She sank down into the hot water up to her chin, thinking hard.
He’d been the first one to say “should” besides. To acknowledge that something more might even be possible—somehow!—between them.
And if she were totally, completely honest, it had nothing to do with curiosity, or him helping her out with the mess Danny had gotten her into.
It was him.
He was…extraordinary. In all senses of the word. And for some reason, he’d spent three hours watching her sleep when he could’ve been doing literally anything else.
Andi scrubbed at her face with her washcloth. Someone like Damian could buy and sell someone like her—with or without the dragon. So, it was stupid to think about him in any other context because rich assholes and disposable women was definitely a thing, and she’d sworn her whole life she’d never be like her mother. But then there’d been Joshua—the techbro who’d talked a good game for eight months before telling her she was “too much to handle”—conveniently dumping her right before his company’s IPO, and now there was Damian.
So, what made Damian different? Was he different? Other than just the dragon?
Andi sank deeper into the tub, letting the heat soak in, remembering the way he’d looked at her in the pond. Intense, afraid for her, angry at himself—and unable to look away. Like he’d never seen anything like her before. More so after she’d saved his friend.
Andi wanted him to look at her like that again—like whatever she was doing was important; like the next words that she might say were precious; like he wasn’t just seeing her but staring deep into her soul and understanding what he found there.
She could still remember all the places he’d touched her skin as the water in her tub lapped at her. The way he’d caught her wrist in the parking lot just now—afraid she’d leave angry at him. And when he’d picked her up and carried her into his castle, pressing her against his naked chest—if only she could’ve just clung to him in the pool instead. Even if she had been somehow bewitched earlier, would she really have regretted it if he hadn’t stopped her in his bedroom? She remembered the way his hot hands had grabbed her underneath the fur coat, the way his tongue met hers with longing. She twisted to her side, pressing her cheek against the cold ceramic edge of the tub. Everything seemed so utterly impossible, but it didn’t have to be.
All she had to do was text him.
Andi glanced at her phone through the glass shower door. It was on her bathroom counter. Ever since Danny had stood her up at the courthouse, she’d been carrying it with her everywhere like a little girl with a dolly—volume up, vibration on.
She rose, slid the door open, barely dried off her hands on a hand towel, and texted him, dripping wet: Ten, tonight? and then sat back down in the tub’s warm embrace with her phone on the tile beside her. At least now, Eumie couldn’t give her shit when they saw her next. She’d tried.
Which meant now she could hide back beneath the water because it was insane.
Oh, but only if he hadn’t stopped her—if she’d twined herself around him in the pool when she’d had the chance. Looking back, it’d been totally unsafe, of course, but here in her tub, submerged under hot water with her fevered imaginings, she closed her eyes and ran her hands over her body, lifting her breasts out of the water and into the cooler air, tugging at her nipples. She remembered the way he’d pulled her to him, his hands so eager to take what they wanted—the way she’d been so ready to let him. She left one hand across her chest, making lazy circles around a breast as though it were a tongue while the other drifted lower…slowly. Was he the kind of man who would take his time and torture her thoroughly? Would he make her wait until she ached?
Or would he be upon her in an instant, irresistible and irreversible? Taking what he wanted, making her give herself to him?
She didn’t rightly know, but the more she thought about him, the more she knew she needed to make herself come. She kicked the plug of the tub loose, setting the water to drain, then turned on the faucet again until it was as hot as he had been where he’d touched her, before laying back and sliding herself down until it was pouring between her thighs. All of her was slick and hot and finally clean, and if she closed her eyes, she could imagine him grabbing her hips to his, pulling her closer in time. She reached up and twisted the dial until the water was pounding, just like she hoped he would be, demanding and relentless, flowing over every part of her. She reached an arm back to push herself farther under its flow, arching her hips up, feeling the water pulse and surge—no mere man could ever hope to keep up with its intensity. But a dragon as a man, thrusting himself inside her… A dragon as a man, rubbing against her clit… A man—a dragon—just might—her toes pointed and her fists clenched and she had the wisdom to grab her washcloth and bite onto it before she screamed. She shuddered under the water as it licked her like a tongue until she was through with it and she could reach up to turn it off to lay panting in the tub, water seeping from between her thighs.
Samantha knocked on the wall through the hallway a few minutes later. “Everything all right in there?”
Her phone buzzed beside her. She pushed herself out of the tub to look down at the screen and saw his texted response: Yes.
She bit her lips, not sure if she was happy, scared, hopeful, or just a stomach-churning mixture of all three.
“Andi?” Sammy pressed, knocking on the wall again.
“I’m totally fine!” she lied.
Chapter 13
Damian raced his sleek car through traffic, driving through the Briar’s gates and up into the hills beyond. There was a certain path he’d run as a man so many times he knew it like the back of his hand. Whenever he’d felt the need to prove that this body was his and not his dragon’s, it seemed the simplest way to feel that was to hurt it—running for miles on nearly desolate roads until he reached the final dead end, and even he was exhausted, covered in sweat, stopping at switchbacks and staring out at vistas few others got to see. It was in the course of those moments when he was punishing himself for existing that he often found clarity and maybe driving it now would help him find it again.
Andi hadn’t run away from him—or from anything. In fact, she’d gone and put herself into even more danger. Why? Because it was the right thing to do, yes, but wasn’t there a faint chance that she’d done it for him? To be—to stay—with him?
He’d had scads of women throw themselves at him before. He knew he was good-looking; he wasn’t an idiot. He was handsome enough to have had an easy time with them without his money. But most women were blinded by either his presence or his bank account. He’d had precious few ever try to learn more about the man inside—nor could he afford to share—given what he was, what he did.
Which was what made Andi exceptional. Without trying to, and without any ulterior motive, she’d managed to see his reality.
And she hadn’t run away.
She’d been scared—he’d read it in her eyes—but she’d stayed.
And she’d even fought to keep those memories! Which was only fair, considering the ones he now had of her. His car careened around another corner, almost feeling like he was in flight, the coin hanging under his rear-view mirror swaying as he imagined her swimming in the pool. The way her dark hair trailed out over the surface of his dragon’s bathing pond, the way the water beaded on her skin as she emerged. The way she’d clearly wanted to mount him in his bedroom. How perfect her breasts were, both in the pond and when he’d gotten to touch one underneath the fur, remembering the weight of it in his palm, the quick tautness of her nipple at his touch.