Chapter Two
Tor
The hairs on my neck tingled as I bent over the auctioneer’s desk. She was back there. I could feel it.
I didn’t turn around.
“Now, if you’ll just sign here, we can collect payment.” The obsequious little man who ran the accounting end of the auction was practically rubbing his greedy little palms together at the prospect of getting more of my money.
“I will pay at the end of the day,” I said, my tone offering a warning. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get me to come with him and finalize payment. Did he doubt that I was a man of my word?
I let my hard gray eyes bore into him, pinning him to his squeaky black chair until sweat ran from his hideously cheap-looking toupee, the droplets dripping down to his thick jowls. Beady black eyes practically vibrated in place, a sure sign of his longing to look anywhere but at me.
“Um, of course, of course. Yes. You want to buy more cars.”
“Yes.” I didn’t deign to explain further. He didn’t need to know why I was expanding my collection.
I snorted to myself. “Expanding” a collection was easy to do when it didn’t exist in the first place.
I was building one. One that would serve to woo my mate properly.
I’d come to Earth from the dragon realm to find her, but before I did, I had to make sure I had all the tools I would need to impress her and show her what she was worth.
The scrape of shoes on the concrete floor of the convention center signaled someone’s approach. I knew it would be her, the woman from the stands. The matching surge of energy that stiffened my spine made it obvious.
I still didn’t turn around, even as the unspent power built within me at her nearing presence.
Closing my eyes halfway, I took a deep breath and released it, letting the electricity fade and dispelling it from me.
It was important I keep calm. It was not the time or place to let others see what became of me when I was worked up.
The humans wouldn’t understand.
Besides, I was no ordinary storm dragon.
I was heir to the throne of Storm Keep, and I would not let images of a human woman drive me wild.
It didn’t matter how good those pouty lips would look when wrapped around my thick, hard shaft, working it up and down in soft, slow motions while she stared up at me from her knees. I would maintain my composure.
She came closer, and I took a breath through my nose, ignoring the chubby man’s requests for more signatures. I was trying to gather her scent, but the body odor of the fat man overpowered everything, ruining it for me.
Bending over to sign the next set of papers, hoping he would shut up, I called the woman’s image to my mind.
She’d been sitting when I’d turned around to look at her and let her know that she’d been defeated in her attempt to outbid me.
Not that she’d stood a chance. Nobody took something from me. Not once I’d decided I wanted it.
If she weren’t careful, she would find that out firsthand if I decided I wanted her. If that happened, she wouldn’t resist. She would be mine for the evening. Or afternoon. There were plenty of out-of-the-way places in the convention center where I could take her body and make her mine.
And I would enjoy it, too. Above her little indented chin and thick lips were a cute snub nose and the features that had actually managed to ensnare me for a moment.
She had two of the biggest, most luminous brown eyes I’d ever seen.
They might not be some unusual shade of color, but the sheer life contained within them had startled me.
I’d never seen such vibrancy in a human gaze before.
Her feet once again scraped on the concrete. She was approaching slowly, now on my right side, whereas before, she’d been on my left. I bet myself that she fancied herself a predator, stalking me slowly as she approached, lining up for the kill.
Only the human had no idea who she was dealing with. I was Torrent, soon-to-be Prince of the Storm Dragon clan. I was no prey but rather a superior hunter, lying in wait. Enticing her to approach, unaware of the noose she was drawing around her neck.
I didn’t know what her plan was or why she was approaching.
She’d been sitting next to an older gentleman who had a similar chin, marking him likely as her father.
It seemed doubtful she’d left his side to come to beg me to bend her over and rail her until she came all over my thick shaft.
Regardless of her reasons, I knew she wouldn’t get her way.
Not with me. Dragons didn’t relent to humans. Especially not royalty.
When silence reigned for several seconds, I glanced at the glossy black panel of the car I’d just bought.
