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M arked ? As she rose, she couldn’t stop the word from rolling around in her mind.

“Hey! I can walk.” Startled at being swung into the big man’s arms again, Avalore almost lost her rock as she quickly clutched his shoulders.

She didn’t necessarily fear that he would drop her when he lifted her from her hiding spot in the tub.

He had proven he was more than strong enough to lug her around, but when one was a bottom-heavy Afro-Latina woman like her, rarely were men looking to haul her around.

“You can. However, I have other things to do today. So, waiting for you to baby-step your way to the bathroom isn’t in my schedule.”

Her mouth dropped wide, and then she snapped it shut as she gave him a stern look.

“I didn’t ask you to babysit me, Liekki.” She poked a finger into his chest. His tattooed pecs were hard as granite. She bit the inside of her bottom lip to keep from wincing. She wondered if all his people were built like him.

What did they feed them? In the Dispatch, most men were thin and frail but were hard workers when they could find it.

Hell, even in the lab where she saw the Providence men at the fancy dinner, they were lean and tucked inside their finery.

But Liekki was not only massive in height but broad in bulk.

And he had a face like an avenging angel, all chiseled edges, brooding eyes, and jet-black hair that was closely cut on one side even as it hung over his back and shoulder that made a woman think of midnight sins.

The urge to reach up and run her fingers through it and see if the loose waves were as silky as they appeared assailed her, but to restrain herself, she slipped her hand away from his shoulder and fisted it in her lap.

“You could have left to do whatever you do, and I would have figured out the bath. Heck, I had no problem climbing inside it the first time.”

He chuckled.

The heavy sound rumbled along her sides and sent heat kissing each vertebra of her spine.

“True. But you couldn’t get out.” Holding her close to his chest as if she were some precious cargo, he strutted across the large bedroom to the bathroom.

Ass . “Trust me, I’d manage.”

“Doubtful. I’d prefer not to return home and discover you’d slipped and injured yourself even more.”

She didn’t want the man to decide to drop her, so she used all her will to restrain herself.

She couldn't find the memory if she had ever come up against a more arrogant and overbearing male. She would have liked to deny his words, but she couldn’t.

The few moments she’d been up on her feet hurt.

She’d forced herself to push through the pain, but silently, she admitted to herself getting a lift from him wasn’t half bad.

“Sit here while I get your bath set.” Liekki placed her on the counter next to the sink. For a moment, he stared down at her.

Following his gaze, she realized her sheet toga had begun to loosen and had slipped some down her chest, revealing quite a bit of the top of her breasts.

When she noticed the slight, dark-brown edge of her areolas, she gripped the sheet at the middle of her boobs and gave it a tug to cover herself up again.

Liekki’s gaze lifted to hers, but his face was blank, as if he saw breasts in his face every day. However, she noticed the same blue flicker in his eyes before he turned away.

Again, she blamed what she saw in his irises on her poor one-eyed vision. There wasn’t any way this man’s eyes could shift colors or spark flames.

That’s nonsense.

Avalore settled on the cool, marble countertop, yanked up her wrap, and watched him move with predator-like grace toward the tub.

She couldn’t help but admire his back view.

The man was just as appealing going as coming.

With his back to her, it allowed her to spy on him.

His back was so broad that if she held her arms out and wrapped them around his shoulders, they would barely curve around to reach the front.

The dark vest barely covered any of his flesh, and it seemed its purpose was more to accentuate scale-like tattoos that covered everything but his face and neck.

She couldn’t help but follow the black etchings down his muscular lower back, revealed just below the bottom edge of his vest into his black pants.

The thought of how far down his lower half the tattoo went made her press her thighs together.

Okay, so that hunk-a, hunk-a man was attractive.

..sexy as hell, in a way that robbed her of thought and breath, but she could restrain her reaction to him.

He was a controlling, arrogant man, and she’d experienced enough people managing her life.

..first, the government when she was in the Dispatch and then the scientists in the lab, and she didn’t need this dragon-taming Neanderthal picking up the slack.

