I grimace. “But, you like Renee and Andrew, right?”
“There are very few exceptions.”
“And me?”
He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me against his side. “The nerve you have to even ask.”
I smile and lean my head on his shoulder.
The boat dips and a spray of cold lake water peppers us. Oscar barks indignantly while Bastian and I laugh.
What a perfect day.
“I was hoping we could do a little shopping. I’m not sure how the shop owners will feel about a leashed cat, but we’ll see. Maybe you two can stand outside while I browse,” I say, grinning up at him.
“As if I’d let you out of my sight,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “You can look in through the window.”
“You carry my very life force,” he whispers. “You’re not leaving my side.”
I know he just means the book in my bag but the way he pulls me in harder has my stomach making little flips.
It’s been months of this. Fluttery feelings, and big swoops in my lower belly. These “new romance” feelings with Jeremy were over so quickly, it seemed, that I hardly remember them at all. Was it even like this? Was it ever so intense?
Bastian makes me feel like I’m freefalling and he’s my parachute. He cherishes me honestly and wholeheartedly. He’s flawed but trying. Trying for me, it feels like. I want to be better for him, too.
Bastian smirks down at me. “What’s going on in that pretty skull?”
“Nothing special,” I say as I look back out at the water.
His lips brush the tip of my ear. “It feels special.”
A shiver zips down my back, and I hug my arms tighter. “I was just thinking how nice this is. How good it feels to be here with you.”
Bastian’s hand slides from my hip to my ass. “Such a simple thing making such a mess of your panties?”
I tsk. “They are not a mess.”
Yet.
“Perhaps in our meandering we’ll find a quiet spot for me to fix that,” he says, then nips the top of my ear.
“We have Oscar,” I whisper sternly.
“He can stay in the car.”
My heart pumps madly as I envision Bastian pushing me up against the wall of an alley, the sun-warmed bricks on my back making me sweat. His claws ripping apart my stockings. His tail pinning my arm to the wall. His hand around my throat as he pumps into me with feral passion.
“Oh my,” he groans against my temple. “Kitty is an exhibitionist?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
The thought that anyone could walk around the corner of that alley and find him ravaging me is one part terrifying and one part delightfully intoxicating. What would they think when they see a seven-foot-tall dragon pumping into me? Would they be jealous?
I would be…
“That’s what I’d like,” he says, pulling back and looking out over the water.
