“It’s romantic,” I say. “Romance doesn’t need to be subtle.” All the best grand gestures are the opposite of subtle. They’re public and messy and a bit embarrassing, and that’s what makes them mean so much.
He grunts.
Golden sparkles fill my vision, making the dance studio and all its happy couples spin. Then we’re dropped back in Luke’s library, where we’re still wearing the ballroom dance outfits.
Only now, it’s the real Luke wearing the revealing clothes,myLuke. He looks even more amazing with his wings framing his back, his horns rising above his head.
Don’t look at his cocks, I chant to myself. Don’t look at his cocks! The double bulge will be absolutelyobscenein those pants.
I look. Fudging fudge, do I look.
“Goddess,” Luke grits out, jerking my gaze up to his face. He reaches into his invisible pocket, pulls out a silky golden robe, and shoves it toward me. “Dress yourself.”
My whole body goes numb as I shrug into the voluminous robe and wrap it around me like protection, like it can shield my squishy heart from this new bruise. I don’t know why I’m so shocked. We’re no longer in the book. There’s nothing here in the real world to make him enjoy looking at me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lukendevener
If I have to spend one more second looking at Skye in that revealing costume, I think I’ll go mad. The main fabric of the dress matches her skin tone perfectly, all cream with a hint of strawberry, making her look naked but for a few ropes of pearl holding up tiny fragments of pink that barely deserve to be called clothes. Her magnificent breasts look ready to burst from their constraints, and her generous hips beckon my hands. The lushness of her thighs promises the even lusher treat buried between.
My flimsy satin pants feel as if they’re ready to split as my dual cocks battle for the limited space.
Shock covers the little witch’s face as she takes me in, her gaze flicking from my horns to my wings. She spent over an hour devouring my body with her eyes when I was human. This look is decidedlynotthe same.
I can’t stand it, can’t stand how right it felt to hold her in my arms, to move with her in harmony and grace while we danced. I want her, but she wants him—the human in the book, the man I can never be.
“Goddess.” I shove my hand into my storage pocket and use a burst of magic to call for a robe. The silky fabric hits my palm, and I yank it free and toss it to her. “Dress yourself.”
Her face crumples, but it takes all my willpower not to grab her and take her right here, so I have none left to try to figure out what’s wrong.
A snort of bitter amusement escapes me. I already know what’s wrong. Skye’s just been reminded all over again what a beast I really am.
Three hundred years of being broken, three hundred years of the other dragons rejecting me. Why should Earth be any different?
Yet it still hurts to think that Skye, the sweetest person I’ve ever known, also finds me broken and lacking.
I stalk out of the library, my tail lashing the whole way.
Without speaking of it, we spend all of that evening and the next day in the library, searching for more books about book witches. There is no trip to the pond, no dancing and laughing beside one another while playing the video game. I’m too raw. Touching her would be too hard, so I snarl whenever she suggests dancing together.
“No, we research. We need to break this spell.”
“You’re right,” she says, her voice sad.
Sad to say goodbye to the Luke of the book? Sad she’s going to lose her human lover?
I growl deep in my throat. I never realized it was possible to be jealous of oneself. How wrong I was.
Late Friday night, as I stomp my way toward the library and its hidden collection of romance books, I come across Princess Buttercup, hovering over a pair of my boots in the hall outside the sitting room. “What are you doing?”
The cat holds my gaze and squats. A stream of liquid splashes over the leather, the smell of urine filling the air. She finishes with a flick of her tail and saunters off, pausing to glance back over her shoulder. “It’s too bad you saw that. I hoped it would be awhile before you found them, so the ammonia smell would really kick in.”
“Why?” I grit out, even though I already know the answer.
“You hurt her.” The cat turns toward me, jabbing an accusing paw. “She’s so easily hurt, which you knew, and you hurt her anyway.”
“What if I’m the one who’s hurt?”
