Fired by my Grumpy Dragon (Grumpy Monster Bosses #3)

THIRTY SEVEN

Loren

I clutch the large envelope with my copy of the signed papers to my chest as I step out of the attorney’s office. I’m not sure I quite believed it until now.

Jenny didn’t just allocate the sale of her entire collection to Windhams and to me as her agent. She left the collection to me personally.

The whole thing.

It’s worth millions.

My mouth is dry, and my fingers shake a little. It doesn’t feel real.

I might never have to work another day in my life. I could easily sell off bits and pieces strategically, invest the cash, buy an apartment.

I’m set.

I don’t know how to feel about it, though.

Jenny clearly didn’t want her children to have access to it. She deliberately arranged a law firm in the US to handle this part of her will and had already had the items shipped before she died. They will arrive via courier tomorrow. I don’t even know where I’ll keep everything. I guess I’ll have to talk to Peter and see if Windhams can house them for me. I don’t have anything like the security required at my home, and the insurance alone would bankrupt me .

Then there’s the issue of the necklace.

My gut tells me that somewhere out there is a very pissed off dragon who has a bone to pick with me. I should have been more mature than running out on him in the middle of the night. I should have woken him to give him a proper goodbye. I probably did owe him that.

I hope my peace offering appeases him a little.

There’s that little stab of guilt low in my gut again.

I’m so distracted. When a large black shadow falls over me, it only makes me think of England and sunny days that change to cloudy ones in an instant.

A growl is all the extra warning I get.

Suddenly I’m yanked off my feet. My envelope drops to the ground beneath us. An all too familiar pair of scaly claws hold fast to my torso, and I’m hauled into the air and up high above the street.

“Hey, I need that!” I can’t even tell if he can hear my screams above the noise of the rushing wind. I can hardly hear myself. “Hey!”

Kivrayn flies higher. Soon we’re on the outskirts of the city, and he’s showing no signs of stopping.

“Listen, I’m sorry, OK? But you can’t just snatch me.” It’s useless. He’s set on something.

He flies higher, heading out toward the countryside.

After a little longer, my nose starts to tingle from the cold. My eyes are streaming. I’ve given up shouting.

Finally, I recognize where he’s taking me. The highway takes a familiar turn, and stretched out before us are the green gardens and cultured pond of his estate. Why am I not surprised ?

Anger boils in me along with an unhealthy dose of arousal. I should not be excited about him abducting me. It’s just wrong! But I guess I read too many mafia books or something, because I know for certain that if I was to reach between my legs, my pussy would be a dripping mess.

Lucky my brain is in charge here.

Really.

It is.

Fuck .

When Kivrayn finally descends, I’m already planning my course of action. I need to get it straight in my head so I don’t make any stupid horny choices and cave in to whatever fantasy he’s trying to play out.

Not thinking about that!

I’ll call 911. That way, even if he has something planned and manages to seduce me, he will know that authorities will be on their way to investigate and, at the very least, cause him a whole heap of trouble. I wish I could remember the number for the specialized supes task force.

He sets me on my feet on the gravel drive outside his mansion. I whip my phone from my pocket, and he knocks it straight from my hands with a swing of his massive tail. It smashes against the steps leading to his house with a resounding crack.

“Fuck.” I turn away, planning I don’t know what—to walk back to Heartstone?

A huge serpentine head darts into my field of vision, teeth bared .

I’m so mad I don’t even think straight. He could bite off my hand if he wanted to. I’m certain he doesn’t. I push him right in the mouth. “You jerk! You can’t just do that.”

He growls. Taking a step closer, he bares sharp fangs.

“Don’t even bother. You’re not intimidating me. Take me back to Heartstone.”

His eyes flame with anger. Then his body distorts and he shifts until the gorgeous man with bright red hair and chiseled abs is towering over me where the dragon stood moments ago. “No. You are mine.”

Without any hope of budging him, I still push hard at his chest. “That’s just shit you say in the heat of the moment. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yes. It does. It means something to me.”

I stare. Is he serious?

