Amber’s arms. “For the launch.”
He continued around her to her other side. “What outfits?”
“The one I’m wearing.”
“You’re wearing?” His eyes narrowed and chin lifted. “You’re wearing the vintage line.”
Had it taken him that long to figure out she wasn’t in her usual hoodie and jeans? “Yes.”
He lifted her hand from her hip and slid his hot thumb up her sensitive inner arm. His touch lit her on fire. She swayed into him.
He palmed her waist. “It was not as popular with test audiences.”
“Now is the time to try again,” Amber said from the doorway.
Mal’s jacket caressed Cheryl’s bare arm. His trousers rubbed against her hip. “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?”
He growled. “It’s distracting.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s bad.” His burning eyes, his hot hand sliding up her spine, and his breath-stealing intensity made his words into lies.
“I think it’s good,” Amber said. “And so does Cheryl.”
He leaned in and took a deep breath as though inhaling Cheryl’s perfume. His rough cheek grazed her jaw. Anticipation tingled in her center. She breathed his masculine scent.
His quiet words were for her ears. “You are not bare, but I feel you revealing yourself to me as if you are.”
“Oh?” Cheryl wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Is that normal?”
“It’s intriguing.” He narrowed his eyes. “And distracting.”
That was the second time he’d called her distracting.
Amber piped up. “It’s her clothes.”
Her clothes made her seem bare? Panic shot up a warning. This wasn’t her usual outfit, and she was sticking it all out there and he didn’t like it. When they put it like that… she tried to cover her thin, T-shirt-clad belly.
He caught her hand and growled low. “Do not hide yourself.”
She swallowed. It was impossible to obey.
He tightened his grip, molding her to his implacable body. His heartbeat steadied her. But the panic remained.
He snapped at the rest of them. “All of you, out!”
“Mal, the outfits—”
“Now!”
The rest fled. Amber stood her ground. “I intend to test these for our next launch.”
“Do what you want!”
Her eyes flashed. She held the outfits to her chest and turned on her Mary Janes. “I will.”
Mal backed Cheryl against the conference table. His powerful leg slid between her damp thighs. “Close the door behind you.”
Amber obeyed as she departed. The door closed them in with a private click.
Cheryl clung to Mal.
“You’ve hidden from me until now.” His thick hardness pressed against her, a rod of powerful attraction, and his green gaze gleamed with hunger. He captured her hand and sucked on her fingers. A shudder washed through her. He nibbled up her wrist. “All of you is different. I have never seen you like this.”
His rough hunger brought her body to aching awareness. “It’s just nail polish.”
“No. It is more than coloration of your nails or changing your hair.”
“Sorry—”
“Do not apologize.” He growled into her neck. “I do not know this Cheryl. She is intoxicating.”
She tried to catch her breath. Being with him sucked out all the oxygen and her female sex throbbed. “I’m here.”
“Show yourself.”
She swallowed. He was always saying this. But if he felt like she was bare when she was wearing the pinup outfit, it seemed deeper than getting naked. It seemed like what he meant was that he wanted her to be confident.
Then, she needed his help.
“Tell me I’m beautiful,” she whispered.
“You are.” His honesty burned into her. Green shimmers of scales appeared on his skin and faded again.
“Tell me you want me.”
“Only you.” The shimmers reappeared. As though speaking to her this honestly made him lose control of his humanity and unleashed his beast.
She stroked the color. The scales felt like human skin despite the scale pattern. Did she have the power to make him lose control? Thinking so made her bold. As before, she made the demand. “Show your self to me.”
He growled, stepped away from her, and braced himself. The business suit shredded and pieces of expensive silk fluttered.
His body shimmered, iridescent green, like a shapeshifter or an illusionist. A green Wolverine, an X-man, who despite his alien characteristics, was still human. Then, he transformed.
Muscles bulged into being. Miles of it, hard and powerful as a body builder, wrapping around his torso and flexing his thick arms and legs.
A tail emerged from his tailbone with a triangular tip and whipped like a green devil. His teeth sharpened, white and carnivorous, behind thinning lips. His hair slid to a dark tuft at the nape of his neck as his head elongated into a long dragon snout.
He dropped to all fours. His fingers and toes elongated into claws, and his shoulder crested hers. His head brushed the ceiling. When he had transformed before, he had been much smaller, more human-sized. Now, he was much larger and looked like a dragon from the movies.
“What about your wings?” she asked.
He hesitated.
Didn’t he want to show her the final form? Or was there not enough room? She leaned back on the conference table.
It shrieked and collapsed.
He whooshed back to human form and dove to her side, catching and cradling her before she crashed into the ground too.
She gazed up into the familiar bronzed human face, normal supermodel-perfect teeth, and dark, brooding brow of her future husband.
He stroked her handkerchief-covered waves. “You’re okay?”
She nodded. Ugh. “I guess it’s time to lose weight.”
“Pyro damaged the table during our conference with Sard Carnelian.” He gritted his teeth.
Whoah. “He came here?”
Mal knelt
and lifted her onto his naked lap so she straddled his right thigh. His powerful erection pressed against her belly. “I do not wish to speak of him now.”
The hardness convinced her of what he did want.
And she wanted it too.
Mal dipped and claimed her lips. She met him with an open, welcoming mouth. He thrust his tongue in and out, dominating her with desire. Her sex throbbed. She squeezed his thigh, rhythmically teasing herself.
He stripped her T-shirt over her head and unsnapped her bra, baring her breasts to his eager hands and hot, wet mouth. Pleasure burst from his kisses and the throbbing ache intensified. He parted her denim capris and she kicked off the shreds, and her underwear until she was as naked as he was.
Although she couldn’t have imagined it the last time she was in this office, now she relished being naked with him.
He paused and drank in the sight of her. Under his dark, possessive gaze, she felt powerful. Like when she’d walked in, wearing the pin-up clothes, and stunned him. A streak of her lipstick smeared across Mal’s chest like war paint. He was a warrior, and he loved her fiercely.
She positioned herself to accept his hard cock.
He sucked in a breath through his teeth. The thick tip dipped into her wetness. “Cheryl.”
He felt like heaven. Her sex shuddered in anticipation.
She guided his cock in, already feeling like an expert even though it was only their second time. He gripped her waist in one hand and palmed her breast with the other, stroking her soft and sweet, closing on her climax. His bunched abs ground against her swollen nub and his cock stroked her wet channel. His shaft root brought her bubbly pleasure every time he rocked against her mons and his thick head pummeled her aching sweet spot.
Her pleasure mounted. He possessed her, owned her, loved her. And she loved him.
He growled and bit her shoulder, his own control fracturing. “Cheryl.”
She wrapped herself around him. The pleasure of holding her future husband burst upon her all at once, and she orgasmed deliciously. He roared and spent himself, blasting his hot load into her.
Lolling back, she relaxed in his arms… which were now floating in the air half a foot off the ground. His safe palm cupped the back of her head, pressing her to his solid shoulder, and his sheltering arm anchored her to his side while her feet dangled. She tightened.