What had Garrison done?
“I kicked his arse,” she said, flicking Garrison’s motionless form a quick look. “Well, tried to. I obviously need to go back to karate lessons.” She sighed and turned back to Ari, her smile shaky. “As far as best friends go, he wasn’t really doing the job well.”
Ari swallowed. She hadn’t answered his first question. Was it too traumatic for her to tell him what Garrison had done to her?
“Did he…” He stopped, unable to finish the question. He didn’t want to cause her any more pain.
Jilly studied him, her expression guarded. “He didn’t rape me.” Her eyebrows knitted and she hugged herself tighter. “I think he would have if you hadn’t arrived. I think that’s what would have happened.”
Ari drove his blunt nails into his palms. The need to destroy Derek Garrison, to tear him apart, damn near overwhelmed him.
A soft noise drew his attention back to Jilly. She watched him, as if waiting to see what he’d do next.
“Do you want me to kill him?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. But I’d be totally good with you making certain he never has anything to do with me again, if that’s okay?”
“Totally okay.”
She let out a sigh, that shaky smile on her lips again before it faded away. “Ari, he made me drink something. Told me it would destroy the magic binding us together. He said it would free me of you.”
Ice sank into Ari’s heart.
“Did it?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
The question was pointless. He already knew the answer.
“Do I feel the sexual hunger for you that I felt back in my apartment?” she asked.
He dipped his head in a single nod.
“No. I don’t.”
Ari closed his eyes as the words cut into his soul.
“But maybe,” Jilly said, “if you kiss me…I might?”
6
It was insanity, of course. All of it.
What Derek had done to her, what Ari was about to do…
Ignoring the fact Ari had turned into a freaking dragon right in front of her—a massive creature at once terrifying and exquisitely beautiful—that she’d asked him to kiss her, that she wanted him to kiss her, couldn’t be described as anything but insanity.
And yet she stood still, her heart fast, her stomach fluttering, and watched him close the small distance between them, keeping her stare locked on his face.
A gazillion questions swirled through her head, a goddamn hurricane of them. Questions like what did it mean to be a non-shifting dragon shifter? Was it true? Or had Derek just been trying to get in her pants? If it were true, how would she ever prove it? Did she need to?
What exactly was a Fire Mate? Why was Ari “hers?”
Why couldn’t she sense him anymore? Where had the urgent sexual hunger she’d felt for him gone? Had Derek destroyed that part of her completely? And if he had, why was she so…so…unsettled now by the notion of Ari standing so close to her? So affected by the thought of his lips on hers?
Questions. Questions. Some serious. Some scary.
She’d get to them all. She had to, for her own sanity. Perhaps she’d chosen to complete a Master’s in Norse Mythology because, deep down in her very soul, she had a connection to it all? Perhaps being a dragon shifter explained why she’d been so drawn to the study of that time and mythology?
Mythology? Huh. Maybe that term wasn’t the right one. The Norse had believed in dragons. Had worshipped them. It seemed they weren’t as deluded as the twenty-first-century scholars believed them to be.
“Jilly,” Ari murmured, smoothing his palm over her cheek.
Her breath caught, her thoughts scattering at his touch.
She gazed up into his eyes. Her pulse pounded in her ears like canon fire. “Your eyes are blue,” she whispered. “They were green when you were a dragon.”
A low chuckle fell from Ari. He gently touched his thumb to her bottom lip. “Most of me is green when I’m a dragon. Including my blood.”
“My blood is red.” The lame declaration fell from her in a husky rasp.
“Red and green are complimentary colors,” he answered, lowering his head closer to hers.
“How do you know that?” Her ravenous, desperate lust from earlier may no longer be there, but holy hell, that didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling…something.
Horny?
Excited?
Nervous?
All three?
“I paid attention in art lessons at school,” he said, before gently brushing his lips over hers.
A rush of pleasure rolled through her. She sighed into the kiss, eyes closing.
