Dragon Lord (16 page)

Raina’s head swiveled toward the sound. Simon was glaring at her, obviously furious. “Woman! You are a walking disaster!”

Blood flooded her cheeks. Raina bit her lip and looked down at the mess, realizing that she’d just ruined their dinner--again. “Sorry, sir! I’ll get it cleaned up!”

She stepped into the soup in her rush to get to the kitchen. Her feet shot out from under her and she landed, hard, on her ass, spreading the mess before her. Stunned, it took several moments for her to realize what had happened. She lifted her hands and studied them, realized she had soup soaking through her jeans and snickered. Audric, she saw, had gotten Mrs. Higgenbottom to her feet. When she looked up at him, he shook his head ever so slightly.

She knew it was a warning and she still couldn’t help giggling at the look on his face, even knowing it was probably going to enrage Simon more. Trying to disguise it as a cough, she moved cautiously to her knees. Audric extended a hand to help her up. She’d already reached to take the offering when she realized her hand was covered in soup. She came up on her knees, looked down at herself in search of a clean spot to use to wipe it off and finally rubbed her hand on her shirt.

She’d managed to conquer her mirth by the time she got to her feet and leaned down to examine herself. Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she grabbed the frame of the door and managed to make it into the kitchen without falling again. Mrs. Higgenbottom had disappeared by the time she got back to the dining room with the dust pan and a broom to get up the broken dishes and as much of the soup as she could.

She hoped the dishes didn’t cost much. She’d really been looking forward to seeing a paycheck. It was nice that she got room and board as part of the package, and one of the main things that had made the job so appealing in the first place, because she’d been expecting to be evicted any time from her apartment, but she needed money to buy personal items and she had to save up for when she got fired--which probably wouldn’t be long now.

She was already a mess. There didn’t seem much point in worrying about her clothes getting in a worse mess and in any case, she could feel Simon’s simmering gaze the whole time she worked frantically to scoop up the soup and broken dishes. Fortunately, she and Mrs. Higgenbottom between them had already mopped up most of the spilled soup. She had to fight another round with her untimely mirth as that thought flickered through her mind. “Almost there!” she called out to the waiting diners as she dropped to her knees with a wet kitchen towel and quickly mopped up the residue on the floor.

When she’d finished and inspected the floor to make sure she’d gotten everything up, she dashed back into the kitchen. Mrs. Higgenbottom still hadn’t returned and she hurried into the pantry to see what she could give them to take the place of the soup she’d spilled. Spying a row of canned soups, she grabbed them up and dashed into the kitchen.

There was no microwave, she noted in dismay. Grabbing a large pot, she started opening cans and dumping the contents into the pot on top of the stove, then read the directions on the can and added water. While the mixture was heating, she grabbed another dishtowel, wet it and worked on cleaning herself up as much as she could. The soup came to a boil and overflowed the pot before she could get back to it, extinguishing the fire on the stove. Shrugging, she turned the gas off and scurried to the dish cabinet.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to try the tray again. Instead, she took out a new stack of plates and bowls and ferried them in to the men one bowl and plate at the time. She’d just returned from delivering the last bowl when Mrs. Higgenbottom reappeared, once again immaculate. She stared at the pot on the stove, and then the cans. Moving to the now empty collection of cans, she picked them up one by one and examined them and then looked at Riana.

“I improvised,” Raina said uneasily.

The woman looked at the can again and then moved to stare down at the remainder of soup in the pot.

Raina bit her lip. “There didn’t seem to be five of a kind … it was sort of a vegetable/noodle soup medley.”

Hatchet face stared at her for many moments, apparently wrestling with the urge to explode. Finally, she merely grabbed the cans up and threw them into the trash receptacle. “Go and clean yourself up! You can not serve looking as you do!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Riana responded, thoroughly subdued by the realization that she probably hadn’t ‘recovered’ the situation as well as she’d thought she had.

She discovered she didn’t have much of an appetite by the time she got the chance to eat. Afterward, she escaped outside for a walk in the garden, feeling too restless and depressed to hide in her room. She’d been sitting on one of the garden benches for perhaps twenty minutes, staring glumly at her soup spattered shoes, when Audric joined her. Immediately, her spirits lifted but they sank just as quickly at the look he gave her.

“I’m going to get fired, aren’t I?”

He shook his head and settled next to her on the bench. She studied him, wondering if that meant he didn’t know, he hadn’t understood the question, or if it meant that he felt sorry for her and she was definitely going to get fired.

“You should no have laughed,” he said carefully. “Bad ting.”

Pleased to see he’d obviously been practicing his English, Raina smiled at him until the comment sank in. Biting her lip, she stared down at her toes. “No, I shouldn’t have, especially since Hatchet-face might have been hurt. I just couldn’t help myself.” She studied it over for a moment, remembering the incident. She chuckled, glanced at him and let out another chuckle when he smiled faintly. “She looked so funny, though!”

