Shit.

  He caught me staring. Not that it was probably anything new for him. With a body like that? A smile like that? (Yes, he was smiling at me now, and I couldn’t look away.) Definitely this guy was used to being stared at.

  He’d probably been an athlete. He had that look. Football? He wasn’t quite that beefy, but then not all football players looked like they could eat a small cow and bench-press a larger one. Even so… Maybe basketball or hockey. I’d say a goalie, up until he lost all his chill. He had a massive wingspan, really nice shoulders.

  Oh my god, why couldn’t I look away?

  He was standing up.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He was coming this way.

  I could feel my face burning.

  I might write all the meet-cutes. Really, all of them. I’d written more than thirty romances—or Kitty Sweet had. But since I was Kitty, same difference.

  But writing a meet-cute was completely different from living it.

  Dammit, I was sweating.

  Not that I was a virgin. I liked sex. Sex was good.

  And that was the thought in my head as nerdy hot guy arrived to stand in front of me: sex is good.

  He extended his hand. “I’m Dex.”

  Hell. My hand tentatively made its own way into his. I certainly didn’t give it permission. And what was this Dex guy thinking? We made eye contact for maybe point three seconds, and that gave him permission to introduce himself?

  There was a flash of surprise on his face before he relinquished my misbehaving appendage. Bad hand, bad. He’d probably been grossed out by the dampness. Stupid nerves.

  If this was a meet-cute in one of my books, then the hero would be totally into the heroine. He’d be thinking about fucking her against a wall in the bathroom. Or maybe a supply closet. No, he’d be thinking about banging her in the back seat of his sexmobile. No, no…an empty office, after he swept a bunch of books and papers off the desk. He’d fuck her from behind, and smack her ass.

  The clearing of my muse’s throat intruded into my dirty imaginings. Rude. Couldn’t he wait another few seconds? I could get a (fictional) girl off in less than thirty seconds.

  But then I realized I’d let myself be pulled into fantasy—as one did when one was a writer; completely normal; nothing weird to see here—and hadn’t introduced myself.

  “I’m Kitty, um, Kaylee.” I swallowed the tortured groan that was rising to my lips. “I mean, I’m Kaylee. Hi.”

  My inability to hold a normal conversation with a hot guy was but one way in which my life failed to live up to the fictional lives of my heroines. As much as Dex was indeed a romance hero, as demonstrated by his presence in my work in progress as Drake, I was no heroine.

  I was just awkward, weird, quiet me.

  “Hi Kitty-Kaylee.” Nooo. I totally deserved that, but no. He ignored my distress or, being a guy, didn’t even notice it, and continued, “We both seem to visit the library around the same time, so I thought I’d introduce myself.”

  I smiled, but it was a weird smile. Kind of strained and lacking any real joy or happiness. I suspected it looked a bit like a grimace. But it was that or actually say something, and speaking seemed ill-advised at the moment. I’d practically outed myself to a stranger. Not many people knew I was Kitty Sweet.

  All that previous secrecy with my pen name and with one smile and a handshake, I’d almost spilled all the tea on my pseudonym to a complete stranger. That had never happened before.

  Then again, when was the last time a smoking-hot guy approached me and tried engaging me in conversation?

  Yeah, that would be never. Because I was weird and quiet and socially awkward.

  “So, you seem to be typing a lot. What, are you writing a book or something?” Then he grinned, like, of course I wasn’t writing a book.

  Except I was. I totally was. And he was the star attraction in all his muscly, nerdy-hot, eyeglass-wearing glory.

  And actually, I was kind of annoyed with him. He wasn’t a very cooperative hero. I was supposed to be writing some light bondage, mild kink romantic suspense, and it was coming out all dragons and fangs and claws. I didn’t write fantasy. Never had, never planned to, and I had good reason for that. But I was desperate. Better fangs and claws than no words at all. And it would be fine. I could deal with a little fictional magic.

  Dex looked at me like he was a little amused and a lot confused, which was when I realized that I was glaring at him.