I’d already forgotten its make, but the sleek, powerful lines bespoke a good ride, and I’d decided it would be the perfect augmentation to the collection I was building.
Now, however, I used its pristine condition to catch a glimpse of her in the reflection.
She was shorter than I’d thought and a little thicker as well, with some real hips to her that stirred my cock. From a fucking reflection. I snarled silently, trying to regain control.
“Is everything okay, sir?” the little man asked.
“Fine,” I rumbled, the thunder coming closer now, portending a storm soon to hit if he didn’t get things over and done with.
The woman in the reflection took a step toward me again, then another, her thick thighs swaying from side to side.
I stifled another growl. I liked what I saw, but it didn’t matter.
I wouldn’t let myself be distracted. I was on Earth to find my mate.
Not get distracted by any attractive woman who passed by.
I had to keep my priorities intact. My realm might be stable for the moment, but the longer I spent without a mate, the more the skies would darken over Storm Keep.
Not to mention, the more time I spent on Earth, the more likely trouble would arise. Family was tricky like that.
No, I would find my mate, assuming the Prince of Fire was right, and the other dragon heirs would find their mates on Earth as he had, and then we would return to Storm Keep.
It still sounded crazy to think I would find a mate among humans, but like Ember, the Fire Prince, I was not smitten with any of the female dragons I’d come across.
My Eternal Mate would not be found among them.
Which meant I had to focus on finding her on Earth. Not the timid little thing who was approaching from the rear.
“Last signature,” the man—I didn’t know nor care to find out his name—said, pointing a sausage-like finger at a blank line.
I leaned down, taking the proffered pen and preparing to put ink to paper.
At that moment, she stepped forward, abandoning her timidity for a second. My hand paused, and a sly grin spread over my face as she cleared her throat.
“Excuse me,” she said, interrupting me before I could sign for the car.
I moved the tip of the pen, mere fractions of an inch above the paper, reveling in how I was tormenting the woman and the man simultaneously. One desperately wanted me to sign, and while I wasn’t sure about the other, I was developing a hunch on what she wanted.
“Yes?” I said gruffly, curious as to how she would react.
“Um, could I talk to you, please?”
She wasn’t quite what I would have termed as meek. There was a hint of spine in her voice, but what truly got me was the end of her request. When someone spoke to me with manners like that, I felt all but honor bound to respect that. Even to a human.
So, I stood up, absolutely basking in the look of face-melting disappointment on the money-man’s face.
“Yes?” I asked again in a much kinder, more formal voice as I turned around and met her gaze.
“Uhh,” she stammered, her face slowly turning from pale white to red.
I watched her body, grinning as her nipples appeared under her shirt and pressed through the material.
In her chest, I could hear the beat of her heart fly up the scale.
My eyes roamed down her short, compact frame, noting the large swell of her breasts.
The woman had curves all around, hidden as they were under the loose ripped jeans and plain black halter top.
My cock swelled, straining against my suit pants for her. Awareness that I wasn’t the only one reacting to the presence of the other flooded me at the same time that electricity sparked in my right hand. I closed the palm tight, hoping no one had seen it.
Control yourself. Now.
I took a deep breath to try and calm myself.
Big mistake.
The first hint of her arousal flooded my nose, and I nearly went berserk at the sweaty, heady aroma, my mouth watering instantly with an intense desire to taste her.
I wanted to lap at her sweet-smelling pussy, taking her in with my tongue, while my ears were delighted by the sounds of her moans as she came all over me.
I hadn’t expected her to be that tantalizing. It was more work than I thought to collect myself and listen to her question.
“I, ah, that is, about the car you just bought. I was wondering, would you, um, consider selling it?”
My eyebrows rose. Now we were talking money. I had something else to focus on to calm myself. Not only was it money, but my money. I’d been right in my initial assumption that it was the car that had brought her down to talk to me.
“If you wanted it,” I said, letting my voice flow over her, “then you should probably have offered to pay more for it, no?”
