“There’s no time to waste,” he told her, the confines of the town car putting them at close proximity.

She, maddeningly beautiful and so difficult, sat just inches from him, pressed against the side door of the back seat as a driver took them from Heraklion and drove them further into the island to climb the long winding roads leading up to the Calder villa. While Galen thought absently that his mind should be racing with the preparations that needed to be made – when was the moon in the correct cycle? Would he stomach guests? How long could he hide this from Georg? – instead he found it curiously blank of plotting and planning.

All that took up real estate there were thoughts of Alexis. How despite her being dusty and sweaty and grimy from a night of work, she looked absolutely radiant. How his dragon wanted to claw his way toward her and know everything there was to know about her. How her scent drove him wild, the undercurrents of her so powerful that it made a shudder run down his spine.

“You’re insane,” she scoffed, coiled tight like a snake.

“And yet you’re in the car with me,” Galen commented with a wry grin, getting what amounted to a glare in response.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had a choice. It took a good half an hour for the vehicle to get there, and a solid ten minutes before that was spent on arguing about whether or not he could just pick her up and whisk her away to his gilded castle if he shifted into dragon form.

Apparently out of all of the insane things they’d decided that night, being flown across the skies was the most insane. Galen didn’t comment on what that said about her that her standards ran that way.

Personally, he thought that extending an offer of marriage on his part, and her not declining it (though she hadn’t outright agreed to it, admittedly), came far ahead such simple follies as flying.

“Desperate times,” she mumbled, fussing with the end of her ponytail with nervous hands, avoiding his gaze.

She was gorgeous, there was no doubt. A part of Galen, the cool, rational part that ran billions of dollars worth of enterprises and made business decisions every day, thought she would look lovely on his arm at official functions. Yet there was a far louder voice, mostly attributed to his dragon, that said that regardless of her looks or the gentle, sloping curves of her delicious body, he would want her by his side.

There was just something about her he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but it drove him to reckless decisions and ludicrous plots.

Like marriage. And throwing his hat into a literal ring of dragons.

There was a length of silence between them that felt both comfortable and uncomfortable. Comfortable, because Galen was sharing it with her. Uncomfortable, because Alexis was fidgeting and chewing on her bottom lip and Galen was all too eager to offer to do it for her.

This is supposed to be a business arrangement, he reminded himself sternly. She’ll be your wife, yes, but it does not mean she must be your mate.

“We’re not going to… you know, actually get married, right?” Alexis asked, turning her lovely, heart-shaped face toward him.

Galen stumbled on his words for a moment, much preferring just to look at her than engage in the clearly awkward conversation they needed to have.

“As real as the stones upon which the palace was built,” he said calmly, willing himself to relax into the seat.

The partition between them and the driver was up and Galen knew it to be soundproof – a necessity of often conducting business on the go. Though he trusted his staff (mostly made up of minor shifter species with a long line of loyalty to the Calder family), a man could never be too careful.

“Oh.”

“I cannot force you into anything, Miss Davies,” he started, with his head helpfully adding in that he would like to, if she were into that. “If you wish, I can take you home now and we can forget this night ever happened.”

Every fiber of his being screamed in protest to that offer, but he had to say it regardless. This would not work unless she was one hundred percent committed. Perhaps it would aid in covering up for the missing percentages he still felt, too.

A dragon should not push a marriage on a woman who does not wish it. Not in this day and age, anyway, he thought with a certain glumness, finding himself momentarily longing for the times of old, when plucking a maiden from the fields that seemed just right was the most sensible thing a dragon could do.

They weren’t his times, though.

“Right,” she said, thoughtful, while the first rays of the morning sun started spreading their delicate tendrils across the skyline in ever-widening patterns.

Both the sunrises and the sunsets were breathtaking on Crete.

“If I go home, Joshua wins. Knossos gets rebuilt to fit the desires of the trampling masses, my work is lost forever or at the very least made obsolete, and the world has lost a great piece of cultural heritage without even knowing what it all means,” she rattled off, counting all the negatives on her fingers. “Am I getting this right so far?”

“I don’t know who this Joshua is, but other than that, it sounds about on par with reality, yes,” Galen nodded.

“Alternatively, if I come with you, get married to a dragon, who also just happens to be one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, you think we can stop this and I can continue my work on Knossos and maybe make a difference. Maybe you’ll even tell me about what the palace really means.”

