Instead of playfully snapping back at her friend, Nellie shoved a glazed donut into her mouth. The sugar eased some of the knots in her chest. She quickly devoured the first and moved on to the second as she went about rearranging her body jewelry case.
“Hey,” Evangeline said.
Nellie looked up, but realized Evangeline was talking to Daphne, and went back to her business.
“Do you think Gavin would be into nipple piercings?”
Nellie blanched. “Shut your mouth!”
Evangeline grinned and leapt out of her chair to dart behind a counter. Nellie rolled her eyes. While Nellie might have tried to throttle Evangeline in the past, there was no way Nellie could fight her now. Her best friend wasn’t so weak anymore.
She’d become a dragon to put her strength behind her clan when Zander came to eradicate them. Nellie’s irritation bled away into sorrow and dread. Evangeline would be caught in the crossfire, soon. Nothing Nellie said would change her friend’s mind. While Nellie could rely on Casey to keep her safe, she didn’t know if protecting Evangeline would end up being a weakness.
Nellie sighed and deflated. If she didn’t help the local clan, Evangeline and Isabella could get hurt. On the other hand, Nellie didn’t know if she would ever get her magic back. The thought terrified her, leaving ice sliding through her core. She went back to rearranging the body jewelry to distract herself, but it wasn’t enough.
The ice still lingered in her gut. Nellie didn’t want Gavin to figure out that she had nipple piercings, but she also wasn’t about to leave this clan unprotected. That meant she needed to find a way to get her magic back. If she managed it better this time, she might be able to hide from Gavin and help the clan when the war escalated into battle once more.
The day passed, rather uneventfully. Evangeline had two scheduled customers and one walk in. Nellie helped some people buy tattoo salves and some body jewelry. At the end of the day, after everything had been cleaned up, Evangeline and Daphne hopped into one car.
“You should come with us,” Evangeline said. “Isabella misses you, and I’m sure being around some of the dragons might help you acclimate to their presence. What do you say?”
Nellie bit the inside of her cheek. She wanted to say no and run back toward her house, but she forced herself to nod. Joy illuminated Evangeline’s face. Nellie could only imagine Isabella’s once she realized they would get to hang out two days in a row.
Nellie hesitated. “Will Gavin be there?”
“I never see him around,” Evangeline said. “Besides, I won’t let him bother you.”
Reason told Nellie to run home. She didn’t belong with the dragons. When the war came, Nellie could defend them from afar. She didn’t have to spend time around them, but if she avoided them forever, she would lose people she loved.
“Fine,” Nellie mumbled.
Evangeline bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet. “Bel has been thinking about baby names and some of them seriously suck. She might listen if we both tell her they’re awful.”
There was no sign of Gavin or the garnet colored dragon when they arrived. The tightness in Nellie’s chest eased a bit but refused to let her go completely until Isabella came rushing out the door. Isabella threw her arms around Nellie.
The sight of the front door reminded Nellie of what had happened the day before. The conventionally beautiful woman had come to suck Gavin back into a relationship. While Nellie couldn’t deny Tiffany’s allure—she had the kind of body that men put on magazine covers—she hated the way Tiffany had treated Gavin.
Nellie shouldn’t have cared about Gavin’s future. Yet, he’d taken care of her after she’d collapsed. He’d even brought her breakfast the next day. He could have been trying to trick her, but it didn’t feel like it. His interest felt genuine, like he cared about her.
He hadn’t told anyone about her magic. It seemed that secret had stayed between them. If anyone else wondered why Nellie had slept in Gavin’s bedroom the other night, they didn’t ask any questions. Of course, Evangeline probably assumed the worst.
The girls lounged in wooden porch chairs that Evangeline proudly stated her mate had made. Nellie found the circular holes in the arms nifty when she grew tired of the condensation on the outside of her cup. She dropped the cup into the hole and marveled how it didn’t fall all the way through.
When she realized she was impressed by a cupholder, she shook her head.
