Page 728 of Love Bites

“That feels great. I mean, it’s totally healed up. Thank you. For healing it. With your magic anti-venom mouth. Thanks.”

Bethany prayed to all the gods of magic for a case of sudden-onset laryngitis.

“My pleasure.” His voice had dropped an octave.

“Mine, too.”

Or the end of the world. Anything to make her stop talking.

Math looked over at her and lowered her leg to his lap. “We should probably get back to work.”

“Yeah. Probably.” She dragged her leg over his knees and to the ground, feeling the friction of their trousers against her leg. “I am really sorry about the sea monsters.”

He shrugged. “We’ll figure out how to get rid of them and the algae. We have two weeks until the angel investors get here. It’s not like they’re going to be here in a few days. In the meantime, those serpents aren’t going to bother anyone.”

“They have big teeth and jellyfish tentacles,” she said. “I still worry that they might eat a person or two.”

He smiled, though it seemed a little rueful or embarrassed. “Nah. I told them not to.”

She was impressed. “I guess it makes sense that you speak dragon.”

“It’s a little more than that,” he said. “I’ve been told I’m kind of an alpha dragon.”

“Is it because you’re so big? You can threaten to beat them up or eat them?”

He laughed. “Not really. It’s not the size of the dragon in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the dragon. Queen Elizabeth is a tiny, little reptile, but she’s an alpha. When she roars, dragons listen. But let’s eat some lunch. I’m starving. Transforming makes me hungry.”

“I’ll bet. It looked like a lot of effort.”

“Thanks for the clothes again. That trick is handy. Public nudity can be a problem for shifters. I should keep you with me.”

Bethany would like that very much, but she didn’t say anything.

Math looked startled. “I mean, not locked up in my lair or anything. Because I’m a dragon. So, I might steal a beautiful woman away and lock her in my lair. But I wouldn’t say that because that would be an inappropriate thing to say at work. And I wouldn’t want to offend you.” He looked up at the cloudless expanse of blue sky above the towering casinos. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

She turned to him and considered how to phrase her reply. “What if I wasn’t offended?”

He faced her and looked down at her from his tall, tall height. “Then whatever I said wouldn’t be a problem.”

Bethany smiled up at him, really hoping this conversation didn’t go south. “So, you think I’m a beautiful woman?”

“I thought you were beautiful the moment I saw you in the HR office, but that’s not something I could say then.”

“Do you still think so?” Yeah, she knew she was fishing.

He smiled and smoothed a lock of her dark hair from her ear to her shoulder. “I can’t take my eyes off of you.”

She smiled up at him some more, really putting her eyes into it. “Do you really have a dragon lair?”

“Maybe.” His voice had lowered to a gravelly growl again.

“Do you steal beautiful women away and lock them up in your lair?”

“Would you like to see my lair? Or at least my penthouse suite again?”

Yep, he was definitely inviting her up. “Maybe.”

“How about we have supper tonight and discuss alpha dragons stealing you away to lairs and anything else that comes to mind?”

“I’d like that,” she said.

He smiled. “I’ll clear my calendar for the evening.”

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