And now they would have forever.
Forever, he thought, then he realized in shock that his hand had reached her hip and not found the line of underwear he was expecting. He laughed into her kiss, delighted and amused as his fingers walked over her perfect thigh to verify the shocking truth: she wasn’t wearing undergarments.
Conservatively dressed, fiercely independent, perfectly put together Scarlet Stanson was completely naked under her modest skirt. And when he touched her clit, carefully and gently, she gave a whimper of desire and spread her legs for him, tearing at his shirt, desperately seeking his skin.
Yes, his dragon purred. Ours...
Mal had only a split second to recognize Scarlet’s hand, flat on his chest, before he was smashing into the opposite wall, hard enough to rattle every book on the shelves.
He was confused, blinking at Scarlet, and his dragon mantled his wings in surprise. Hadn’t he managed to get a few of her buttons undone? But she was fully dressed again, bearing down on him from across the room, and even her hair was neatly back in its bun. She was somehow larger and the air in the room felt hard to breathe.
“How dare you!” she snarled. “Was this your plan all along? Did you think you could bind my people? Did you think you could seduce me into complacency and steal them from under my nose? Is this why you wanted the resort so badly?”
Mal stared, still not making sense of how everything had changed so completely in so little time. This felt like much more than just moving too fast... then he realized that Scarlet had gotten one of his sleeves off—who knows where the buttons had gone—and the runic tattoos that swirled down his left forearm were clearly visible.
Her sole experience with warlock tattoos would have been Corbin, who stole shifters and bound them to drain their magical energy.
“Scarlet—”
“You won’t get a single one of them without going through me,” she hissed. “And good luck with that!”
The vines that were draped around the room had come to life and were snaking down from every direction to twist around his wrists and ankles and neck. He tore free from one to find another, and another, swiftly unfurling new growth at him.
“I’m not here for them,” he protested.
“Me, then?” Scarlet was standing at arm's length, and Mal didn’t think he imagined the fact that she was taller now, looking him straight in the eyes with blazing anger. “Did you think you could bind me?”
“Scarlet, wait—” Mal was trying to unbutton his remaining sleeve, but the vines and the pressure of magic in the room were making it a struggle. He muttered a quick incantation and the buttons burst from the sleeve so that he could slip it off. “I don’t need to bind anyone,” he insisted, holding up his right forearm. “I’m a dragon shifter, my own power is more than sufficient.”
Scarlet paused as the runes on both of his arms, now exposed, flared with b
rief light, and the air seemed a little less thick.
Mal used her moment of hesitation to rip free of the vines and close the distance between them.
“Corbin and his cronies used a terrible perversion of ancient dragon magic. If the Phoenix had not taken care of them, I would have done so personally. Your guests—your people—have nothing to fear from me.”
“So it’s only me that you’ve got some sort of vendetta against,” Scarlet hissed.
Mal drew a deep breath for patience and it seemed less dense. The vines still whispered threateningly behind and above him, but didn’t move to try to restrain him again. “I don’t have a vendetta,” he said firmly. “But I can explain, if you’d just listen.”
“I’m not leaving the island,” Scarlet insisted. “You can’t frighten me, and you can’t fool me.”
“Dammit, Scarlet,” Mal said, letting all of his frustration show. “Stop being so stubborn. Listen and judge for yourself. Sit down with me and let me tell you what I know. Please.”
The anger seemed to have leaked out of her, leaving only wariness. “Fine,” she said, after a moment of silence. “Outside.”
A door from her office led to a tidy, sparsely decorated bedroom with sliding glass doors that opened onto a small, private lawn with a round table and two chairs. Mal took one sideways look at the bed as they passed through, wishing things had gone a different way.
Soon, his dragon growled. She cannot resist us long, and we will take her safely from this place.
Chapter 12
The sun was still high in the sky, a blazing coin above them in a bright blue sky. It was baking hot on Scarlet’s lawn, though the worst of the afternoon heat was past.
She should have made him put his shirt back on, missing buttons or not, Scarlet thought as she settled into one of the chairs. His chest was terribly distracting and she scowled to think how easily he had weaseled his way through her defenses.
He wasn’t her mate. That could only be another half-truth to wear her down. He hadn’t actually said he was her mate, had he? Only that if she were a shifter she’d have known he was her mate... there was surely some sort of lawyer loophole there. She’d been a fool to let him kiss her, too surprised, too full of longing and desire to be sensible.