  Oops. I grimace-smiled again.

  “So, not writing a book.”

  I skipped over the implied question, because it wasn’t really any of his business what I was typing on my computer. But turnabout being fair play and all that, I asked, “What have you been researching?”

  And only after I asked did I realize how revealing the question was. Not “reading” but “researching.”

  The guy had piles of books he scanned each morning. He was obviously researching something. Anyone would know that. Even someone who hadn’t been stalking him.

  Which I hadn’t. At all.

  I’d been imagining him naked, but definitely not stalking him.

  The grin was back, so he definitely caught my slipup. Dammit. “Myths, legends, magic.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You asked what I was researching. Myths, legends, and magic. Don’t suppose you have anything to add on the subject?”

  The blood must have rushed somewhere not my head. Or I wasn’t breathing normally. Because all of a sudden I was terribly light-headed, and I was still sitting down.

  This stranger couldn’t possibly know about my problem, no matter how much the inflection in his voice indicated otherwise.

  No one knew. No one except my dad and my therapist.

  I knew better than to tell anyone. The last time I had, I’d ended up losing my best friend and was laughed at by all the kids at school. Granted, I’d only been eight or nine at the time, but I wasn’t so sure adults were all that much kinder.

  Besides, I didn’t have that problem any more.

  Monsters weren’t real, and the overactive imagination of my childhood that had tried to convince me they were had faded over time.

  Sure, every once in a great while I catch something out of the corner of my eye that couldn’t possibly exist, but even my therapist said that was completely normal.

  Not exactly the word she’d used, but whatever; the implication had been there. Regular people—the kind who hadn’t as a child seen ghosts and gremlins, witches and warlocks, demons and angels—even normal people caught the occasional glimmer of something unidentifiable in their peripheral vision.

  That was me. Completely normal. Seeing completely normal things.

  Not a whackadoo with an overactive imagination and a slipping grip on reality.

  No one had ever labeled those magical and wondrous things I’d claimed to see as a kid with the frightening “H” word, but as I’d gotten older, I realized that seeing things that weren’t really there was literally the definition of an hallucination.

  And that was when I’d stopped seeing them.

  No more frolicking lizards with sparkly hides or barely visible, delicately translucent wings on the backs of passersby or women with eyes of fire or men with eyes of ice or people who reminded me of animals, as if they hid a creature inside that waited to burst free.

  People were just people, and animals, lizard or otherwise, didn’t sparkle.

  I switched schools and was careful never ever to tell anyone that once upon a time I’d made friends with the dust ball that lived in my house. That he had purple eyes, was named Harry, and loved to eat all the dust he could find and sometimes bits of hair as well.

  First, in retrospect, Harry was sort of gross. And second, obviously he’d been a figment of my imagination. So I was a disgusting little kid. That didn’t mean I’d been unbalanced. A bit weird, yes. I’d never been normal in the sense that I was like other kids, but there wasn’t anything really wrong with me.

  And I’d spent the next decade proving it to myself and my poor father, who’d just wanted me to be like all the other children.

  My head was between my legs. When did that happen?

  And there was a warm hand on my back. A very large, very warm hand that was gently rubbing between my shoulder blades.

  I looked up into a gorgeous pair of mossy-green eyes. The glasses were gone. I noticed that he only wore them when he read. Funny, because he looked like he couldn’t be more than midthirties at most. I thought people who wore readers were older than me.

  This close, I could see that his medium-brown hair was actually more of a chestnut color. There also was a lot of red in that sexy lumberjack beard of his.

  The soothing rub on my back stopped, and Dex knelt next to me. He was so close I could smell him. Was that vanilla? And sugar? Did Dex smell like cake? Please, Lord, no. I loved cake. “Go out on a date with me.”

  “What?” I must have been overcome by the scent of baked goods and delicious man, because I thought Dex just asked me out.

  4

  Dex

  Plot twist: my stalker girl had some magic.

