She let out a squeak of surprise as she tried to pull free of his surprisingly strong grip. “Let me go!”

“We need to talk about this alone, without your two brutes,” he said as his men moved between her and Titus and Sever, who had both run toward her and were forced to skid to a halt.

She focused on Geoffrey’s wrist as he dragged her, making a karate chop motion that made him howl but not release her as she heard shouting in the distance.

She had to get free, had to help Titus and Sever. She raised a knee into his groin, and he yelped and released her, falling forward to cradle his crushed nuts.

She’d done it! She’d fought back. Finally.

She whipped around to see the two thugs on the ground in a heap, unconscious.

Titus and Sever were standing there, Sever holding some kind of gigantic… hammer? It looked too big for a human to even hold.

Was that seriously something he used to work on houses?

He gave her a caught-in-the-headlights stare and hid the hammer behind his back as Titus stepped in front of him, looking nervous.

“What happened?” she asked, walking up to the men on the ground, who were stirring and starting to moan.

“We didn’t kill them,” Sever said cheerfully.

“And what was that hammer?” she asked, looking at Titus, who was opening and closing his fist, which looked a little bruised.

“Nothing,” Titus said. “Sever thought it was needed, but I was able to take them both down with my bare hands.” He gave Sever a glare that was chiding, but for what she couldn’t interpret.

“Wow,” she said. “What do we do now?”

Sever walked to the men and kicked them with the toe of his work boots. They grunted, and he smiled. “I can get rid of them.”

Titus stepped forward, clearing his throat. “No. Let’s just put them back in their car. Geoff isn’t unconscious. He can drive them.” Titus and Sever then hefted the men up and hauled them over to the car, opening the doors and depositing them in there.

She stayed back a few steps as Titus pulled a green-looking Geoff up by the collar and had a few choice words with him that had the man nodding avidly in response.

When Titus released him, Geoff ran for the driver’s seat and started the car, swerving as they reversed backward out of the drive, skidding over the dirt road.

They peeled out and disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Sever, whose hammer had mysteriously disappeared, was dusting his hands off as if he’d just gotten rid of some garbage.

Titus, on the other hand, looked a little nervous. When he came over to Bree, he checked her over, taking the wrist Geoff had been holding to make sure she hadn’t been hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let him touch you.”

“No,” she said. “Thanks to both of you, I’m fine. I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t been here.”

Sever grinned. “No problem, babe.”

Titus frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I am, thanks to you two.”

His frown deepened. “Can I talk to you?”

She nodded, and he pulled her a good ways to the side, where Sever couldn’t hear them.

“Look, I… think you should send away Sever.”

“Why?” she asked. “You know why I have to get this work done. You know we need all the help we can get.”

“No, we don’t,” he said, folding his massive arms as his braid whipped in the wind. Stray hairs came loose, catching the sun in wisps of gold and white. “And I’m getting tired of him interfering.”

“Didn’t he just help you in the fight?”

“He almost did more harm than good,” Titus said.

“Well, what I see is a friend who’s trying to help you,” she said. “And you’re just arguing and not letting him do his job.”

“And I see a guy who is trying to get in with you, and you’re being hopelessly naive about it. He’s dangerous, don’t you get that?”

She scowled. “If he’s dangerous and he’s your boss, then aren’t you dangerous?”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Fine, then. Don’t trust me. See if I care. I’ll just work with that sociopath until something bad happens, and then you’ll see.”

“Just because we did something last night, it doesn’t mean you can tell me how to live my life,” she said quietly.

“I’m not trying to,” he said. “Heaven knows I’m trying to hold back. As hard as I can. Give you space. But when I see something that I think is dangerous, I’m going to tell you. Even as your employee.”

“And I’m going to tell you when you’re stepping out of line, even as your lover.”

His expression softened. “What am I to you?”

Someone I had sex with, she thought. Someone I could fall in love with if I wasn’t so damn afraid.

Sexual or not, every man she trusted ended up controlling and betraying her.

She didn’t want that to happen with Titus. If she let him decide who she talked to, who she worked with, then what was next?

“I’m sorry, Titus. Sever hasn’t done anything to make me not trust him. He stays.”

Titus closed his eyes slowly and exhaled. When he opened them again, they were cold. “Do what you want, then. I’m going to get back to work on the house.”

Though he was only a few feet away, he felt far from her, and she suddenly wanted to take it all back.

Sever walked up beside her, cocking his head. “What’s wrong with him?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

But she did. She just didn’t know what she wanted to do about it.

* * *

Titus sat rigidly on his stool, waiting while Bree painted him. All he could think about was Sever’s smug face as he’d left that day, fully aware that Titus had tried to get rid of him, unsuccessfully.

Titus was trying to be patient, but it bothered him that he still didn’t have a say with his mate, especially on matters of safety.

After meeting Geoff, he’d seen the full toxicity of men who took control and thought they owned someone, but couldn’t Bree see he wasn’t like that already?

“Pouting isn’t going to make for a very impressive portrait,” she said, peeking at him over the canvas.

He ignored her, turning slightly to the side.

“And now you’ve changed the angle.” She let out a sigh and put down her brush and palette. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

“What do you think is wrong?” he burst out. “We made love last night, and while I know it wasn’t promised with any commitment, I thought it at least meant you trusted me.”

“I do,” she said, shrinking back slightly in the face of his anger.

“Then why won’t you listen to me? Why won’t you just let me protect you?” he demanded.

She was shocked and just sat there for a moment, not answering him.

Then next moment, she nearly stumbled as she got off her stool and hastily started to untie her apron.

