Chapter 10 #2
Shay turned to face him, ready to put him in his place if he really thought her words in the hall had meant anything, but stopped when she saw the amusement—and traces of heat—in his eyes. She smirked. “You wish, azhera.”
“Yeah, I do,” he replied.
His gaze lingered on her for a moment before he turned away to study her little apartment, walking slowly as he examined everything—not that there was much to see.
At least it spared her the embarrassment of him seeing her reaction to his words—the way her skin flushed, the way she squeezed her thighs together to ease the ache of her clenching pussy.
The heat that had been in his voice, in his eyes, paired with his total lack of hesitation in answering…
I’m too damn horny for this. I’m blaming the pregnancy hormones. It has to be the hormones.
“So?” she prompted, desperate to change the subject.
“I’m willing any time, kiraia,” he said, continuing his slow perusal of her apartment.
“Azhera, you know that’s not what I meant.”
When he didn’t immediately answer, Shay frowned and glanced around the apartment.
The place was already familiar; she knew it wasn’t much to look at, knew it was a dump.
That was no fault of her own. But she still couldn’t stop the shame that was pulsing up the back of her neck now, feeling like flames spreading over her skin.
She cared about what Drakkal thought. She didn’t want him to look at her any differently now that he’d been in her apartment, now that he was really seeing it.
You’re acting like a teenager, Shay. Get your shit together.
She pulled out a chair and eased herself onto it. “Tell me all about your super-secret criminal career.”
Drakkal leaned close to the wall and scratched at a stain with a claw—one of many that had been present when she moved in and would likely be present long after she was dead.
He scowled and made a decidedly disapproving grunt before turning and walking toward the table.
Before he reached the empty chair, his eyes flicked to her pallet, and he paused, tilting his head.
He gave her a questioning glance and stepped over to her bed.
Her brows drew down. “What?”
He bent down and snatched up his coat from atop her pallet.
He looked at her over his shoulder after he straightened, holding her gaze as he slowly—so slowly—raised the jacket to his nose.
His nostrils flared with an inhalation, and his eyelids drifted shut.
He made a low, rumbling sound that was somewhere between a growl and a purr. A damned purr.
I think I just came.
Shay suddenly recalled how she’d started her morning.
Eyes wide, she leapt from her chair and crossed the room, holding out a hand. “Give me that!”
Keeping the jacket raised, Drakkal turned away from her, shielding the garment with his body. “You sure you want to waste time talking, Shay?”
“It’s not wasting time,” she said, standing on her toes and leaning against him as she reached for the jacket. “Now give me back my jacket!”
“Can’t. Smells too good.” He turned toward Shay just enough for her to see him rub the fabric against his cheek and draw in another deep breath.
How could she be so mortified and turned on all at once?
“I’ll give it to you if you promise to wear it for me again,” he finally said.
Shay stepped back, held her hand out, and glared up at him. “Fine. Give it to me and I’ll put it on.”
The visible corner of his mouth lifted in a devilish smirk that displayed one of his wicked fangs. “Only this.”
Make that mortified, amused, and fucking aroused.
She wasn’t used to this kind of playfulness, and never would’ve expected it from Drakkal…but it was a very good look on him.
And it was also a distraction from the true purpose of his visit—he’d come to offer her work and a safe place to live. She needed to know that she could trust him, that she wasn’t going to get involved in something she’d regret. She couldn’t make that mistake again.
Keeping her gaze locked with his, she curled her lips in a sensual smile and leaned forward, letting her hair fall around her face. She beckoned him with a finger. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Drakkal’s ears perked, and he finally lowered the jacket and turned to face her.
Though surprise and suspicion crept into his expression, they were overpowered by the desire still burning in his eyes.
“I don’t like being called kitty,” he said as he took a step toward her, but his voice was sultry instead of annoyed.
She lifted her chin and stared up at him with hooded eyes. “Yes, you do.”
He hummed thoughtfully and came to a stop immediately in front of her. “Only when you say it, kiraia.”
Shay lifted a hand and settled it on his cheek.
The fur beneath her palm was softer than she’d anticipated.
