Page 5

The entire night had been one weird impossibility after another. At any moment, I expected a TV crew to pop out and tell me this was all part of a messed-up prank. But even in my confused state of mind, I knew that wasn’t the case.

My injuries were too severe for this to be a joke, and the pain from those injuries was far too real to be a nightmare. Either the rules of reality weren’t quite what I’d been raised to believe, or I had lost my grip on sanity.

Lying on the rough pavement, sweating profusely from the effort just to breathe, I realized I wanted the dinos to be real. I wanted this sexy naked man who was brushing the damp strands of hair away from my face to exist. I wanted the raptor who stood guard over me to be real. My eyelids drooped, and with a sheer force of will, I kept them from closing completely, knowing that I would likely never see these two again once I drifted into unconsciousness.

I am real, and I won’t let you die.

Those were words that every little girl who dreamed of being a princess and finding her white knight in shining armor grew up hoping to hear. I desperately wanted to feel the lips of the man who touched my mind with his words against my own lips.

My pleasure. His husky baritone voice purred, the words a sensual caress in my mind.

The muscular, naked man at my side leaned toward me. His hand gently slid beneath my head, cradling it in his massive palm as he angled his head so that our lips met. The explosion that followed wasn’t caused by a man-made bomb… but it wrecked my world just as effectively.