“What? You don’t like Winston?” Isabella asked her.
Nellie’s head snapped up. She glanced between the eyes on her and realized she’d made the gesture at just the wrong time.
“Well,” she began. “I don’t exactly love it.”
Isabella pouted. Then she shrugged. “It was Dillon’s choice. I kind of like Garret, anyway.”
“Are you sure you’re having a boy?” Daphne asked. She had her knees pulled up to her chest and a margarita balanced between her fingers.
“No. We haven’t gotten the gender results yet. We want to be surprised.”
Evangeline scooted to the edge of her seat. “Does that mean I get to put together a gender reveal party? Please tell me I can. Do you think we can put smoke bombs in the guy’s mouths? In their dragon forms, of course.”
Nellie blinked. She hadn’t anticipated Evangeline’s excitement over this. It just showed Nellie that she’d put too much distance between herself and her friends. Had she not avoided them for so long, then none of this would have been as much of a surprise.
He appeared on the trail below. Nellie felt his gaze on her skin before she saw him. Gavin stood near the koi pool under the deck. He had his hands in his pockets. Gold flashed across his eyes. Fear didn’t hit her. A curious warmth spilled through her instead.
She turned away and swallowed more of her own margarita. The alcohol softened the sharp thoughts running through her mind. Wanting to feel oblivion for a bit, she gulped down the rest of the drink and pouted when she realized it was empty.
“I’m going to grab another drink,” Nellie said as she stood.
The others were deep in conversation and paid no attention to Nellie going inside. If she drank more, the world would become a blur, and she wouldn’t worry so much. Her thoughts wouldn’t be able to keep up, fear wouldn’t be able to crackle in the back of her mind.
But as she went to pour herself another drink, someone plucked the cup from her hand. She stared blankly at her empty hand before looking up. Gavin set the cup down in the sink and turned to put his back against the counter.
“Slow down,” he said, softly.
She pursed her lips.
He didn’t move or apologize, which infuriated her. Who was he to have any say in how she lived her life? All she wanted was a few hours of silence. Her mind ran too fast in all the wrong directions. Fear had nearly consumed her. If fear wasn’t hounding her, then it was dread or guilt. She was tired. She wanted a drink.
Gavin pushed off the counter, grabbed a clean glass, and filled it using the fridge’s water filter. He took the time to wrap her fingers around the cool glass all while looking her in the eye. She squirmed as her pulse quickened and her skin heated.
Once Gavin released her, she downed the glass of water just to douse the fires burning inside her. The cool liquid did nothing. Not while tall, broody, and handsome stood before her still. He shouldn’t have affected her like this. He shouldn’t have been allowed to be that attractive. It was criminal.
“Feel any better?” he asked.
“Not in the least.”
He gave her a doubtful look, but she didn’t correct herself. When he turned his attention out to the women on the deck, his shoulders sank.
“I should let you go back to them. You don’t see them as much as you should. I know that’s my fault.”
As he tried to walk away, she caught him by the arm. “Why are you so nice?”
He tilted his head. One brow rose, slowly. “Am I nice?”
“Well, yeah. You’ve
been kind to me even though I’m currently no use to you. Are you trying to confuse me?”
He laughed. “I’m the one confused now.”
Gold flashed in his eyes when they dropped to where she held him. She let go and wiped her palms on her thighs. Her cheeks heated. He flustered her so easily. He had no right to get under her skin like that.
“Never mind,” she said under her breath.
The moment he left the room, she refilled her margarita cup and added an extra shot of tequila. The nervous flutter in her stomach needed to leave. She would drown it with liquor if she had to. She couldn’t develop feelings for Gavin. Their kind weren’t meant to cross.
She wanted to follow him, though. The urge to go to him and see what made him so sad nearly propelled her up the stairs. She needed to follow her mother’s advice and stay away from Gavin.
Evangeline and Daphne were safe. Nellie liked Bree, even. Gavin was off limits. He would never be her friend.
