Page 27 of Fated to the Grumpy Dragon
Holy fuck …
Rhyse stood on the edge of the bluffs in nothing but black, form-fitting swim-trunks. Water streamed from his body while the morning sun set his body awash in shimmering beams oflight. He was bent slightly forward, his hair dripping down in front of his body.
The washboard abs rippled as he flexed them to stand up straight. His hips pushed forward, presenting me with a full view of the bulge beneath his shorts. It was …
“I can feel all that,” he said, flicking his hair back and taking a deep breath, which did wonderful things to his anatomy.
“Uhhh,” I stammered, somehow managing to tear my eyes away from his godlike body and its tanned skin and insane definition. Not to mention the thick outline of his—
“All of it,” he added. There was significantly less tease in his voice than I expected.
I chopped off the tendril of curiosity that wanted to explore what that meant and why it may be. Now wasnotthe time to get drawn into sexual daydreams.
Rhyse gave himself a bit of a shake. I stared bluntly. If he already knew I thought he was hot as hell, what difference did it make? I might as well enjoy the show. After all, I’d caught him looking at me several times the night before. Fair was fair.
Then he approached, and I frowned, taking in the dark circles under his eyes.
“Did you sleep?” I said. “At all?”
He grunted, giving me that same half-assed shoulder shrug all men gave whenever they didn’t want to answer a question. I’d hated it the first time I was on the receiving end of it, and I hated it now.
Green eyes flickered with matching flame as I got in his way, but I wasn’t backing down.
“Why not?” I asked. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he said, waving it off. “It’s fine. I can handle a day of no sleep.”
“You know I can feel you trying to avoid answering the question, right?” I told him, tapping the side of my head. “So, just answer it. There’s no need for secrecy. Is there?”
A brief spike of anger was quickly stamped out. I suspected Rhyse had been used to doing things his way for a long time without any interference whatsoever.
Well, tough shit. I was here now.
“I stayed up listening to you breathe,” he said awkwardly.
“You listened to me?” He’d been listening to me sleep all night? An icky feeling rose up in me.
“Not like that,” he snarled. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. It would have been easier if you’d just dropped it. But no, you can’t do that. You can’t mind your own business, so you have to stick your nose in other people’s.”
“I think you listening to me breathe like a creep qualifies asmy business!” I shouted right back, not letting him get the better of me.
“Of course, you would assume I was doing it to be creepy. You can’t seem to fit it into your tiny little human brain that perhaps I was trying to be a good person and make sure nothing bad happened to you.”
My fiery retort died on my tongue as I processed the second half of his statement.
“What?”
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Exactly. You hit your head at some point. I don’t know when, but before I put those scales on you, you had a large bruise on your head. You can’t remember the past year. Even with the effects of the scale, the brain is a fickle thing. I wanted to make sure you slept okay and nothing happened. Or that if you woke up in the middle of the night with your memories back, I was there to help if I could.”
I stared at him, feeling the truth of every word impacting me like a bullet through our bond.
“Thank you,” I said at last.
“Not everyone is out to do you wrong,” he said, irritation still coloring his words and mind.
“Well, if you’d justsaidthat at the start, this all could have been avoided.”
“Or you could have just dropped the subject, and the same result would have occurred with less effort.” He started to push past me.
