IN the elevator, Cai intertwined Ember’s fingers through his. The cool softness of her skin sucked the fire out of his palm and fingers, but dragonfire was consuming him, burning him from the inside, out.
The skin on his back felt a little raw, too, like a barely pink sunburn. The fire elementals had dive-bombed Wyvern as he’d protected Ember. Though the dragon’s tough, diamond-encrusted hide was impervious to most natural flames, the magical fire of the elementals had singed him a little.
Staying away from Ember hadn’t delayed the mating fever at all. It had just made him miss her more.
“Your hand feels like you have a fever,” Ember said, her sweet voice cooling his ear.
“I’m fine,” he lied.
He was lost, and he was dying.
The elevator climbed to the penthouse. The doors remained closed forever. The numbers above them lit, extinguished, lit, extinguished.
He needed to get back to his den before he collapsed.
Cai shook his head.
Not den.
His room. His home.
It was just a hotel room. It was nothing.
Cave.
Wyvern was sick and restless in his head. Dragonish terms invaded Cai’s thoughts.
Hoard.
Take the woman and stay with her.
Defend.
Be with her and cover her skin with gold.
Growl.
Destroy everything that opposes.
Want.
Touch her skin and lap the coolness from her body.
Need.
Take her.
Keep her.
Mate.
Cai drew a deep breath, keeping his dragon at bay.
When they’d been out by the fountain, he’d kept a tight rein on Wyvern, worried that the dragon would carry Ember off to the cave in the mountains.
Cai kept a very tight hold on his dragon in the elevator. Jeez, if he transformed, he would smash Ember against the wall, and then the elevator would explode.
The elevator doors parted, opening to sunlight and the table in the vestibule of the penthouse, where the table held an enormous vase of long-stemmed, dark red irises and bright blue Delphinium spears, the vibrant colors of House Wyvern. He led her over the gold-veined marble floor and hesitated before the dark red, velvet curtains surrounding the columned doorways that led to other rooms.
The living room, to talk?
He should.
Cai should tell Ember more about fated mates, that she was his fated mate, and he should get down on one knee and hold out the pocketful of diamonds that rattled near his leg in lieu of a ring.
In the living room, he walked through fire that immolated his flesh toward the couch and the seating arrangement in the living room, holding Ember’s hand.
“Cai? What’s up, baby? Are you okay?” she asked.
He stalked past the couch and through the door to the dark bedroom, the curtains drawn against the daylight, where he spun her in his arms and pressed her against the wall. Her delicious body curved against his, a luscious feast for him, if only he could get her to say yes.
Cai needed her to say yes to everything.
The problem was that he couldn’t quite speak.
His parched throat could not move. Fire filled his lungs as he breathed. He managed to croak, “Ember.”
Her fingers climbed his neck and slid into his hair, cooling those scant inches of skin where she touched him.
He closed his eyes, feeling the cool relief.
She said, “Tell me what’s wrong with you.”
“I like you,” he whispered.
Her palm pressed against his forehead, and he closed his eyes, reveling in the coolness of it.
She said, “Honey, I think you’ve got the flu or something.”
“Or something,” he admitted. “But I like you.”
A soft weight settled on his shoulders, and her fingers stroked the back of his neck. He kept his eyes closed, feeling the flower petals of her skin against his.
Near his ear, she whispered, “I like you, too. Are you contagious?”
“Not contagious.”
That wasn’t strictly true. He hoped she would catch it, in a way.
Cai wound his arms around Ember’s soft body and cradled her against him, trying to press every burning iota of his flesh against her. “I like you a lot.”
Her lips brushed his throat, and he groaned.
Cai lifted her chin with one hand and lipped down her long neck, whispering, “I adore you. Everything about you draws me to you. Your kindness and the care you take with the elementals is beautiful. You work so hard at everything, and yet you’re sweet to everyone. Every time I see you, I find something more that amazes me. You fascinate me. I am enchanted by you.”
She stiffened in his arms, and her hands lightened on his shoulders. “Cai?”
He breathed her in, the faint vanilla of her perfume and a sweet scent that was all woman filling his body and damping the flames for an instant. “You are everything to me.”
“Um—” A note of panic lit her voice.
Her hesitancy echoed in Cai’s head.
