Page 14 of Hungry Like A Dragon
Down, girl. We don’t need to go there. One lifelong bond with this guy is plenty. Too much, in fact.
Who knew dragons could pout?
And this was before her gaze dropped to his chest, those forearms, those thighs, that bulge—was it getting bigger? Petra gulped and forced her gaze north, to meet his eyes.
Which were narrowed and stormy. Was that because he’d missed her perusal of his body or because he’d caught it?
“Fine,” he said, biting off the word like he hated the taste of it. “I’ll stay here and watch our daughter while you go seek my replacement.”
Her jaw dropped. She was surprised it didn’t hit the floor. “Replacement? What the hell are you talking about?”
“She’s mine, Petra,” he said, as if she needed the reminder. He stabbed his thumb into his chest. “Mine. You’d better make sure whoever you decide to sleep with understands that.”
“Uhhhh, right. To be perfectly honest, Noah, I have no intention of introducing her to anyone, so you can relax. The guy would have to be pretty damn special to get to that point, and that’s going to take time. So no worries about tonight.”
The bunched muscles on his shoulders did appear to relax, marginally. But he tightened up again as he narrowed his eyes and said, “Do you have condoms?”
She threw her arms in the air. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
Which was a dumb question, right? His only intimate experience with her was a moment of crazed lust in the woods in which neither of them had been thinking clearly and as a result, they now had Sadie.
Not that she regretted her daughter, but it sure would have been nice if she’d managed to meet a nice guy, date for a while, decide to mate, and then have a kid. That way, she would have broken the circle of loveless relationships her family seemed hell-bent on accidentally stumbling into over and over again.
She wasn’t the first Sharmell to screw up and have a child without securing a mate first, but she sure as hell would be the first tonotmate with the father and therefore avoiding being miserable for the rest of her existence.
“Never mind,” she said, lifting her hand, palm out. “I need to finish getting ready. My hair may be irredeemable at this point.”
Ignoring her dragon, who wanted to get to know Noah better, Petra scurried down the hall to the relative safety of her bedroom. Maybe if he wasn’t within her line of vision, she could concentrate on the task at hand.
And if she was successful tonight, she might be able to finally go home. To face her family.
Oh hell, that wasn’t exactly a reward, was it?
