Page 80 of Brushed By Moonlight

Relativesafety, I decided when we crashed into a bookshelf. Paperbacks rained down, bumping off my shoulders and onto the floor. Better that than grandma’s china, though.

“Sorry,” I murmured.

“You will be if you stop now,” Mina growled, spearing her fingers through my hair.

Good thing I had no such plan. Hell, everything about this was improv and instinct. I was operating by the seat of my pants.

Speaking of which…my dragon hinted.

I lifted her, prompting a muffled squeak, though she didn’t break the kiss. I carried her down the hall, hunting for the nearest flat surface. She wrapped her legs around my waist, making me groan with need.

The east wing of the house was a mirror of the west wing, and her bedroom called to me like a beacon. But this was a fucking château, not a house, and that hallway stretched endlessly. One by one, portraits of her ancestors blurred by, and I felt the disapproving gaze of each.

Young people these days,I practically heard them scold.

Like they’d never careened down these hallways in a lust-blinded rush.

We passed four…five…six portraits and a haughty, Greek-style bust. Another four portraits separated us from the El Dorado of her room in the distance.

I groaned. What I wouldn’t do to trade this château for a bungalow.

“Tired already?” Mina teased, hanging on to me like a baby baboon.

I shook my head. “It’s not theweight. It’s thewait.”

She chuckled, angling her head to one side. “Well, there is the floor. The wall…”

“The hallway, carrying every sound to the assholes downstairs…”

She groaned, burying her face in my neck. God, that felt good.

But, shit. Wrong thing to say, because a moment later, she gulped and loosened her legs.

“Put me down,” she ordered.

My heart stopped. My cock groaned. A thousand emotions — want, need, shattered hopes — hammered in my head as I dipped and loosened my grip on her side.

“On second thought…” She clamped her legs back around me, and I held her tight.

Her face was so close, my eyes nearly crossed. She studied me, looking through my eyes and into my soul.

Can I trust you? Will you hurt me? Will this change things?

My heart cracked at the questions I sensed zipping through her mind — and at a world that forced women to consider such things more than men did.

It hurt, too, because I’d had those questions aimed my way so many times.Can I trust you? Will you hurt me?

Yes, dammit. I could be trusted. And, no — of course, I wouldn’t hurt her. Yet the same unspoken interrogation came up every fucking time. Renegade dragons like me drew women like moths to a flame. But once a woman ventured close — if she ever worked up the nerve to — fear set in, delivering a cold, hard slap to my soul.

If she didn’t trust me, how could I trust her? Had she been teasing me all along, when I hadn’t been teasing at all?

But my heart ached for Mina as much as my body did, so I hung on.

“Made up your mind yet?” I finally asked, doing my best to hide desperately thin hopes.

Her eyes softened, and she cupped my face gently.

“Yes.” Her lips brushed against mine, then pressed in harder. “Yes…” she murmured, turning the whisper into a plea. “Yes…”