And yet I’ve seen this coming, haven’t I? The way he has always been so possessive and controlling. The way he practically stalked me back when I was working for him and afterward. The bite, the claiming words.

I slap a palm over my face and groan. “No. No, no, no, no, no. I am not your mate.”

“Yes, you are, and the sooner you admit it, the better off you’ll be.”

This is going all wrong. I get it now. Better than I ever have before. All the pieces suddenly fall into place. But they can’t form the right shape, because this is not how my life goes. I don’t end up tied to the grumpiest, most controlling guy in the world.

Not me .

In a moment of weakness, my gaze drops to where his cocks jut out, erect and dripping with pearly moisture.

Kivrayn grins. “Oh, is that what you need, brat?”

I hold up my hand. “Oh no. If you think you can—”

He darts under my arm and throws me over his shoulder, turning my firm rebuttal into an undignified squeak. He can, can’t he? Because my pussy is throbbing, and his face is so close, I know he smells me.

“It’s just going to be sex,” I tell him weakly.

God, it’s like some kind of sick joke how much I want him when he gets all pushy.

He barges through the front door, and I get a view of the corridor retreating from us as he charges through the mansion. He traverses the twists and turns faster than I can keep track of, and we end up on the far side of the building, beyond the showroom and his hoard and the guest wing I’m familiar with.

His bedroom—what else could this room be?—is expansive. Minimally furnished with a huge bed and wooden floors, it seemingly extends right to the end of a platform before falling off a ledge into the open air. Huge sliding doors which evidently open out onto the deck would slide back to make the room feel like it extended out beyond the house too. This was clearly designed to be a dragon’s den.

He tosses me onto the bed and yanks at my jeans. I try to stop him, but he’s too strong. I roll away and end up pinned on my belly with my jeans around my ankles.

Kivrayn slides a hand over my ass and between my cheeks to my slick pussy.

I moan .

“Look how wet you are for me. Go ahead and deny you want this. I will know you’re lying.”

I let out a growl of frustration. “It’s not about that, you idiot. You can’t just snatch me off the street. I knew there was a reason I ran out on you in London, and this is it. You can’t be reasoned with.”

A low, dangerous rumble comes from deep in Kivrayn’s chest. “You should not have done that. I should spank you until your ass is red for that.”

“I want that way too much, but...”

He rubs a slow, deliberate circle around my clit and my knees buckle.

His hand closes around the back of my neck and my eyes roll back in my head. “Kivrayn! Stop.”

He stops. “What?”

“We can’t keep doing this. Don’t you get it? We’d never work.”

I feel the stiffness in his limbs, even with my face pressed to the mattress. “Why not?”

“Let me up.”

There’s a pause. “Is that red, Loren?”

Oh, duh! The safeword. “Yes. Red.”

The pressure on my neck releases and I roll over, yanking my jeans back up again.

“We would fight all the time.”

“No we wouldn’t!” He’s pacing the room, pushing hands through his long hair.

I smirk up at him and he growls again.

“We would have lots of make-up sex,” he grouches.

I laugh. You gotta admire his tenacity. “And after that?”

“Even more make-up sex.”

“It wouldn’t work. I’m not even mad anymore. I think I like you in a strange sort of way. That’s why I want you to have the necklace.”

He freezes and whirls to face me again. “You what?”

“I want you to have it. Jenny left me the collection. All of it. The necklace is yours. That’s what was in that envelope. The papers that confirm I own everything. Lucky my lawyer has another copy. The necklace belongs to you.”

His eyes widen and his tail flicks behind him. “But you’re rejecting me?”

“Yeah. I guess.” It feels so cold when he puts it like that.

The tiny puff of smoke drifting from his nostrils snuffs out, and the orange flame in his eyes is extinguished, leaving them black. “The necklace means nothing compared with you. None of it does. I’d sacrifice my hoard. Sell it. Give it away.”

“Y-you would?” I stare up at him, half expecting him to tell me this is some kind of weird dragon humor. “Really?”

His wings flex, and he shifts uncomfortably. “I haven’t been totally honest with you. I have some things to tell you.”