He smoothed his hand over her hip, tugging her a little closer to his body. Her mind—overwrought and strung out—reacted, reminding her with startling urgency that he wore no clothes, and only a few short minutes ago, he’d been a creature she’d believed didn’t exist.
She pulled away, catching her bottom lip with her teeth even as she looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t…”
A tormented shadow fell over his face and he dipped his head. “I understand.”
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re sexy.” The words burst from her, harried and apologetic. “’Cause I do. You’re the sexiest freaking thing…I mean, guy, I’ve ever seen. I’ve been in lust with you since I first saw you riding past my apartment two weeks ago, and that was before you looked at me, before the mating…mating…”
“Fire,” he provided when she lost the term.
“Mating fire,” she continued, cheeks growing hotter. “But…but you’re…” She trailed off, gnawing on her bottom lip again.
“But I’m not human?” Ari nodded again. “I get it.” Jaw bunching, he flicked a glance toward where Derek still lay inert on the floor. “And now that the mating fire has been…extinguished, you don’t want us to—”
“I do,” Jilly blurted out. “I mean, who wouldn’t? Look at you. You’re gorgeous. And you…you changed into a dragon to protect me. A girl would have to be crazy to not want to, but…” She faded off again, unsure what to say.
Ari smiled. Jilly wished he hadn’t. It sent wicked, wanton licks of warmth into the pit of her belly.
“But you need to process everything?”
She let out a wobbly sigh at his understanding. “I need to think. I need to get my head around it all. I’m sorry.”
He nodded again. “Don’t apologize. It makes sense. There’s nothing rational or calm about the mating fire, and you got to experience it without knowing what it was. I’m surprised you’re still here talking to me, to be honest. If I were you, I’d be running far, far away from me.”
Jilly chuckled softly. “Maybe you could, I don’t know, take me to the movies next week? Or to dinner? Do you…I mean, do you eat normal food?”
He laughed. The good-natured sound echoed around the warehouse. “Nothing better than a human burger, I say.”
Jilly blinked.
Ari grinned. “Kidding. I eat normal food. And I’d like to pick you up next week and take you out for dinner. Do you own a helmet?”
“I’ll buy one.”
His grin turned warm. Jilly didn’t miss the sadness in his eyes, however. It tore at her. He’d done so much for her, he’d saved her. And yet, everything she’d discovered, everything she now knew to be reality…
Her brain reeled, struggling to deal with it all.
“Thursday sound okay?” he asked. “Eight o’clock?”
She gave him a smile, her heart racing. “Eight is wonderful.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Neither moved.
“What happens now?” Heat filled Jilly’s cheeks. God, had she ever been so stupid? Was she really walking away from the sexiest man on the planet? A man naked and muscly and who’d already proven more than capable of giving her the best orgasms of her life? Just because he could change into a dragon at will? Was she?
“Y
ou go home,” he said, folding his hands over his crotch, as if aware his rather impressive package made it difficult for her to concentrate. “I mean, somewhere safe, a friend’s place. I trashed yours. Sorry. I’ll deal with the druid…” He stopped, his jaw bunching again. “I’ll help Garrison find his way home. I won’t hurt him any more. I promise. Not unless he goes after you again.”
Jilly frowned. She glanced to where Derek lay breathing but still unconscious. “Tell him if he comes near me again, I’ll hurt him.”
Ari nodded. “I can do that.”
She studied him, unsure what to do or say.
Throw yourself at him. Ask him to make love to you. Fuck him senseless.
His jaw bunched. His Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat. “Do you want me to call a taxi for you? An Uber?”
“No, I’m okay.” She shook her head. She needed to go. If she didn’t leave now, she never would. Not until she pressed herself to Ari’s incredible body. Not until she begged him to make love to her. Not until he did.
“See you Thursday, Ari,” she murmured, throat tight, before she turned and hurried from the warehouse, pausing only to grab Derek’s denim jacket on the way out.
