He laughed. The deep sound made her ready for any favors, sexual or otherwise, that he might want from her.
“Actually, I need someone to go to my meeting with Tiffany today. I promised her we could meet at the diner.”
“Oh,” Nellie said. Her stomach dropped.
She turned her attention away from Gavin while her gut churned. The thought of Tiffany filled Nellie with a bucket of jumbled emotions. All at once, she found herself juggling rage and jealousy. She shouldn’t have felt any of this for a dragon man, and yet Gavin had found his way into Nellie’s affections.
He meant something to her. Whether that be as a friend or a lover, she wasn’t sure yet. She did know, though, that she didn’t want to stand by and watch Gavin have to deal with Tiffany again.
“Can’t you send her home?” Nellie asked.
Gavin’s shoulders slumped. “Not yet. Mostly because I need to talk to Tyler again. If I tell Tiffany that we’re done and that she needs to go home, Tyler will leave with her.”
Gavin came over to sit beside her on the porch steps. He smelled of fresh-cut wood and man. She breathed deep, and then remembered he could hear her.
“If Tyler is telling the truth, then we could have a huge advantage against my father when the time comes. That could guarantee the safety of my clan. I don’t want to unnecessarily risk anyone’s lives.”
Nellie chewed the inside of her cheek for a while. Then she said, “You aren’t forcing your clan to fight. They’re doing it because they trust you. They want a future with you as their leader and they’re willing to risk their lives for that. You don’t have to worry about them.”
His growl teemed with audible frustration. “I don’t want to ask them to do this. If I were a better man, they wouldn’t have to fight.”
She took his hand in hers. “You’re already the better man. Your clan wants to fight because they love you, not because they’re afraid or because they want to cause harm. You’re a better clan leader than you give yourself credit for.”
He hung his head. She wanted to pull him into her, but she kept her hands to herself for the most part. Maybe holding his hand would be enough. He squeezed her fingers like it was.
“So, what do you say? Will you chaperone me during my meeting? I don’t think I can do it without you.”
“Let’s get this show on the road. I want to see her miserable face when we walk in together.” Nellie stood.
74
Nellie changed into a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a loose tank-top that revealed not only her chubby arms but a bit of her side rolls, too. She’d picked the top out to piss Tiffany off, but the heat on Gavin’s face when she emerged from the bathroom nearly stopped her dead in her tracks.
His gaze followed her all the way out to the truck at the curb. It was a loaner from the dealership while their mechanics replaced the roof of his Jeep. She had to say, she missed the Jeep. Gavin didn’t need an oversized truck to validate his manhood.
“Why are you still smiling?” Nellie asked Gavin while they were alone in the truck.
His golden eyes slid toward her. “You know, I haven’t lost control to my beast in a while.”
She cocked her head. “I don’t understand.”
“We’ve been spending a lot of time together. I think my beast likes that you’re not running away. The damn thing would rather have you tell me to fuck off to my face.”
Hysterical laughter poured out of her. She clamped a hand over her mouth. When she settled, the question still hovered in her chest. Gavin wasn’t brooding like his normal self. He kept stealing glances at her, perhaps twenty times over in the short drive from her house to the diner.
When he parked, he came around to her door and opened it for her. She ignored his offered hand and jumped out on her own. His grin had grown even wider when she glanced back at him. He gestured for her to keep going.
“I like the view from back here,” was his only explanation.
Her cheeks warmed. He wasn’t the big scary monster she’d thought, and she found that she didn’t hate him for it. If anything, she could acknowledge his indomitable strength and the fact that his clan loved him all at once. He was a great leader, even if he didn’t know how to admit it.
His joy faded after he took one step inside the diner. Nellie knew without having to scan the tables that he’d laid eyes on Tiffany. When Nellie turned and faced Tiffany, the woman’s painted lips fell into a scowl. Nellie didn’t bother trying to hide her smile.