“When you put it like that, you really only have one option, I think,” Galen commented smoothly, flashing her a warm grin.

Despite looking entirely unamused, Alexis burst into giggles, the laughter seeming to overwhelm her.

“I’m not often thought to be funny.”

“It’s the situation,” she choked through tears of laughter. “I’m going to get married to a billionaire dragon to save a pile of rocks. Maybe. All I was looking forward to today was catching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and maybe getting moussaka from Anatoli’s near my house.”

“My chef makes excellent moussaka,” Galen interjected.

“Of course he does,” she snorted, coming down from her high of laughter.

He liked her laugh. In fact, he made a personal note to try and hear it more often.

“So, what happens now?” Alexis asked, a hand to her chest, probably to calm her erratic breathing.

“You move into the villa. We don’t tell anyone until the ceremony can be arranged. Then, we will be wed by dragon traditions and human as well. After that, I’ll challenge my eldest brother to a duel and then I kindly convince the local government officials in charge of this ludicrous idea to ‘restore’ the palace to change their minds.”

“Easy,” Alexis said, sarcasm clinging to every syllable.

“It’s doable,” Galen shrugged, waving away her worry, though he would have been a liar to claim that there wasn’t a certain modicum of truth to her disbelief. “We simply need to play our parts.”

“And what does that entail?” Alexis asked. “You know, aside from moving into the same house and staying out of everyone’s way.”

Galen’s attention had never left the beautiful creature beside him, but with that question in the air, it felt like his laser focus had never been tuned so carefully. Her tan skin, her clever mouth, her long neck just begging to be touched… She was truly breathtaking.

Pretending to be her fiancé was not going to be a difficult task, he decided.

“It entails all the trappings of a couple in love, Alexis,” he said, voice husky.

“Because we have to play our parts,” she said, echoing his earlier words.

“Precisely.”

Her brows slightly furrowing, Galen was immensely pleased to find her leaning into him slightly as they spoke. As if of its own volition, his hand rose, traveling across the slight distance between them as he angled himself to face her. When his fingertips glided over her skin and gripped the back of her neck, her breath hitched before she gasped softly – the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

“I think we need some practice. To be convincing.”

“Convincing. Right.”

Without thinking about it, Galen knew what he was doing was right. The car bumped and jostled on the thin mountain path leading up to the villa, but as far as he was concerned, it was the smoothest ride known to man.

Dipping closer, he savored the way Alexis’ lips parted slightly in anticipation, the way her pretty, blue eyes tracked his and then his lips, expectation and excitement so evident on her that it fed his dragon as well as himself. When he leaned in the last inches and his lips devoured hers, he felt like a man immediately changed.

The world fell away, overtaken by her and her alone. His tongue slipped between her parted lips and when she sighed softly into the kiss, it was like someone had breathed life into him he never knew to be missing. She shuddered slightly and Galen wanted to pull her into his arms, keep her safe and warm from any harm that might come to her (knowing full well that it was warm in the car as well as outside, but reactions were what they were), the overwhelming need to protect her making his head spin.

She tasted like sweet berries and she made him feel like when he guarded his hoard, like a master of his own domain, the best dragon he could be. His kiss was long and prodding, wanting to learn all about her, happy to give up time and space if it meant more time with her.

Nipping at her lower lip, he enjoyed the way she gasped. Sliding his tongue against hers, he loved the way she responded, not just taking, but giving and participating, as eager and hungry as he was. His other hand came to trace the line of her chin, every inch he covered of her making him need to find more, to touch more, to kiss more.

When the car came to an abrupt stop, the two of them jerked away from one another. Alexis’ eyes were hazy and Galen suspected so were his. He felt out of breath, almost an impossibility for a dragon. Looking at Alexis’ slightly swollen lips and the blush on her cheeks, he came to realize that not only had he thought that time had fallen away, it might as well have. They’d been locked in that kiss for a solid ten minutes at least, long enough to arrive at the villa.

“We’re here,” he said, unclipping the seatbelt and then undoing hers before she could reach for it.

“We sure are.”

Before he could ask what she meant by it, the chauffer opened the door for him and Galen got out, helping Alexis out with him.

No backing out now, he thought.

With the kiss on his mind, he couldn’t really find any willingness in him to even consider the possibility of calling this off.