Sucking in the warm midday air, she found a public phone that still actually worked a block from the building, called Nadine and asked her to come get her. Every second that passed, she waited for that raw sexual hunger she’d experienced with Ari to come back.
Ached for it to come back.
Willed it to come back.
It didn’t.
Whatever Derek had done to her, her mystical connection with Ari no longer existed.
Which meant the Viking hunk who’d told her they were destined mates had no reason to pick her up on Thursday at all.
No reason to ever see her again.
She turned and looked back toward the warehouse.
“Jillian Drake,” she whispered. “It has such an awesome ring to it.”
Go back to him. Go back now. Start the whole dating process now. This second. God, if nothing else, go back and ask him his favorite freaking movie. And then ask him to throw you on the ground and—
Nadine pulled to a halt beside the phone booth, gaping at her through the open window of her Jeep Wrangle. “What have you been up to?”
“A party,” Jilly answered, yanking open the passenger door. She climbed up onto the seat and fixed her stare on the road beyond the windshield. “A wild one. I’ll tell you all about it later. Now I want a shower more than anything.”
Nadine cast a sideways smirk at her. “Looks like you had fun. Did you meet a guy? Please tell me it wasn’t Derek. Please tell me you met some hunk who rocked your world.”
An image of Ari filled Jilly’s head, naked and towering, his long blond plait hanging over one broad shoulder, the dragon tattoo inked into his exquisite arm somehow greener, more vivid, more real…
“Yes, Nadine. I met a guy,” she answered, her pulse pounding. “An incredible guy. And nothing will ever be the same again.”
“Whoa.” Nadine’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “Is it love?”
Jilly swallowed at the thick lump in her throat. “It could have been. And then I drank something that didn’t agree with me.” She scrubbed at her face with her palms. “I really need to go home. Sorry.”
Sure, her home was trashed, but it’s where she wanted to be. If nothing else, beginning to clean up the mess would give her time to think, to process it all.
Meditation via cleaning.
The first flush of heat washed over Jilly halfway down the block.
A prickling heat that pooled in the junction of her thighs.
Her nipples beaded. Her breath caught in her throat. She gasped, her clit throbbing with a sudden rush of blood.
“Oh God,” she whispered, pressing her thighs together. Her head swam. “St-stop, Nadine.” She waved a hand at her friend, her breath shallow. “I need…”
Nadine hit the brakes. “What’s wrong? Are you going to throw up?”
The intense sexual flush intensified, grew feverish.
And then vanished.
Jilly blinked, the familiar empty sensation that had numbed her after drinking Derek’s concoction once again returning.
“Jilly?” Worry threaded through Nadine’s voice.
Disappointment welled inside Jilly, thick and undeniable. Not at the loss of her unnatural sexual desire for Ari and the ancient magic he’d told her about, binding them together. She longed for him on a normal human level. She wished more than anything for a reason to go back to the warehouse and see him, hear his voice and chuckle at his slightly twisted sense of humor.
But now they were no longer magically connected, and the reason for him to want her no longer existed. She knew there was no future for them.
Why would there be? He was a hunk of epic proportions, and she was…was…well, she was just Jilly Parker. Chubby, boring Jilly Parker. The chances of him turning up at her apartment on Thursday were slim. Unlike her.
Hot tears prickled at the back of her eyes. Damn it, she needed to get a grip.
“Jilly?”
Looking at Nadine, she gave her friend a shaky smile. “Sorry. I’m okay. Won’t throw up in your Jeep. Promise.”
Nadine didn’t look convinced, but she did start driving again.
Jilly slumped in the seat and closed her eyes. As painful and pathetic as it was, she needed to get away from Ari.
This whole thing had been a surreal adventure, but it was over. The farther away from the warehouse, from Ari, the more she realized whatever insanity she’d somehow been caught up in was over. There was no need for Arriman Drake to see her again. There was no need for him to even think of her again.
