Page 4 of Fated to the Dragon King (Alpha Dragons’ Fated #4)

Alaric

Hayley laughed.

As drunk as she was, I wasn’t certain she understood what I asked.

Of course, I didn’t like asking her to marry me in the first place, even to fake it for a few months.

She might be beautiful and sexy and maybe I did want her naked in my bed with her silver gilt hair spreading over my pillows, her slim body exposed to me.

I wanted her body for my pleasure, even if her empty head made my stomach turn.

Still, her amusement angered me. “Why are you laughing?”

“This is a joke, right?” Hayley continued to giggle, sounding as giddy as a school girl. “That’s funny. You want to marry me. Hah!”

Unable to keep her balance while chuckling like a mad woman, Hayley stumbled over to a nearby settee and dropped onto it. Tears glimmered in her jade eyes before tracking down her high cheeks. She wiped them away with the heels of her hands, gasping for breath.

Offended, I stalked toward her. “I mean it. I need a wife. You’re not my first choice, but you need a place to live. I’m offering you my house to live in.”

Hayley blinked up at me. “You’re not joking?”

“Do I look like I’m having a good time?”

Standing, she swayed until I thought she would fall. “I need a drink.”

“I’d wager you’ve already had several.”

“Not enough for this shit.”

Bemused by her sudden ability to speak intelligently, despite her inebriation, I followed as she walked from the foyer.

Hayley strode down a short hallway with a parlor on one side and a large TV room on the other to a pristine kitchen.

It seemed as if everything was made of refined steel.

Even the table was created from a slab of iron, then polished to a sheen.

I absently wondered if this kitchen reflected Roxanne’s soul.

I leaned against the counter while Hayley opened a cabinet to get glasses down.

“Vodka?” she asked, opening the refrigerator. “I think I need another knock.”

“Another out of how many?”

“Nunya.”

She poured for us both, with a fairly steady hand, then set the bottle on the counter. Her green eyes watched me, her hand trembling slightly, as she raised her glass to her lips. I sipped from my own, feeling the vodka’s heat ooze down my throat and into my stomach.

We stood in an uncomfortable silence for a long time, just looking at one another.

“Why do you need to marry?” she asked, her words only slightly slurred. “And why me?”

I sipped again, owing her as much of the truth as I dared give her. “In my home country,” I said slowly, “I have an inheritance waiting. I can’t gain it unless I’m thirty-two years old, which I now am. And wed. That’s written into my father’s will.”

“Oh.”

“The reason I asked you,” I continued, “is because Willow said you are the best candidate. That I’m – underestimating you.”

Hayley swallowed the last of her vodka in an impressive gulp. She half choked, coughing, and tears ran down her cheeks again. Gasping, she asked, her voice hoarse, “What’s she got to do with this?”

“Well, she has a certain authority,” I replied. “As well as being my aunt.”

“Oh.”

Turning, Hayley poured another knock of booze into her glass. I stepped forward and took the bottle from her. “I need you sober enough to realize what you’re doing if you agree.”

She waggled her glass. “Oh, sure. Marry my boss, sleep in his bed, help him inherit his father’s empire.”

“It is just a temporary solution,” I admitted, pouring alcohol into my glass. “When I inherit, we can go our separate ways.”

“And what do I get out of all this?”

Once again, Hayley shocked me with a sharp intelligence I never saw in her before. A cunning light gleamed in her green eyes as she watched me over the rim of her glass. “Kids I have to raise by myself? Once you get what you want, I’m kicked to the curb? No child support or alimony?”

“We can draw up a financial agreement,” I replied. “A contract. Including support for any children if we happen to have any.”

“I don’t want your kid,” Hayley snapped, her tone flat. “You get me preggers, you raise it.”

“Where did this spine come from?” I inquired politely. “I thought you didn’t have enough guts to say boo.”

“Nunya.” Hayley drank again, but rather than exacerbate her drunkenness, she seemed to be sobering up. “Are you rich?”

I laughed. “Very.”

“Then we’ll negotiate a price.” Hayley grinned. “Call it a bride price.”

With every passing moment she amazed me more and more. “Why aren’t you like this at the office?”

“Nunya.”

“I guess it takes you drinking too much for your true self to come forward. I like this side of you.”

“But I don’t like you. You’re an arrogant ass.”

I smiled. “So Willow informs me often enough. Do we have a deal? You’ll marry me?”

Not speaking, Hayley studied my face for a long time, her drink in her hand. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. For the first time since I’d met her, she made me uncomfortable. As though I’d become the bug under the glass and she the scientist.

“What are you like?” she asked at last.