While she was here, Tiffany wouldn’t get away with pulling on Gavin’s heartstrings. They didn’t belong to Tiffany anymore. They never should have belonged to that woman in the first place.
“You have awful taste in women,” Nellie whispered.
“No, I have varied taste in women. You wouldn’t call yourself awful, would you?”
“Go back to being a brooding asshole,” she said, though she didn’t mean it.
He laughed softly. She was glad to hear it again. Tiffany would not have sway over him forever. They were only there, so Gavin could end things with her and so he could have a chat with Tyler afterwards.
Nellie tried not to think about how much importance she’d placed on the first part. She had no claim over Gavin other than their mutual attraction. He wasn’t her mate. They weren’t even dating.
“Oh,” Tiffany whined. “You brought her?”
Nellie stiffened. She’d thought that pissing Tiffany off would have been fun, but she was starting to doubt her assumption. The woman had a horrible knack for making Nellie feel too large and insignificant all at once.
“We can cut this meeting short if you’re going to be rude,” Gavin growled.
Nellie bit her lower lip to keep from smiling. Tiffany pouted up at Gavin, but he seemed unmoved by the gesture. The hold Tiffany had over him when she’d first arrived didn’t seem as strong anymore. Nellie wondered if she had anything to do with that.
“We can’t make up if you insist on bringing other women along,” Tiffany said.
Gavin slid into the booth seat and patted the bench beside him. Nellie took the spot. She appreciated having an escape route and wondered how hard it was for Gavin to be locked on the inside of the booth. Were his dragon instincts raging?
Tiffany glared at Nellie. Eventually, Tiffany took the seat across from them. When Gavin looked to Nellie and asked if she needed anything to eat, Tiffany fumed. Each passing moment made it more and more obvious that this meeting would not end the way Tiffany had assumed.
“Darling,” Tiffany purred, trying to get Gavin’s attention.
He didn’t look up from the menu. “Do you want to split a milkshake with me? I heard the peanut butter crunch shake is good.”
“It’s the best on the menu,” Nellie assured him.
She flagged down a waitress to order the shake and made sure it came in a to-go container just in case they needed to make a quick escape. Beneath the table, Gavin’s fingers grazed Nellie’s thigh. Warmth blossomed through her body and ended up coloring her cheeks.
When she didn’t smack his hand away, he let it rest atop her thigh. It burned a hole through her jeans and seared her skin. She wanted to know how his hands would feel on her body or inside her, but such thoughts weren’t right for the situation. They sat in front of his ex-girlfriend who clearly wasn’t over him.
Nellie shouldn’t have been daydreaming about every glorious inch of Gavin right now.
“Darling,” Tiffany said again, her voice tight. “I thought this was supposed to be about us.”
Gavin stiffened. Tiffany’s cutting words were starting to get to him. Nellie put a hand over his. When she slid her fingers between his, he grasped her tight and squeezed as if to say thanks.
He faced Tiffany finally. “You left me.”
She sputtered, stricken wordless.
“You hurt me. I didn’t know if I could heal from a heartbreak like that. Someone like me…” He looked around. “When you left without a reason, it broke
a part of me. I was afraid I’d never be whole again, that I’d never be able to control that part of myself. The worst part of it was when I figured out you didn’t care what happened to me.”
Nellie clenched her teeth. Gavin spoke plainly, none of his pain or anger reaching his voice. Yet, she could feel it in his body. She put her other hand on his and held him tight. Tiffany followed the bend of Gavin’s arm. Nellie watched Tiffany’s face fall as the woman realized just where Gavin’s hand was.
“I came back,” Tiffany pleaded. “Can you really blame me for being scared?”
Nellie wished she could fire back, but she’d been terrified of Gavin ever since he’d come to town. She’d watched him lift a table and try to throw it like a frisbee across Bree’s bar. Looking back, Nellie realized Gavin’s wounds had been fresh then. He’d been reeling from the hurt Tiffany had caused.