The adventure, if that’s what she was going to call it, was over.
Time to get back to reality.
Boring reality.
Damn it. For one brief moment, maybe ten minutes after Jilly had left, the undeniable heat of the mating fire ignited in Ari again. For barely a heartbeat, a powerful hunger for her consumed him, so absolute he crumpled to his knees. And then it vanished again.
In severing Jilly’s connection to her dragon side, Garrison also—somehow—severed the mating fire’s effect on Ari, and while its absence made dealing with the obsessed prick easier, now its loss gnawed at Ari’s soul. Haunted him.
How could something so fundamental to who he was, what he was, be extinguished? It had to be because the mating fire only ignited when Fire Mates found each other. Remove one Fire Mate from existence—as Garrison had done when he’d destroyed Jilly’s croi—and the reason for the mating fire was also removed. Without the need to mate, the carnal compulsion had no reason to exist either.
A cold knot twisted in Ari’s gut.
Sucking in breath after ragged breath, he pushed himself to his feet and hurried out onto the footpath, willing Jilly to be there. To be walking back to him.
The sidewalk stretched before him.
Empty.
A good thing, really, given Ari stood naked as the day he was born.
He cursed, glared at the empty street and hurried back into the warehouse.
Bleak satisfaction snaked through him at the sight of Garrison still unconscious on the floor. He stomped over to him, fighting to control the desire to tear the defenseless man apart. He’d promised Jilly he wouldn’t hurt the bastard, and so he didn’t.
Tying Garrison’s ankles and wrists together, he hauled the druid’s dead weight over his aching shoulder—damn it, the bones still hadn’t knitted properly—carried him to the exploded remains of the internal office and dumped him unceremoniously on the one chair still remaining upright.
“You’re lucky I promised not to hurt you,” he grumbled at the unconscious man.
Turning away, he went looking for his mobile phone. He needed to let Tyson know what was going—
“Fuck,” he muttered, his gaze falling on the remains of his shattered phone on the floor. He dragged his
hands through his hair. “Fuck.”
Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the area around him. There had to be a phone in here somewhere.
He studied the motionless Garrison slumped on the chair and, with a wry grunt, crossed the warehouse. A few moments later—after digging about in Garrison’s pockets—he tapped out a message to Tyson from the druid’s cracked-but-functioning mobile phone, informing the apex alpha where he was and what had gone down.
The low, electronic whoosh of the text being sent filled the silence.
“Alright.” Ari headed for the warehouse door. “Let’s see how long it takes him to get here.”
Ten minutes later, the alpha arrived.
He looked at Ari, opened his mouth to say something and closed it again without a word.
Ari suspected the expression on his face kept whatever smartarse comment was on Tyson’s tongue from falling off.
With a low chuckle, Tyson tossed a small duffle bag at Ari. “I guessed your size.”
Checking the bag’s interior, he let out his own chuckle. Blue jeans, another simple black T-shirt, and a pair of black leather hiking boots. Good choice. The alpha knew him well. With the mood Ari was in, if Tyson had brought him chinos and loafers, Ari would probably have started a war there and then.
He dressed as Tyson surveyed the mess, chest tight, and then walked to the warehouse door to stare at the empty street outside. Drawing in a slow breath, he thought of Jilly.
Their connection was truly severed.
He didn’t doubt that.
Garrison had destroyed it, with druid magic, for his own selfish lust.
Something powerful and beautiful and ancient and preordained…dissolved, just like that.
He pictured Jilly standing before him, her dress torn, her creamy skin grazed and bruised, her lips curled in a shy smile.
They’d barely spent an hour in each other’s presence, maybe not even that, and yet she was already a part of his life. Without her, a piece of his reason for existence was gone.
Irritation rolled through him. An hour in the twelve-hour mating-fire period. An hour during which they were meant to be lost to each other’s bodies and desire and pleasure.
Dragon, Interrupted (Fire Mates Book 5) Page 8
