by Minx Malone
There was a slight southern twang to his words that coupled with his deep, rumbly voice sent a wave of warmth though her veins. And other places. She clenched her thighs together, embarrassed that she could get turned on even when she was all beat up and sore.
He glanced down and then looked away sharply. His jaw clenched and then he pulled his shirt over his head. “Here, put this on.”
His bare chest was so perfectly chiseled that Evie was momentarily stunned. Tall and lean, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him anywhere. His six or was it eight, pack led down into two V-shaped muscles that took her eyes places she didn’t want to be caught staring.
She yanked the shirt over her head, glad to have something to do other than gape at him. It was tight on her which was embarrassing enough but it also molded to her breasts in such a way that her nipples stuck out like headlights. Headlights on high beam. Great.
He ran a hand over his head, sending his dark hair into disarray. “That didn’t help as much as I thought it would.”
“Sorry.” Her cheeks burned as he made himself busy looking at everything but her. “They’re not so easy to cover up.”
He glanced at her again. “Yeah, I can see that.”
An image of him, scowling as he walked down the sidewalk, flashed through her mind. That morning!
“Oh my god. You were there this morning. I remember!”
Evie gasped and scuttled backward on the bed. The movement made her head pound again and she clasped her hands on her temples, as if she could hold the pain in.
“Whoa. Take it easy.” He held his hands up and approached slowly. “Why don’t you tell me the last thing you remember?”
“I saw you getting coffee at Java Hut and then this guy was pretending to be interested in the bags I was selling. He must have done something to me. Drugged me or something.”
She started to tell him the guy was a dragon but something stopped her. What if he was one of them, too? She peered at him closely, waiting to see if his eyes would change or if he’d suddenly grow a tail. Hell, she’d only seen pictures or video of dragon shifters before today and they’d always looked a little creepy to her. Not like this guy.
His dark hair was cropped close and his eyes were a deep brown. Bedroom eyes. He looked more like an underwear model than anything else. She flushed when he caught her looking.
“I don’t really remember anything other than that.”
He looked like he didn’t believe her but thankfully he didn’t push. “Well, I was at Java Hut this morning. I always get coffee there when I have a job in the area.”
She scoffed. “What job? Abducting people?”
To her annoyance, he didn’t look at all upset about her accusations. Instead he chuckled and crossed his arms, the impressive muscles in his arms bulging in that position. She turned her head away, refusing to be swayed by his unbelievable hotness. This was obviously their plan. The creepy one did the dirty work and then they brought in a hot human guy to convince you to let your guard down. Well, no way. Not happening.
“I didn’t do anything but pick up a crate for delivery. I’m a courier.”
“You just carry stuff and have no idea what it is? I’m supposed to believe that?”
He shrugged. “Believe what you want. It’s not my job to worry about what’s in the boxes. I’ll carry whatever as long as I get paid.”
“Mercenary.”
“Necessary,” he countered. “My brothers call me Heartless but they don’t know how many times my lack of scruples has been the only thing keeping food on the table. Heart is a luxury of the rich.”
“I know.” Evie’s anger deflated somewhat. It was hard to judge his mercenary approach to life when she knew all about the compromises you’d make when you were hungry.
“Speaking of getting paid, I guess I won’t be since I get paid on delivery. And obviously no one was supposed to know what was in this particular delivery. This is going to be a problem.”
Evie’s mouth fell open. She’d been assaulted and kidnapped and all he was thinking of was his lost paycheck? Bastard.
“It’s slightly more of a problem on my end, don’t you think?”
He smirked. “I just meant that since I was never supposed to know what was in the crate, it’s going to be problem when I don’t show up to deliver it. Actually, the only reason I came home instead of going straight to the drop-off point was because the storm was so bad. Lightning probably saved your life.”
Evie shivered. He was a jerk but he was right. She could be waking up in an entirely different situation right about now. It was terrifying to think of how close she’d come to being another statistic. All at once, she wanted nothing more than to go back to what was familiar. To see Mimi and their crappy apartment and her own bed.
“I want to go home,” she sobbed.
His eyes darkened with an emotion Evie couldn’t even begin to identify. “I can’t do that, sweetheart.”
“Why not? Just let me go and no one has to know. You could pretend you lost the crate or that I escaped.” She put her hand on his arm, momentarily distracted by the sensation of warm skin stretched over hard muscle. “Please.”
The shock on his face mirrored how she felt inside. Mortified she snatched her hand back. It had seemed like such a natural instinct to touch him. To appeal to his sense of goodness. Even though his part in her abduction had been accidental, he readily admitted that he only cared about getting paid. He called himself Heartless and somehow she still thought he was good?
It was official. She was the worst hostage ever.
She touched me.
The thought rolled around and around in Nate’s brain as he paced the room. Evie watched him from the bed, worried. She should be worried, he thought grimly. She was far too beautiful with that honey-tinted skin and those big brown eyes. Her touch had set off a firestorm inside of his body, the warmth from her small fingers quickly igniting every nerve ending from his arm straight to his groin.
