Shush.
“What do you think I am?” he asked her.
He watched her gasp for air while thinking, and then stir the food on her plate. “Well, I don’t think you’re a vegetable,” she said, pushing out a piece of broccoli. “And you’re not a mineral,” she said, dashing the table with salt. “So, you must be an animal. But there’s a lot of different types.” She pointed to beef, chicken, and crab in quick succession. “And I don’t see Godzilla here on the table, sooooo…”
Was he just an exotic animal to her? He’d never considered that he might be. “Yes. So few places serve authentic nuclear reactor lizard these days, it’s a shame,” he said, snarking to cover up the flush of shame he felt. “Any other questions?”
“How long have you been doing this?”
And all of a sudden, she’d disarmed him again. He paused to think. There was the true-truth answer of twenty years, and then the just-truth enough. “Too long.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
Such a good question, after so many dark nights. He took a longer sip of wine, considering. “There are…aspects of it that I enjoy. But it has its downsides. Like most jobs, I suppose.”
“Why do you do it?”
Her tone was so earnest, he blinked. It’d been an eternity since he’d ever considered other options—and as far as he knew, they didn’t exist. “Because someone has to. And I’m the best suited for the job.”
Her lips twisted to one side. “Because of your thick skin?”
“Something like that, yes.”
She sank back, looking at him. She’d been so intense, and now she was frustrated. “You still haven’t told me anything I can Google.”
Which was true, but it was for her own good. She had to know that, didn’t she?
She needs to eat, his dragon murmured. Damian hadn’t even realized his dragon was still paying attention. It was right. She’d stopped eating three questions in, and an entire table full of the most exquisite and expensive food in the entire city was growing cold as she tried to pump answers from him, and what was worse was, there was no way for him to not disappoint her. “Andi…it’s not my fault that most humans don’t think I’m real.”
Her perfect lips pursed as her gentle brow furrowed. “But I do.”
Andi’s answer echoed in the room around them as he swallowed, feeling his carefully collected armor start to crack. Like scales sliding over scales, he felt a rearrangement of the space he held—as a man and a dragon—making room for possibility. He had known hunger, and he had known lust, but now what he wanted was something more, and he wished the table were narrower so he could reach across it and catch her hands with his, as she went on.
“And that’s why I deserve the truth from you,” she went on. “You’re not normal—and I know that. So, don’t lie to me, and don’t pretend. I may not need to know everything, but I don’t have time in my life for someone who holds back. I’ve had too many of those relationships before—they’re not healthy.”
The pain of something that hadn’t shown up in his background check clearly arced across her face. “And what if I’m holding back for your own well-being?” he asked her.
Her full lips fell into a pout. He’d already noticed how often she would bite them when she was nervous—little did she know how that tempted him to bite them too. “Remember what you said earlier about patriarchal bullshit?”
Damian was forced to laugh. “Andi—” he began, ready to defend himself, which was becoming harder and harder in her presence, and then her phone rang. She blanched, and then reached for her clutch quickly.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. Take your time,” he said graciously. He rather liked it when she was disconcerted.
“So, not now…” Andi said, instead of answering the phone.
“Are you rambunctious?” blurted out the person on the far end of the line, and Damian would’ve had no problem hearing them even as a human. Her next sentence was a little softer, though. “He was hot, so I gave him an extra thirty minutes to murder you, if you know what I mean.”
“Thanks, and I’m fine,” Andi said definitively, hanging up her phone and setting it far away from herself on the table before returning her attention to him. “My roommate was worried you were a serial killer.”
“Well, she isn’t wrong,” he said. “To be worried, that is,” he added, when her eyes widened.
“I guess that makes sense—considering what I saw.” She stared at the table, likely remembering his dragon and the shimmer-tiger.
“It was fairly intense, and you were up close,” he pressed. “All that blood and fear.” If she was going to break, he wanted it to happen now, when he could escape with only paying in money.
She seemed to consider things for a long while and then looked up at him again, her gaze steady. “You’d be surprised how used to danger I am.”
His dragon had heard the challenge in her voice and longed to answer. Leave this place. Go and take her.
Damian let his eyes trail over her, remembering the heat of her lips, the smooth sweep of her skin. She had to know what she was asking, didn’t she? He could feel his urges, filling him up, making him ache. It felt like he’d done nothing but ache since he’d met her. And he knew if given half the chance… No, he told his dragon, feeling it roil in anguish before he finished his thought. I’ll take her here. His dragon purred and settled in, waiting just underneath his skin.
“Is that so?” Damian asked aloud, staring across the table at her, waiting for her to back down or take back her words.
She raised her chin in defiance. “It is,” she said with certainty. He grinned, and stood and grabbed the table between them, sending it spinning to the side, revealing her sitting in her chair. Glasses crashed, the wine bottle toppled, its red liquid pouring out, and dishes careened to the floor.
“Damian!” she gasped, clutching her napkin to herself like she’d just been exposed.
“How dangerous was that?” he asked, advancing on her. “On a scale from one to ten?”
Her eyes were wild. “I…I don’t know…”
He lowered himself to kneel on his heels in front of her. “I thought you were used to dangerous things?”
“Are you trying to frighten me?” She frowned, looking down at him.
“If I am, is it working?” he asked while circling each of her ankles with a hand.
She gasped at his touch, and he could see her blood pulsing at her throat and breast, read the beating of her heart, and scent the smell of her sex—all before he started to slowly move his hands up. The only thing that could’ve made her more beautiful to him—if such a thing were even possible—would be if she were helplessly tied to the chair. She was panting now, small sharp breaths, and she whispered his name. “Damian.”
“Yes?” he responded, like everything he had done and was doing was as normal as could be. Her skirt was up to her knees now, his hands barely higher. He kissed the side of her exposed inner thigh and felt her shiver.