Page 11 of Dragon Bodyguard
It had calmed her so that she’d been able to go to sleep, but even with that calm, she had never thought that what she’d get from him was the look he was now giving her. He was growing quietly livid. She’d only ever seen him angry like that once before, and it hadn’t been directed at her.
“You regret ever meeting me?” he repeated her statement.
“I do,” she affirmed, straightening her back defiantly.
“And you couldn’t have told me this sooner because?”
The taunting note in his tone made her take a step forward, fists clenching at her side. If he wanted a fight—he’d get one. She was ready for it.
“You know why I couldn’t have told you sooner,” she snapped. “Our paths haven’t crossed since you left my father’s household, have they? What—you thought I would seek you out after what you did?”
“After what I did?” he asked, rising to his feet, defensiveness creeping in.
“Yeah, whatyoudid,” she exclaimed, wishing she had something to throw at that beautiful head of his.
She’d like to cause a dent. A bruise. Some source of pain to signal that he felt something too. That the ache in her chest wasn’t just hers to carry.
“I didn’t do anything,” he raised his voice.
“Excuse me?” she barked.
“You were the one who ended it,” he yelled, taking a step forward as he pointed an accusing finger at her. “Sending your stepmother. Very mature.”
“Fuck you!” she screamed.
Her chest was heaving with the red-hot fury coursing through her and, when he closed the gap between them, she felt her skin heat up as if in anticipation of his inner dragon. Tendrils of molten heat simmered through his veins, lighting up from within. A warning. A dare.
She’d forgotten how she’d used to feed off it. How his proximity had felt like it roused her, shook her up, made her think she might have a sleeping dragon inside of her after all. Though that had mostly been while he was on top of her, inside of her.
The memory only served to further infuriate her.
She had thought that there had been mutual dependence forming between them. She had felt a sense of trust she rarely afforded anyone. And he had ripped it away.
“You’re going to try and blame my family for this?” she asked, the disgust rising through her making her want to punch him in the stomach.
She wanted to knock the air out of him, wanted to send him flying into one of the rose bushes, watch him roll through them. She’d rip up every last one. Destroy this tranquil space that he used as some sort of escape, a sanctuary for his stupid morning ritual. Of course, she didn’t have the power to match his and she wouldn’t be able to make him move so much as an inch from where he was standing.
“Tryand blame?” he asked.
“Stop repeating everything I say back to me,” she snapped.
“You think I’m making it up?” His voice was losing its heat, growing cold instead. It sent a chill through her, and she raised her chin to it, making sure to keep eye contact. He wouldn’t make her waver. He wouldn’t make her doubt what she knew to be the truth.
“I think I know your mettle,” she stated.
“Oh, you do, do you?” He shook his head slowly. He was so close, the heat of him against her skin. The glow from his inner dragon was dying down with every heartbeat, but only because he was getting distracted. She could tell he was, his stark blue eyes leaving hers to glance down at her mouth.
God, what was happening?
She felt as though there were threads hanging in the air between them, braiding themselves tighter and tighter into patterns that seemed predestined. As though they’d been meant to meet again. As though they always would be rendezvousing and there was no avoiding it unless they stopped parting and settled in the closeness of the other.
His mouth was an inch away for the first time in so very long.
She knew what his lips felt like. She knew how easily they coaxed her from unyielding to pliant. He’d helped her go from all nerves to happily contented to be in his arms once before, but that time she’d been a highly strung youngling who hadn’t thought he’d ever want her near him.
Unlike now, when her spine was stiffening with how she wanted to reject everything about him, still finding herself drawn to him like a moth to a flame. She’d wanted to set everything he’d meant to her on fire, and now she was the one burning.
“You didn’t want me,” he said, voice lowered to a soft growl, his breath against her lips.
