“Do you always do this?” he gasped suddenly.
Scarlet opened her eyes, and realized that they were surrounded by flowers. Where there had been soft moss and short grass, there were now riots of knee-high flowers. Even day-bloomers were reaching for the weak moonlight, filling the entire clearing.
Scarlet laughed helplessly. “I’ve never done this,” she admitted as she sat up. She held a hand to an orchid that bobbed to touch her and unfurled a happy new leaf. “It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” Mal said, rising on one elbow. He traced the line of her leg with a finger that promised more of what they had just enjoyed and Scarlet had to keep herself from falling upon him once again.
“It’s vanity,” Scarlet confessed. “I could look my age, if I wanted. Or... if there was something you liked...” she added shyly.
Mal sat the rest of the way up. “You are perfect just this way. I want nothing else. You are exactly the Scarlet I fell in love with... the beautiful pain in my ass that told me where to shove it the very first time we talked.”
Scarlet had to smile and when Mal reached to kiss her, she flowed into his arms.
When he ran out of air, she held his face in her hands for a long moment. “Did you mean it?”
“That you’re beautiful?”
“That you’re my... my mate.” Scarlet almost didn’t dare to say it.
“Can’t you tell?” Mal traced the line of her neck with one finger and his breath stirred the hair that was loose around her face. “Don’t you feel it?”
His touch raised fire in Scarlet’s veins, but she hesitated. “If you will recall your Greek mythology, dryads are regularly described as lusty,” she said primly. “I run hot, and it has been a long, long time. Maybe I’m confusing need with... with...”
“With love?” Mal asked intensely.
Scarlet took her hands back from his face and then didn’t know what to do with them. “We just met,” she chided.
“We’ve known each other for more than a year,” Mal pointed out, taking one of her hands in his own and kissing it. He looked insufferably pleased with himself.
“A year that you were a complete ass to me,” Scarlet pointed out.
“Did I ever actually do you wrong?” Mal still had her hand, and he turned it over to lay a second kiss on her palm.
“You tried to sell my island to horrible people. You attempted to steal my staff,” Scarlet reminded him, trying to dampen the desire he was igniting. She rallied. “You wanted to have Gizelle committed to a mental institution.”
“I couldn’t let that poor woman stay here and be destroyed,” Mal said firmly. “And I gave you as many carrots as sticks. You never admitted to your staff how much I offered to pay you if you broke the lease.”
It was hard to think with her hand captured in his, with his shoulders and chest bare, with the warmth of him so close it made her skin prickle. “You could have told me the truth,” she pointed out faintly.
“It didn’t occur to me that I needed to,” Mal said. “But I’m sorry that I didn’t, if that helps.”
It did, somehow. “We still have a problem,” Scarlet pointed out. “I would also like to not be destroyed and you said that we were running out of time.”
Mal sobered.
“So tell me how you plan to battle this creature, and how I might help.”
“I’ll do better,” Mal said, pulling away from her seriously. “I’ll show you.”
Chapter 15
It was full night now and the silver moon was no longer above the clearing. But they didn’t need light where Mal planned to take them.
He stepped away from Scarlet, wading through knee-deep flowers that whispered against his legs and smelled like paradise. When he had enough space, he shifted and his dragon arched his neck in pleasure at his mate’s admiring eyes.
He was a large dragon, in shimmering golden earth colors muted by the darkness. In sunlight, he was like tiger’s eye gemstone.
I’m an earth dragon, he told Scarlet, and he felt her delight in the brush of his mind.