Dragon's Fake Wedding Date - Riley Storm Page 0,13

still, that didn’t mean he was trying to take her home…did it?

There was only one way to find out. She shifted in his arms until she could look up at him. He glanced down, their eyes meeting, and Gayle waited. It was there, the opening. She was giving it to him.

Rann tensed. She felt it more than saw it, as he recognized what she was doing. A shiver ran through his muscles. The external reaction followed as his pupils dilated and his nostrils flared suddenly. Gayle swallowed, waiting to see what he would do.

Is it my imagination, or is his head drifting closer?

For a long moment, she felt the pull, the magnetic attraction closing the gap between them, as both of them slowly fell into one another. This is it. This is going to happen.

At the last moment though, their faces separated by mere inches, Rann pulled away. Her eyes flew open just in time to catch the look of regret on his face before he straightened up and she couldn’t look him in the face anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he said tightly.

“For what?”

“As much I want to kiss you right now, it wouldn’t be right of me.”

Gayle blinked. He wanted to kiss her.

But he’s not going to!

“I don’t understand,” she said, pulling out of his hug more than a little reluctantly.

“I would like to get your number though, if that’s okay,” he said, rushing on. “I’d like to see you again. I just, I know you just got out of a relationship, Gayle, and I’m not asking you to jump into another one. I would just…like to see you again. I can’t really explain it more than that.”

“It’s okay,” she said with a soft smile, pulling her phone out of her purse, and they exchanged numbers.

That done, the night seemed to close in around her. A finality to their interaction had ended any possibility of ‘more’ occurring just then. The empty night air seemed to close in around her, and all at once, Gayle felt the urge to be at home.

“Would you be okay if I walked you home?” he asked. “I promise I won’t try anything. I would just feel safer that way.”

Gayle thought about it, but the night grew more oppressive. She shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be with him. Not so soon after what had just happened to her.

Biting her lip, she shook her head. “No, not tonight, Rann, but thank you. I’ll be okay to get myself home.”

He didn’t need to know where she lived. Gayle barely knew him. She didn’t even know the bartender whose word she’d taken as the truth. It was time for her to go.

“I’ll, uh, talk to you later,” she said, taking another step away, her flight instinct kicking in. “Goodnight, Rann.”

“Goodnight,” he said, leaning away from her as she moved past him and down the sidewalk toward home.

Gayle hurried away, holding her purse tightly, giving her head a shake at everything that had happened to her in the past few hours.

What a weird night.

She snorted, wondering just how boring the next day would look compared to it.

At least it can’t get any worse, right?

Chapter Eight

Rann

Rolling his shoulders didn’t help ease the tension building within them.

Neither did the dull rumble of dozens of people all talking at once in the same area. All it did was remind him of those who were awaiting the outcome of what would happen next.

“You ready?” Kladd asked quietly from at his side.

“This is stupid, you know that, right?” he replied, tilting his head to either side, letting his neck pop and crack. “Outdated and primitive.”

“Hey, nobody made you enter it,” Trent pointed out from where he stood at the entrance, the arched doorway formed smoothly from the stone.

They were deep under Mount Atrox, in one of the side-shafts that ran off the main cave complex that the Atrox clan used for their community area. The practice area was well known to all dragon shifters. They regularly came there to spar with others, to keep their skills up to par and work off beers from the night before.

Not this morning.

Today, everything was different. Rann was waiting in one changing room, Trent and Kladd with him. Wearing nothing but a pair of heavy-duty fireproof shorts, he readied himself, trying to think of nothing but the end goal.

“Sure they did,” he replied to his friend and teammate. “We’ve gone too long without a leader, without anyone to impose rule on us as a whole, and some folks are starting to