10. Reylor

Chapter 10

Reylor

I was revealing too much. If she was a shifter like me, she would’ve known right away what the mark meant. We’d be acting on it already. There’d be no argument about who stayed where.

I’d be lying beside her in our bed.

How had a human triggered a mating between us? As far as I knew, humans couldn’t.

“Do you have any shifter blood?” I growled.

Her eyebrows lifting, she stepped backward, putting distance between us.

My inner dragon howled. I had to suppress my urge to take her outside, shift, then fly with her to my cave where I’d lay her in my nest and love her until she couldn’t remember anything other than that she belonged to me.

But I was a civilized dragon shifter. We’d formed treaties with humans. We weren’t allowed to kidnap them and take them to our nests where we’d persuade them to give us everything.

“Not that I’m aware of,” she said pertly. “I’m all human. And I’m not yours. I belong to myself.”

More howling commenced inside me.

“This mark means you’re my fated mate,” I said, struggling to sound reasonable. I wasn’t an alpha sort of guy. But with Hannah? I ached to claim her.

“I’m having a hard time believing in something like fated mates,” she said.

“Where I come from, it’s common.”

Her mouth formed a pretty O, and I wanted to tug her into my arms and kiss it away. Keep kissing her until all she could do was moan.

My cock shifted, and there was no hiding my arousal while wearing what I suspected were another male’s sweatpants. I couldn’t wait to peel them off, toss them into a metal barrel, and let my inner dragon burn them.

“Put a leash on that thing, would ya?” She whirled around and strode over to the sofa on the opposite side of the room, dropping down onto it. “I can’t be your fated mate. I’m not a shifter, as we’ve already determined.”

“It happened.”

“So make it unhappen.”

I joined her in that section of the parlor, though I resisted my overwhelming urge to sit beside her and took one of the high-back chairs instead. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Wait until my sisters heard about this. They’d be all over Hannah. Next thing she knew, she’d be wearing red, holding a big jewel in her hand, and saying I do—the dragon equivalent, that is.

“We’ll make this work,” I said. “I’ll solve this case and when it’s over, we can . . .” I couldn’t say go our separate ways. A mating bond didn’t work like that either. I’d crave this woman forever.

Was there a way to convince her to be mine?

“Can what?” she asked. “Erase that mark so you can find someone new? Because I’m still on my hiatus, and I’m not breaking it, not even for a gorgeous, much too sexy dragon shifter.”

“You think I’m much too sexy?” I purred. I could work with this.

“That was a slip of the tongue. You’re not that sexy.”

Rising, I advanced on her while she pressed her back against the sofa cushions. I braced my palms on either side of her shoulders and lowered my head until there was only a whisper of a breath between us. “ You’re incredibly sexy.” I breathed into her ear, my smile flashing when she started to quiver.

She lifted her hands and placed them on my arms. She didn’t nudge me away, something I would’ve respected and acted on, though it would’ve killed me and made my inner dragon snarl. Her fingers tightened on my skin, her nails digging in just enough to hold me in place.

“I want to lick every inch of your body,” I added, sucking in her heady scent. Earlier, in her bedroom, I could scent her arousal, and there was nothing more wonderful than that.

“I don’t believe that’s part of your contract either,” she said in a thready voice. Her eyelids slid shut, and she lifted her chin. Her lips parted, essentially begging for my mouth to claim hers.

“Contracts are negotiable.”

“There’s no way licking would show up in a business agreement.”

I leaned back, watching her facial expression. “Would you like it to?”

“Yes,” she breathed. Her eyes popped open. “No. I mean no.”

“No to licking or no to a kiss?”

“You’re not going to kiss me, are you?”

“I definitely could.”

Her swallow took a very long time to go down. “We shouldn’t.”

“Say yes or no, Hannah, because I’m going to take your hesitation as yes unless you tell me to back off and retake my seat.”

“Not giving you an answer means yes in your book?”

“With you, yes. Only with you.”

“Let’s try it. Once it’s over with, we can get back to figuring out who’s trying to make me leave my building, and put all this behind us. Neutralize this, more or less.”

“It doesn’t work that way, sweetheart.”

“I also shouldn’t like it when you call me that.”

“Why not? You’re sweet.” She’d soon claim my heart.

“You haven’t licked anything to prove that, now have you?” she said quite primly.

That was all the yes I needed.

I slanted my mouth across hers.