knew what Harold was asking in his roundabout way. He wanted to know if this was someone he’d met during those long, endless months his family all referred to as “Sean’s dark time.”
Knowing Harold wouldn’t like the answer and that the man wouldn’t be able to keep the information to himself, Sean hit the close button on the elevator’s panel and said, “I met her at a bar in town.” It wasn’t exactly a lie—he had met her at a bar, in a town, just not a bar in this town.
Checking his reflection in the smoke-tinted mirrored wall, he straightened his tie and raked his fingers through his hair. Why his appearance mattered was beyond him. It wasn’t as if his beast was going to let either of them remain dressed for long.
Stepping out of the elevator when it stopped a floor above, he crossed the resort’s lobby, almost missing a step as a nearly forgotten bolt of raw lust surged through him, awakening the slumbering dragon within.
He could feel the beast turn its head to stare intently at the woman. He heard the ragged chuff as it picked up her scent and recognized the mate it had hungered for, yet oddly wanted to avoid.
He rolled his neck, fighting the urge to give in to the heated desires washing through him and leaned over the counter next to Caitlin to tell the clerk, “I’ve got this one, Brandy. Give me a suite key on thirteen.” He glanced at the floor, then asked, “Do you have any bags?”
St. George was cool, collected—unlike her response at their last encounter. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even bat an eyelash. However, she stared at him, her eyes shimmering, and swallowed hard, apparently as affected by his presence as he was by hers. “My luggage is in the car. I don’t need a room, but we do need to talk.”
Sean placed the keycard back on the counter and nodded toward the row of elevator doors. “If you’ll follow me?”
She seemed hesitant, not moving until he placed a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Red, I’d really hate to embarrass both of us right here in the lobby.”
That, too, was a lie. At this minute he didn’t care where they were, or who was around. He wanted nothing more than to shred the clothes from her body with his talons and taste every delectable inch of her naked flesh.
Beneath his touch he felt her flare of lust roar to life, only to cool just as quickly. Sean wasn’t fooled by her controlled disinterest—it was a method of self-preservation that she’d obviously learned, and perfected, during this last year.
Damn shame, actually.
She let him guide her to the elevator. Once the door slid closed behind them, he moved in, stalking her, backing her into a corner. “Welcome to Dragon’s Lair.”
She pushed against his chest. “I said we need to talk.”
Talking was the furthest thing from his mind. Sean leaned against her, his chest pressing into the softness of her breasts. He narrowed his eyes as the heat of her body drifted into his. “Talk about what?”
“You do remember what I am, don’t you?”
With a soft throaty growl, Sean nodded. “Yeah, mine.”
“Really? Your abrupt departure said the exact opposite. Trust me, I am not yours.”
Sean settled his thighs more firmly against hers and feathered his lips against her neck. “You’ll soon forget that I ever left so hastily.”
Caitlin closed her eyes at the reminder of their last encounter. It had taken days, but eventually all of her memories had flooded back and she’d remembered every second of the time they’d spent in her bed.
She hadn’t been as uninvolved as she’d first hoped. In fact, if her memories were accurate, she’d urged him on a time or three and had begged—begged!—him to stop teasing her, to end his achingly hot torment of her body more than once.
Never before had any man satisfied her so completely—and lived.
Her body seemed to hum as it, too, remembered and hungered for a command performance. She placed her hands flat on his chest, biting back a sigh at the feel of his muscles beneath her palms. “Please.”
He clasped both of her hands with one of his own and dragged them down the length of his chest and past his waist. “You don’t need to beg—at least not right now. We can save that for later.”
When he bent his head to once again feed her shivers with his lips, she turned slightly and sank her fangs into his neck.
He pulled free from her bite, still smiling. “New trick?”
“A gift from my father. You should be grateful that unlike him, I don’t suck blood.”
“Oh, sweetheart, there isn’t anything you could do to me that I wouldn’t like.”
“Sean, please.” She shoved him farther away and paced along the back of the elevator. “I’m not here on a pleasure run. I need your help.”
Her worry settled cold in his blood, effectively cooling the wayward desire. He watched her carefully. Her stride as she paced was brisk and determined. Yet she repeatedly curled and uncurled her fingers while shooting him brief darting glances. Nervousness was mixed in with her worry.
Sean silently swore. How did he so instinctively know that without delving into her mind? What was this thing between them? Why the instant attraction before and again now, and why did he so easily pick up on her moods? And why was his beast so conflicted between desiring her and wanting to tear her to shreds?
The only thing he understood about any of it was that he didn’t like it—at all. It was an interruption in his life that he didn’t need right now. This was something he couldn’t control. And the safety of his family and his own life depended on his ability to control the vile urges demanding their deaths that still haunted him at times.
Without looking, he reached over and hit the stop button. When the elevator bounced gently to a halt, he asked, “I haven’t heard from you in nearly a year, what sort of help do you think I’d be willing to offer?”
She paused to look at him with narrowed eyes. “I gave up trying to contact you after about four months.”
“I never received a call or any other contact from you.”
“If by other contact you mean telepathy, I can’t do that unless I can see you. So summoning you with my mind was out of the question. Since you’d shifted into a dragon, it wasn’t that hard to guess your identity. There aren’t that many dragon clans left, and the way you reacted to hearing my name made it fairly obvious you were a Drake. After that, finding the phone number to Dragon’s Lair was easy.” She resumed pacing, her arms crossed against her body. “Unfortunately, I kept getting the wrong Drake. I spoke to your aunt. The last time I called she told me that you were recently engaged and to leave you alone.” The look she turned on him was frigid. “So I did.”
He felt her rising anger. However, it was nothing compared to his own. Engaged? That was the best Aunt Dani could devise? “When was this?”
Caitlin shook her head and sighed as if bored with this conversation. “The first time was about a month after you disappeared from my bedroom.”
She’d