  Felt like demon magic, but she wasn’t a witch. Not enough magic to be a witch, not if it had taken touch to discern.

  I’d guess human and demon parentage, but not quite enough magic to manifest witch powers. Or maybe her magic was suppressed? Hard to say.

  What I did know was this.

  One, she had magic. I could feel it. I might be broken right now, but I could still feel and see magic. When I held her hand in mine, I could feel the pulse of it inside her.

  Two, she was in denial. Her freak-out when I implied she knew something about magic was pretty telling. I encouraged her to put her head between her knees. I’d never seen anyone pass out from a sitting position, but I didn’t want today to be the first time.

  But the third thing was the most relevant. To me, anyway. I wanted her. Really wanted her. Not like the passing fling with the deli delivery girl or a quick screw in the bathroom with the hot bartender. That had been lust, certainly, but not the same hot want I felt for Kaylee.

  I’d been intrigued by her this last week. All the sneaky glances combined with the shyness. The occasional glimpses of her amazing figure hidden beneath the baggy clothing of an octogenarian with a circulation problem. The frantic typing that I was now almost certain was a book. That or a secret plan to take over the world. I was definitely intrigued.

  Then I touched her hand, and I went from intrigued to very interested. But then I caught her scent. Forget intrigued and interested. I was hungry for her. If she repeated that look from before, the one that said I want to drag you to the farthest corner of the library and suck you off, we’d be headed to the travel section, the possibility of discovery be damned.

  But I didn’t drag her to the travel section. Or even back to biographies for a quick kiss. I asked her out.

  While she was recovering from almost passing out.

  Not my finest moment. I lost my head, but who could blame me? She was fuck hot and adorable and she smelled like cuddles and sex. Not actual sex, but like someone I wanted to have sex with. Someone I was a little desperate to have sex with.

  Basically, she made me so horny, I lost all my calm.

  There wasn’t enough meditation to make this burn fade. I was going to have to fuck this lust into oblivion.

  “What?” She looked at me with panic is her pretty brown eyes.

  Women responded to me in a variety of ways, almost all positive. Panic was new. “A date. You and me.”

  “Uh, no. Thanks. I mean, no thank you.” She blinked at me. “But, ah, it’s not you, it’s me?” Then she winced and flashed that same smile she’d been sporting since I walked up to her: one part adorable cuteness (she had dimples), two parts fuck-hot woman (her lips had a seductive curve I wanted to bite), and three parts completely uncomfortable (she had absolutely no fucking clue how gorgeous she was).

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. She was so adorably flustered—over being asked out. Hot women didn’t get flustered from being hit on. Kitty-Kaylee was a gem.

  A gem who’d definitely just turned me down. But that wasn’t a “no” from a woman who wasn’t interested. That was a “no” from a woman who’d been asked out by an utter ass while she’d been in the midst of an anxiety attack.

  Not to say she was interested. That was still an unknown.

  I stood up and moved far enough away that I wasn’t looming. “Fair enough. And apologies, I shouldn’t have just asked like that.”

  “No?” she didn’t seem entirely certain.

  “No. Promise you won’t hold it against me?” Then I flashed her a smile that had served me well for centuries.

  It didn’t fail me.

  “Ah, okay?” She sat all the way up.

  “So you won’t avoid the library?”

  She took a slow breath, and I could see her chest expanding. Using breath to mitigate anxiety, a sign that she was in familiar territory with that panic attack. After two breaths, she said, “No, I won’t avoid the library. I like writing here.”

  Good enough for now. I had the beginnings of a plan, and her continued presence here was pivotal. I flashed her what I hoped was a nonthreatening smile and took another quarter step back.

  She bit her lip, then said, “I’m sort of new. To Austin. To the neighborhood. My house is within walking distance, and I really do love writing here.”

  Her eyes opened wide, as if she was surprised that she’d revealed that information. It was more than I’d hoped for. And it also gave me another prong for that plan I was hatching.

