Page 20
“Your loss.”
He curled his lip. “I don’t think it is.”
She stared at him. “Are you going to tell me why you got so hammered last night? Troy mentioned that there’ve been some issues at work.”
Rowan scowled at the man, who was apparently enraptured by the droning television. “Troy should learn to keep his big mouth shut.”
“We’re married. Of course he tells me things.”
“It’s called professional courtesy. Also, we’re best friends! There’s a bro code.”
“I have that man’s dick in a chokehold. That trumps your bro code, little brother.”
“Do you want me to be sick on your carpet?”
Raina smirked before she mercifully switched subjects. “So Dad’s been breathing down your neck about the new project?”
“When isn’t he breathing down my neck?”
“Still haven’t had the talk with him, huh?”
“What talk?” Rowan averted his eyes and played dumb.
“You can’t keep ignoring the elephant in the room, Rowan.”
“I don’t need another pep talk about freeing my inner spirit and following my heart. We’re not all Ruben, Raina.” Rowan lumbered to his feet.
She sighed and gestured to him. He followed her into the kitchen and sat in the nook, and she placed a cup of coffee in front of him to nurse.
She took the seat next to him, both legs crossed on the chair, her dress flowing over her knees.
“Spill your guts,” she said. “You obviously want to, otherwise you would have gone home instead of freeloading here.”
He hated that she could read him so well, yet at the same time he was grateful. Sometimes it took her yanking the words from him to get him to let go of them.
Rowan ran a hand through his disheveled hair. He’d lost the hair tie god knows where, so it was lying in lank tangles around his shoulders. “The project isn’t going how I expected, and I can’t find a solution no matter how hard I try. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Twinks tied to trees is definitely an unexpected development. It would throw anyone off their game.”
“Did everyone hear about that?” Rowan groaned.
Raina grabbed her phone and tapped away before sliding it toward him across the table. There was a GIF of Milo sinking his teeth into Rowan’s arm like the feral creature he was.
Dragon, his brain whispered. He’s a dragon.
Rowan’s thought went back to that dingy bathroom.
To the feeling of Milo’s eyes on his naked body. The heat of his anger that made his pale cheeks flush. The chilled, fresh scent of his dragon and the need Rowan had felt to just have him up against that sink. He was losing his fucking mind. One brain cell at a time, he was turning into a mess of a person.
He slid the phone back to her, face beet red. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny. I already have it saved on my phone.”
Rowan buried his flaming face in his arms.
“There, there,” Raina said in her best Zen voice. “Let the humiliation wash over you like the tide.”
“I’m so glad I came here,” he said sarcastically.
