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I stared at the tall dragon standing in front of me. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, which was a fair assessment considering I’d been gone for 15 years.
Maybe he thought I was dead.
A wave of guilt rushed over me. I tried to push it away, but I couldn’t. I knew the truth. I knew that I’d done him dirty, and I didn’t expect him to forgive me. I knew I didn’t deserve it.
But I wasn’t ready to die, and if Salem didn’t help me, then I was going to be in a lot of trouble: the kind of trouble that would end with me dead if I wasn’t careful.
The dragon man stared at me. He was just as handsome as I remembered: tall, short hair, and a crooked smile that could melt your panties off if you weren’t careful.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
Before I could even think about backing away, he was standing right in front of me. Every ounce of my energy went into clenching my fists so I wouldn’t grab him and pull him close to me.
It’s been so long.
Salem looked me up and down. His eyes were appreciative as he took me in, and I felt a rush. He’d always made me feel like a damn queen, especially in bed.
Even though I was forcing myself not to be the one to make the first move, I thought, for just a second, that he might kiss me. I thought that maybe the rift between us wasn’t as big or as terrible as I thought it was going to be.
Maybe everything will be fine.
Only, he didn’t kiss me. He didn’t even try to kiss me.
Instead, he held his hand out and took the little orange fluffball from my arms.
“This is my cat,” he told me firmly. He started petting it. He looked up at me as if to say, “this doesn’t belong to you.”
As if I didn’t know.
As if I was going to try to take his damn cat away.
I tried not to let my jaw drop. I tried not to let tears pool in my eyes because seeing him after all of these years should have been joyous, but instead, it only brought me pain.
Oh, I’d missed this damn dragon man.
All of these years apart, and nobody had ever compared to him.
Nobody had even come close.
Salem set the cat down on the ground. The kitten seemed to be confused about who I was and why I was here. The little creature gave me a forlorn look, as if it felt sorry for me, before it scurried off into the bedroom of the little cottage.
Reluctantly, I peeled my eyes away from the place where the kitten had disappeared, and I looked back at Salem.
He looked...
Perfect.
He looked absolutely, completely perfect, and I was pretty sure he knew it, too. He didn’t smile as he looked me up and down once more. I wondered what he was thinking, but maybe I didn’t want to know. If he was thinking about how much he still wanted me, it was only going to make me sad when things fell apart again. It would be easier if he hated me.
A dragon and a polar bear were an unlikely coupling, but we had, in fact, been quite an incredible couple.
I still bore his mating mark on my neck. We had been so young, so full of big dreams. We’d both just felt like the entire world was ours for the taking, and we’d chosen each other when we were so very young.
Now, I was 34, and Salem was 39. He looked older, I thought, but not in a bad way. I liked the way he looked. He had greys now, and his cheekbones seemed even more defined. Salem also had the absolute perfect description of a “chiseled jawline.” I’d never known what that phrase meant until right now.
I cleared my throat, wishing he would say something.
Anything.
I looked different now. I wasn’t terribly different, no, but I was different all the same. My body had new scars now. I had wrinkles that weren’t there before. Each new mark on my body carried its own story, and I wondered what scars and secrets Salem’s own body held.
And I had a deep ache in my heart because now that I was back with my mate, my inner polar bear wanted to come play with Salem’s dragon.
I wanted to show him everything I’d done in the time we’d been apart. I wanted to tell him all about the time I’d gone snowboarding and had ended up skinning my damn knee. Who skins their knee while snowboarding? I wanted to show him the scar on my wrist from the time I’d been playing with cats at an animal shelter and one of the kittens didn’t have full control of its claws yet.
And I wanted to point out the fact that I had missed him.
And that I had needed him.
And that I had been wrong to run away all of those years ago.
“Salem,” I whispered. His eyes were going to burn a hole in me if he didn’t look away.
My inner bear was begging me to come out. She wanted to come play with Salem’s dragon like we used to. It had been so damn long since we’d had fun together, but my bear didn’t realize how much time had passed.
Or maybe she did.
Salem and I used to shapeshift and then play wrestle. You might think that a dragon and a polar bear have no business wrestling each other in their animal forms, and you’d be right, but we did it anyway because we loved each other.
Because we were meant for each other.
Because everything we did had always been for each other.
And now...
“Salem, we should talk.”
“Quiet,” he said firmly, and my legs practically quaked. It was taking all of my energy not to drop to my knees and ask him to protect me. I wanted to melt before him and then I wanted to take his cock into my throat where it belonged. I wanted to run my hands up and down his thighs, grip his ass, and pull him deeper into me.
Those were the things I wanted.
Only, I wasn’t really sure if those were things I was allowed to want anymore.
It had been a very, very long time.
“I want to look at you,” Salem said, and I stayed still as he walked around me, once more clenching my fists...once more trying my best not to throw myself at him even though I wanted to.
