Page 5 of Her Dragon

“Want me to hook you up with one of his friends?” she offered. “To make up for leaving you without a lab partner?”

I shook my head. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I did the field study portion of the assignment on Saturday and will be able to get the report done before Friday. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Your loss.” She shrugged and then perked up when her gaze was caught by something over my shoulder. “Damn, it’s too bad that I already found the perfect guy to wife me up. No playing around for me because I can’t risk Chad finding out and losing interest. If only I’d seen that guy a few weeks ago, I could’ve enjoyed myself for a night. He looks like he could absolutely wreck any woman he took to his bed in the very best way possible.”

I was so glad she wouldn’t be in my class anymore, and I wouldn’t need to endure more conversations like this. “Well…um…it was great talking to you.”

A shiver raced up my spine, and I sensed someone was watching me. Glancing around, I locked gazes with a guy leaning against a tree across the quad. One of his broad shoulders was propped against the trunk, and he was so tall that the lowest branch was only an inch or two above his head.

Whoa. He was older than my peers, so I assumed he wasn’t a fellow student. With his thick black hair, bright green eyes, tan skin, and muscles, he attracted attention from every woman who walked past. He must’ve been what caught Shelley’s attention, and I found myself feeling jealous of the crap she’d just said about wanting to spend a night in his bed.

It appeared that I had finally found a guy who was hot enough to bring my dormant libido to life. Too bad he was way out of my league.

5

MARIELLE

Istood frozen as he prowled toward me, feeling as though his emerald gaze held me in place. I had no clue what about me had caught his attention, but there was no denying he was headed in this direction because of me and not someone else. Not when he never looked away from me, even though a couple of female students tried to capture his attention as his long legs ate up the distance between us. When he was only two steps down from me, he stopped. “You take a trip out to the woods recently?”

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Um, yeah. On Saturday.”

“Damn, maybe I should’ve ended my date with Chad sooner and stuck with that class. Who knew you could stumble across more than just rocks out there?” Shelley muttered as she stomped away.

The hot guy ignored her little tirade, his gaze never leaving my face. “Did you stick to state lands or wander onto private property? The signs warning people off are impossible to miss.”

“Yeah, but I had permission to be there,” I explained.

He crossed his arms over his broad chest, his biceps bulging. “Keane didn’t mention setting anything up with the college to allow students to traipse around our territory. That’s not something he would’ve kept to himself.”

“I don’t know anyone named Keane, and I was by myself during my hike, so it wasn’t as though there were a bunch of us out there.” Digging in my backpack, I pulled out the piece of paper I’d gotten that morning. “I met Leyton and Evette at the gas station, and he gave me permission to cross onto his family’s property. See, he even gave me his number in case I ran into any issues. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I’m sorry.”

“Leyton is Keane’s younger brother and second-in-command of their…family,” he explained, handing the note back to me. “Even if he couldn’t give permission for you to be on our land, you wouldn’t be punished for being there on Saturday. Not from me or anyone else while I’m around.”

I didn’t know the guy, and he had seemed pretty pissed about me being on his property only a moment ago, but his words made me feel oddly safe. “I appreciate that. Thanks.”

“Entirely my pleasure.”

The sensual thread in his deep voice evoked all sorts of ideas. Filthy ones that had never crossed my mind before. “If Leyton didn’t tell you about me, how did you know I was there this weekend?”

“There’s a cave on our land that I consider to be my personal territory.” My stomach twisted in knots at the start of his explanation. “Nobody in our group ever goes there because they know what the place means to me, but I think you might have found it during your hike.”

I grimaced. “Then I actually do owe you an apology. I didn’t see any signs of someone using the cave, or else I wouldn’t have gone inside.”

I considered telling him about the black rock that I found in the cave, but I wasn’t sure that I was ready to talk about it. Not until I got the cosmogenic nuclide dating results back from Dr. McCord. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself if I was wrong about the origins of the rock, and I definitely didn’t want to get his hopes up by telling him that he might be the rightful owner of a lunar meteorite worth a ton of money.

“There’s no way you could’ve known if you didn’t venture too far into the system of tunnels.” He shrugged. “I don’t use the entrance you found and rarely go back there.”

That made me feel a little better and also had me hoping he wouldn’t miss the rock I’d taken until I had more answers.

Stretching my arm out, I offered him my hand. “I guess since I invaded your territory, I probably should at least introduce myself. I’m Marielle Beck.”

He slid his palm against mine, and I felt a spark of awareness spread from my hand to my core. “And I’m Artemis Drake.”

Pressing my inner thighs together to ease the sudden ache between them, I murmured, “Nice to meet you.”

I liked that his hand wasn’t too soft, the rough calluses gently scraping against my skin. And I missed the feel of it against mine when he let go.

“Any chance you could give me a ride back to my cabin?” he asked, flashing me a panty-melting smile.

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