But that was all.
He could make her come, pursue her pleasure as relentlessly as any dragon, leave her breathless and quivering and sated, and she would be safe. His magic would not come out to harm her, so long as he remained focused on taking her body.
But he was a dragon. Fate had chosen not any woman for him, buther, sharp and ferocious and sweet and tender—and he did not want her in controlled increments. He wanted all of her.
Maya Flores, breathless and trembling andhis.
Maybe it was good, the wariness in her eyes, the way she smoothed her shirt down over her skin. Closing herself off to him.
He could satisfy her body. But he could never claim her heart.
“The mate I deserve?” she echoed him quietly. “Well.”
He had to tell her. She’d seen his magic. He had to explain.
Corin cleared his throat. “You must want to know why I never—”
“No. I don’t need to know why you never told me about magic, or about shifters, or about what’s meant to be between us. I don’t need to know why you don’t intend to claim me, or send me magic or whatever it is you dragons do. You don’t. That’s all I need to know. And now we’ve established that—” She brokeoff and took several deep breaths. Corin watched as she pulled herself back into being the Maya she had been all the time she worked under him. Calm. Collected. Professional. “I should get back to work.”
“When can we meet again?”
“For more pressure relief?”
“To talk.”
“Totalk.” She barked out something that was almost laughter. “Yes, let’s talk about—about the stolen treasures. I’ll see if I can find any other envelopes or whatever the other treasures came packed in. Tomás might have stashed them somewhere, he’s good at hiding stuff. There might be a clue on them, I don’t know. And—”
Something that made his dragon rear up protectively flickered behind her eyes. “And we should talk about … the other possible suspect,” she said, quickly, as though she had to force herself to let the words out.
“Tomorrow?” he heard himself say, as though from a long way away.
“After Tomás is asleep.” She nodded, once, and fled.
I don’t need to know why. Maya’s words dug their way into his chest and hung there like a stone.
He had been ready to give her all the answers in the world. Whatever she needed. Explanations that would widen the trench between them. Put him in an even worse light in her eyes. Or—he closed his eyes, cursing. Ones that might mend everything that was broken between them. As though anything he did could do that. His power was only good for re-breaking the broken things, not for fixing anything. Why would he think himself capable of anything else?
In the end it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t give him the chance to explain why he’d kept the truth from her for so long.
Because all that mattered was that he had lied. That he’d known she was his mate, and hadn’t even told her.
11
Maya
Really fucked that up, huh?The rest of the day passed too fast and too slow at the same time. She couldn’t stop thinking about how Corin had made her come. His concentration on her pleasure. On every sound and movement he coaxed from her body.
Which meant it hadn’t worked, didn’t it? Shit. They’d only done that to relieve the physical need between them, caused by the mate bond she was now more certain than ever Corin wanted nothing to do with. And it hadn’t helped. She was still thinking about him. Needing him. She needed—no, shewantedmore than his fingers.
Maybe that would break the spell.
Maybe you’re fuck-drunk and stupid with it. It was a strong possibility. But what if she made him come as hard as he’d made her come? Or what if they both—
She shoved the thought in her mental trash can and groaned. Having full penetrative sex or anything else with Corin wouldn’t fix this. Probably. It would make it worse. Probably.
If he flinched away again from the possibility of her touching him the way he touched her, it would break her.
She sighed.Let’s not think about that.Because there were two routes that train of thought could take: either the direction where she beat herself up all evening and long into the night…
