Page 7 of Claim Me

She glanced down to the necklace her father had left her when he died. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought it was on fire from within. But there was no heat, no burn. Wait that wasn't entirely true. What she did feel was a growing warmth like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold night, blooming in her chest. As it grew, it changed into a sensual flash that spread across her skin and worked its way down, down, down to her girly bits.

What in the world was happening to her? If she didn't know better, she'd think touching Mac was giving her a full-body orgasm. Not that she'd had a lot of those.

“I feel it too, love. Your fire is already burning through me. I can't wait to taste you.” He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her waist, his fingers reaching up underneath her jacket and caressing the small of her back. He lowered his lips to her neck and scraped his teeth across the sensitive skin at her throat.

Her knees gave out a little, and she had to throw her arms around his neck or collapse to the ground in a puddle of hormones and need. “Holy cow. Whatever you just did, do it again. That felt amazing.”

“Anything you wish.”

Mac lowered his head to Nataly's throat again, but before he could do that wonderfully delicious thing with his teeth a strange almost barking type of sound stilled them both.

“Ahem.”

That fire that had been burning in her belly and between her legs fizzled, and the heat shot straight up to her cheeks. Nataly blinked a few times and found herself looking over Mac's shoulder and right at the smirking face of Uncle Jonas.

Eek.

There was no explaining away the fact that she'd been about to make out with her hot pyro who was also possibly a dragon right in front of her father's oldest and dearest friend. What in the hell was wrong with her?

She didn't exactly go around kissing strange men at the best of times. This was turning out to be the worst of times. One did not make out with arson suspects in front of family friends who were like second fathers.

Then why in the world was she dying to tell Uncle Jonas to take a hike so she could get down and dirty with Mister Hotty MacHotty? The necklace at her throat gave an extra burst of light, pulsating as if matching the rapid beat of her heart. She wrapped her hand around the charm. Her fingers were met by Mac's reaching for it too.

In an explosion of sparks the necklace dissolved, and the pieces transformed into a rainbow of multicolored leaves or...scales floating around on the breeze, swirling around them then off into the night sky. “What just happened? What did you do to my necklace?”

Her questions came out calmer than she expected. That had been a present from her father, and she should be pissed as all get out. She wasn't though. Weird. Everything about this night, this guy, these feelings, was bizarre. She glanced at Mac, who also seemed in awe of the rainbow lights, and then to Uncle Jonas who did not.

Jonas knew something she didn't.

A lot of somethings.

“Uncle Jonas? Spit it out. You're keeping a secret from me, and it has something to do with this guy and what just happened, doesn't it?”

“You tell me, Nat. You're the one making out with a dragon.” He crossed his arms and gave her that detective who already knows you're going to jail look.

Uh...

She hadn't said anything about her dragon hallucination. Either he was a mind reader, which she had suspected before, or that was an awfully strange, random guess. Sometimes he knew things there was no possible way for him to know. And that was ridiculous. He was a detective and one of the best, of course he was a step ahead of the bad guys.

But Mac wasn't a bad guy. She'd thought he was up until she kissed him. She wasn't some ninny whose loyalties could be swayed by some schmexy times, but that wasn't what was going through her head. When she'd kissed Mac and he'd kissed her back like their lives depended on it, everything changed.

He really was a dragon and they were meant to be together.

Huh.

She didn't know she knew that, or believed it, until right this second. Still didn't explain what Uncle Jonas knew and wasn't saying.

He glanced at Mac and then tipped his head side to side, stretching his neck. She'd seen him and other big alpha cops and firefighters do that same move when they had to do or say something that was hard. He'd done that exact move the night he'd knocked on her door to tell her the news about her father being killed.

Nataly's mouth went dry and her lungs froze up. She didn't like this one bit. She hadn't realized she was clenching her fists until Mac grabbed her hand and unfolded her fingers, wrapping them around his own.

Uncle Jonas nodded and said, “Kiddo, your dad warned me this day would come. I thought I'd have more time to bring you into our world a little, but dragons rarely do things the way the pack thinks they should.”

“Warned you? Why wouldn't he have warned me? And why in hellfire would he think a freaking dragon would come into my life?” If her dad and Uncle Jonas knew supernatural beings were not just in the stories, why hadn't they told her? Who else knew?

“Because he was one.”

Boom.