In a Dragon’s Dream by Riley Storm Page 0,16

on her shoulder.

Laura glanced at it, then looked up at him, her brown eyes meeting his green. Hazel met jade, and they stared into one another’s faces, reading features, emotions, thoughts and feelings far deeper than had been conveyed before.

Rakell, she realized as she peered deep into his soul, was no longer doing this out of forced duty. He wanted to protect her, he wanted to be there.

“Thank you again,” she said, stepping forward and putting her hands around his back, resting her head on his chest.

He flinched at her closeness, a funny thing in a man his size, but a moment later his arms draped down over her back, wrapping her up, holding her tight to him.

Laura felt at ease in there, feeling his muscles, knowing the deadly secret that lay beneath them. There was no better protector in the world than Rakell. Nobody else she would rather have keeping her safe.

He was the right man for her.

She frowned. The right bodyguard for her.

He wasn’t her man. Things weren’t like that between them at all. They’d never even hugged until just a minute earlier.

So why did those words feel right?

Chapter Ten

Rakell

Something had changed.

What was it? Rakell wracked his mind for an answer as he stood there, holding Laura tight, doing his best to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, that neither her, nor any of her friends were in any sort of danger anymore.

Things were going to go back to normal. How am I supposed to tell her that, without telling her that we left four corpses in a mountain cavern, all burnt to ash?

The simple answer was, he couldn’t. That was something she would simply never know the truth of, and Rakell would have to be okay with it. He was, of course, and didn’t bother denying that to himself.

You’re avoiding the subject.

Sometimes his inner voice was a dick, pulling him back on track. Focusing him on the here and now, and what was going on with Laura. His charge. The woman he’d sworn to protect, until she no longer felt unsafe in her home, and within Five Peaks.

The woman he was holding in his arms.

The hug, Rakell realized. That’s what it was. The first one had caught him by surprise, and been over in a heartbeat. This one though, was lingering. Was that it, was the length of their contact what was bugging him?

No, nothing was bugging him. That didn’t properly describe his feelings.

You like it. It feels…good.

Rakell’s eyes flew open as he landed on the correct answer. Laura felt good pressed against him, her body molded to his, her head low enough for him to rest his jaw on. They fit together well. Almost too well.

He felt when Laura sensed the change too. The tension in the room, non-existent until then, thickened until it was like syrup.

She’s your charge, not your lover. Get your head on straight. This one, not the other one, his mind added when he started to have certain thoughts.

Laura was gorgeous, beyond attractive. Even in day old, wrinkled pants and a cardigan over a tank-top, her figure was so lush and full it stirred embers deep within him. Stoking a fire he hadn’t known existed.

She was the first one to pull back, and he glanced at her as she reached up and tucked some shoulder-length black hair behind her ear, hazel eyes filled with panic that she somehow kept from reaching the rest of her face.

Yes, she’d felt it too. The change in their connection.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, surprising him by speaking first.

Rakell had expected to have to do some damage control, to assure Laura that it had been ‘just a hug’, even if they both knew they were lying.

Will she ask me to leave now, he wondered to himself, hoping that wouldn’t be the case. Rakell wished to stay. But he would also respect Laura’s desires. Whatever they may be.

His desires were all the easier to read. Rakell was fighting against them tooth and claw at that very instant. On the outside he might be the image of calm and neutrality, but inside, his dragon was agitated, trying to force him into action. It wanted Rakell to reach out, to cup her by the chin and tilt her face upward.

It wanted to kiss her.

So did the rest of him. His entire body ached to be let free, to go forth and explore.

That’s not what Laura wants. I will not take from her that which she is not