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“Yeah, I have a date with a dragon shifter.”
Recalling our previous conversation, he laughed. “Well I suppose pizza can’t compete with ‘dragon dick’.”
“Not much can.” I tugged my wrist away and felt a momentary sense of acute loss before rebuilding my walls. I didn’t need friends, let alone someone who seemed determined to ignore my boundaries.
“Bye Stella, enjoy your evening!” Brax’s laughter followed me out of the library.
Chapter 23
Brax
To my eternal surprise, Stella was right: a search on Amazon for ‘dragon shifter romance’ yielded a fuck-ton of results. The covers seem to feature a lot of ripped guys, but I downloaded one anyway. I knew I’d probably regret it, but eh.
Trying to form a connection with Stella was like herding cats. As soon as I pushed her, she threw her guard up and backpedaled like crazy. It was infuriating. She was infuriating!
I wasn’t used to putting in this much effort. I really had no clue why. Did I want to fuck her? Or was she only attractive to me because she refused to give me an inch?
That she was attractive was not in dispute, even if she did her best to hide it. Not even shapeless clothing and a bad hair-dye job could hide her charms. There was also chemistry there; more chemistry than I’d had with anyone else. The way she shivered a little when I touched her in the library told me she wanted me; she just wasn’t willing to admit it to herself.
Maybe I needed more reasons to spend more time with her. We had classes together, which helped, but nothing outside of class. Harley was making a huge effort to run early in the morning because he had figured out Stella usually ran at that time, but no fucking way was I getting up at 5 AM to pound the trails. Working with weights in the gym was more my thing.
I was determined to find out what she did for fun. Books seemed a good place to start. With that in mind, I opened the book I’d downloaded and started to skim the content.
50 pages in and I was beyond shocked. Sweet baby Jesus. This stuff was pure filth. No wonder she liked it. While there was a plot, of sorts, most of it hinged around explicit sex scenes, each one more descriptive and creative than the last. If I ever wanted to know how a menage worked, here was my source material.
I was so engrossed in the book I didn’t hear Quinn appear behind the sofa. He scanned the screen of my iPad and ripped it from me before I could stop him.
“What the fuck?” I yelled. “Give me that back now!”
“Oh dude, what kinky rabbit hole have you fallen into?” He howled with laughter as he read the page I’d been devouring like crack. “Throbbing dragon dick? Seriously?”
“It’s what Stella likes to read,” I huffed. “She…recommended it.”
Quinn’s grin widened. “We need to form a book club. Then we can get together and read this shit.”
My good mood faded. “Not sure she’d go for that, given she runs a fucking mile as soon as I try and get close to her. It feels like she hates me most of the time.” I jumped up and pulled a beer from the fridge. The beverage slid down my throat, washing away my emotions. Alcohol was the best way I knew of dealing with things that made me uncomfortable.
We sat in silence, the book forgotten. I finished my beer and reached for another one.
Did Stella hate me?
Until Rowena appeared, we’d been getting along fine. There hadn’t been any flirting on her side, but she had seemed comfortable. And I’d definitely not imagined the spark when we touched.
“Nah man, she doesn’t hate you,” Quinn said after a moment. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you when she thinks you’re not looking at her. She’s attracted to you. Whatever her problem is, I don’t think it’s anything to do with you or us. She likes Harley too. And he definitely likes her.”
I grunted. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew Harley was chasing her hard. He’d dumped Cassie like milk left spoiling in the sun. Harley loved an easy life and Cassie was easy with a capital E. The Harley I knew, my best friend since elementary school, never turned down easy pussy. So the fact he’d cast Cassie aside without a second thought told me he was very much into Stella. The even more surprising fact was he’d not looked at another girl since she’d appeared.
But then none of us had. I couldn’t stand the sight of Rowena anymore, not that she’d ever really done much for me other than be a wet and willing mouth. Even Quinn, who was the choosiest out of the three of us, seemed to have a thing for Stella.
“What about you? I asked him, necking the last of my second beer. It barely gave me a buzz, which told me I’d been drinking way too much lately.
“What about me?” Quinn replied, giving me his poker face.
“Do you like her too?”
“And what if I do? Are we going to end up fighting over her, like feral dogs with a bone?”
Was she worth fighting for? I hadn’t decided that yet, but one thing I did know was that my friends were the most important thing in my life.
