She was staring again.

Pyro Onyx leaned back against the bar and rested his elbows so the fabric of his white tee stretched across his broad chest. His all-too-human pectorals stood out in sharp relief. He lifted his glass and sipped his drink.

The mystery woman’s soft green eyes unfocused. Her pink tongue wetted her lower lip as though she tasted him.

He lowered his drink.

Her shoulders sagged, and she sighed.

“She’s staring again, isn’t she?” Pyro’s friend, Darcy, rested on a stool facing the bar. His dark beer sweated on the paper coaster.

“How can you tell?”

“You went quiet like you’re thinking about messing with someone.”

Pyro’s lip curled into a sardonic smile. “What else are you going to do on a Wednesday night?”

The student bar was dead. Around five o’clock it transitioned from serving frappes to serving cocktails, but after the nearby art school’s graduation last week, the students had gone. Most of Pyro’s usual playmates had gone with them.

And then this woman had walked in.

Long auburn hair she mostly piled into a bun atop her head, full curves a male could savor, and a sweet innocence pushed his primal urges into overdrive. Darcy had pointed her out, and Pyro found he couldn’t look away.

“She’s staring like she wants a taste.” Pyro kept his voice low even though the overly loud dance music masked their conversation. “I like giving women what they want.”

Darcy snorted. “She might be shy.” He unbuttoned and rolled back the collars on his suit sleeves. “Or she might be wondering how you can down six drinks in an hour. It’s inhuman.”

Pyro glanced at his cocktail. “Alcohol doesn’t affect dragons.”

“I meant the calories. I drink two beers and I’ve got to hit the gym.” Darcy straightened and patted his flat gut. “I don’t have the alien shifter metabolism.”

Pyro took another sip. Sweet, cold Siberian liquor twisted with lemon.

Across the room, the woman tracked on him as though he was water and she was dying of thirst.

She was the reason he kept meeting Darcy here. There was something about her. He couldn’t make up his mind.

It wasn’t her delicious curves. He’d made up his mind about those long ago.

Full breasts were cupped by a pink, button-up blouse that made him moan. A well-rounded ass was hugged by a floral skirt. Classy strings of pearls adorned her neck and earlobes, and he wanted to tug them between his teeth. White flats with tiny bows cupped her feet.

When she wasn’t gazing at him with undisguised hunger, she was writing notes with a tufted pink pen. She was literary. High class. Utterly unlike the women he normally took to a hotel.

What would she do if he walked over to her table?

Run? Collapse?

Give in?

His cock hardened in his jeans. He wanted to find out.

And he didn’t normally deny himself the pleasure. But right now, his family company was imploding, and he was about to lose his freedom. Playing with a woman like her was the last thing he needed.

And that was exactly why he was so tempted…

His cell phone buzzed.

He pulled it out of his back pocket. His mother’s portrait stared at him.

A feeling of dread settled in his belly.

Was she checking up on him? Wasn’t it enough that she was destroying the family company and forcing him into an unwanted marriage?

He wasn’t going to answer it, but as he turned to the tall bar chair behind him and slid the device into his leather jacket, his thumb accidentally swiped to accept the video call.

His mother’s muffled voice addressed him with imperious command. “Pyrochlore! Where are you?”

Hellfire.

Darcy met Pyro’s discomfited gaze. His brows rose in amusement. He mouthed, “Want to take it outside?”

Pyro shook his head, gave a huge sigh, and held out the phone so his mother could see his face. She couldn’t disapprove of him more than she already did. The advanced dragon technology embedded in the device would block the bar dance music as if they were in a private booth and she had no idea what the inside of a human bar looked like, anyway.

“Mother. You’re looking well.”

The video showed his mother in full dragon form. Her long golden snout dripped with gemstones and her claws caressed a jeweled scepter emblazoned with the family’s aristocratic crest. The red skies of their estate on the Outer Rim of his home planet, Draconis, appeared in the background.

He spoke respectfully to the intimidating matriarch who had life-and-death control over him and his siblings — and had recently exercised it to destroy their dreams.

“How’s your visit with—”

“Pyrochlore. Your sister tells me that you are not fulfilling your duties as my second male and a proud member of the Onyx family.”

He gritted his teeth.

His recent call history was full of unanswered calls. He knew why.

After his mother had decided to ruin their export company by getting rid of their ports — so they literally couldn’t land on their own planet to sell their exotic Earth clothing — their company’s biggest rival, Carnelian Clothiers, had called a meeting.

Why? So CEO Sard Carnelian could join the fire sale?

Or just enjoy the fire?

Pyro’s overly optimistic siblings had gone ahead and scheduled the meeting. Pyro had promptly blown it off. His call history was full of his siblings’ unhappiness. And now they’d called their mother to chastise him.

“Sard Carnelian wants nothing from our company but to gloat,” Pyro growled. “There’s no point in honoring the arrogant aristocrat by meeting him.”

Her lips curled back from long fangs. “Dear little Sard? His Aunt Ferocia is one of my closest friends, Pyrochlore.”

Dear little Sard? His arch-rival was a giant of a male in dragon or human form. A real heavyweight.

“His company is—”

“But, of course, Ferocia and I care nothing about your companies. That business is a distraction from your true duty.” She drew herself up to her full height. Her eyes flashed red and smoke curled from her nostrils. “Which is to make me grand dragonlets!”

Darcy’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

Pyro shot him a death-glare.

He hunched away and covered his mouth.

Sure, the tall human could smirk. He didn’t have a literal dragon lady breathing down his neck.

Even at the tip of the Dragon Empire, as far from Draconis as any male could go, Pyro still wasn’t far enough away to escape.

