Page 142 of Nine-Tenths

"You're the one who helped me move that sofa into the apartment," I remind him.

"After the previous tenant had already left it on the curb. It was already garbage when we moved itback in."

"It was free."

"Doesn't make it any less garbage," Gem says.

"We can make a weekend of it!" Mum suggests, and yeah,no, I'm not ready to have that conversation yet. The one where I have to explain the walled compound, and the privacy hedges, and the staff, and Dav being weird about people on his patch.

"Er," Dav says, and thank god, he's on the same page.

"Maybe we'll come to Orillia," I suggest.

"How about Friday?" Mum asks. "Colin doesn't work at the café on the weekends. Dav, is that fine with your work schedule, dear?"

I haveso muchexplaining to do.

And I cannotthinkwith the way Dav's other hand has moved to my thigh.

"Uh, we'll talk about it and I'll text you," I say. "Uh, sorry, there's a thing that… Dav's gotta do now… so, we gotta go."

"Oh," Mum says, disappointed. "Thank you for finally introducing us."

"Yeah, love you lots, bye," I say, reaching for the disconnect button.

I get to it just as Gem is chuckling: "Don't call yourself athing—"

As soon as it's off, Dav pulls my phone from my hand and drops it onto the table beside the chair. He lifts my wrist to his mouth. His tongue is hot and wet, and damn that feels nice, so I wriggle around until I'm straddling his lap.

"Hello," I say, as he noses up the path of a vein, pressing a ticklish kiss into the bend of my elbow, then nipping all the way up to the corner of my jaw. He worries at the skin under my ear. "What's this?"

"You smell…" I assume he means in a good way because he sucks in another deep lungful, pressing his face against my neck, then my wrist, then my neck again. Then he sticks his tongue in my mouth, so, you know, I'm figuring he's not going to finish that sentence.

A little prick at my collar surprises me, but only because I wasn't expecting it.

Dav's got one sharp talon hooked into the neck of my Henley.

"Don't move," he whispers, and pulls downward slowly.

The shirt stretches, and I hold my breath, forehead pressed against Dav's, the anticipation delicious. I groan and arch my back as the fabric gives way. Five stinging points of warning pressure prickle around my belly button. I freeze. "I said, be still."

"Go faster, then."

"Impatient," Dav growls. "Impertinent."

One hand goes to my fly, shredding, but they're not my favorite jeans, so I don’t care. Those sharp claws don't break my skin; knowing that they could, though, that Dav could scrape me to ribbons if he wanted to, gets me horny. All that power under me, and he's controlling it. His other hand pulls the tatters of my shirt away before lifting that same wrist to his mouth. Fuck, the things his tongue cando.

"The scent here," he says in a strangled hiss. When he pulls back, though, his face haschanged. Dav's eyes, which have always looked human except in color, suddenly seem alien. His pupils have elongated, opening wider like some eldritch orifice, deep and consuming and magnetic. He leans close, nose twitching, lips redder than kissing would make them, forked tongue flickering. I flinch when it flutters along the side of my temple, tasting the sweat there.

He's never slipped his skin in bed before.

Something's wrong.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

My breath catches in a burning ball at the hollow of my throat. Part of me shoutsPredator, run away! Another part shouts,Teeth! Stay still! And another, the deeply human part of me, the part that was my ancestors who had grown up with dragons, lived alongside them for uncountable generations, saysBe still, he'd never hurt you.

"Dav," I whine. My voice is squeaky and tangled. My heart kicks like a rabbit in a shoebox. "Hey, hold up."