A Way to a Dragon’s Heart by Xakara Page A

him, wearing a bright white Grecian halter top and denim cut-offs. The tiny, blue iridescent scales at the back of her neck and lining her spine however made it much more believable. They gleamed in the sunlight pouring through the eight foot glass doors and overhead skylight, changing from cerulean to amethyst like the field of bluebells just behind the cabin toward the woods.
    “Pound for pound you could definitely take me. But since most Therians could take a small tank and everyone inside, I find my masculinity still quite intact.” He walked up behind her and pulled one of the tight spiral curls piled atop her head with some feminine contraption or other, watching it spring back in place. “So you should know if I offer to wrestle it’s not a tactic to soothe my ego.”
    “Good to know.” She arranged the slices on the pancakes and looked back at him. “You do know everything that might sound like we’re having the sex talk again isn’t a bad thing, right? You can’t look all guilty and caught every time an innuendo is let loose. Between the two of us, you’d never look any other way.”
    “I do see your point.” He laughed and captured another curl. “I just don’t want you to think I’m pushing.” His smile faltered. “You don’t think I’m pushing, do you?”
    “No, Xander.” She sighed and dropped her head. “You know this might all be a little easier if we could dial down your tension a bit. You should stop playing with my hair and just go ahead and do what you really want to do right now.”
    His body went still with startled caution. “What do you think I want to do?”
    She picked up the tea towel and wiped her hands. “You left that wide open, and it would serve you right if I ran with it so I could make you blush and lick your cheek to taste the blood beneath your skin. But as it turns out, my pancake decorating has me rather Zen, so I’ll be nice.” Stepping around him, she took the cookie sheet to the wall oven and set the timer. “You wanted to touch my scales. You’ve wanted to since I got out of the shower and you saw them.” Her hands went to her hips as she faced him. “You touched my hair a dozen times in the last two hours trying not to touch my scales.”
    Well, damn, he’d been more obvious than he thought. “I know they’re supposed to be sensitive. I didn’t want to offend you.” His back unconsciously bunched and relaxed, moving the sinuous creature inked around his torso. “I’m human enough that it seemed rude to ask.”
    “But you’re Fae enough that the curiosity is killing you. Xander…” She closed the distance between them, placing her hands on his chest. “It’s sweet that you want to try, but it’s going to be a long day if we go the sensitive avoidance approach. We’ll both be much happier if you just touch them now and ask what you’re going to ask to get it out of the way. If I minded, I would have hidden them before you saw them.”
    She had a point. Therian breeds who tended to gain small tells to their nature at puberty learned to hide them by shifting slightly, but the Therian Pride Movement had made the display of scales, feathers or spots a badge of honor in most places.
    “Whoops.” She moved her hands, looking at the sugary marks left on his chest. “Sorry, thought I got it all.” Her tongue came out, and she captured the sugar crystals from his skin. Three passes of her tongue, and he was good as new. She stepped to the sink to wash her hands.
    Xander looked down at his chest. “If you keep licking on me and threatening to lick me, we really might have to have that talk sooner than later.”
    “Duly noted. Now come over here and Fae up! Get it all out of your system.” She leaned over the island’s slate countertop and rested her forehead on loose curled fists still tangled in the towel used to dry them.
    It exposed the length of her back in full, the two tiny ties of the shirt a bare distraction from the line of color down