Deryk (Dragon Hearts #2)(8)
Deryk had no doubt he had produced that aphrodisiac in his saliva just now when he’d kissed and tasted Izabella.
Which mean he would definitely be seeing Izabella Mikhailova again.
Because very shortly, she was going to need him as much as he now ached to possess her.
Chapter 4
Izzi had no idea what was wrong with her. She felt as if she was burning up with fever. Her body was shaking, and her hands were trembling.
She had thought it was flu originally, but she’d had that a couple of times in the past, and this wasn’t like that. Those times she’d alternated between feeling hot and cold. Not felt constantly hot and as if she were burning from the inside out. She hadn’t had this unrelenting itching-under-the-skin feeling then either.
Or the intense sexual arousal that made her nipples painfully hard and tingling and caused her clit to throb, her core to ache and dampen her panties.
“You seem distracted today, Izzi.” Pyotr voiced his concern at her lack of conversation, reaching across the table to lightly clasp her hand as the two of them sat in a booth together at a popular coffee shop. “Tanya told me you didn’t seem well toward the end of yesterday evening either.”
She had definitely been agitated last night when she’d returned to the kitchen, after being so thoroughly kissed and caressed by Deryk Pendragon. It didn’t surprise her that Tanya had noticed her distraction.
Izzi gave Pyotr a reassuring smile. “I did feel a little off then, but I’m fine again today,” she lied.
She had telephoned Pyotr on her way back to her apartment this morning, explaining she had cut her visit short with her parents and suggesting the two of them meet up for coffee, as they often did on a Saturday morning. She had hoped being with Pyotr, boyishly handsome with his dark hair and blue eyes, would prove a distraction from that tingling under her skin and the arousal still coursing like wildfire through her body.
It hadn’t.
Because Pyotr wasn’t the one making her feel this way.
Last night, Izzi had dreamed of Deryk, the man with the golden eyes, and she couldn’t stop thinking about him today, either. Intensely erotic dreams and thoughts that involved Deryk filling her with the length of that huge cock she had felt pulsing and hard against her thigh yesterday evening when he kissed and caressed her.
Merely thinking about the golden-eyed Deryk Pendragon now caused a delicious shiver of arousal to run the length of Izzi’s spine.
Whereas looking at the handsome Pyotr did no more than give her warm feelings of friendship.
She didn’t want to think of the dangerously attractive Deryk in that way. Or how he had kissed and touched her as if he owned her.
With overprotective parents and two older brothers who also liked to keep a familial eye on her, Izzi had no intention of being owned by anyone. Least of all by the forceful dragon shifter, Deryk Pendragon. He was—
“Mind if I join you?”
—here!
It was almost as shocking to look up into Deryk’s ruggedly handsome and unforgettable face as he stood beside the table, without even the excuse of a holding a cup of coffee in his hand, as she had felt last night when he rushed toward her with glowing golden eyes and talons piercing the ends of his fingers.
Then, he had been wearing jeans and a navy T-shirt. Today he still had on faded jeans, but with a black T-shirt this time. He also wore a black leather duster that reached all the way down to his black biker boots, and made his shoulder-length blond hair appear more golden than ever.
Izzi suddenly knew, without needing to be told, that this man’s dragon would be golden too.
Merely thinking of him in dragon form was enough to make her heart stutter and her pulse skip several beats. She just knew Deryk Pendragon would be magnificent as a dragon. Scary but also magnificent.
She gave Pyotr a glance from under lowered lashes as she moved her hand from beneath his. He looked as overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of this huge and imposing man as Izzi felt.
How had Deryk Pendragon even known Izzi was here when she hadn’t spoken to anyone other than her parents and Pyotr this morning? Her parents certainly couldn’t have guessed where she was now. They had believed her excuse of having to work on a nonexistent assignment for her degree for the rest of the weekend. But neither did she believe Deryk being here, in this particular coffee shop, was a coincidence.
He quirked a questioning brow at her lack of reply “Izabella?”
She swallowed. “I don’t—” She got no further in her brush-off as Deryk took the initiative and slid onto the bench seat beside her in the booth.
“And you are?” he prompted Pyotr in a hard voice, glittering eyes narrowed on the younger man.
Izzi wasn’t about to let this man intimidate her or Pyotr. “Pyotr, this is Deryk Pendragon. He’s over from England on a visit with my parents’ employer. Mr. Pendragon”—she deliberately used the formality as a way of putting even more distance between them—“this is my boyfriend, Pyotr Petrov.”
Deryk was completely aware of what Izabella was doing. As he was also aware, if the opportunity arose, he would be spanking her delicious ass for that introduction later on today. As for Petrov being her boyfriend… He had been her boyfriend. Definitely past tense.
“Mr. Petrov.” He deliberately squeezed the young man’s hand, waiting until it had produced a wince on that boyishly handsome face before releasing him. Childish, yes, but if Deryk had reacted in the way he had really wanted to when he saw Izabella sitting in this private booth with the younger man, then it would be more than Petrov’s hand that was hurting him right now.