He paced the way that dragons always did. They moved so silently that sometimes it was impossible to really understand what was happening. If you weren’t paying attention, a dragon could sneak up on you like that.
Sometimes I thought they did that on purpose.
It wasn’t fair, really. Shifters shouldn’t be able to sneak up on other shifters.
Salem had always been able to, though.
He’d always been able to catch me.
“You’re so damn pretty,” Salem murmured, and I felt tears spring to my eyes.
I didn’t want him to say I was pretty.
I didn’t want him to tell me I was beautiful.
I didn’t want him to do any of these things because what I wanted was for him to punish me for what I’d done.
I knew that I’d hurt him. I knew that I deserved to pay, and I wanted that.
There was even a part of me that needed it.
I didn’t want his forgiveness or his compliments.
What I wanted was for him to hear why I’d come to see him, and then I wanted him to send me away because I knew that I didn’t deserve his help.
Salem noticed my tears immediately and he took a step closer to me. He ran his knuckles over my cheek and then he leaned down and licked my tears away.
The first time he’d done that was when we were young and being silly one day. I was crying over something my brother had said to hurt my feelings, and Salem had made it all better.
Salem had always made everything all better.
“You don’t have to cry, Miranda,” he whispered.
“I know.”
I also knew that it was okay with Salem that I was crying. I’d dated people before him. My ex-girlfriends had hated when I’d cried. In the years I’d been gone from Dragon Isle, my partners had felt the same way, though.
They hadn’t wanted to see me sad.
To them, it had been a sign of a deeper problem that nobody wanted to deal with.
Salem wasn’t scared, though.
Salem was stronger than anyone had ever given him credit for.
He reached for my chin, then, and tilted it up. Our eyes locked, and his practically burned into my soul.
“Why are you here, cupcake?”
I bit my lip, but I didn’t look away.
“I...”
Suddenly, I couldn’t find the words. I was embarrassed to tell him the truth, and I was scared to be honest.
How was I supposed to tell him, “Oh, I got into a bad relationship, and when I broke up with the guy, he said leaving wasn’t an option?”
How was I supposed to tell him I was literally running away from a guy with a shifter fetish?
It was humiliating, and I didn’t want Salem to know.
Instead of blurting out the truth and sharing my reality with him, I shook my head.
“Winchester’s going to be a dad,” I said. “Him and Sora are together now. I came to see them.”
It was a lie mixed with the truth. My brother was going to be a father, and I had come to see him, but I had never planned on staying with him long-term. Salem’s house had been my final destination because at the end of the day, Salem was the only person who could offer me any sort of real protection.
He was a dragon shifter that oozed class.
He’d grown up in a wealthy family, but then he’d left them all behind to mate the foster kid who didn’t deserve to be here. I was certain his parents still remembered me and how much they’d hated me. I wondered if they’d ever reconciled. I wondered if Salem ever resented the fact that he’d chosen me over them.
Salem looked at me. His hand was still on my chin. He was still holding me tightly. He was considering everything I was saying, but I knew right away that he wasn’t buying it.
After a moment, his eyes darkened, and a smile slid over his face.
“Do you want to play a game with me, Miranda?”
“No,” I whispered.
Yes.
My body was screaming that yes, I did want to play a game.
I didn’t even care what kind of game.
All I cared about was that I wanted this guy. Needed him. Craved him.
And oh, yes, I wanted his damn game.
But I couldn’t say that yet. Not just yet. Not until I knew where I stood with Salem. At some point, my past was going to come crashing into the present, and I was going to have to figure out what I was going to do.
Right now, though, I wanted to play with Salem.
Even though we’d been apart for so damn long, it was like my body hadn’t forgotten how he’d made me feel. Every fiber of my very being was craving him, wanting him, desiring him.
And I knew that I was practically going to explode if he didn’t start touching me.
He chuckled. The sound was deep, low, and it weaseled its way to my damn pussy, making me even wetter than I’d been before. It was the laugh of someone who knew they’d won the game before we even started playing.
It was the laugh of someone who knew that I was going to say yes to him sooner, rather than later.
“I think you do want to, cupcake,” he murmured.
“I don’t want to play a game,” I said. I was proud of myself for how damn sincere I sounded in that moment.
Anyone who had been looking at me would think, “My, she has such self-control.”
No one in the damn world but Salem would be able to read the heat hidden behind my eyes or the fact that my nostrils were flaring at the thought of getting to suck his damn dick.
I’d come here for protection, dammit.
I hadn’t come to rekindle things with my former lover.
He’d been more than my lover, though.
Hadn’t he?
He’d been my mate.
And I’d loved him more than I’d loved anything else in the damn world.
He knew my weaknesses, though, and he knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. Salem slid his tongue up my cheek once more until he reached my ear.
“I can smell your arousal, cupcake. Do you really think you can lie to me?”