Page 13 of Marked By His Alpha Dragon's Desire

“Like moving to a random small town without a plan,” he teased.

“Exactly like that. It was the right decision, though. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else right now.”

Luca’s eyes softened, and he leaned closer to me. He rested his head on his hand, with his elbow propped on the back of the couch. “I feel the same.”

The pull between us was intense, and I kept my gaze focused on Luca. His eyes sparkled, and he looked at my lips. He sucked in a breath when my tongue darted out to wet my lips.

Just as I was about to close the distance between us, Luca’s phone screeched loudly.

He bolted off the couch and went in search of his phone. “I’ll be right back, and we’ll figure out what we’re doing for dinner, okay?”

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

After a few moments, he came back. “That was Theo. He heard about the fire and wanted to see what I knew. He’s a bit of a gossip. Why don’t you try to rest a bit, okay?”

“I will. On one condition.”

“Oh, and what’s that?”

“Have dinner with me.”

Luca’s brow furrowed. “Oh, I’ll make sure you get dinner. I’m not going to starve you.”

“No. I mean, would you like to have dinner with me? Like a date. Tomorrow? Unless you have to work.”

He grinned. “Not making it easy to say no, are you? I can’t deny an injured man.”

“Hey, if that’s what it takes, I’ll allow it. Is that a yes?”

Luca nodded. “Yes. I’ll go out to dinner with you. And just so we’re clear, I would have said yes even if you weren’t injured.”

Chapter 8

Luca

“You are going to raise eyebrows,” Theo said.

Ever since I moved in, people had introduced me to their nephews, their sons, their brothers. They weren’t too pushy about it. After one introduction, they seemed to settle on the fact that sparks didn’t fly, and nothing further came of it—which was nice. But in all my time here, I hadn’t been on a date. Now I was going on a date with the other brand-new person in town.

As much as I didn’t love people talking about me, I recognized that it wasn’t malicious. Once the town found out Raphael had asked me on a date, it seemed that everyone was buzzing with excitement about it. It had only been thirty-six hours since he left my house after resting from his injuries.

“Okay, you’re going to have to dish all the details,” Theo said. He sat on my bed while I picked out my outfit for the night. I didn’t have a ton to choose from. In fact, he had brought over a few dress shirts as options.

“There’s nothing to dish,” I said.

“Oh, there will be afterwards. And I got a sneak peek at that hunky drink of water that you landed. If you hadn’t called dibs, I’d have been all over that.”

I chuckled. “Dibs? I hardly called dibs.”

“That’s not what Tyler said,” Theo sing-songed while he rocked on the bed, making silly faces.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, so how’s this look?” I wore a pair of dark skinny jeans with a kelly-green button-down. My leather ankle boots that I only pulled out for special occasions rounded out the outfit.

Theo gave me his nod of approval. “Undo the top button and play with your collar throughout the night. It’ll draw attention to your neck. That drives guys like Raphael crazy.”

“You haven’t even met him.”

“Well, it just drives guys crazy. You know how alphas are.”

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