“Then what’s your plan?” She secured the end of the bandage and scooted back to look up at him.
“My plan does not concern you.”
Ouch. She hid a wince, heart pinching even harder than when Jedd left without saying goodbye. Which was ridiculous, since she’d only known Airk a short time.
She shot to her feet, and, almost defensively, he did the same…which brought them very, very close. He’d have to touch her to move her, and she’d seen how he avoided that, but she’d stood up first, damn it. She wouldn’t move aside to cater to whatever stick he had up his ass.
She lifted her chin. “Not mating you doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to you. We once talked about being friends, and I would like that—”
“No.”
Gods, did the man ever feel anything? What would he do if she pressed against him right now?
Heat blanketed the room, like a roaring fire on a cold winter’s night. Was it coming from him? Or her? A muscle in his jaw ticked, but no flame entered his eyes. The man was locked down as tight as a submarine underwater. And yet, she couldn’t look away. Couldn’t step away.
“I want you.” The whispered words tore from her.
Her eyes flared wide on the realization that she actually said that out loud. Oh hells. She was tempted to flee, but that required scooting around him, which involved touching, and…no. She was too on edge for that.
His eyes narrowed. “Is this a new idiom I have yet to encounter?” he asked slowly, carefully.
Yep. She definitely needed to flee. “Er…I hope not.”
He stared at her, mind working through who the hells knew what. “What do you want me for?”
This really was getting lost in translation. “Pleasure.”
“Pleasure.” He sort of rolled the word around in his mouth as though it were a foreign concept.
Heat that was definitely not hers rioted between them. And, oh gods, it was delicious. Her muscles trembled with need.
“Yes.” She tried her best not to squirm because this wasn’t at all where she’d intended the conversation to go, and her body was reacting in a highly inappropriate way, given his stance on their…non-relationship.
“You wish me to pleasure you?” Doubt layered the words.
Seven hells. Just the words coming from his mouth had her knees going weak and far more sensitive parts of her body perking up. “Yes.”
He jerked as though he wanted to take a step back—not that he could. But he also didn’t look away.
She took a deep breath. If they were going to go there, she might as well go the rest of the way. “And I want to pleasure you. And make you laugh. And show you things about the world today and—”
His expression went blank, and his arms dropped to his sides. “You pity the pathetic creature from the dungeons of Everest. Is that it?”
“No.” She grabbed his hand, driven by her need to make sure that he didn’t believe his own words. “This isn’t pity, dammit. It’s companionship. And…and…”
“And?”
“Chemistry.” She flung the word at him, frustration driving her now.
He frowned. “I do not—”
Angelika went up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. A soft, sweet, barely there touch.
Airk went utterly still at the contact for half a heartbeat, and in that blip of a moment, despair snuck in as she anticipated another rejection. And why wouldn’t he reject her? It would be just one more way she’d failed. She started to pull away. To give up—
He groaned as though in pain, then slipped his hand under the heavy fall of her hair to cup the back of her neck and urge her closer.
Of their own volition, her arms crept up around his neck, and Angelika pressed herself to him as their lips collided, but with such desperate need, it took them a second to line everything up right. The kiss took off from there. They melded and meshed, pressed and released, and came back together with a shocking desperation that overwhelmed her and flooded her senses.
Where did he learn to kiss like this in captivity? Her mind paused at that as he gripped her hips, pulling her harder against him. Who cares, because…damn.
He took over, kissing her the same way a drowning man might hold on to a rope in a storm, as though she might anchor him to this world by her touch alone. She moaned into his mouth at the taste of him, smoke and bourbon and cherries, like his scent. The velvet sweep of his tongue—questing and yet commanding—sent every pulse point into fluttering overdrive while at the same time blending with a sincere jolt of shock.
She’d kissed other men. Humans she’d been around when she’d been in hiding, and a wolf shifter, just the once. None of those experiences had gone like this. Felt like this. Unexpected and so immediately consuming, shutting out the rest of the world and cocooning them together in what could have been a different universe for all she cared.
All she wanted was…more.
“No.” Airk thrust her away hard enough that she stumbled back. “This cannot happen. No kissing, or mating, or friendship,” he said. “Especially not with you.”
A jolt of spiky hurt knocked her to the side, and she said nothing as he stalked from the room. As soon as the door closed behind him, she slumped against the cool wall, tipping her head back to stare blindly at the stone ceiling.
That could have gone better.
Chapter Three
Airk stalked the mostly empty human-sized halls up to the level where he’d been given a room any time he stayed in Ararat. Most dragons preferred to fly up to their chambers in these larger mountains via an atrium built at the center that allowed for their size. With perches to land on outside each individual room or suite, he could see how that would be more convenient.
He couldn’t do that. Fly. Never would. Besides, this way, he avoided bumping into most people. Alone was what he needed to be right now.
Gods above, Angelika Amon knew how to kiss.
Granted, he didn’t have any experience. He’d been too young when he’d been imprisoned to know that kind of touch. A few red female-born dragons had risked their lives trying to offer their bodies to the prisoner trapped in Everest. Not that he would have hurt them. If anything, those women fell even lower on Pytheios’s personal hierarchy ladder than Airk did. Hurting one wouldn’t gain Airk his freedom. But despite his own physical needs, he’d said no. He couldn’t give Pytheios anything to hold over him. Ever.
But touching Angelika…
Sheer terror.
Twice in the last hour his dragon had moved so close to the surface that Airk had had to fight to keep the beast inside him caged, his control suddenly tenuous in a way it hadn’t been through all the long years. But she brought the beast within him forward in a different way. Instead of rage and roaring and thrashing to be released, his dragon turned…something else. Not happy, exactly, but eager. Content.