Page 24 of Meet Me in the Stars

“Because the captain thought you might wake up and set the ship on fire,” the liar said.

“Where’s Teddy?” I asked, cutting to the most important question.

“Having dinner with the rest of them.”

“Why aren’t you there?” I growled.

“Because I didn’t want you to wake up alone. Besides, it hurts to be too far away from you. How’s your chest feeling?” The liar rambled on.

“My chest? What about it?” I asked, still not opening my eyes.

He sighed and I imagined him rubbing the heel of his hand over his forehead. The stranger was blonde like Lotus. His hair was golden blonde a striking contrast to the orange scales he’d shown off first on his knuckles and then all over his body when he shifted. He was small. His scent gave him away as an omega dragon, but it was his shifted size that told me that he wasn’t a day over thirty. I’d slept for longer than this guy had been alive.

The mattress under me shifted and a second later a thigh pressed against either side of my stomach. The cocky son-of-a-bitch straddled over me with his hands resting on my sternum. I didn’t need my arms and legs to fight. I only needed my mouth and thankfully, Izora hadn’t done something asinine like muzzling me.

“Are you really not going to look at me?” he sighed, his breathing playing at my chest and neck.

“Who are you?” I asked, ignoring his questions as his pleasant weight settled onto my belly.

I gave myself a hard mental shake as my body responded to him. I was never a monk. I never did well celibate. Sex was great. Romping was fucking fantastic. Skin on skin and mouths going everywhere. That was the pleasure most of us chased down forever. Only I didn’t want it with him. It didn’t matter how much he smelled like mine. It was a lie. It had to be, because Lotus was my true-mate. Sure, if our version of ethical non-monogamy had time to grow, we might’ve loved others just as much, but Vulpine Degenerative disease took that from me.

“Open your eyes and I’ll tell you my name,” he said.

“Fine,” I said, shrugging as much as I could manage with my hands tied to the headboard.

I could’ve broken it. One good yank from either of my arms would’ve splintered the wood. That might’ve hurt the asshole trying to conquer my body. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. At least not before he gave me the answers I needed.

“I loved her too, you know,” he said a second later, realizing I wasn’t about to give up and look at him.

“You didn’t know her. There’s not even an Other World Gateway on this world is there?”

“I’m not answering any of your questions until you look at me. I’m not talking to your eyelids.”

“I don’t need my eyes to hear,” I growled.

“Am I that frightening?” he asked.

“I’ve seen enough of you. Felt enough of you too,” I said, bucking my hips up in a warning.

I smelled him blush as my half-hard dick brushed against him. My Moonscale Stud boxers and whatever he wore didn’t provide much protection between our bodies.

“Do you really want me to get up?” he asked a second later, smelling more flustered than before.

I didn’t say anything. Two could avoid answering questions. Maybe that would be our checkmate. We’d sit here forever or at least until our dragons conked out. Perhaps this was where Lotus would find us, asleep. Me bound to the bed and him trespassing on the body she once curled into at every opportunity. She’d eat him alive. Only she wouldn’t have to. When she came back, I’d wake up and do it for her. Too bad we weren’t on Earthside. Zoey might come get her.

“I’m not moving until you answer me,” he said. “I can sit here forever. I’m a dragon too, you know. I’m just as stubborn as you think you are, and I have the home field advantage.”

“Not your ship,” I laughed.

“My world.”

“Really? You’re the king?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” he said, his scent turning embarrassed.

“Caught you in a lie, huh?”

“Not so much. It’s my world more than it’s yours.”

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