It wasn’t like the car meant anything to me.
If she’d wanted to pay more, I wouldn’t have driven the price up to spite her.
But I knew how much approximately it was supposed to go for and what was a few thousand more on top of that if necessary.
I did like the look of it. And it was mine now. I wasn’t about to let it go so easily.
What made me curious, however, was why she wanted it badly enough to come to talk to me. Somehow I knew it wasn’t just a convenient way for her to meet me. The car had meaning.
“I know,” she said with a heavy sigh, looking up at me, then away, subtly moving her hips from side to side and sliding her thighs against one another.
A surefire sign she was turned on just being around me.
I could practically hear her pussy lips rubbing against one another as she moved, so thick was her arousal in the air.
How the man behind the desk couldn’t smell it was beyond me.
“So, then, why didn’t you?”
“I went as high as I could,” she said.
“Then get more money?” I wasn’t a charity. I wasn’t about to lose money by giving it to her for less.
“I’m working on it,” she said, a spark of defiance working through her tone.
Then she softened and met my eyes, letting her gaze linger.
“It’s just that the car has significance.
To my father, I mean, not me. A lot of sentiment.
My dad took my mom on their first date in it. He even proposed to her in it.”
They probably conceived you in it, too, then, I thought, though I declined to say that out loud. Something in me didn’t want to be that rude to the woman.
“Okay,” I said politely but bluntly. “And?”
“And then he had to sell it,” she said. “To help pay for me. When my mom was pregnant, I mean. They needed the money. So he got rid of it. And now my mom is gone, and …”
Her lower lip quivered, and she blinked rapidly for a few seconds. I looked away, giving her the time to compose herself. I didn’t need her crying, and for a moment, it looked like talking about the death of her mom might have done just that.
Besides, I knew what it was like to lose parents. Just months earlier, both of mine had moved on at the same time. It wasn’t easy, even when, in my case, I’d known it was coming.
“Listen,” I said gently. “Miss …”
“Mia,” she said. “My name is Mia.”
“Okay. Mia,” I said, “here’s the deal. If you can come up with seventy-two thousand, I will sell you the car. Not a problem. But I’m not about to just flush ten grand down the drain. You can understand that, right?”
Mia licked her lips, and fresh images filled my mind of her doing that to clear the last bits of my cum from them after she made me explode with her mouth.
I clenched my jaw, knowing she was preparing to renew the case of her sob story somehow.
What was she going to do, I wondered, offer herself up?
That was a lot of money to pay for some convention bathroom sex.
But given how she was tormenting my body just from existing, I couldn’t lie.
I would consider it if she made the offer.
Then perhaps I could look for a mate with a clear mind.
“Sir,” the finance man said, interrupting the electric tension between Mia and me. “Please. I must get ready for the next auction. I need you to sign this.”
I lifted my eyebrows at the woman, inviting her to make any last plea or offer she might have to make up the monetary difference.
She shook her head, sending her straw-blonde hair bouncing vigorously from side to side.
Turning, she walked away, leaving me to stare lustfully after her thick ass.
What I wouldn’t have given at that moment to rip those loose jeans off her and bury my face between her cheeks, making her squeal before she moaned.
But what shocked me wasn’t my burgeoning lust for the human woman. Rather, it was the fact that I wasn’t just feeling lust. As I turned back to the table and picked up the pen, a new emotion filled me.
“Thank you,” the sweaty money-grubber said, standing up to try and shake my hand, fawning over me. “Much appreciated.”
“Fuck off,” I fiercely growled, enough that he was sent flying back into his chair in fright.
I turned my back on him as I watched the woman climb up the bleachers to her father. All the while, I tried to figure out why I was feeling regret of all things. As if I should have just given her the car. What the fuck was that about?
Fucking humans. I sure as hell hope Ember was right about this. I don’t know how he put up with them. And finding a mate among them? He’d better be right about this …