Page 50 of Dragon’s Ending

My stack of letters was more or less sorted, so I pushed to my feet to gather another armful of records that neither of us had yet looked at. That necessitated walking past the back of Ben’s chair, of course, and I trailed my fingers over the nape of his neck. He shivered, and I grinned to myself.

But he got his revenge, because later, when he needed something from a shelf, he rested his hand for an instant on my shoulder. Even when it was gone, I could still feel it there. Like a brand.

I’d spent years keeping people at a distance. The only physical exception was for sex, and that was easy because it ended. But Ben was sitting beside me in the records room with ink smudged faintly along the side of one hand and marks from my mouth hidden beneath his collar, and all I could think about was touching him again.

At that moment, my phone buzzed against the table. Ben watched as I picked it up.

Study. Now.

My usual irritation at Rhodri’s high-handedness sharpened at the thought of leaving Ben. I pushed to my feet, and without conscious intention, I reached out and squeezed the back of his neck lightly as I passed behind his chair.

“I’ll come back,” I heard myself say.

Even with the door closed behind me, making my way down the main staircase, the kind of spell I’d been under didn’t break. All I knew was a growing resentment that Rhodri, who’d spent years avoiding me, decided he had to see me the instant I finally had something I wanted to do.

I bit it down as I knocked on the study door. If I went in there showing how pissed off I was with him, he’d simply treat me like a sulky five-year-old refusing to eat his dinner. And that would end up with me feeling like I was five years old, completely powerless against his authority.

“Come.”

He was sitting behind his desk. “Ah, Dominic,” he said.

As if it would be anyone else. It wasn’t like the family was queuing up to talk to him. In fact, most of them hurried past this door just in case they somehow got called in.

“You asked for me?” I said. And maybe my best efforts hadn’t stopped me laying a little too much stress on the word asked.

He caught it. I saw the instant of frustrated anger in his eyes before he leaned back in his chair. “It’s Anne’s seventy-fifth today.”

I nodded. I knew. I’d sent a card. A rude one, because Anne would love that.

“I’m paying her a visit later.” His eyes were on my face, searching for something. I had no idea what, so I stood there as calmly as I could. Apparently, I passed his silent test, because he spoke again. “I’d like you to accompany me.”

Bloody hell. Which somehow I managed not to say out loud.

He looked away. “I’m leaving in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be ready,” I said, and instantly wanted to punch myself.

He gave a brief nod, and I knew I was dismissed.

I took a moment outside his door, in the deserted hall. Because… this was new. This was good. Even if he’d looked as if he wanted to take the invitation back the instant it was out. Well, not so much an invitation as a command, but the point was, for the first time ever he was including me in his head-of-family duties.

I didn’t know what had changed. Was it that meeting with Mortimer, when he’d seen I could behave like—what had he called it? A civilised dragon.

Visiting Anne wasn’t exactly the same as bringing me in to strategy meetings. If I fucked this up, there were no stakes. But it was a start. It was more than I’d ever had before.

It felt like he was finally beginning to trust me.

Suddenly excited, I headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I was at last being allowed to come into my inheritance—and I had Ben waiting for me. For the first time in years, I could picture a future.

Chapter Twenty

BEN

After Dominic left, I settled to work properly. Apart from the times when I found myself staring absently into space. Or touching my lips, remembering how it had felt when he’d kissed me. Which usually then led to me having to adjust myself through my jeans because God damn, that man knew how to kiss.

And then there was the way he’d looked at me in bed afterwards, open and warm and entirely unlike the Dominic Bedwyr I’d first met.

Every so often, I’d catch myself smiling at absolutely nothing and have to forcibly rearrange my face into something more suitable for a historian examining rare medieval records.