Since then, Gavin had been calmly trying to approach Nellie. He’d offered gifts and compliments and a wealth of understanding that no man had ever bothered to give before. Tiffany had known Gavin intimately. She’d likely witnessed the best of him.
Nellie wasn’t afraid of Gavin anymore. She worried about what his future might hold, but she didn’t think he was out to hurt her. If anything, he made her feel treasured and valued.
“Did I really give you reason to be afraid of me?” Gavin asked, his voice cracking.
Tiffany jerked back. “Well, no. But you’re capable of things I can’t even begin to imagine. You can’t tell me you have control over that…monster all the time! You said it yourself. You weren’t sure if you could control it.”
Nellie wanted to drag Gavin out of the diner. She didn’t have foresight, but she could see exactly where this conversation was going. Tiffany would wear away at Gavin until he gave in to her demands. She would belittle him and make him into the monster he didn’t want to be. Nellie wasn’t going to stand for it.
She pulled her hand from Gavin’s. For an instant, he seemed stricken, like Nellie would run away from him, too. She did just the opposite and put her hand on his thigh. She let it slide into the warm space between his legs and squeezed. She couldn’t interrupt this conversation, but she could show him that she wasn’t going anywhere.
Only Gavin could end things with Tiffany. She knew he could do it so long as someone else believed in him. Too proud to ask his clan for support, Gavin tried to bear everything himself. He didn’t need to bear the weight of the world or the weight of one pouty bitch on his shoulders.
* * *
“I can see now that we were never meant to be,” Gavin told Tiffany. “We were never good for one another. Your life would be far better if you gave up and found someone who is capable of loving you.”
He might have loved her at one point, but that affection had died long ago. He didn’t need her tearing away at him. Because of her, he’d been an angry husk when he’d found a territory for his dragon. No mate would ever make their lover feel so empty.
His beast had settled since Nellie’s magic had vanished. He hated how her life had to be turned upside down for his to find a semblance of normalcy again. The way she held him made him think she wouldn’t hold it against him, but he wished there was something he could do for her.
While Tiffany spouted nonsense across from them, Gavin tuned her out. He tried to think of what he could do to help Nellie reclaim her magic. He owed her that much, at least. He wanted to make her whole, just as she’d done for him.
When the milkshake arrived, he held it out for Nellie to take a sip. Watching bliss spread across her face warmed him and sent his blood rushing south. It no longer mattered to him that Tiffany sat across from them. His world shrank down to Nellie until he sighed.
There were other matters to attend to. Gavin couldn’t indulge in his affection forever. His clan needed protection. If this war went on any longer, it would exhaust them. The happy lives they’d found would slowly get whittled away by danger and fear.
As would any chances he had with Nellie.
“I think this conversation is over,” Gavin said as he straightened and fixed his attention on Tiffany. “We don’t have anything to salvage here.”
As Gavin and Nellie got out of the booth, Tiffany leapt to her feet. “But we’re mates!”
The other diner patrons all turned to stare at Tiffany. She cringed, apparently realizing what she’d done. While the diner patrons wouldn’t know what her declaration insinuated, her carelessness could have jeopardized shifters everywhere.
Tyler pushed off the counter and came over to put a hand on Tiffany’s shoulder. The silent warning seemed to be enough.
“We were never mates,” Gavin said.
This time, he believed it. He’d wrapped his whole being in Tiffany because he’d thought his dragon needed a woman to protect. In doing so, he’d convinced himself that she could be something she wasn’t. He didn’t need to live a cursed life. He owed no one that debt.
“Tyler,” Gavin called out. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
The dragon man nodded and followed Gavin outside. Nellie didn’t linger inside. She grabbed the milkshake and hurried out the door. Gavin couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a spring in her step.
Was it the sugar? Or was she happy that he’d finally broken things off with Tiffany?
While he spoke with Tyler, Gavin kept an eye on Nellie. She sat on the rental truck’s tailgate and kicked her feet. Gavin wanted to run his hands along the curve of her lush thighs and press himself between them, but he didn’t know if she would let him.