He appealed to reason. “Mal’s already got a dragonlet on the way. You’re with him and Cheryl right now on their honeymoon.”

“Yes, the Earth female is lovely. So sad their human genes restrict them from the great convenience of shifting to another form.” His mother sniffed. “But you have not provided me with grand dragonlets. I have seven offspring! If you are still playing around with your ‘company’ instead of creating my grand dragonlets, I will shut it down and recall you all to Draconis right now!”

She had already kneecapped the company by giving away their ports.

But he owed it to his siblings to placate her. A miracle could still happen. Even though it wouldn’t.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “You can’t shut down Mal’s company while he’s not even here.”

“He’ll soon be a father which takes precedence over any pointless hobby.”

“This ‘pointless hobby’ reached the number one rank outside Draconis.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Pyrochlore, you promised you were courting an Earth female. If you do not produce her, I will accept the Empress’s offer of marriage.”

The dread changed into an ugly sweat.

“Are you sure the Empress’s marriage offer transfers to me? I’m only the vice president. Nobody should confuse me with an accomplished visionary like Mal.”

“Of course you are highly accomplished. Anyone looking at you can see your merits.”

Most humans only saw his punch-me leather jacket, ride-me bulging jeans, or pay-for-me thick wallet. Most dragons who looked at him saw a bastard, low caste male with radioactive red scales and, therefore, murderous intentions in his black heart.

But his mother saw none of those things. No, in her mind, she gazed on her second dragonlet, a once-eager youth chasing after his older brother as fast as his little wings could flap, unbattered and unbruised by the violent future dragon society had decided for him.

Even though he didn’t want to feel moved, his mother’s clear-eyed belief made the soft, vulnerable inside of Pyro’s impenetrable heart squeeze.

He hated her for that.

His mother’s belief turned to imperious command. “And, if you do not introduce your Earth female to me, then the Empress will see your merits in her marriage bed!”

His stomach turned.

“You have until the end of next week.” With a fiery flourish, his mother cut the transmission.

Pyro closed his eyes and rested his elbows on the bar. He balanced his phone against his forehead.

What a nightmare.

Darcy’s amused voice penetrated his depression. “So you blew off the meeting with Sard Carnelian, huh? Invite me to your funeral.”

He straightened with a groan. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Mal will be back soon. No honeymoon lasts forever.”

“And to think, that guy never used to take a coffee break.” Darcy lifted his beer pensively. “Love makes us into fools.”

An acerbic comment rose to Pyro’s lips. Mal hadn’t fallen in love. He’d just used Cheryl to get out of the Empress’s marriage offer. But that wasn’t true. Unbelievable as it seemed, Mal actually had fallen in love.

It had nearly destroyed him.

And it was a mistake Pyro was never repeating.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye.

The mystery woman was still staring.

Urges to blow off his problems and play bounced under his skin, teasing his hidden red scales. He was always in the mood for something new.

But…

Darcy swigged his beer. “Well, if you get too desperate for an escape plan, you can always marry your stalker.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Women only want one thing.” Two if he counted his wallet.

Both objects resided in his jeans.

Darcy studied him with pity. “You just haven’t met the right woman.”

“There is no right woman.” Pyro turned away from her hot gaze, feeling it on the contours of his backside like a sensual caress. “Why get disappointed?”

“Well, so what if she is just like the rest?” Darcy tapped the face of his Rolex. “Next week’s coming right up. And if you’re gone, I’ll have no excuse to go visit your siblings. It’s going to get lonely.”

“You need human friends.”

“Human friends are boring.”

Pyro smiled against his will. Darcy was too likable.

“Think about it.” Darcy finished off his beer, slid a dollar under the bottle for a tip, and stood. He was tall for a human, almost as tall as a dragon, and more charming than either species. “See you tomorrow, same time.”

“See you.”

Darcy left.

Pyro swirled his cocktail.

He didn’t let many people past his defenses, but Darcy had consistently been, well, Darcy. When Pyro needed a friend, Darcy had taken him in, treated him like family, and made him feel like an ordinary guy. Even now, with the destruction of Pyro’s clothing company causing a huge reshuffling of Darcy’s family’s fabric supply company, Darcy took the time to meet him — in between pulling the massive 16-hour days to accommodate the change.

“We’re friends no matter what,” he’d promised Pyro. “So we’re not doing business together. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Now, Darcy was keeping his word. He was one of the few people in the universe to do so.

Pyro finished his drink and pushed back from the bar. Reaching for his leather jacket, he slid his hands into the pockets and felt for notes. Invitations. Women to take his mind off the depressive air.

Tonight, he found none.

Time to head out. Not home. A louder bar, a more desperate clientele, an armload of women intrigued by his alien attributes and all too willing to “try him out” for a night.

One last glance at the mysterious female, and…

She was no longer staring at him. She fumbled with her notebooks, closed and lifted them, and searched in her bag. Under her table. Frowning, she began going through her notebooks again.

She’d misplaced something.

On the floor, the telltale tuft of pink emerged from beneath another table.

Ah, she’d misplaced her tufted pink pen.

An excuse to walk over?

Nah. He’d hate to sit down for a chat and see through her enticing, innocent veneer to the grasping, manipulative woman inevitably behind the mask.

After all, there was always the chance she wasn’t like everyone else.

That would be the most dangerous of all.

Danger beckoned to him with honey-covered claws.

Ah, what the hell.

He switched directions, ambling toward her.

She looked up and stared at him with wide, shocked eyes.

He was already enjoying himself. One momentary kindness wouldn’t kill him. Pyro leaned down to scoop up her pen. He’d be her knight.

Her deadly, radioactive red knight.