I glare up at his smirking lips.
“It’s notyourdoing,” I lie, because I can’t stand the truth.
Despite how weird and frustrating this situation is, despite how inhumanheis, I do find him alluring. For some stupid, hot-flash, reason. It must be all the monster smut I’ve read. I’ve addled my brain and made scary things into sexy ones.
His tail moves in my peripheral vision and the tip slides over my ankle just above my boot. I suck in a sharp breath and tell my legs to step back—but they don’t. I’m just standing here as his tail makes a slow perusal of my stockinged leg. It wraps around my calf and over my knee, sending a thrill up my thigh to my core.
Bastian’s smirk spreads and his fangs poke into his bottom lip. “Your mouth may spin fiction, but your scent reveals fact.”
“Enough!” I slap his tail and it retreats from my thigh. “I’m a very busy woman and I have things to do, so either put on pants and help me, or put on pants and follow me around because you’re not staying in that room alone with Oscar.”
He huffs, the smile melting from his lips.
I walk toward the sweatpants on the floor of the office and pick them up. Bastian is still standing in the shop, pouting. I assume he knows what comes next, because he doesn’t seem surprised when I brush the mark on my chest and summon him to my side.
I hold out the pants, brushing his fingers with them. “On.”
He stuffs his clawed foot into one leg and tugs carelessly, ripping the material down the front with two of his talons. I purse my lips and cross my arms.
“Guess you’re going to look like a hobo dragon, because I’m not buying you more pants until I get the first check out of this place.”
He shoves his other foot into the pant leg even harder, gouging it open entirely with a devilish smile.
“Lovely,” I sigh as my lip curls. “But it’s not getting you out of this. Follow me, now, or I willmake you.”
nine
Dust Mites from Another Dimension
Idon’t even mention the shirts to him because I doubt he’d put that on gently, either. If he rips everything I’ve gotten him an hour after buying it I know I’m going to be upset, so I just let it go. He can be shirtless—not that it bothers me.
I haul in the litter box, Oscar’s food, toys, and beds first, then go back for my things. Bastian stands in the doorway watching, arms crossed. After my fourth or fifth trip, I notice that some of the boxes have moved from the doorway to the stairs. On my seventh trip, the boxes are gone. Hopefully they’re upstairs, but knowing this beast, they could be in a smoldering pit or sacrificed to whatever monster he’s trying to summon.
Suddenly, the May chill feels more like a heatwave. There’s sweat on my brow, and I’m panting a little. I stop on the eighth load topump my sweater and take a drink from my bookish, sticker-plastered water bottle.
My car was really packed to the gills.
I lock it up and when I come back into the shop, Bastian is hefting the last box from the floor into his arms.
“So, he can be useful,” I say snarkily.
His expression hardens and he opens his arms. My mouth hangs open as I watch the box drop to the ground with awhoomph.
“Seriously?” I demand, my voice cracking.
He shrugs and walks toward the stairs.
I growl as I retrieve the box. Fortunately, it’s just art prints from my favorite books and some knickknacks wrapped in towels so it’s light and likely undamaged. I carry it as I follow him up the stairs, mumbling more curses at his backside.
He’s ripped another hole in his sweats to allow space for his tail to emerge and I grumble. They’ll never survive a coin laundry like this. I’ll have to sew them.
The apartment is brighter than before, and I realize Bastian has pushed open the interior shutters on the windows. He’s piled all my things in the corner by the wood burning stove, and Oscar is currently enjoying lying across two of his beds that look purposefully placed.
My gaze shoots to Bastian. I can’t get a read on the dragon. Is he a jerk? Or not?
I close my eyes and shake my head. That is not anything I need to care about right now.
My phone is only at fifteen percent battery, but that’s more than enough to make a few phone calls. I pull up my notes app and locate the list of to-dos I made for myself before we left L.A. I mark off “Handle the Lizard Problem” which I had scrawled in between “Assess the Space” and “Call Utilities.”
