Page 14 of Dragon His Heels
“You did great,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” He didn’t normally care what anybody thought of him. He probably still didn’t—except Talia.
“And she clearly adores you already.”
He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his shorts. “Yeah, well, you deserve a fair share of the credit.”
She shook her head. “All I did was bring her here.”
“How did you find her, anyway? How did you even know to look?”
She glanced up and down the hall and then said, “I think I’m going to head to my bedroom, read a book, go to bed early. We should go see the headmistress first thing in the morning.”
Well, if that wasn’t evading, Gabe would eat his own tail.
“Nope,” he said, grasping her elbow and guiding her toward the stairs. “We’re going to have a little chat first.” His dragon roared his approval, so Gabe continued to hold her arm even though it wasn’t necessary. Although there was obvious reluctance in her stance, she headed downstairs with him.
Once they were in the foyer, he waved at the wet bar built into a nook in the wall. “Drink?”
“Definitely.”
He loaded two lowball glasses with ice and poured whiskey into each and then handed one to her. There was a tremor in her hand as she lifted the rim to her lips. Talia wasn’t afraid of a damn thing, yet mentioning her discovery of Ruby had this effect on her?
“So. Ruby. You. Figuring out where she was. Who she was.”
She ran her hand through her hair, inadvertently tugging strands out of the braid. “I, um, know her mother.”
“You hang out with strippers?” Well, wasn’t this a fascinating new discovery.
“No,” she snapped. “Jasmine isn’t a stripper.”
He took a slug, let the alcohol burn its way down into his stomach. “Let me see if I have this straight. You know Ruby’s mother. Who isn’t a stripper. Who I happened to have banged approximately six years ago. And you knew it, obviously, or else how would you know the kid she had was mine?”
Talia stood still in the middle of the foyer while he walked in slow circles around her, a predator toying with his prey. It was incredibly arousing. He rarely felt dominant around her. She was tough as nails, bossed him around all the freaking time. If he weren’t so damn curious about her connection to Ruby’s mother, he’d be running away with his tail between his legs.
Because seducing her was a bad, bad idea. He didn’t want a gods’ damned mate.
“Actually, I didn’t even know she’d had a baby until yesterday.”
He passed in front of her again and arched his brow, taking a drink without saying a word. Her chest rose and fell with her deep breath, pressing her breasts against her shirt. The tops swelled over the scalloped edge of the neckline. His dragon craned its neck, encouraging Gabe to take a taste, to lean forward and flick out his tongue…
He resumed walking in circles again.
“She called yesterday, out of the blue,” Talia finally said. “I haven’t talked to her since she had Ruby. She left the colony, must have been shortly after you and she… We lost touch. And then she called and said she was in trouble. Told me about Ruby. Begged me to come get her.” Talia waved her hand at the staircase. “So I did.”
“And where is her mother now?” He should care, should want to see the woman, the mother of his child. But that would complicate things further than they already were. The Elders might expect him to do right by her, and his dragon was vehemently against the idea because she wasn’t Talia.
Andhewas vehemently against the idea even with Talia.
The woman who apparently saved his child from some unknown fate stared into her drink. Was she trying to concoct a believable story or working up the courage to tell him the truth?
“She was in bad shape,” Talia finally said, her voice pitched low. “Overdosed.” She closed her eyes; whatever she’d seen, it had shaken her. Gabe fought the urge to gather her into his arms, to offer comfort.
“When I found them, they were in this horrible, old, decrepit building. A drug house. In this room at the end of a hall strewn with open garbage bags. Bugs and maggots everywhere.” She shuddered. “There wasn’t any furniture in the room. Not a rug, nothing. Jasmine was lying on the cement floor, unconscious, and Ruby was kneeling next to her, trying to rouse her.”
Fuck it. He stopped circling her and pulled her into his arms. He needed the embrace too, and he was hearing the story secondhand.
She stiffened for a moment and then melted against him, resting her head on his chest. Damp warmth spread on his shirt. It took him a minute to realize his badass PR manager was crying.
