“Dray.” He checked his phone. “Did we have an appointment?”
Oh damn. I’d come at an inconvenient time. I should have texted.
“Hi.” I held up the coffee. “I brought a peace offering after getting you wet.”
His eyes grew wide, and a spot of pink appeared on each cheek. Had I said something wrong? Shoot, did he think I’d wet him deliberately?
“You got me wet?” Now the flush covered his face. “Oh, when it rained?”
Yikes. This was awkward. “With the hose, remember?”
“The hose, right.” He opened the door wider and warned me the house was a mess, as he was unpacking. It looked pretty tidy to me, with boxes lined up against a wall and a laptop on the coffee table.
He took the flat white, and I sipped the americano.
“Let me see the damage.”
For a moment I thought something had happened to the house, but he held out his hand for the folder. I’d been thorough with the estimates and included photos with each item so he had all the necessary information.
He flipped through the document, his finger scrolling over the figures as it moved from the top of the page. I hadn’t considered what to do if he rejected my proposal or said he’d hired someone else. Working on the house would give me a legitimate reason to be here, allowing our friendship to develop.
Not much of a plan, my dragon muttered.
“This is very fair.” He closed the folder. “When can you start?”
I bit my bottom lip and stifled a gasp. He should have bargained or said he was considering another builder and he’d think about it.
“Next week.” I had a few days free and had been going to organize my paperwork, but that would wait. I’d juggle my other work with Pax’s.
“Great.”
That was a signal for me to leave, and I shot up, but as I did, my elbow caught his coffee. Shit. I had a choice to use my super-speedy shifter reflexes and catch the cup mid-air, which was an impossible feat for a human. Or allow it to spill. I chose the latter because I didn’t want to draw attention to my shifter side.
The coffee sloshed and splattered, not only over the floor but him and me too.
“Oh gods, I’msosorry.”
My dragon would have smacked his head if he could.You did it again.
Pax jumped up as coffee dripped down his shirt. It’d been at least fifteen minutes since I bought it, so it wasn’t scalding. Thatwas some consolation. My beast scoffed at that adjective, saying he did scalding, not Arthur and his coffee machine.
I grabbed the napkins Arthur had given me. “I’m sorry, Pax. It was an accident.”
He dabbed at his hoodie. “At least it’s warm, unlike the hose.”
“I swear I’m not this clumsy usually.” Shifters weren’t uncoordinated, and it was all Pax’s fault. He was making me giddy.
“Just around me?” His teasing tone had me glance up. I wanted to kiss that impishgrin away and tell him how much I cared for him.
“Apparently.”
We were standing too close. An inch or two and my lips would be at the base of his throat. But there was a dark stain spreading over his sweatshirt, and I had to restrain myself from suggesting he change.
When I got home, I ripped off my shirt and eyed the flames on my shoulder. The skin was hotter than the rest of me. Being a dragon shifter, I was used to extreme changes in heat, but not like this. He had to have the same tattoo. Nothing else made sense.
That night I gave up on sleep at eleven-thirty. My dragon had been griping at me for two hours because we weren’t with our mate.
Are we going to see him?