  “Excellent. It was nice to meet you, Kaylee.” I omitted the Kitty this time. It had flustered her before, and I didn’t need my skittish girl any more rattled than she already was. For the plan to work, she had to keep up her morning library habit.

  “Um, yeah. Same. Nice to meet you, Drake. I mean, Dex.” She blushed a pretty rose color, clearly embarrassed to have fumbled my name.

  What an interesting slip to make. Unless she was a particular fan of the musician and happened to have him on her mind, I’d hazard a guess that her subconscious caught my true nature.

  Because what was Drake but another name for dragon?

  5

  Kaylee

  That laugh. I wanted to melt and not in embarrassment. He wasn’t laughing at me. No, that was a warm, self-deprecating, sexy-as-hell laugh.

  He was laughing at himself—after asking me out. That really should be offensive.

  And yet…it wasn’t. Because I was pretty sure he was finding humor in his poor choice of timing, not the fact of inviting me on a date.

  Maybe, because I was half in love and totally in lust with the guy, I was attributing motivations to him that weren’t real.

  Or maybe he was a decent guy with a good sense of humor?

  I tilted my head as I watched his ass. The distance from my corner to the table he’d claimed was only a few feet, sadly, because that was one fine ass. Nice full globes, like he did plenty of squats at the gym. Or maybe he really was a hockey player. Hockey butt was real. I was a romance writer. I knew these things.

  I sighed, then turned my attention to packing up before he spotted me ogling him. I wouldn’t get any more words this morning. My head was too full of that beyond-awkward exchange I’d just shared with Drake—dammit! Dex—leaving no room for story shenanigans to unfold.

  And we were definitely in the shenanigans part of the book. The were-dragon Drake had just claimed his sexy, badass mate (who happened to have my hair and eyes), and they were going to get it on in Drake’s lair.

  Not really sure what my readers would think about this one. It wasn’t exactly my normal fare. But dammit, Drake was all I could write the last week. I probably wouldn’t even publish this one. Just add it to the drawer of stories that would never see the light of day. But I knew that I had to get it done if I wanted to move onto a more appropriate story. Drake was my springboard to my next romantic suspense hero.

  Time to walk home, make myself an early lunch, and not think about sexy, bearded, lumberjack, hockey-butt men who wore reading glasses and smelled like an upscale cake shop—the kind that used real butter, expensive vanilla, and where everything looked so beautiful you almost didn’t want to eat it.

  Dammit. I was comparing Drake—Dex!—to a freaking cake shop. Dex wasn’t cake, much as I’d like to eat him up.

  That man. This was his fault. He’d insinuated himself into my book, my head. Hell, next thing I knew I’d be dreaming about him.

  The last few days I’d been thankful for the words; I still was. I’d been telling myself vaguely that I’d fix all the dragon nonsense in editing. Wings and claws could totally be a badge and a gun. Not really, but sometimes these lies needed to be told. Dragon words were far better than no words and the dread that consumed me when I was supposed to be writing and wasn’t. And I really did think that releasing the story onto the page was getting me past my block.

  But now I had a problem. Now the nerdy-hot guy who’d been a fictional dragon helping me with a little writer’s block had turned into a real man. The kind who was hitting on me.

  Danger, danger, danger.

  I needed a reality check, and definitely no more intimate chats with Dex. Guys like that didn’t date women like me.

  Fuck? Yes, probably. I’d bet that if Dex notched his bedpost, it would be kindling. I was just fine as a one night stand. I knew from experience that a lot of guys weren’t super picky about who they screwed, but they were much pickier about anything more. I was fine for a little fun, but too weird to date. Fuck that.

  By the time I arrived home, I’d spun myself into a tizzy. I needed the words, but the words were all about Drake. Drake was actually Dex, and now he was trying to invade my real, nonfictional life.

  Warnings kept flashing in my head, much like the back-up signal on a forklift. Worlds colliding. Imminent danger. Worlds colliding. Imminent danger.

  There was a simple answer: avoid the library.

 

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