Just because she’d touched him inside the diner didn’t mean that they’d crossed into new territory. He needed to take it slow with her, or else she might run away, too. Nellie had more than enough reason. She’d lost not only ancestors, but her own mother, to dragons.
“I don’t know how to convince you that I’m not lying,” Tyler said, dragging Gavin’s attention back to their conversation.
Gavin blamed himself for this war. His father had always wanted him dead, as if they had some sort of jaded Oedipus story between them—without the incest, of course. Had Gavin told the others to find someone else to lead them, he wouldn’t have brought Zander’s wrath upon them, too. Then, Gavin could have died at his father’s hands like the old man wanted.
Instead, Casey and the others had come along and given Gavin reason to live. Not only that, they’d made him proud. For a bunch of outcasts, they’d formed the strongest family Gavin had ever known. He couldn’t imagine a future without any of them now.
Nor could he imagine a future without Nellie. Even if it meant giving her his bed and sleeping in an uncomfortable chair every night. He wanted to have her close and show her just how much he cherished her. No other woman could have summoned magic from nothing to protect him.
“I believe you,” Gavin said. “My father isn’t the kind of man to make living under him easy. He’s been hell bent on ruining lives and taking power for as long as I can remember.”
Tyler nodded. “I don’t want my clanmates to have to live like that any longer. Not all of us want what he wants. Some just want to settle down and start families. They’re afraid to have kids because they aren’t sure what their futures will look like.”
“Can you assure me that people will follow you? That they’ll rise up and stand against Zander when the time comes?”
Tyler grew quiet. Asking people to fight for you wasn’t an easy task. Gavin hated it. He would have finished every fight himself if he could, but he’d learned that his clan wasn’t helpless. They had lives to fight for, beliefs to stand by. And, a few of them even had hero complexes. His clan wanted to join him.
Gavin knew Tyler wouldn’t want to ask that of people who were looking forward to simple lives. Yet, Tyler nodded.
“Not everyone can fight, but I’ll talk to those that Zander keeps close. That way, when he brings his army to your doorstep, he won’t have the numbers he thinks he does.”
Gavin nodded. “That’s good e
nough. Now, do me a favor and get Tiffany out of here.”
He turned away before a thought struck him. Spinning back, he said, “My father sent a silver dragon to die in his place. We didn’t kill him, but he threatened Nellie.”
Tyler’s gaze flicked to the woman on the tailgate then back to Gavin. He seemed to read the unspoken relationship between Gavin and Nellie before nodding.
“I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
Tyler went back inside. Gavin didn’t stick around to watch him escort Tiffany out of the diner. Instead, he grabbed Nellie and tossed her over his shoulder. She let out a burst of laughter and chided him for making her spill some of the milkshake.
He took it from her and stole a sip. “Let’s take you home.”
She didn’t protest or try to escape. In fact, it seemed more like she melted into his arms. He let loose a sigh of relief. He didn’t know if he would have been able to tell Tiffany to go home had it not been for Nellie. She changed his life, whether she knew it or not.
75
Neither wanted to leave the other. Gavin lingered at the curb while she checked her mailbox. What she saw caused her to freeze. Her blood ran cold.
“Nellie?” Gavin called out.
Her hands trembled. She never expected to see her mother’s handwriting ever again. Yet, here it was on the front of a letter. Her mother could have done a hundred other things to tell her that she was alive. Instead, the woman chose to send a letter?
Nellie’s knees gave out. Gavin caught her before she could hit the ground.
“You can’t move like that in public,” she whispered. “Someone will see you.”
“I care more about you and your knees than about someone seeing me.” He lifted her and carried her over to the steps where they could both sit down. “What’s wrong?”
The word stuck in her throat. She couldn’t say it. The woman had left her over ten years ago. Nellie had to finish her high school years while living on someone else’s charity. She’d assumed that a dragon had killed the woman.
Rogue Dragons Series: Box Set Books 1-5 Page 63
