Chapter 12
Twelve
Anna
In any other setting, I doubted he would have let me see him flinch.
But we were in his bathroom, a place he was used to feeling comfortable and relaxed within.
Even then, his self-control was nearly immaculate—a tightening of dreamy emeralds in his eyes, a pulling of muscle at the jaw. They were small enough to be random.
But the flexing of his arms was unmissable. It gave him away entirely, and I knew I had him. I knew I was making my point that …
“You’re wrong.”
“Pardon me?” I crossed my arms over my stomach. “Did I miss something? Have you been secretly stalking me?”
“What? No, of course not.” He pushed off from the counter, his arms bulging even more from the effort. Not that I noticed.
“Then how can you say I’m lying?”
He turned. “I didn’t. I said you’re wrong. You see, I know enough about you.”
“This ought to be good,” I muttered, thoroughly ignoring the way my stomach turned topsy-turvy at the calm confidence radiating off him.
If it were any stronger, the bathroom counter might be in for a workout. My dragon pushed forward at the idea, straining to get to him. With the strength in his biceps, it would be easy for him to lift me onto the counter and hold me there while he slid his dick deep inside.
My pussy was radiating heat, wetness drenching my folds to create a welcoming he wouldn’t forget the first time he thrust inside me. I wanted to take him deep, to hear him groan and call my name as he filled me with his seed, to make me his own.
Enough, I snarled at my dragon, shoving it to the side. No way was she going to take control of me that way. Not after being a stranger all my life. She didn’t get to waltz in now and turn me into a zombie who only thought of cock to survive. I was more than that.
I had to be more than that.
“What I know,” Caz said, the sound of his voice and the rolling of his broad shoulders bringing me back to the present, “is that my dragon wants you the way it’s never wanted anything before.”
The heat between my thighs roared back to life, ignoring my attempts to douse it with unsexy thoughts of jam between my toes and … and what else? Shit.
“I know that being near you makes me feel like I’m flying for the first time, all over again.
Just being near you.” His voice dropped a full octave.
“The idea of touching you, kissing you, of being fully inside you and pleasuring you until you scream my name is almost more than I can bear. The tiniest taste of you would …”
He shuddered, taking a deep breath, his hands visibly clenching and unclenching.
“It drives me wild,” he rumbled, a shudder running down his spine.
His spine? My clit was pulsing so hard and fast I thought I was going to come if he so much as laid a finger on me anywhere.
The rough, husky desire in his voice was going to ruin me.
I wasn’t even wearing underwear, just the sleep shorts.
Much more of this, and I would have a dead giveaway that might undo all my work keeping him at bay.
“But I know more than that,” he said before I could desperately try to change the subject to something unsexy, like farming.
An image of Caz in a field came to me, working away until sweat dripped down his brow and he wiped it away with a forearm, the muscle showing from underneath his rolled-up shirt sleeves and—
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Stop it right now.
“What more do you know?” I tried to sound uncaring but probably failed miserably.
Damn him. He had to be exerting some influence over me. Alpha power? I searched for it, but I couldn’t feel anything. Just desire. Uncovered, unhidden desire. For me.
“I know you’re loyal,” he said with a tight smile.
“You care deeply for your friends. You’ll sacrifice for them without hesitation.
That’s a rare trait and one to be valued in a mate.
You’re also smart and competent. I know this because you escaped from a cage designed to hold people of your, um, strength. ”
“Very diplomatic,” I said as he stumbled over the fact that I was a clippy.
Caz smiled and shrugged helplessly.
The casual action only served to lift his shirt tighter. I got a hint of his rock-hard stomach as the hem rose up over his belt.
Tanned skin and a chiseled V-cut disappeared back below the leather, sadly hidden from sight.
“You’re right that I don’t know your past,” he continued, either ignoring or not realizing I closed my mouth to stop myself from drooling. “And I know you’re hiding something.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up a hand to stop me.
