Sighing, I join him on the bed, crossing my legs while holding the leather-clad book on my lap. “I’m not hiding anything from you,” I murmur, drawing enough courage to hold the diary out to him. “Here… You’re allowed to read it.”
Draco presses the diary away gently, shaking his head with a warm smile. “No, sweetheart. I don’t mean to pry,” he says gently. “You don’t have to tell me everything. I was only teasing.”
“The thing is…” I take a deep breath. “... I want you to know. I’ve wanted to tell you about it for a while.”
“Yeah?” Draco shifts on the bed, twisting toward me with keen intent on his face. “What is it, my sweetheart?”
Placing the diary down, I reach for his hands and place them on my lap. “So… I used to dream about you long before we met.”
“Really?”
Blushing at the way he sounds genuinely surprised, I avert my eyes. That’s when he hooks a finger under my chin and tilts my face toward him. When I meet his eyes, his gaze is warm, the golden depths illuminated by how I touched his heart.
I nod sheepishly as I tuck my bottom lip between my teeth, noticing the way his eyes darken.
“Don’t do that,” he warns with a purr, eyes flitting to my lips as he hungrily devours them with his gaze.
“Don’t do what?” I tease, feeling goosebumps pebble my forearms long before he slides a hand over my arm. Settling on my chin, he strokes my moist bottom lip with his thumb. Awareness rushes through me and settles between my thighs, causing a whimper to escape my lips.
“Don’t distract me like that,” he drawls, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he gulps. My eyes focus on the movement, imagining what it would be like to trace the tip of my tongue across the veins…
“Lily…?” Draco chuckles, snapping me from my fantasy. I pout when he stands up, wearing a salacious smirk as he offers me a hand. “We should get going,” he suggests as I take his hand and unfold my legs. “But I would like to hear all about your dreams on our way back.”
Nodding eagerly, I follow him out of my bedroom to bid my family goodbye. We have to steal away to the backyard without them noticing before Draco shifts and whisks us into the air to head back to Aurora Island.
I’d call it ‘home’ if home was a place. But as I recount my psychic dreams about him through our shared mind link, I realize Draco is my concept of ‘home.’
And wherever he is, that’s where home is for me.
***
“Wow!” I marvel at the view from up here. As the sun sets on the island, it casts an orange and purplish hue on the horizon. Shrouding the colorful meadow in a blanket of beauty I’ve never seen before.
I can imagine it now—drawing inspiration from the mountaintop to create the most heartfelt stories I could ever create. And when I glance at Draco, seeing how he watches the sunset with a relaxed jaw and sparkling eyes of amazement, I know I’m right where I need to be.
Beside the man who will forever serve as my greatest inspiration. My characters will be weaved with his personality between the pages. His strength, the magnitude of his Alpha aura.
He’s just… Perfect.
He sighed as he reached for my hand, our fingers interlaced, and he kissed my knuckles.
“I love you, Lily Turner.”
His admission takes me by surprise, and I gasp as I continue staring out at the view from the peak of the luscious mountain. I can feel him staring at me, but I’m too shocked to move.
Frozen to the spot, it’s only when Draco unlinks his fingers from mine that I’m jolted from my daze.
“Draco?” I whisper timidly as I reach for his wrist. “Wait.”
I can feel the sadness rolling off him in waves, and it squeezes my heart with all the regret I have within me. I didn’t mean to make him sad.
I just wasn’t expecting him to say those words to me.
“What is it, sweetheart?” he presses gently as he stares into my eyes. I can see that he’s trying to remain unbothered, but the sadness lurks in his eyes.
For the first time ever, the Alpha dragon doesn’t appear as mighty and powerful as he always is. Right now, he’s just a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. He opened up to the purest feeling he possesses. He admitted that his heart was bigger than he had permitted anyone to see.
But it’s mine to see. Mine to behold. And God knows I will hold it with all the tender love it deserves. Despite his tough outer shell, Draco is human at his core.