Gavin was off limits.
Off limits.
She turned toward the stairs. An invisible force drew her forward. She imagined Gavin upstairs, reeling her in with an evil cackle on his lips. Yet, when she got to his suite, she found him sitting on the end of his bed with his head in his hands.
At her arrival, his head lifted. He seemed stricken for an instant before realizing it was only her. His shoulders drooped with relief.
“Don’t want anyone catching you having a moment?” she asked as she sauntered into the room.
She claimed a chair across from him. A blanket had been artfully draped over the chair’s arm, but she yanked it over her lap.
“I do my best to keep my weaknesses to myself,” Gavin said quietly.
“Speaking of weaknesses. Thank you, by the way… For keeping my, ah, condition a secret.” She stared down into her cup. “Do you want to talk about whatever it is you have going on?”
He sat up, opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. In the end, he unlocked his phone and passed it to her. The screen glowed, her vision blurring. After a moment of focusing, she saw Tiffany’s name at the top of the screen.
She’d been sending Gavin messages. They were kind of suggestive, but also held a tone that seemed to blame him for her leaving. She insinuated that their relationship would be amazing, if only Gavin would apologize.
“Did you do something to hurt her?” Nellie asked, carefully. She handed the phone over.
He shrugged and took his phone back. After staring it at it for a few heartbeats, he said, “I’ve never been a very loving or affectionate mate. If I’d been softer with her, then maybe…”
Nellie snorted and gestured toward the deck outside. “I watched over those two girls down there. They went through horrible relationship after horrible relationship. When people say things like what Tiffany’s saying, they’re the ones at fault.”
Gavin looked like he wasn’t buying what she had to say. Nellie bit back a defeated sigh.
“Wouldn’t your mate love you for exactly who you are? No questions or alterations?”
He clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened. “I’ve never met a woman who wasn’t afraid of me in some way.”
Nellie started to argue, but found her tongue tied. She’d spent all of her magic trying to hide from him. She couldn’t say with any kind of confidence that she wasn’t afraid of him. Yet, alone in his bedroom with him, she wasn’t scared.
She wasn’t worrying if he was going to capture her or burn her. If he’d wanted to do either, he could have done it the night before when he had her at her most vulnerable. Then why was she so afraid of him? Why was she still running?
Clearly, she’d forgotten the definition of running because here she was, in his bedroom when she should have been on the deck with her friends. Nellie sipped her margarita and tried not to wince at the extra alcohol she’d added.
Gavin chuckled. “Trying to make up for that glass of water I made you drink?”
“Absolutely.” She downed the rest of the drink.
He shook his head and reached to take the cup from her. Their fingers brushed against one another. He lingered, a moment too long. Her breath caught, and the world shrank down to where their skin connected. The electricity of magic leapt between them, filling her with a yearning she’d never known before.
Was it for the magic she’d lost? Or the man she kept pushing away?
Nellie didn’t take that thought apart for answers. She tucked it away and waited for the tequila to do its thing.
He pulled away and set the cup down at his feet. “Am I driving you to drink?”
She didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t hurt him, so she kept her mouth shut. She pulled her feet onto the seat and wrapped the blanket tighter around her. The alcohol would make her overheat soon. She could already feel her skin flushing.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“There’s a lot going on right now,” she told him. “I tried to get to the bottom of my missing magic yesterday, and the ritual failed. I’m scared it’s never going to come back. What if I have to live the rest of my life knowing what I lost? It’s not like I can forget that I used to be capable of amazing things. I can’t forget the joy it brought me.”
“Give it time,” Gavin told her. He hooked his feet around the legs of her chair and pulled her toward him so he could put a hand on her knee. “Your magic will come back with time.”
His touch felt too good. It was like the first sip of coffee in the morning, or that bite of ice-cream that had a little bit of everything good in it. Her tension melted as his heat seeped through the blanket and into her skin. Had he been anything other than a dragon, she would have leapt on him weeks ago.