“My point was simply that I can see it. Not that you have to tell me everything right now. Some stories take time, and comfort, before they can be told.”
Something dark flickered in his eyes.
Now what was that about? Caz had some things in his past he was uncomfortable with as well, it seemed. Would he tell me if I pushed?
Did I have the right to push, to make him share with me? No. As he’d said, some things took comfort to be able to tell. And if he was going to respect me, I owed him the same.
What sort of things had to happen for the ice tyrant himself to be angry?
His entire life had been served to him on a platter.
Son of the previous tyrant, he would have wanted for nothing his entire life.
It couldn’t be that bad. Not compared to a life on the run as a clippy, trying to survive in the wilds.
“Yet, despite not knowing what that hurt is, I know I want to fix it. I know it right here,” Caz growled, touching his chest. “I want to make you feel better. In any way I can. Whatever it takes. I’ll buy you whatever you need.
Treat you to the nicest of meals, make sure your friends are safe forever.
Rub your feet for hours on end. Make you scream my name with pleasure.
Has someone wronged you? Give me their names.
I’ll kill them all. Do you see? I don’t care what I have to do, Anna.
All I know is I want to do it—to you and for you.
And doing so would make me happier than I have ever been in my entire life. Because of you.”
“I … don’t know how to respond to that.”
“I will help you heal. I will show you a different life. However I can, however I must, with all the resources at my disposal,” he said, his eyes glowing silver-green as his dragon rose to the surface, lending added emphasis to words that didn’t need it. “Which are many.”
“Um.” I shivered. Damn, he was intense. In a good way, I thought. But resisting him was going to be the hardest thing I ever did because he was convincing. I believed every word he was saying.
The only thing letting me hold on was knowing that he wasn’t telling me every word. He was holding something back. Somehow.
“Tell me? What can I do?” He was almost pleading now.
“My friends.” I flexed against another tremor so I didn’t shake or my legs wobble. If he grabbed me now, held me tightly, I wouldn’t be able to stop, wouldn’t be able to say no.
I would surrender to him. Even now the temptation was there, nearly impossible to ignore.
“Just my friends,” I said, yanking back on the cord and calling an emergency stop. “That’s what I need.”
Needed desperately. No way could I do this, no way could I fight this on my own. I needed Milly’s strength and Ella’s cold, hard logic. They would help me see what I was missing, the reason Caz felt he needed to pretend to be my mate. It was there, somewhere. I just couldn’t see it on my own.
“Of course. When you’re awake and have eaten.” He said the last with enough force to make it clear that he wasn’t going to entertain any arguments. “Then we can go see them.”
“Just like that?” It felt too easy.
Caz’s face opened in surprise and then hardened quickly into a cold glare. “Yes. Why would it not be? You asked me to get your friends. I told you I would. Did you think I lied?”
I sucked in a breath. Offending the leader of all ice dragons was not high on the list of ways to ensure survivability. I had to keep that in mind. He might be “Caz” to me, but to everyone else, he was the ruler of everything.
What I should have done was look away first in compliance to someone that alpha. Duck my head and find something extremely interesting on the marble tiles of his bathroom floor. Anything that showed submissiveness.
I chose none of those options, my suddenly awake dragon taking great offense to his attitude and overwhelming my restraint.
“Don’t get angry at me, tyrant-boy,” I snarled instead, the room taking on a silvery hue. My eyes had to be glowing as I stepped forward, pushing him back out of the bathroom door.
“I’m not used to your kind doing anything positive for me.
I’ve spent a lifetime running from you because if I didn’t, I’d end up someone’s domestic slave or, worse, in a whorehouse, passed around by every true-dragon freak with enough alpha power to demand a share of me.
So, yes, I thought you may have lied to me because nobody in my life has ever done anything that kind for me just because they said they would.
Now get out so I can get ready and then take me to see my friends.
And try not to be upset that living in your kingdom under your rule has left me a tiny bit wary about trusting any elite, let alone the ice tyrant himself. ”
Then I slammed the door in his face.