“Yes?”
“You barely know me,” I said, the words starting slow, but picking up steam as I latched on to the truth within them. “You met me yesterday. Besides my name, and what I look like bent over a toilet, you don’t know the first thing about me. You can’t even be certain I’m your mate.”
Twelve
Anna
In anyother setting, I doubted he would have let me see him flinch. But we were in his bathroom, a place he was used to feeling comfortable and relaxed within. Even then, his self-control was nearly immaculate—a tightening of dreamy emeralds in his eyes, a pulling of muscle at the jaw. They were small enough to be random.
But the flexing of his arms was unmissable. It gave him away entirely, and I knew I had him. I knew I was making my point that …
“You’re wrong.”
“Pardon me?” I crossed my arms over my stomach. “Did I miss something? Have you been secretly stalking me?”
“What? No, of course not.” He pushed off from the counter, his arms bulging even more from the effort. Not that I noticed.
“Then how can you say I’m lying?”
He turned. “I didn’t. I said you’re wrong. You see, I know enough about you.”
“This ought to be good,” I muttered,thoroughly ignoring the way my stomach turned topsy-turvy at the calm confidence radiating off him.
If it were any stronger, the bathroom counter might be in for a workout. My dragon pushed forward at the idea, straining to get to him. With the strength in his biceps, it would be easy for him to lift me onto the counter and hold me there while he slid his dick deep inside.
My pussy was radiating heat, wetness drenching my folds to create a welcoming he wouldn’t forget the first time he thrust inside me. I wanted to take him deep, to hear him groan and call my name as he filled me with his seed, to make me his own.
Enough,I snarled at my dragon, shoving it to the side. No way was she going to take control of me that way. Not after being a stranger all my life. She didn’t get to waltz in now and turn me into a zombie who only thought of cock to survive. I was more than that.
I had to be more than that.
“What I know,” Caz said, the sound of his voice and the rolling of his broad shoulders bringing me back to the present, “is that my dragon wants you the way it’s never wanted anything before.”
The heat between my thighs roared back to life, ignoring my attempts to douse it with unsexy thoughts of jam between my toes and … and what else? Shit.
“I know that being near you makes me feel like I’m flying for the first time, all over again. Just beingnearyou.” His voice dropped a full octave. “The idea of touching you, kissing you, of being fully inside you and pleasuring you until you scream my name is almost more than I can bear. The tiniest taste of you would …”
He shuddered, taking a deep breath, his hands visibly clenching and unclenching.
“It drives me wild,” he rumbled, a shudder running down his spine.
Hisspine? My clit was pulsing so hard and fast I thought I was going to come if he so much as laid a finger on meanywhere. The rough, husky desire in his voice was going to ruin me. I wasn’t even wearing underwear, just the sleep shorts. Much more of this, and I would have a dead giveaway that might undo all my work keeping him at bay.
“But I know more than that,” he said before I could desperately try to change the subject to somethingunsexy, like farming.
An image of Caz in a field came to me, working away until sweat dripped down his brow and he wiped it away with a forearm, the muscle showing from underneath his rolled-up shirt sleeves and—
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Stop it right now.
“What more do you know?” I tried to sound uncaring but probably failed miserably.
Damn him. He had to be exerting some influence over me. Alpha power? I searched for it, but I couldn’t feel anything. Just desire. Uncovered, unhidden desire. For me.
“I know you’re loyal,” he said with a tight smile. “You care deeply for your friends. You’ll sacrifice for them without hesitation. That’s a rare trait and one to be valued in a mate. You’re also smart and competent. I know this because you escaped from a cage designed to hold people of your, um, strength.”
“Very diplomatic,” I said as he stumbled over the fact that I was a clippy.
Caz smiled and shrugged helplessly.
