Page 8 of Hungry Like A Dragon
“Shit,” Noah blurted, dropping the jar of nonpareils. Tiny black candies spewed across the counter and bounced off the tile floor. “I gotta go.”
He only vaguely noticed Talia and Gabe’s twin bewildered expressions as he bolted out the back door and raced around the house to his waiting truck. But then he abruptly shifted gears, turned toward the lake, and charged across the lawn, heading toward the woods.
Flying would be quicker.
He waited until he was at the edge of the forest and then he called on the magic, willed his body to shift from human form to dragon. The beast in his head roared with approval as his body began to change, his smooth, olive skin changing into silver dragon scales; his pale blue eyes shifting to narrow, serpentine slits.
Majestic, ten-foot wide wings sprouted from his back, lifting him off the ground, and he prayed no nearby humans happened to be looking at the sky at that precise moment, as he willed his powerful body to move faster, get up beyond the clouds before he was spotted.
Moisture slapped him in the face and bounced off his scaly skin as he pierced the cloud, and he let out a belch of fire before bursting free above it, far above the earth. Far enough that human eyes couldn’t see him. Now, all he had to do was watch out for and hide from aircraft and he’d be home free.
Or at least well on his way to New Orleans.
To Petra.
Who may or may not have a baby.
And it was probably his.
***
He stopped in Nashville to eat and try to get his head on straight. Although his dragon was thrilled with their cross-country trek, Noah was struggling with it. He wasn’t one who made hasty decisions. He didn’t fly by the seat of his pants. He always followed the recipe; he always made sure the pantry was full. He didn’t rush into things half-cocked; he prepared.
He sure as hell didn’t fly across the fucking country chasing after a woman he’d had sex with once, a year ago, and hadn’t talked to since.
What if she has your offspring?his dragon whispered in his head.
Noah ordered another beer.
What if she did? He had no freaking clue what he would do when he reached her. He ought to turn back around and go home, to the safety and security of his job as the reeve’s chef. The place he’d run to when his mother died and his father had forgotten how to take care of his children. The place where he’d been hiding since he was thirteen years old.
We can’t run away from your child. Or its mother.
Damn it, his dragon was right. Which added a whole other complication to this potential mess. Because the one thing Noah had sworn he would never have was…
A family.
His phone pinged. He pulled it out of his pocket and read the string of texts from Gabe, all demanding to know what the hell happened and why had he taken off so abruptly?
Family emergency, Noah typed while taking a sip of Mexican beer. Gabe knew his history, so Noah figured he likely wouldn’t pry.
Shit, came the reply.I hope everything’s okay. Let me know if I can do anything.
It will be fine. I just need to go out of town for a few days.
He hated lying to his reeve. Gabe had always been good to him, even when Gabe himself had been going through some seriously messed up mental shit.
You aren’t lying. If Petra has your baby, they’re family now,Noah’s dragon so helpfully pointed out.
Great. Just great. He polished off his tacos and beer and paid the bill, then headed out onto the street, which was swarming with humans taking advantage of the warm fall weather. An hour later, he cursed his decision to take a break in a metropolitan area; finding a place where he could shift without being seen was proving to be a hell of a challenge.
As dusk fell, he found an industrial area that appeared abandoned, so he shifted in the shadow of one of the dilapidated buildings, and then, when the sun finally dipped below the horizon, he took to the sky, beating his wings, flying as fast as he could toward his destination.
When he finally called it quits for the night, it was in a field in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas. He snuck into the nearby farmhouse while the occupants were all in bed and quietly raided their fridge—leaving a pile of cash on the table to hopefully cover the food he took—before turning in himself, curling up on a not-remotely-comfortable bale of hay in the barn.
His dreams were decidedly uncomfortable, too. Thoughts of Petra, smiling at him, her eyes wide and shining, while she undressed. She exposed first one heavy, dark-tipped breast and then the other, flinging off her shirt before cupping those melons while her thumbs strummed the nipples. She let her head loll on her shoulders while her breathing turned into short pants, her mouth slightly parted, her eyes mostly closed.
And then she moved lower, grasping the zipper at her hip and pushing it down, the hissing sound filling his head as he watched the show. The action exposed a strip of black lace across her hipbone, and when she shoved her dark pink skirt to the floor, she revealed a thong, the spot between her thighs already darker than the rest, a result of her own arousal.
