Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Bite him!” Lucinda encouraged.
“Claw his back!” Millicent added, chomping her potato chips.
“Did anyone bring chocolate?” Bronwyn asked the group, licking her fingers after finishing off a peach slice.
“Oh, for the love of—” I rolled off Taron with a huff and sat in the grass, brushing leaves from my leathers. “Do you all mind?”
“Nope,” Emma chirped, biting into a sugared plum. “This is more entertaining than the duel I just caused. It ended in bloodshed and an annulment.”
Adelaide tilted her head. “If this is your version of resisting temptation, Queen Ice Maiden, you’re doomed.”
Taron laughed, running a hand through his hair, now dusted with leaves. “Do you come with a fan club wherever you go?”
“I come with consequences,” I muttered, glaring up at my sisters.
Rather than flinch back, as she’d done before, Gretchen pretended to shudder. “Oh, scary. The berserkatrix who can’t even overpower a mythology professor might spank me.”
“And deeply unhelpful commentary.” I rose and straightened my top. But okay, yeah, I loved that the girls were thawing toward me.
Adelaide blew me a kiss, taking credit for the development, as if she’d arranged all of this on her own. I glanced upward with a sigh.
Taron stood beside me, sword back in hand, smirking. “Rematch tomorrow?”
“I don’t think I can handle a rematch,” I admitted. Even now, I barely stopped myself from stepping into him and snuggling close.
He leaned in, voice low and lethal. “So you’ll be too sore. Fine. I’ll give you a massage instead. All business, none of it funny.” Eyes sparkling, he cupped the side of my neck and brushed the pad of his thumb against my thundering pulse. “Maybe some of it will be funny business.”
And just like that, my heart did something foolish. Terribly, tragically foolish. But I refused to consider what it was. Nope. Not here, not now. Moving on.
“Come on,” I croaked.
His amusement faded, and he nodded, dropping his arms to his sides. As we headed for the palace, his knuckles brushed mine by accident, or not, and I groaned.
I whispered to us both, “Only five days left.”
Chapter
Sixteen
Do not allow singing unless it’s praise. Even then, only in tune.
-Humaning for Beginners: A Dragon’s Tale of Human Management
DAY THREE
The dragon used my brain like a mouse used a wheel, running, running, running. Restless, snarling, relentless. I tossed and turned for hours, sheets tangled around my legs, sleep an impossible dream. Across the room, Taron wasn’t faring any better. He lay on a floor-pallet and shifted constantly, exhaling frustrated huffs that kept the air thick and electric.
When the first streak of sunlight dared sneak between the curtains, he groaned.
“Can we stop pretending to rest now?” he muttered.
“Ja, please.” I flopped onto my back, exhausted by sheer consciousness. I rubbed at the tender space between my neck and shoulder. Whatdoyouknow, I was sore from our bit of sparring. “What do you want to do today?” I grumbled.
“Not thinking would be nice,” he said, tracking my movements.
“First problem: if we can’t think, we can’t come up with something to do to not think.”
“Thankfully, I already have an idea.” Taron rose, all disheveled and broody, his hair mussed, his stubble darker, his jaw tight. The effect? Devastating. He was fantasy breathed to sizzling life, furious at the world but ready for a kiss.
With a dramatic flare I might have laughed about any other day, he strode over and tore back the comforter from my side of the bed, as if I might not have the strength to do it on my own. Then he reached for my hand, hesitated halfway, and dropped his arm.
“You want that massage I offered or not?” he asked, voice sharp as a dragon claw.
I blinked, trying to remember how to breathe. “Ja. Even though you basically implied it’s a death sentence.” I mean, this didn’t have to signify anything. I was wearing a tank top and shorts. Perfectly normal, perfectly platonic. Utterly dangerous. “Do your conditions still stand? All business, only some of it funny?”
“I’ll behave even if it kills me.”
I shouldn’t. “I want it very much,” I rasped, betraying all sense of chill.
His stance softened as his amber irises flared, catching the light and resembling molten honey. “Turn over.”
I rolled onto my stomach slowly, trying not to think about the scandalous things his voice did to my weakening self-control.
“Tell me if the pressure is too much.” Shirtless—a war crime if ever I’d seen one—he climbed onto the bed and straddled my thighs. His hands found my shoulders…and then I melted. “Or if you want more,” he said with a chuckle, the tension in him draining, too, as if he enjoyed my enjoyment.
“Just keep going,” I pleaded.
He was strong, ja, but deliberate. Focused. No seductive strokes. Just relentless, thorough pressure, digging into muscles that had been coiled for centuries. A moan escaped before I could stop it. My spine arched slightly. His thumbs swept along a knot in my lower back, and I felt something inside me sigh.