It was like walking with a stick of dynamite in his pants. He tried to adjust discreetly when she wasn’t looking but the friction of his jeans moving across his cock only made it worse. He bit off a curse as the damn thing pulsed so hard he was afraid it would go off in his pants. He hadn’t been that green since he was a teenager.
“Okay, I want you to tell me everything you remember about what happened earlier.”
He swiped a hand over his brow. Maybe if he focused on the task at hand instead of her taut little nipples poking against the front of his shirt, he’d have a chance to calm down.
“There was a man. He had crooked teeth and his eyes …”
Now that got his attention. He crossed his arms and waited until she met his gaze. “What about his eyes?”
“Um, they were dragon eyes,” she finally whispered. She looked away and tugged the shirt down a little lower.
He groaned. “That is not good news. I was hoping this was some kind of mistake. That maybe you were in the wrong place at the wrong time or the crate somehow got switched with another one. But if you saw him…”
“Why? What does that mean?” She moved forward slightly on the bed and her intoxicating scent washed over him again.
“It means we’re in deep shit. I have no love for the dragons but I would have never expected this.”
Heat washed over him again, so intensely that it stole his voice. He staggered backward and placed his palms against the wall. His vision started to dim as his blood raged and burned. He pushed with all of his strength, hoping he could channel the intense energy into something, anything other than doing what he really wanted to do.
Marching over to that bed and burying himself in all the curvy softness he knew was hidden beneath his t-shirt.
“Are you okay? Nathan?” She said his name hesitantly, as if unsure of how it would sound in her mouth.
He wanted to tell her to say it again, wanted to hear it in that honeyed voice or better yet hear her scream it while he was making her
come. The image appeared in his mind so vividly that his hands curled into fists against the wall to prevent him from turning around and grabbing her.
When her hand landed on his back, he let out an anguished roar, not unlike the sounds he made in dragon form. Lost in his internal torment, he must not have heard her when she got up. But as much as her touch made him burn, it released a wave of relief so intense it almost brought him to his knees.
Startled, she pulled her hand back. “I’m s-sorry. I didn’t mean to–”
As soon as her hand left his skin, the fire came back. The desire that had previously been at bay returned with a vengeance.
“Put it back! Your hand.”
His words came out in a grunt but she quickly complied, her small hand resting tentatively in the middle of his back. The soft moan he let out would have been embarrassing under any other circumstance but he didn’t care. His world was reduced to his bare skin and her gentle touch.
“Are you sick?”
She stroked over his shoulder blade, rubbing a gentle circle over the feverish skin. All he could do was hang on and absorb her touch. Nothing had ever felt like this.
“No. I rarely get ill.”
She was accelerating his fever but she was calming it too. That could only mean one thing. Fuck.
“You’re sweating and your skin is all red. Maybe you should rest. I promise I won’t tell anyone what happened. Just let me go and no one has to know.”
Nate crossed his arms as tightly as he could. Not that it would stop him from grabbing her if the fever took over.
“I can’t do that. It’s freezing out there and it’s the middle of a lightning storm.”
She shivered then, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I guess that’s true. If it’s this cold in here I can’t even imagine being outside in this.”
Everything inside of him stilled at her words.
She’s cold. Our woman needs our warmth. His dragon instincts ignited and in that moment his entire worldview narrowed to one purpose only. Making sure Evie had whatever she needed.
He scooped her up, ignoring her startled gasp and carried her to the bed. Moving the comforter back with one swipe of his hand, he placed her in the center of the bed.
“What are you doing?”
He slid in next to her and her mouth dropped open. “You’re getting in, too?”
“You’re cold. I need to warm you.”
She worked her mouth but no sound came out. Then finally, she let out a small laugh. “I could sleep on the couch.”
“I can’t let you sleep out there. You would be alone. Undefended. You’re vulnerable when you sleep.”
Tired of conversation that wasn’t accomplishing his goal, he wrapped his arms around her, molding her against his chest. Just the idea that she would sleep out of his sight made him crazy. Nathan knew he was being irrational but something about this girl fired his protective instincts.
Considering they were going to be stuck inside for a while, that was a problem.
chapter three
Evie tried to play it cool and act like a drop dead gorgeous man wanted to snuggle her on a regular basis. Inside though, she was freaking out. Currently she was plastered against about six feet five inches of muscle and it all felt rock hard.
Rock. Hard.
“So this man you saw earlier, can you tell me anything else about him? Had you ever seen him before? Following you, maybe?”
His voice rumbled against her ear and she suppressed a little shiver of delight.
“I don’t know. It all happened so fast.”
“Try. Anything you can remember might be helpful. Maybe he hung out in the area?”
Evie thought back but honestly she probably wouldn’t remember if she did. She wasn’t the most observant person in the world, something that Mimi chided her for on a regular basis. It was just so easy to get lost in her daydreams, especially when there were no customers. Her mind worked in images so she was usually imagining what colors and textures she’d use on her next art piece. It had gotten her into trouble more than once when she’d wandered into the wrong part of town because she wasn’t paying attention or bumped into someone because she wasn’t looking where she was going.
