Page 40 of Heartfelt Goals

Drastin of the Yote… Dustin – of the Coyotes?

Whose goal was to protect the nest… net?

Her blue-eyed dragon princ… was him?

“OMIGOSH!”he practically shrieked, his voice hoarse as he flinched, sinking slightly as his voice reverberated against the empty walls – that he quickly followed with a hissed curse word full of disbelief. “Laurel’s writing steamy romances…about me?”

“Dustin? Are you almost ready?” Laurel called out easily from the hallway. “We’re so excited about meeting everyone tonight and both wearing your jersey.”

“I’m never gonna make it,”he hissed at the empty air, his eyes wide in confusion about the thoughts ricocheting in his mind, heart, and soul. He was expected to act like nothing was going on, that nothing happened between any of them, when he knew she was writing smut-filled pages of imagining what intimacy would be like… with him.

“Gimme a minute!” he called out, begging for more time to calm himself – as he quickly ordered the book, determined to see what she was writing about him. What if others knew it? What if it got back to the team that she was writing filthy smut about him?

What if it was good?

“WHAT-AM-I-THINKING?!”he squawked, sounding like a parrot as he slapped himself across the face. “You cannot thinkabout Laurel like that, ya’ filthy freak. She’s your sister’s best friend, and you’ve known her since she was a kid…A kid who writes about lust-filled dragons! Thank heavens I didn’t get traded to the Dragons.”

And Dustin let out a nervous laugh before he whimpered audibly, his eyes pinched closed as he drew in several breaths through his nose to calm down.

“Okay… okay. Pull yourself together. It might be nothing, and you are blowing this way out of proportion without having all the facts. You can behave like a gentleman in public…” he whispered aloud, giving himself a pep talk as a little voice inside of his head piped up.

… And when you’re in private tonight – it’s game on ol’ Drastin of the Yote, slayer of virgins, protector of the nest, guardian of the family line.

And froze.

Family?

Kendall read those books. Why would Laurel ever allow…wait… Kendall was sneaking past Laurel, reading them. Did Kendall know she was writing about him? Did she picture him like that… as a passionate, blue-eyed dragon ravaging some unsuspecting female?

Little Boy Blue…

Ol’Blue Eyes…

Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh!

“Cripes!”… And gagged painfully, his body writhing in desperation to throw up at the sheer thought of a teenage girl picturinganyof the intimacy that went on behind closed doors. “Omigosh, I’m gonna be sick. That’s it! I’m gonna be sick – and then I’m gonna be arrested. Laurel should not be thinking of me like that – and Kendall is never getting married. I’m gonna put that girl in a nunnery as soon as I wash her eyes and mouth out with soap.”

“Dustin? Are you okay?”

Laurel!

“Yeah, be right there…”

“Do you need help?”

“Mental? Or physical?” he called out – and winced.

“Dustin, I’m coming in,” Laurel began again, sounding worried, and he heard the door open, freezing immediately.

Dustin stood there guiltily like there was a neon billboard behind him. The old-fashioned kind with the gas-filled tubes, where one picture would light up – and then flicker off as the other illuminated, creating a moving picture. Excepthismental billboard had adragonmoving behind him, performing ‘the act’ – instead of an empty, plain wall.

He instantly broke out in a cold sweat as she looked at him and raised an eyebrow over the rim of her glasses.

“Are you okay?”

“Yep. Never better. Just, oh you know, stretching and talking to myself,” he smiled brightly while everything in him was cringing at the rush of lust that just raced up his spine from meeting Laurel’s hazel eyes.

“Well, when you are finished talking to yourself,” she chuckled softly, tucking her hair behind her ear. “We’re ready to go and just waiting on you.”

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