“I don’t understand.” Oh! Shit! Wait, what? “You expect me to share your place with you? As in, live with you?” She shook her head.

“It’s not a negotiation. Either you share with me or another male will take you.”

“Pauline is alone.” She gestured back down the hall.

“Flame has claimed her fully.”

“Um.” What? Oh! “So, I need to have sex with you to get you to leave me alone. Is that right?”

He rubbed the back of his neck like he’d developed a spasm. “If we rut, you won’t want me to leave you alone.” He sort of smiled. It lasted all of a half a second.

“Oh really.” She folded her arms. “I highly doubt that. I’ll probably need medical help but I would be quite happy to be alone once the paramedics were done with me. I don’t do living together. I don’t do sleeping together. Sex, is fine as long as it’s quick, good and the person leaves afterwards.”

“I don’t do quick. I do long and hard. Did you say good…?” He gave her a half smile. Lingering this time. Hello gorgeous, where have you been all my life? She didn’t just think that, did she? He didn’t just say that did he? Julie swallowed hard.

His eyes narrowed and his voice deepened. Her nipples may or may not have tightened. “It will be better than you’ve ever had before and you will sleep with me afterwards. In my arms.”

Yes!

No!

What the hell? “I d-don’t think so.” It was halfhearted and stuttery.

“I don’t just think so”—he took a step towards her— “I know so.”

“You said you wouldn’t force me,” Julie blurted. She needed for him to give her space. Needed this line of conversation to stop before she did something stupid like agree to having sex with him.

Just like that, she watched him shut down. His eyes clouded and his neck muscles popped. His mouth pursed and a muscle ticked in his jaw. She almost apologized but pursed her lips instead. She didn’t owe him anything, least of all an apology.

****

“Go inside.” He worked hard to keep from growling.

What was he going to do with this female? Why hadn’t he just taken one of the others? One of the more agreeable females. Julie had decided that dragon shifters were without honor even though he had explained things to her. She seemed to understand, yet she had no clue.

One minute it felt like she trusted him and not at all the next. Hot and cold. She ran at both temperatures and it was giving him a headache. If he could get one, he would have one. As it stood, he almost had a headache and for a shifter, that was saying something.