Page 21 of Desired By the Dragon

“My tail,” I said through gritted teeth, “is nowhere near my ass.”

“Well—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard it.” I rolled my eyes and opted for silence as we strode the halls back to my office, until my buzzing thoughts forced me to speak. “You going to this thing tonight?”

Taylor shot me a look, brows raised. “Yeah, are you?”

I shrugged. It would be rude not to go to the main celebration for the mating season that the dragons held every year, especially as one of the ‘eligible bachelors’. Plus, I maybe had ulterior motives for going — like a certain redhead.

"Oh.” Taylor laughed. “This is about that dragon girl isn’t it. What, she hit it and quit it?” There was no real decision to move, but suddenly I had my best friend pinned to the wall with my forearm at his throat, smoke filling the air between us as students scrambled to vacate the immediate area. “Shit,” he gurgled. “I was joking, I didn’t know she actually did hit and quit.” The smoke thickened and inexplicably my anger didn’t abate. “Hey, there will be other dragons in the sky, Max. Forget about her.”

No. The white hot rage in response to his words shocked me enough that I let Taylor drop to the ground. “Fuck off.”

Standing and straightening his rumpled sweater, Taylor let out a long whistle. “Wow. It must have been really good.”

“Taylor,” I growled, pinching the bridge of my nose as I screwed my eyes shut. “I’m really trying hard not to plow my fist into your face right now, could you maybe stop making it so damn hard.” I spun on my heel, stalking away before my best friend could say something he couldn’t take back — or before I did something I couldn’t.

Flames above, the heat was hitting me so much harder this year. Less broad though, more focused solely on one dragon.

Kiernan.

She put on a good facade, her prickliness clearly a defense mechanism. What I couldn’t work out was why I wanted so badly to get beneath it, to see all the soft parts of her, the goodness at her core beneath the hard exterior she had up to keep everyone at arms-length.

Worse, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way we’d come together in the woods. I’d had good sex before, but I hadn’t ever had sex like that before. It was like she’d sunk beneath my skin and had carved out a little home for herself.

All I thought about was her. What she was doing, who she was talking to, whether she’d been using the toys I’d bought for her when the evening got late and she missed my cock.

It was infuriating.

The stack of papers on my desk had grown worryingly large, at risk of toppling every time I walked past — which I did frequently, pacing up and down, unable to pull my attention away from replaying every single interaction I’d had with Kiernan.

It was everything I’d ever been scared of, that this kind of intimacy would only distract me from what was really important: my work. Teaching.

I couldn’t wait for the month to be over and this fucking heat, the drive to mate that kept pulling me toward her and begging me to fill her up at every damn opportunity, would be in the past.

Sure, I’d be playing catch-up for a little while, but better to have this release now when everyone was similarly distracted, than later when it really counted.

Kiernan Ironclaw was a distraction I wasn’t sure I could afford, not with tenure up for grabs in the next few years and the desperate need to prove myself still roiling through my veins.

With one last disparaging look directed at the stack of papers waiting to be graded, I grabbed my coat and locked the door to my office behind me.

I’d told my mom that I’d meet her for dinner before this party. The dragons had rented out the community center for the evening, since it had one of the biggest function rooms in Indigo Cove.

The evenings were getting darker earlier and I could almost taste the phantom scent of bonfires on the lazy breeze. Fall was probably the best time to be in Indigo Cove, the farmers market got bigger as businesses vied for a coveted booth at the Halloween Festival, and even the tourists added a special air to everything. Their awe at all the supes in ‘costume’ and ‘performing’, plus all the actual shows the council organized for them too, it all added a tangible sense of magic that was enviable. It made me wonder what it might be like to experience the world the way they did. I couldn’t decide if it sounded like a pleasant break from the stressors of my life or if it just sounded sad, to be missing out on so much of the world and not even know it.

Leaves crunched under my feet and the street lights kicked on, shining through the lanterns than lined the streets and making the leftover puddles on the sidewalk gleam like portals to another world.

The only downside to being in a coastal town was the wind. It was especially ferocious the closer to the docks I got, whipping through my hair and pushing apart the open front of my coat. It brought with it the fresh scent of salt and brine, the lingering warmth of the sand, and the faint smell of food from the restaurants and other establishments on the boardwalk though, so it wasn’t all bad.

That was where I was meeting Mom. On the rare occasion that we ate out rather than at home, we often went to the pizzeria and enjoyed good food with a view.

Clouds were rolling in thick and fast by the time I got to the strip next to the beach, the cliffs in the distance breaking through the light fog. The waves were choppy, looking closer to black than blue, and a long tentacle arced up from the depths, spraying sea foam, like Kennie was flipping me off.

“Good to see you too, buddy,” I muttered and pushed through the door to the pizzeria, enjoying the pleasant rush of warmth and garlic that met me.

Mom was already seated at a table near the window when I walked in and I smiled. Tension I hadn’t been able to shake all week finally fell away from me as I kissed her on the cheek and settled into the chair opposite her.

Maybe this evening wouldn’t be so bad.