CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Quinn~
His answer had not calmed the fairy princess down. Not in the least. It was sort of funny to see her hopping mad. But he figured it was also his duty to help her settle down after their cross-examination. “Would it bother you if I returned to the city?”
She froze.
“Because I intend to make painting my career – always supposing I can sell my stuff. If I’m not good enough, however,” he shrugged and didn’t finish.
“You’re good enough.” Her voice was certain. “You were good when you got here, and you’re only getting better. Your stuff will sell too. It’s accessible.”
“What does that mean?”
“That people will be drawn to your paintings without necessarily knowing why. They will pay for the privilege of hanging a Quinn on their living room walls. And they will buy another because they will enjoy looking at them every day.”
“You saw that in your crystal ball?”
“The Fae do not use crystal balls.” His fairy was tart. “It’s part of my talent, however, to see the value of art. Believe me, you are going to wow the judges at the Art Fair.”
“In that case,” he said. “I will be staying on West Haven. In your bed – if you’ll let me.”
“In my bed – you mean at my cottage?” Her eyes narrowed fiercely.
“Probably not. You don’t have a studio. But in your bed, or mine, yes. This thing between us is not going to go anywhere any time soon.”
“What thing?”
He pushed off of the countertop and swooped down on her. Lifted her to his mouth and kissed her. Just the barest brushing of lips to lips. As soon as they made contact, the low-level arousal that he always felt flared hotly. His cock sprang to life. He held her away from his woody and let her enjoy a morning kiss.
She tasted of coffee and biscuits and fairy. Kissing Moira was like kissing Aphrodite, if Aphrodite tasted of roses and woman and spring mornings. Her shop was no place for full-blown passion. He didn’t want to embarrass either one of them by starting something they couldn’t finish.
When he raised his head, her lips were swollen and rosy from his kisses. Her lipstick was gone. Her eyes were back to being blue and her bosom was heaving. For that matter so was his. He felt as if he had been flying in that storm they had had last night.
“Are we going to have a romance?” He set her down on her heels and held her elbows until she stopped wobbling. “Because it seems destined to me.”
“What did you have in mind?” she asked suspiciously.
“That’s up to you. I obviously want sex. But I can wait.”
“For how long?”
As far as he was concerned, forever. He smiled at her. “As long as the passion lasts.”
“A summer fling?” Her voice was scornful.
“If that’s all you want. I don’t see this as a short-term relationship. But we could start there and see.”
Her eyes went cloudy again. They narrowed. “Everyone knows dragons are obsessed with virgins, is that why you’re interested in me?”
His mouth dried. “Is that a roundabout way of telling me that you are a virgin?”
She nodded.
He couldn’t believe his luck. His bad luck. The world’s most fascinating and sexy woman was a virgin. No wonder she felt like his mate. But fairies didn’t marry hunters. Not on West Haven they didn’t. He wanted to howl at the moon – like the most stereotypical shifter. Moira appeared only politely curious. A dainty temptation to his senses and his instincts. Didn’t she understand her danger?
His voice was a growl when he spoke. “We’re not obsessed with virgins. We’re forced to be concerned about the virginity of our mates.” He deliberately used the cruder word instead of the more civilized ‘brides’.
“Why?” she squeaked. Apparently she was at last alarmed. Smart girl.
“Because only dragonesses can bear us children. We dragons are an exclusively male race.”
“What?”
“For hundreds of years, there have been no daughters born in any European line of dragons.” He rolled his shoulders and folded his arms across his chest to keep from seizing his fairy maiden. “We have to make our dragonesses ourselves. And only virgins can be transformed.”
She looked even more skeptical. “That’s nuts,” she said.
“Yeah. It’s like we were cursed.”
“Cursed?”
“What would you call it?”
“No daughters? Just sons?”
“For as long as anyone can recall. And then this year, suddenly there are birth announcements for girls. As if the curse has suddenly been lifted.”*
“So you don’t have to transform a virgin,” she said triumphantly.
“I do. Unless I want to wait two or three decades to marry a dragoness.”
“Too long?” she asked curiously.
“Way too long.”
His answer made her look sad. Which had the side effect of lowering his impulse to snatch her and carry her off to his bed where he would show her what happened to virgins who teased dragons. He didn’t want her sorrowful.
“Was that the problem with you and your fiancée? You discovered she wasn’t a virgin?”
Huh? “Cynthia never pretended to be a virgin. She didn’t – doesn’t – even know I’m a dragon. I had accepted that if we married I would have no children. She decided an artist was not what she wanted in a husband.”
He turned his palms upward. “I was relieved to find out that her main attraction to me was my wealth, before I married her. Dragons don’t do divorce.”
“Don’t you want children?” Her stormy eyes opened wide. Her cheeks turned pink.
“I do. But not enough to marry a child.”
“A child?”
“Like that little mermaid at the Crab Hut.”
“They say dragons steal virgins and keep them in harems,” she said thoughtfully. Her eyes were suddenly turquoise as they ran over his body. “Hoard them.”
His stupid cock got even harder. Control yourself, Drake. “Maybe once upon a time. We are no longer permitted to steal maidens or to hoard them.” Besides, it sounded like endless trouble. What his ancestors could have been thinking eluded Quinn.
“But you hoard other things? I’ve seen.”
“Dragons are naturally acquisitive. And possessive. I admit that I am possessive. And for the record, I do want to tuck you away and keep you all to myself. It’s a primitive instinct. But I am not at the mercy of my instincts. I can decide not to act on my baser desires.”
“So you’re not interested in virgins?” she asked tapping her lips with rose-tipped fingers.
Was she out of her little Fae mind? “Where are you going with this?” he asked. His mouth watered. Even storm tossed, her eyes were pools of mystery, and her scent drew him like a moth to a flame. Or a dragon to a virgin. If he seized her, could she use her fairy magic to escape his arms?
Only one way to find out.
*Dragon’s Christmas Captive