He didn’t want to do this, just then. A sudden confession of love seemed false and forced, and he couldn’t imagine this night ending in anything other than Ember stomping out and himself with no options.
He said, “Let’s go out. Let’s have our night together. I know a great restaurant. We can go there for dinner. And I’ve got an idea for afterward.”
She flinched and waved her hand at her slacks and shirt. “Okay? But I’m not dressed to go out?”
Wardrobe problems, Cai could solve. He was a concert producer, and if the talent wanted it, Cai could wrangle up (on no notice) a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones picked out, a brand-new toilet seat, canned ravioli and chunky soup, Taco Bell catering platters, a boa constrictor that was greater than or equal to fifteen feet, or a butt-shaped pinata filled with airplane-sized liquor bottles and fine chocolates.
And then, there were the weird requests.
Finding seven dwarves to greet one singer as they entered their dressing room after the show had taken a while.
But a dress? Cai had already thought of that.
He said, “I had something brought up for you. I was planning this date for a week or so from now, maybe after the gala opening when everything calmed down.”
Ember looked confused, her lovely brows dipping with a little frown. “Okay, I suppose. Yeah, okay.”
“The dress is in the closet. I’ll get ready in the other bathroom. Half an hour?”
Ember glanced at the curtained window, then back at him. “Okay, I guess.”
For an early supper, Cai took Ember to a lovely little restaurant, a hole in the wall just off of the Strip, that turned out to be a five-star celebrity chef’s side project. Cai had met the chef because she was opening a grand restaurant in the Dragon’s Den Casino. The chef had told Cai about her secret project where she tested new recipes and served A-list celebrities who couldn’t otherwise go out to supper without being mobbed.
The tiny restaurant had eight tables, all draped with luxurious linen tablecloths and set with shining china and crystal.
The dress that he had bought for Ember fit her perfectly, and he loved the way that the silk molded to her figure and the scarlet color played on her skin and matched her lipstick. She said, “Wow, I didn’t even know this place was here. Hey, is that—”
Cai glanced over at the couple sitting at a table over by the wall. The woman’s long ponytail flowed from the top of her head and almost reached the ground, and Cai was pretty sure he had seen the guy on Saturday Night Live the weekend before. “Yeah, I think so. I’ve heard the food is good, too.”
The food was amazing, or at least Cai thought that it probably was from the way that Ember kept closing her eyes as she chewed. Cai could barely taste the Châteaubriand and creamy potatoes on his plate because every time he took a bite, dragonfire filled his mouth and burned it to ashes before he could even taste it.
Every time he looked into Ember’s dark, glorious eyes, he yearned for her.
Afterward, Cai drove her back to the casino, though he noticed her poking at the leather seats on his rental Porsche the whole way. Inside, he squired her to the arena in the Dragon’s Den casino, where the opening-night band was performing their dress rehearsal for their concert.
They were the only two people in the audience, so they sat in the front row and laughed at the situation.
But the music was great.
The lead singer of Shifter Valentine sang right to them, obviously thrilled that someone, anyone was there for the rehearsal. The performance was only marred by the drummer’s sudden transformation into a half-grown wolf puppy who gamboled around the stage for a few minutes before one of the stage technicians—a tiny woman clad in black—walked out from the wings and shouted at him, and he transformed back. He did manage to pick up the beat on the next measure of the song and performed his drum solo without a hitch.
Cai and Ember stumbled back into his penthouse, laughing uproariously and joking about how the band had outnumbered the audience.
“It’s a good thing we started dancing,” Ember said, hanging on his arm. “The lead singer looked like he was going to have a heart attack if we hadn’t enjoyed it.”
“It was fun, right?” Cai asked, turning a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket to read the label. Yes, it was the expensive kind that Ember had bought a case of and put on his tab.
“Wow, it was the best night of my life!” she exclaimed, her eyes flashing as she grinned at him. “The food, the concert. Everything was perfect!”
Cai smiled and took her into his arms. Yes, this was how the night should go. This giddy happiness was how she should be before he proposed binding her to him for all their lives as his dragonmate.
Which he had to do before he got too sick with mating frenzy.
He said, “I’m so glad you thought so. Ember, let’s talk.”