She heard the rushing of water and saw him dump some liquid into it, then pick up another jar on the side of the tub and sprinkle some powdery substance.

After twenty-four hours on the run, and she wasn’t sure how long she had been at this place, she could smell the ripeness of her body.

Avalore barely contained the excitement of being able to get clean.

Goosebumps rose on her skin as she anticipated the soothing feel of water on her sensitive and irritated skin.

When she glanced down at her arm, it appeared that some swelling had reduced since she woke up, but another part of her wondered if it was just her wishful thinking.

“So, dragon-tamer. Do you keep your beast in some big cage when you're not riding him?”

Kneeling at the side of the tub, he whipped his head around and speared her with a tangerine-blazed glare. “We don’t ride our dragons.”

She jerked back from the heat of his stare. She could only go so far on her perch, but the annoyance in his hot look made her want to put a little more distance between them than the spacious bathroom offered.

Her fingers flexed around the rock in her hand as she held up the other one to ward off his look. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m only trying to find out something about this place.”

“Then ask.” The violet of his eyes was the only color present once the other color receded, even as he still held her gaze, waiting her out as the water level rose in the vast, deep basin.

Avalore knew the strange man was right. She didn’t like people to make assumptions about her, and it was always better to ask directly.

“So, where is your dragon?”

A wide, sly smile played along Liekki’s lips as he rose to his full height. He smacked a fist into the core of his rippling abs. “Here.”

Before she could comprehend what he meant, the giant man turned his head back toward the water, sucked in a breath, and an instant later, a red and gold stream of fire spiraled out of his mouth and into the water.

“Ahhh!” she screamed and threw the rock as hard as she could in his direction before she leaped over the counter. She didn’t have time to be astounded that he caught it smoothly and swiftly because she was too afraid to process anything else.

Ignoring the sharp pain that shot up from the swollen pads of her feet into her cankles and up her legs, she dashed out the door and ran for her life.

Fire. The damn man breathed fire. The flame was worse than him making a meal of her because she still would have hope of escaping even while missing a limb or a chunk of flesh here and there. But, with fire, he could charbroil her whole body at once.

Hell, the man could set water to boil. Her skin didn’t stand a chance.

Slap. Slap. Avalore’s sore feet pounded on the floor as she clutched the sheet to her body and used all her might to make it to the door.

The bedroom door was open, and she kept her sights fixed on it, knowing if she could reach it and get down the stairs, then there was a chance she could make it out the front and race to freedom.

Whatever was out there in the woods was no doubt less scary than what was in this house with her now.

“Avalore, stop before you hurt yourself!”

Hell, no!

With all of her running, she hadn’t even made it halfway before a thick, sinewy arm wrapped around her waist.

She fought against the hold. Avalore scratched and kicked and attempted to slam the back of her head into his face—anything to gain her freedom.

“Stop!” he growled, his single arm seeming to hold her with little effort.

“No. No. No. I don’t want to die!” She kept up the battle to obtain her liberty. She hadn’t even heard him chasing her, and she wondered if he’d only toyed with her by letting her get as far as she did before grabbing her.

“You’re not dying.”

“Don’t kill me.” She didn’t care what he said and knew she’d be a fool to believe him. What other purpose would a man like him be able to breathe fire for if not for air frying his food?

“Little lure, I will not hurt you.” He slipped his other arm around her and pressed her flailing body tight to him.

That damn name and his hold was doing something to her.

She couldn’t explain why something as sensual, soft, and strong as a cotton Shibari rope coiled around some secret place so deep inside her.

She could not identify it—not where, why, or how—but the invisible binding soothed her even as quakes of apprehension wracked her body.

She went limp, her feet dangled two feet above the floor as she stared at the open door and whispered, “What do you want from me?”

His deft, strong fingers flexed into her sides as he glided his aquiline nose along the shell of her ear. The warmth of his breath tickled her skin. “For now, to heal. We can fight when you're well, little lure.”

“No more flames?”

There was silence as if the incendiary man struggled to agree to her request.

Finally, he concurred with a rough groan. “No fire for now.”

He slipped the rock back into her hand.