“What do you mean?”

She waved her hand, impatient. “Are you abusive? Do you hit your women? Are you kind in bed? What are you like?”

At first, her questions angered me. Then I counted slowly to five, and pondered her reasons for asking them. Hayley hardly knew me at all. Would she enter into this fake marriage only for me to hurt her? I recalled Willow’s notion that Hayley had been beaten down by life.

“No,” I replied softly. “I’m not abusive. And I promise I’ll be kind in bed.”

“Then I accept.” She toasted me with her glass. “If we can reach a financial agreement.”

“Excellent.” I paced across the kitchen’s polished tiles with my hand out. “Let’s shake on it.”

Hayley set her glass on the counter, and took it.

A savage jolt, almost painful and certainly unexpected, passed like an electric current between us.

My flesh from my fingers to my shoulder thrummed with a strange vibration. Heat, a white fire, spread through my veins, pulsed with every beat of my heart.

What the hell was that?

Hayley’s opened mouth likely mirrored mine.

Fear, shock, disbelief flooded me in a tidal wave of emotions.

I staggered slightly, unable to feel my legs, my feet under me.

Hayley ripped her hand away from mine, halting the bolts of fire that spread between us, but not the sensations, the wild emotions, that came with them.

“What was that?” Hayley repeated, her voice low. “A joke? A joy buzzer?”

Stepping away from her, I knew my legs would hold me up no longer. A nearby chair caught my weight as I sank to it, resting my elbows on my knees. Sweat dripped from my brow to land on the polished ceramic tiles between my shoes.

“No,” I said softly. “No joke.”

“Then what the hell was it? I felt, I don’t know, like I was electrocuted or something.”

“I don’t know what it was,” I replied, my mind rattled and confused. “That was – really weird.”

Hayley rubbed her upper arms as though suddenly cold. “If that happens when we’re – if we’re – oh, crap.”

I glanced up, trying to smile. “Maybe you have a force field protecting you from men.”

“Don’t I wish.” Hayley rolled her eyes.

Standing, my legs no longer shaking, I paced toward Hayley and put my hand on her shoulder.

Nothing happened.

“So much for that idea.” Hayley picked up her glass, and I noticed her hands trembled. Whether from the funky shock or my closeness, I didn’t know. Nor did she meet my eyes as she drank the vodka.

I took the glass from her hand. “We should talk, and you should be sober when we do.”

She gave me the side eye. “You don’t think highly of me, do you?”

“It’s true,” I admitted, “I did think of you as a brainless bimbo. That’s not the case any longer. There’s an intelligence hiding somewhere inside of you.”

A tiny smiled tugged at her lips. “Is that a compliment?”

“It is.”

Once again, we stared at each other. Yet, this time, our silence was an easy one.

Somehow, a connection formed since the electric thing had occurred.

An attraction that forced me to see her in a different light.

Though Hayley was indeed a beautiful girl, I now noticed the strong line of her jaw denoting an inner strength I’d missed.

How muscular her legs were. How her long, silver gilt hair tumbled in a river of silk over her shoulder and breasts.

I suddenly longed to run my fingers through her hair, to breathe in its scent, to see it spread wide on a pillow as she lay in my bed, gazing up at me.

I pictured her naked, her firm body under mine, her exotic eyes tilted at the corners.

My groin stirred, throbbing with a fierce lust. A driving need to sink my cock into her and explode my spunk into her body.

When I stepped closer to her, into her personal space, Hayley flinched, but then lifted her chin. I stood with an inch of air between us, so close she was forced to tilt her head back to stare into my face. I traced my forefinger down her cheek to her mouth, then slid my arms around her.

Hayley stiffened as I drew her against me. She planted her palms against my chest as though intending to push me away, her lips trembling. Still, she didn’t exert pressure, and when I lowered my mouth to hers, she didn’t turn away.

Our first kiss spread an incredible and savage heat between us. My erection pressed painfully against my zipper. I felt her hard nipples poke my chest, even as her arms crept around to the back of my neck. Hayley slanted her mouth against mine, her tongue willingly dancing with my tongue.

Her lust for me was as great as mine for her. I felt it climb and grow, her frantic grip on my head trapped me against her. Her breath quickened. She spread her legs while rubbing her pelvis hard against my cock. She wanted me. I wanted her.

I slid my hands down her back to her hips, intending to push her away long enough to insert my hand into the front of her leggings. I’d tease her wet, hot clit, make her cry out for more before dragging the thin cloth down her lovely legs and off.

With her lower body bared to me, my possession, I’d released my iron hard shaft and –

“What the fuck is going on in here?”