Page 32 of The Ice Prince's Fated Mate
“Control yourself, Dirk,” she said, her chest heaving as she forced herself to break the stare and look away. “Stop it right now.”
“Ella,” I rumbled possessively, surprising myself with the intensity contained within that one word.
“No, Dirk. I …”
I swayed closer, breaking her concentration.
“I, um,” she repeated, struggling to focus. Her eyes traveled down my shirtless body and then back up.
I smiled. “Ella.”
Her head twitched, and she stepped even further back, putting her hands up. “Dirk, I don’t want this.”
Darkness filled the hallway as my dragon jerked away at the verbal slap.
She didn’t want this. Didn’t want us.
The rejection was a harsh wind raking its icy fingers across my skin and my soul, yanking me out of the horny mate-infused daze that had taken control of me.
My mate didn’t want me.
Minutes ago, I had been telling myself I was no good for her. Yet under that I had known I stillwantedher. I was just staying away for her sake, so she could lead a better life.
But now my mate had told me flat out she didn’t want me, and that cut deep, slicing through my scales like they weren’t even there.
“Of course,” I said flatly, all business. “What was I thinking. My apologies. If you still wish to go tonight, I will be out on the main landing field in several minutes. We will go to the crash site.”
Ella peered at me. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I replied in the same monotone, shoving everything deep down inside and burying it under a layer of impenetrableice. “You will be safe, and I will make no further advances on you. You have my word.”
Seventeen
Ella
True to his word, Dirk was all business when I emerged from the chalet. Already in his dragon form—which also bore many missing scales and painful-looking wounds—he waited patiently with his wing already extended for me to climb aboard.
I did so without a word, noting the satchel of clothing gripped tightly in one paw.
“Ready?” he asked as I settled around his neck, speaking with that deep fluidgravitasthat could only come from the mouth of a dragon. But it was still flat. Empty of any emotion.
I said I was, and we lifted into the air without any further preamble. Just like that. It was so utterly different from the man who had pierced my bubble in the hallway ten minutes before. Gone was the heat and the sexually charged, intense, lustful desire that had permeated every inch of his battered but still magnificent body.
There were no signs of that man, nor even the friendly, easy-going guy that Anna described and that I had seen briefly before … my fingers twitched to my right side.Before.
This wasn’t Dirk. It was the Ice Prince. Cold, businesslike, and nothing more. I had told him that was all I wanted, and he had obliged completely and totally.
Except I hadn’t been completely truthful.
I’d told Dirk I didn’t want him, or us, or anything to do with it, but there was no denying that the sight of him in the hallway wearing nothing but a towel with a huge hard-on had … stirred things in me. For a moment I had almost let him do what he wanted to me.
Even now, I was still struggling with the mixed desires. The part of my brain that had shied away from men for so long was in all-out war with the physical desires that continued to slowly pulse between my legs.
More than once, I nearly opened my mouth to tell him to land and take me, a sentence that horrified the rational part of me that remembered my past.
That’s not the mission. You need to be focused on awakening your dragon, not being bent over the side of a rock until your screams echo off the mountain. You are not in heat, and you are stronger than this. Act like it.
Resolutely wrenching my brain away from the idea of being mounted by the likes of Dirk’s powerful body, I closed my eyes and stretched out my arms. Perhaps if I focused on flying and the sensations that came with it, I could trigger something that would bring her back to life.