“Wait,” he said, calling after her. “Come on, Bree. Just answer me.”

She turned back to him, hurt and fire in those beautiful turquoise eyes.

“What’s so wrong with letting me protect you?” he asked, fully baffled by it.

“Because,” she said, twisting the apron in her hands, getting paint on them and not really caring. Her hair had escaped her ponytail on the sides and trailed over her cheeks. He was shocked as a tear streamed down one cheek as she took a step back from him. “Because protection is just a bullshit excuse a lot of men use to take advantage of you.”

And then she was gone, running down the stairs in a series of clunks, leaving Titus alone with his thoughts and his guilt over his impatience.

A few minutes later, he was still totally lost when he saw Biff poke his silvery head into the room curiously.

“I fucked up, boy,” he said.

Biff looked back down the stairs, as if telling Titus to try again, and Titus sighed, thinking the dog was probably right.

“None of this is how I thought it would be,” he said quietly to Biff, even though he knew the dog couldn’t really understand him.

Biff cocked his head curiously, a good approximation of listening, and that was enough.

“All right, boy, I’ll go.” He pulled a jacket on over the tight tee shirt he was wearing and followed Biff down the stairs and out the front door. When he walked onto the porch, he saw her sitting on the top step in a little ball, her knees tucked up against her chest and her arms curled around them.

She looked back at him as he approached her, and he was dismayed to see her eyes were reddened.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting beside her. “I know I get a little crazy about your safety sometimes. I’m just kind of a protective guy. I’m not trying to take liberties or trap you or anything like that.”

“I know,” she mumbled. “It’s just… I feel out of control right now. I thought when I left him, things would just be fine. I mean, he never really touched me, even if he was creepy at the end. But before that, he was just so helpful. He helped me fulfill my dreams with my art, gave me a safe place to paint. A lot of my friends out of school had parents to go home to, safe places to land.”

“You didn’t?”

She shook her head. “My dad was abusive. Verbally more than anything. My mom left when I was little, and I guess I reminded him of her.”

“That wasn’t fair for him to punish you,” he said. “He should have protected you.”

“Oh, he did,” she said. “Maybe it was just because he was afraid I would leave, too, looking back at it. But I never got to do the things other kids did. My curfew was early, and if I wasn’t home in time, he would scream at me. He would lock me in my room, sometimes for days. I would miss school.”

He didn’t understand the full impact of that because he only really understood modern schools from what he saw on TV. But locking someone behind a door when you were supposed to love and care for them, he understood that.

“I wondered if I was overreacting to Geoffrey at first, when he was overprotective, telling me not to work with other galleries. Telling me other people would take advantage. I guess for once, it felt like protection again. Someone who cared.”

“And then that went bad, too,” he said, feeling sick over what had happened to her.

“Right,” she said. “I can still remember the moment it happened. The moment I switched from seeing it as protective and realized I was a possession. I still wasn’t sure if it was sexual. Not until he started trying to make me move back into his rental. Who knows what he would have done once I was back there?”

“You mean he never made a move?”

“No,” she said. “But I mean, I was young, and I didn’t realize how wrong it was for him as a landlord to tell me I couldn’t have guys over. And I mean, I wasn’t interested anyway. I hadn’t met a boy I really liked, even though I kind of had a few flings in college.”

He decided he wasn’t going to think about that, because she needed thoughtful Titus, not jealous dragon right at this moment. “So even though his rules were weird, you didn’t realize what he wanted.”

“I still don’t,” she said. “But I know he would have taken me if you weren’t here today. Maybe just talked me into coming back, maybe threatened me. But I fought him. I was proud of that.”

“See? That means you’re changing. You’re not just going to let people take advantage of you.”

“Except it’s holding me back with people like you. Making me not want to trust you. Because as much as it hurt that my creepy boss didn’t really care for me as an artist and that he just wanted to control me, it would hurt so much more to trust you.”

“Why?”

“Because with everything you’re offering, I could really fall for you. You were right when you said women had a hard time not doing it. What I can’t figure out is why you’re not already taken.”

Because I was born for you.

“Anyway, all of that babbling to say I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you earlier. You haven’t given me any reason not to trust you, and you’re the first guy to help me and really not have any ulterior motive.”

Well, that made him feel like a piece of shit. But what was a dragon who knew she was made for him supposed to do?

“I’m sorry for being impatient,” he said. “We really can go at your own pace.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And I’ll try to be more open. Less closed off.”

“Oh,” he said, feeling like sunlight was washing over him, even though it was growing dark. She wasn’t agreeing to mate him or even date him, but he could sense they had taken a step forward, and that gave him hope for tomorrow.

Hope that he wasn’t screwing up everything.

“So tell me more about you and Sever,” she said, a mischievous grin on her face. “Why do you two have braids? And why do you look so similar, you and the other guys at the house? You’re all so tall. And why—”

He chuckled. “Why the sudden curiosity?”

She flushed. “I mean. If we are going to get involved at some point, not saying we are… but I should get to know you better, right?”

He was taken aback by that. She’d just taken a step toward him and now another. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything. Beg her to mate him.

But now that he knew the extent of what she’d gone through, he knew it was important to go slow.

He leaned over to kiss her forehead. “I appreciate that. Sever and I grew up together. The rest of the guys… we just work together.” He wished he could tell her more, but it wasn’t the right time.

But as she leaned in against him, watching the sunset and nudging him to put his arm around her, he decided he was totally content.

Maybe she hadn’t agreed to mate him yet, but he at least had her trust now.

No one could take that from him.