Whether he meant the marking or the lovemaking, I had no idea, and he didn’t say anything more. I sat on the floor for a few minutes, caught between the desire to rail at him for ruining what had been profoundly wonderful lovemaking and the need to understand just why it was that he was so desperate to deny the connection between us.

“I’m not a saint,” I told the now-empty bathroom. “So I’m going to have to say a few things to him about proper après-sex behavior, but I’m also going to get to the bottom of this whole dragon-mate thing. Because if that mark is what I think it is, then he’s going to have to spill with a whole lot more than a few facts and details.”

Which is just exactly what he doesn’t want to do, my inner self pointed out somewhat smugly.

“There are times I really hate the fact that Dr. Barlind made me get so in touch with myself that I can’t shut you up,” I told my reflection, then got to my feet and took a fast shower. When I was dry again, I rolled up the bath mat and tossed it into the tiny trash bin that sat alongside the toilet.

The mat was scorched black. I couldn’t help but give the female shape burned onto it a little smile. I just hoped I had the stamina to keep up with Kostya’s lovemaking.

Eleven

I returned to the main cabin and sat down on the couch next to Kostya. He had a new pencil and was writing on his pad of paper in a language I didn’t understand. “That mark you put on my hip—it’s something to do with me being your mate, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer me, but I noticed his jaw tightened.

“I thought so. Did you put the same thing on your ex’s hip?”

The muscles in his jaw worked a couple of times but finally gave when he answered, “No. I told you that she was not my mate. She just forced me to name her as such.”

I wanted to point out that he’d told me repeatedly that I wasn’t his mate either, but figured that was petty. “How’d she force you? I don’t think I could make you do anything you didn’t want to do, certainly not without some serious leverage, and even then, you don’t strike me as the sort of man who can be forced into doing things against your will.”

“She used her woman’s body against me,” he snarled, careful to avoid my gaze.

Well, now. There was a lot to be said about that, but I remembered the pain hidden deep in Kostya’s eyes, a sign that he, like me, was one of those people who felt things deeply but who’d been burned for wearing their heart on their sleeves.

“When I was seventeen,” I said carefully, tucking my legs underneath me as I scooted over until my thigh pressed against his, “I fell madly in love with the mail boy in my dad’s office. His name was Thor, and he was everything a seventeen-year-old gawky girl with braces on her teeth could dream of—tall and blond and wore a Thor’s hammer necklace, and man, was he built—and the day he managed to recognize that I was a living, breathing human being and said hello to me, I thought I would die of happiness. I started going to my dad’s office every day, ostensibly to have lunch with him, but the reality was that I just wanted to hang around and hope that Thor would notice me again.”

Kostya muttered something so softly I didn’t catch it, but it had an edge to it that could sever concrete.

“After what seemed like weeks of mooning around the office, one day I was casually posed in the hallway in a spot that I knew Thor would have to pass. As I waited, I heard laughter coming from a nearby office. I edged close to the door so I could hear what was so funny and heard one of the junior executives telling Thor that he needed to go ahead and bang me so that I’d stop mooning around the office.”

Kostya’s frown grew to an epic level of blackness. The pencil snapped in half.

“I was so mortified that evidently everyone in the office knew what I thought I was hiding so well that I almost missed what Thor said in response. Almost.”

“What?” Kostya snapped, the word emerging with the velocity of a fiery bullet. His eyes were black as night, the little silver bits in them glowing. “What did he say?”

The old memory hurt but was no longer crippling. I’ll say that for Dr. Barlind—she helped me lay a few ghosts to rest, this one in particular. “He said that he had no use for a mongrel half-breed, not even for casual sex. He didn’t use the phrase ‘casual sex,’ but my mother raised me to not have a potty mouth, and other than occasional swearing, I try not to.”

“Half-breed,” Kostya said on a hot breath of fury. I thought for a moment that his fire was going to get away from him, but he had better control than I gave him credit for, so the papers in front of him didn’t actually burst into flame. They smoked a little, though. “Mongrel! He dared to damn you because of something so trivial?”

“You know, if I didn’t want to already kiss you just because you’re so kissable, I’d want to even more simply because you’re so incensed on my behalf.”

“Of course I’m incensed!” Kostya’s hands were fisted on his thighs. I put my hand over one of them, nudging him in the side with my elbow so he’d stop glaring. “This man you desired, this unworthy mortal, devalues you—you who are so far above him that he should be on his knees with gratitude that you would even consider looking at him, let alone allowing him to touch your body… This is intolerable. Give me his surname. I will find him and lesson him.”

I laughed and kissed him, allowing my lips to linger in a way that I hoped told him just how much I appreciated the outrage. His fire immediately kicked into high gear, but mindful that we were in an airplane, I tamped it down and pulled my mouth from his in order to say, “When you stop to think about what you said, you’ll realize just how less than brilliant jealousy has made you.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” he demanded, pulling me closer, his eyes all outraged and yet soft with desire.

“Of course not. Except where old boyfriends who weren’t even real boyfriends are concerned, and that just makes you more adorable than ever.” I tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “Thor doesn’t matter, Kostya.”

“He insulted you—he matters!”

“Only because you are very sweet.”

“I am not sweet!” He looked even more outraged, if that was possible. “I am a wyvern! I am the stuff of nightmares!”