Page 18 of Her Dragon Daddy Disaster
“Bullshit. You just hoped you could jump into my pants again without having to try. As if you could somehow still hold sway over me six years later.”
“Five years, eight months, twelve days,” he replied evenly, eyes never wavering.
I wanted to scream. He had to be the most frustrating manever! One moment, completely oblivious to the fact he had ruined my life, having hurt me twice, and then acting as if I shouldn’t care and should just jump back into his bed.
Then he turned around and demonstrated he knew the exact number ofdaysit had been since he’d left. Because in some weird way, he’d been thinking of me all that time.
And wasn’tthata conflicting feeling or two for me to have. I still hated him, but …ugh. There was no denying that hearing him say that evoked some sort of reaction.
“Every night, I lo—”
Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the sound of somethingbighitting the roof above us. As I’d discovered on our trip over there—and flying on the back of a dragon was certainlysomething!—only Levi’s apartment had access from it. Which meant that whoever it was, was there for him.
“Levi?”
My gaze was already darting around the apartment, eyeing windows, the doorway to the stairs, places for cover in case whoever it was came in shooting. Every sense was on ultra-alert.
They were dragons, I reminded myself. They could fly. Windows weren’t necessarily safe. They could come through them. I strained to hear for the sounds of others coming up the stairs. If they were smart, they would have both ways in and out covered. There would be nowhere for us to run.
A hand landed on my shoulder heavily enough to make me jump. I slapped it away reflexively, spinning toward my assailant and dropping into a fighting crouch. Dragon or not, I wouldn’t just give in.
But it was just Levi. He stood there, the arm I’d whacked away hanging in mid-air, his eyebrows straining across the empty terrain of his forehead toward his hairline.
“Everything okay?” he asked as two people came down the stairs.
A man and a woman. I immediately noted two things. One, the closeness with which the newcomer—a tall, lithe blonde stunner who made me feel short and frumpy with her athletic figure, perfect hand-sized boobs, and legs that went on for weeks, not days, and were further emphasized by her very short black shorts.
The other thing I noted, besides how close she stood with the male—close enough to be inside his personal space, indicating more than just friendship—was how Levi reacted. It wasn’t much, but I’d learned to read his body quite well, and apparently, despite the six years—five years, eight months, twelve days,I corrected, recalling how Levi had it memorized—I hadn’t lost that touch. Something about those two …
No, I decided, it wasn’t the two of them. It was her. A slight turning of his body belied his focus.
“Levi,” the male said, his voice extremely deep.
“Malakai! Lydia!” Levi said warmly, throwing his hands up in greeting. His eyes, however, strayed back to me, questioning, interrogating.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, relaxing as it became apparent they were not strange attackers but rather welcomed friends.
He grinned at me, then strode across the room, embracing first Malakai, a shorter but arguably broader male with thick, coarse black hair cut right to the scalp and a goatee adorning his face. A hefty cleft chin could be seen through the short stubble, but his most intense feature was his eyes. Bright, bright blue, like the color of the sky after a storm rolled through, they sucked in whoever looked at them and didn’t let go.
I hung back, unsure of the dynamics, waiting for an introduction.
I never got one.
Malakai glanced at me once—more than I could say for the blonde—and then spoke in low tones to Levi. I watched his shoulders tense, followed by an emphatic shake of his head. Malakai didn’t stop, however, and bit by bit, Levi’s resistance crumbled.
Finally, he turned to me. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
My jaw just about made a hole in his floor as it plummeted. “Youwhat?”
“I have to go,” he said awkwardly, coming over to take me by the shoulders. “It shouldn’t be too long. Something’s come up.”
“Really. Something has ‘come up’?” I said. “Why don’t you tell that to the life you destroyed. Namely mine.”
Levi rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time for this, Sarah. It’s important. I have to go. It shouldn’t take too long.” He glanced at Malakai.
The other dragon shrugged in less than fully convincing fashion. His eyes were hard … and focused on me. I met his gaze without wilting.
“Make yourself at home,” he said.
