woman, she took a deep breath and stood a little taller. She hadn't cowed down to a dragon-shifter in a long time, and she wasn't going to let herself act any different around Wes tonight, either.
They'd have some fun, and Ashley could finally get the man out of her system before focusing back on her work.
That's right, just one night of fun, nothing else. And if Wes turned grumpy as he'd done in the past, she'd remind him that the bid was for a fun night out.
At that thought, she smiled. It seemed for once she really was the one in charge out of the pair of them. Wes would hate it, which made it all the more entertaining.
So Ashley headed toward the door and the dragonman waiting on the other side.
Chapter Two
Wes did his best not to fidget as he waited for Ashley to claim him, which was made more difficult by the fact his inner dragon was pacing inside their mind.
Wes growled, Stop it. You're acting like this is going to be more than a one-night thing, and that's all it can be, dragon.
But it's a night with our true mate. Maybe she won us for a reason, and there's a way to have her and still be leader of the clan.
You think I haven't thought of that, too?
However, despite searching through the dizzying fine print of the ADDA rules available to him—which wasn't all—and the laws surrounding all dragon-shifters in the US, he'd yet to find it. He wasn't a lawyer, though. And that gave him a sliver of hope that something existed to help. Maybe not for him, but for others.
His beast huffed. Just don't actively try to make her mad or piss her off. I want this night to be different, to make an impact on her so that maybe she'll want to work with us to find a loophole. And so help me, if you fuck it up, I'll take control.
You do that in a human city, and we'll be sent back to PineRock before we can say a word, forbidden to visit any human town or city for years.
It'll be worth it if I can get to better know our true mate.
As Wes tried to think of how to reply to that, the doorknob turned, and the door opened to reveal the tall, curvy form of Ashley Swift.
From across the room, she'd been beautiful. But as she walked closer to him, her hips swaying and her delicious scent of female mixed with vanilla reaching his nose, he stopped breathing.
Add in her pretty dark hair piled atop her head, and he wanted to growl, reach out, and pull her close.
His inner dragon laughed. You want her just as much as I do.
She stopped a few feet away from him, searching his gaze. He loved how she was nearly the same height as him. That may be tall for a human female—at about six feet—but perfect for him.
Tilting her head, she asked, "What's your dragon saying now?"
His dragon growled again. Tell her I want to strip off her clothes and lick every luscious inch of her body.
Wes barely resisted clearing this throat. "That you look nice tonight."
She snorted. "Nice? And here I was going to say you look sexy, but I guess I can revise it to nice as well."
Her regular demeanor broke the spell, making the rational sections of his brain and tongue disconnect from one another as he said, "I figured saying you look good enough to eat would be a bad idea, even if I know you like honesty."
She clutched her purse tighter against her side, her eyes searching his.
Fuck, he'd probably said the wrong thing. But it was hard to be anything but himself around this female
It was going to be a hell of a long night.
"Honest is better than 'nice,' for sure." She motioned toward the exit off to the side. "Let's get our night started, shall we? I was thinking a bar and maybe something supernormal, like darts or pool."
It was on the tip of his tongue to bark he couldn't have more than one drink at any bar by law but held back. Ashley had paid a small fortune for his company, and the money was for a good cause.
He'd be nice to her if it killed him.