It was hard to pay attention to real life when her imagination was so endlessly entertaining.
“He was taller than I am, I know that. Older, some gray hair.”
“What about his eyes?”
She tried to shift away slightly but his arm tightened around her waist like a steel band. She sighed.
“I already told you. They were dragon eyes.”
He made a frustrated sound, the warm huff of his breath against her ear sending a stab of desire right between her legs. She clamped her thighs together, hoping he wouldn’t know why she was squirming. It would be just her luck that he’d know exactly how turned on she was just from him whispering in her ear.
“Okay, he’s a dragon but did he have dark eyes or light eyes before they changed? Crows feet, long eyelashes, hell. I thought women were supposed to notice those kinds of details.”
She grinned despite herself. “Normally we do but not when the guy is creepy. But I think they were brown.”
“Okay. So tell me everything you remember. Start from the beginning and maybe more details will come back to you.”
Evie tried to calm her mind. Somehow he seemed to know what she needed because he nuzzled the back of her neck.
“Relax sweetheart. Just talk to me.”
Inexplicably, his words worked like a balm to her system and she found herself telling him everything. About the crappy apartment she and Mimi struggled to pay rent on each month, to the crazy plans her mother was always coming up with to make money. Even though he didn’t say anything the whole time, just listened in that quiet intense way of his, he made her feel like he understood and didn’t judge her.
“Who is the male in your life?” he asked finally. “Why does he not provide for you?”
It was such a strange question that Evie momentarily forgot her situation. A male? He had a strange way of speaking, almost like he was much older than he appeared.
“I, um… don’t have a male.”
“What about your father? Your family?”
“It’s just me and Mimi. My mother,” she clarified. “It’s always been just the two of us. I’ve never met my dad.”
She didn’t tell him that she didn’t think Mimi knew who her father was. When she was young, her mother had claimed he was in the Army and died overseas. As she’d gotten older and asked more questions it became obvious that her mother was keeping the truth from her. Knowing what she did of her mother’s habits now, Evie figured it was more likely that Mimi didn’t remember the night she was conceived. Or she remembered and wished she didn’t.
Some things were better left unknown.
“Say what you will about the dragons but this would never happen in a dragon clan,” Nathan grumbled. “There you would be protected and cherished. Females are a rare treasure because they are so few.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How do they, you know?”
“What?”
Evie rolled her eyes. No doubt he knew what she was asking but just wanted to force her to say it out loud. “If they don’t have many dragon females, where do the dragon babies come from then?”
She looked over her shoulder and their faces were so close that their lips brushed slightly. He closed his eyes slightly as if pained. Of course, he doesn’t want me perving all on him, she thought. He looks like a Crossfit ad and I’m just… me.
She tried to move back and put some room between them but his arm clamped even tighter, pulling her against his chest so closely that her breasts rubbed up against his chest. She sucked in a startled gasp when her sensitive nipples brushed against him.
“Most of their mates are human,” he said finally.
She pushed back from him and he was so startled, he actually let her go.
“Oh my god, the
stories are true then? They really snatch girls and steal them from their families? Is that your job, huh? Get close to girls, they trust you because you’re human and then you abduct them?”
His face twisted. “No. That’s not true and no dragon would want to gain a mate that way. In their culture, if a male can’t prove himself worthy of a mate, then he doesn’t deserve one. That is their way. It would be a great dishonor to your family and your entire clan to do something like that.”
“I guess the guy who did this to me didn’t have much honor.”
“The man who did this to you is dead once I figure out who he is.” His voice was fierce and the murderous look on his face convinced her that he meant it. Maybe he really wasn’t involved.
“I’m sorry I accused you. This whole thing has been pretty crazy.” She blew out a breath.
“Don’t apologize to me.” He sounded almost angry. “Anyone would be freaked out by what happened to you.”
It was strangely comforting to see his anger on her behalf. Evie was used to fighting her own battles and up until this moment would have sworn she preferred it that way. But there was no denying that having a sexy man who looked like he wanted to kill to protect you was … intriguing.
“Well, at least I got to see a dragon up close. He was scary but his eyes were such a pretty gold color.”
His face twisted and suddenly his expression was nothing short of terrifying. “His eyes were gold? I thought you said his eyes were brown?”
“At first they were brown. But when they changed, the slits were gold.”
“Fuck.” He sat up suddenly, the change in position taking her off guard.
Evie wrapped her arms around her middle, cold again for reasons that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. “Why? What does that mean?”
“Only members of a certain family have gold eyes with very few exceptions. It’s been that way for centuries. I don’t know exactly who did this to you but I know who he’s working for.”
She didn’t know anything about dragon shifters so why would anyone be targeting her? If they were hoping to ransom her, they wouldn’t have gotten far anyway. With the way Mimi tended to disappear when she was in search of a fix, there wouldn’t even be anyone to send the ransom note to.