“I’m so happy you approve,” I said with a little laugh, half annoyed and half flattered by his no-nonsense appraisal of my personality. I had to admit, though, it was refreshing to find a man who didn’t form an opinion on me based on the color of my skin. Kostya was… different. He was brusque and arrogant, but underneath that, I sensed a need in him that resonated with something deep in me.

It was as if he had a hard exterior shell that protected his sensitive inner self. I envied him that shell.

He gave a sharp nod. “If I were to ever take a woman again, which I will not because after Cyrene, I made a sacred oath that no other woman would ever tempt me, but if I were to be tempted, I would allow you to act out all of your lustful desires upon me.”

I addressed the most important thing in his outrageous statement. “I do not have lustful desires about you!”

“You kissed me. You enjoyed it. And you like touching my chest and are pleased with my ass.”

“You kissed me, and chest-touching and ass-looking are totally allowable, especially when the parts in question are naked,” I said with much dignity.

He leaned forward so that his chest rubbed against my breasts. A little moan escaped me as my body seemed suddenly to come alight. He tipped his head down, the strand of hair falling down over his forehead again, this time brushing against my face. It sent shivers down my spine, shivers that soon faded into fire when he murmured, “You are too enticing for your own good, mortal. There is something about you that speaks to me…”

That was when his lips touched mine, and his tongue swept along them, causing me to gasp with the heat of his body that was suddenly pressing me against the wall. He caught the gasp in his mouth, his hands setting my hips on fire when he grasped them, an inferno of desire sweeping through me and catching me wholly off guard.

I swear that the kiss was so hot—Kostya was so hot—that perspiration prickled on my forehead as his tongue slowly and thoroughly explored my mouth. I’ve never been one to particularly enjoy such things, but apparently I just hadn’t yet properly experienced exactly what a tongue could do. Kostya’s tongue seemed different, more sensual and… for lack of a descriptive word, hot. Red-hot. Think the spiciest of cinnamon candies that burns almost to the point of pain, but not quite over the line.

It wasn’t until he snapped his head back, asking, “What is that?” that I heard the sound.

A shrill BEEP BEEP BEEP was echoing through the house.

“That’s… holy hellballs, it’s the smoke detector. Something is on fire. It’s my room! Ack! And me! I’m on fire!”

I stared in utter horror at my feet, which were fully engulfed in flames. Kostya wasn’t at all touched by the fire, and although there were little patches of it around the bedroom, I stood frozen with fear until Kostya, with an odd look at me, flicked his fingers. The fire circling my feet died down.

He leaned forward and sniffed the air next to my head.

“What the hell?” I asked, jerking away, trying to get my mind to stop shrieking while at the same time well aware of the fact that I didn’t feel anything in my feet. Clearly, they had been burned to nothing. “What are you doing smelling my hair at a time like this?”

“I’m not smelling your hair, although you have a nice scent overall. Not chemical, like many mortals who use perfume. I like that. I was smelling you to see if you had any dragon blood that I did not ascertain earlier. You appear wholly mortal, however.”

“Sweet salted saltines!” I screamed, ignoring his babble for what was important. I grabbed his shirt and tried to shake him to drive home the horror of the moment. “My feet are gone! I don’t feel anything in them—they’re burned to a crisp. Aieee!” I stopped shaking him and instead tried to climb him like he was a ladder, but of course, you can’t climb a ladder if your feet have been burned away.

He clicked his tongue and pried me off his chest. I tried to punch him, which just resulted in me stumbling backward until I collapsed on the bed. “Now you are being hysterical. Cease such emotional outbursts. This smoke detector noise irritates me. Where is it originating?”

I was so incensed by the fact that he didn’t even take the trouble to notice that I no longer had feet—I was afraid to look down and see how bad they were, since the sight of blackened, burned stumps would no doubt snap what was left of the sane part of my mind—that I focused on him rather than the fact that I wasn’t actually in any sort of pain. I jumped to my feet-stumps and stomped over to him, poking him in the chest while saying, “How dare you!”

He had the gall to look surprised. “How dare I do what?”

“Make that annoyed noise! No, don’t give me that look like I’m crazy—you proved to me that I’m not and I never was, and despite your attempts, I refuse to let you drive me insane. That tsking thing you just did. That is the sort of noise you make when you discover you’re in a bathroom stall with no toilet paper, or that you’ve run out of stamps, or that someone drank the last of the milk and didn’t tell you. That is not the appropriate response when someone has had their feet burned off!”

He looked pointedly down at my feet. “Do you have some sort of anti-derangement medication? If so, you might wish to take it.”

I walloped him on the arm. “How dare you!”

“You already said that,” he pointed out.

“And I’ll say it a third time if I like! How dare you cast slurs about my mental stability when you know full well that you being a dragon and Jim being a talking demon dog means… Hey.” During the middle of my (wholly righteous) rant, I had glanced down to take in what remained of my feet, but there weren’t any remains to notice. They were perfectly normal. Two feet, all ten toes present and accounted for, adorned with pink toenail polish and stuffed into my favorite pair of sandals. There was nary a singed mark to be seen, let alone a stump, burned or otherwise. “Why are my feet okay? They were on fire.”

“That was my dragon fire. Somehow you managed to harness it.” He gave me another one of those speculative looks before tsking again. “No, it is worthless to question how you accessed my fire. You are not a mate, and even if you were, I do not want you.”

“Oh!” I gasped.

He made a sharp gesture of dismissal. “Will you make that machine cease the noise? It is giving me a headache.”