Nellie should have gotten up. She should have kept firm boundaries between them, but she couldn’t bring herself to get up and end this moment. She told herself that she was showing him that she wasn’t afraid. It was a favor, to ease his own troubles.
Not because she wanted more.
He tugged her chair closer. Closer. Gold filled his eyes. Her toes met his knees, and more of his warmth spilled into her. When his hand slid down her leg to rest on the seat, she wondered if he would make the move. Would he kiss her?
Did she want it?
That human inclination for disaster filled her. She knew this couldn’t end well, but she still craved it. Nothing else would make her as happy as his lips on hers, his lips on her neck, on her chest.
“So,” she croaked. “Are you going to patch things up with Tiffany?”
Gavin jerked back. The gold in his eyes warmed with ire. His beast must have hated her. She’d led him on only to mention his horrible ex. Nellie told herself to get up and leave the man in peace, but she couldn’t make herself move an inch.
Somehow, being in Gavin’s bedroom was far more appealing than going back to the girls’ night. Nellie hated seeing just how much she’d missed and how her friends’ lives had changed while hers was falling apart. Nellie watched as everything she’d ever known slipped through her fingers.
Gavin didn’t pull back, though. He leaned in until his breath found her skin. “I won’t have to if I can get what I want.”
The rumbling growl in his voice tightened her core. It told her that he wanted her and nothing else. Only she would sate the beast within him. And she wanted nothing more than to give in.
“And if you can’t? Will you settle then?” She shouldn’t have kept pushing.
His upper lip curled. She felt his gaze travelling down her neck. He tugged at the blanket over her lap until she was exposed before him. When he put his hand on her thigh, he found the hole in her jeans. The lazy circles he drew with his thumb drove her wild.
All she had to do was pull him closer. Lean into him. Take him the way she craved.
The world beyond him softened into a blur until she saw nothing but Gavin and his gleaming eyes. The hunger in them stole her breath.
Did she want him? Or was she trapped like a rabbit in the
headlights? She couldn’t tell the two sensations apart while he spread his legs to bring her chair even closer.
She let her eyes drift shut when he cupped her cheek. Gavin should have been the enemy. He should have been kept at a distance. Yet, she felt the safest right here, between his legs. No one would ever be able to hurt her here.
“Oh no,” she said without opening her eyes. “I’m too drunk.”
He sighed and agreed. “Seems like the water wasn’t enough to slow you down. That would explain this.”
By this, he must have meant her submission. He never would have gotten her this close had her mind not been clouded by the tequila in her system. That was what she told herself, at least.
He lifted her from the chair and turned. Before she could protest, he set her down on the bed and stepped away. She swallowed the desire to call him back. Then something large hit the bed beside her. She cracked open her eyes to find the giant stuffed sloth beside her. Without hesitation, she wrapped her arms around it and hugged it close.
Gavin chuckled. The sound was soft and sweet, so unlike the version of him she had in her head. He wasn’t anything like she’d feared.
No, that had to be the alcohol taking the edge off her fear. She wasn’t thinking straight. A little bit of sleep would help her sober up. Then she could ask Evangeline for a ride home.
* * *
Gavin’s heart raced. He stood outside his closed bedroom door and tried to tame the wild beast inside him that demanded he go back to Nellie. The beast thrashed and roared, but Gavin held his ground. He’d been so close to kissing her.
He could still smell her on his skin. He clenched his teeth and told the beast that this was good enough for now. He wouldn’t go back inside and pressure her for more when she was clearly intoxicated. It didn’t matter how badly the beast wanted to claim her.
If he was going to win her over, he needed to be careful about it. She didn’t trust him. He feared she never would. He’d heard of circumstances where dragon clans hunted witches because they feared the power they held over the dragons. She had every right to be afraid, but he wished she wouldn’t fear him. He’d tried everything he could think of to show her that he wouldn’t hurt her.
Rogue Dragons Series: Box Set Books 1-5 Page 58