His eyelids drooped, and his lips parted.
She slid her hand along the back of his neck and into the thicker fur of his mane.
A shudder traveled from his body into hers, accompanied by another of those rumbling purrs.
“Good,” she said softly, easing closer. “Then you’ll also like it when I say you’d been a bad kitty.” Curling her fingers into a fist, she gave his mane a yank.
He winced, and the noise that emerged from him was somehow a snarl and a hiss at once. Before he could recover, she snatched the jacket out of his hand, released her hold on his mane, and retreated from him, dropping a hand to rest over the blaster on her hip.
The pain on his face quickly gave way to an amused smirk—as though he’d not really been hurt at all.
“If you don’t want to rut, you shouldn’t be teasing me like this,” he said in a husky voice.
The tension eased from her as soon as she realized he wasn’t going to retaliate. She stared at him questioningly, unable to shake her lingering wariness, before returning to her chair. She sat with the jacket folded protectively over her lap and both arms atop it, one hand clamped on the fabric.
The remembered feel of his soft fur, his heat, lingered on her palm.
“Enough playing around, azhera,” she said. Things were getting too…relaxed with him. “Spill it. What do you do?”
He approached slowly; despite his leisurely pace, he put off the air of a predator confidently stalking its prey.
Shay couldn’t stop her eyes from dipping to the prominent bulge at his crotch—which was definitely larger than it had been a few moments ago.
Her core clenched as the fires in her belly roared to new heights. She tightened her hold on the jacket.
Fuck. Me.
Focus Shay!
She wrenched her gaze from his groin and forced her eyes to his.
Drakkal’s grin had only widened—fully baring his sexy fangs—by the time he reached the empty chair across from her and sat down. His expression said I know what you’re thinking, Shay. I can smell it.
“I run a forgery operation with my partner,” he said. “I handle security and logistics; he does the forging.”
“Forging what?”
“Identification chips. He’s very thorough. We haven’t had a single chip flagged by the Consortium as fake. Which is surprising, given how often he has his head up his own ass.”
Shay arched a brow. The mirth with which Drakkal had spoken told her there really wasn’t any bad blood between him and his partner. “That’s it? You make fake IDs?”
“Yeah, that’s it as far as our day-to-day.
” He tilted his head and folded his big arms across his chest. The stance would’ve seemed standoffish on most people, but Drakkal gave it a casualness that should’ve been impossible given his size and appearance.
“We’ve had to break a few other laws from time to time.
It’s inevitable. But the ID chips are our only criminal enterprise. ”
“So…no drugs, sex trafficking, or contract killing?”
Drakkal shook his head. “Never killed anyone for money.”
“But you do kill people.”
“I have. Probably will have to again.”
“Did they deserve it?”
“Some of them did.”
Shay frowned. “And the others?”
Separating his arms, Drakkal leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. The move strengthened the shadows on his face just enough to create a faint, reflected glow in his eyes. “Depends on who you ask.”
Shay lifted her arms from her lap and folded them on the table. “I’m asking you.”
“Some of them didn’t. Some of them were…almost friends. But the rest either threatened me or the people I cared about, so it doesn’t matter to me whether they deserved it or not.”
She nodded. “And the rest? The drugs and sex trafficking.”
“No and fuck no.”
The vehemence in his words and the disgust in his voice made Shay’s lips twitch upward, but more than anything, it relieved her.
“And what are you offering me?” she asked.
His eyes dipped to take her in, and his tongue slipped out from between his dark lips for an instant. He parted those lips as though to speak but hesitated before finally saying, “Work. I don’t know what you used to do, but you can clearly handle yourself.”
“Not as easily as I used to,” she said, dropping a hand to pat her belly.
“My dad was in the military, and he taught me some tricks when I was a kid.” More than a few tricks.
He taught me everything. “There was a time in my life when I was…making bad decisions. I ended up in the middle of a lot of shit, and those skills kept me alive through all of it. But I don’t want that kind of life anymore.
I don’t want that for my baby. It’s too dangerous, and I’m trying to do things the right way. ”