He hesitated. Finally, he lifted his hand to mimic the skew of her hair when she’d landed. “Hair flop over.”

Raina burst out laughing. “I think that was what was sooo funny! She’s always so prim and proper and dignified … and the look of disbelief on her face!”

Audric’s eyes gleamed. He chuckled, then winced.

Raina didn’t miss the wince. Her amusement died. “I am
so
sorry, Audric. Your poor face! Does it hurt very much?”

He shrugged. “Only when ha, ha,” he said finally, his lips twisting in self-depreciating amusement.

Raina felt a smile tremble on her lips in response. “You shouldn’t have done it, you know. It was … really sweet that you wanted to protect me, but even if he’d done something--which he didn’t--I don’t want you fighting with your brother on my account. I can take care of myself.”

He gave her a doubtful look, but she thought it was probably because he couldn’t understand half of what she’d said.

“I’ve been taking care of myself since I was sixteen,” she added, just in case that doubtful look had anything to do with disbelief that she was capable of handling herself. “My granny died and I didn’t want to end up in foster care like my little brother and sister, especially since I was almost legal anyway, so I took off. I hated that I couldn’t take them with me, but I could barely manage taking care of myself then. If my father,” she added, making quotes in the air with her fingers, “hadn’t been such an asshole and taken off when mama got cancer and died, they wouldn’t have ended up in foster care, either.

“I keep meaning to look them up, but somehow I never seem to find the time. It’d probably take a while. I don’t know if they’re even around here anymore. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d even recognize them if I saw them. It’s been ….” She paused, frowning. “God! Almost ten years! My how the time flies when you’re working your ass off!”

She looked at him, smiling faintly. “You didn’t understand any of that, did you?”

He frowned faintly and then smiled apologetically. “Some.” He touched his lips. “Accent.”

Raina chuckled. “What? You’ve got a problem with the southern accent? I hate to break it to you, but I have trouble with
your
accent, too!”

He grimaced. “I work on. No good yet.”

Raina sighed. “I wish you could. It would be so nice to have somebody to talk to. Not that it matters now, I suppose. It’s just as well I got something out of the accident--a good laugh--because I guess I’m going to get the boot.” She glanced over her shoulder at the garage apartment. “Which sucks. I was really looking forward to living in that apartment. It’s the nicest thing I’ve been in since I left granny’s house.”

He took her hand. Staring down it as he settled it in the palm of his, he stroked her fingers. Surprise flickered through Raina at the warm, tingling sensation that ran through her at that simple gesture. She watched a little breathlessly as he lifted her hand and brushed his lips along her knuckles, feeling another pleasant gush of warmth.

She saw his bruised knuckles then, though, and it distracted her. “Oh! Your poor hands!” she gasped. Shifting to face him, she grasped his hands in both of hers and examined them and then, impulsively, leaned down to kiss the injuries. “Poor baby! Did you miss his face and hit the wall?”

He was studying her intently when she looked up at him. Disengaging his hands from hers, he settled them on her shoulders and drew her toward him. She smiled, lifting her face readily for his kiss. She’d thoroughly enjoyed it the first time he’d kissed her even though it had been way too brief in her opinion because she’d just begun to get really warmed up when he stopped. She liked him, a lot, and more than that she found him very desirable, and sweet, and she felt so guilty about him getting beat up. She wanted to do something to make him feel better as much as she wanted the kiss for herself.

Their lips met, brushed.

“Ow!” he muttered, leaning away and sucking at his bruised lip.

Undeterred now that she’d set her goal, Raina came up on her knees as he released her. Leaning toward him, she steadied her hands on his shoulders and brushed feather light kisses over his cheeks and then, very carefully, pressed her lips to his. He let out a hissing breath. Sighing with disappointment, Raina sat back on her heels.

His eyes were glittering with desire, she saw when she looked at him. Her belly responded by tightening hopefully, but she could see he was stiff and sore besides the bruises.

On the other hand, shy of actual death, men didn’t seem to have a problem with sex if they got the chance of it, no matter how injured they were. She waggled her brows at him. “Want to fool around?”

He smiled faintly at the expression, but his dark brows drew together. “Fool around?”

She was always forgetting his limited vocabulary. “Fuck,” she clarified baldly.

He looked startled.

She couldn’t help but blush. She looked down, studying the definite ridge in his pants with a good bit of disappointment. “Never mind. I was just thinking I might be leaving soon--like to tomorrow--and I haven’t gotten laid in a while, and I have a feeling you haven’t either. And everybody’s sure we already have anyway.”

She heard him swallow.

“Make love?”

“Are you ask …? Shit!” She caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure near the house as she looked up at him.

She’d thought they were alone.

She wondered just how clearly her voice had carried to the man standing near the house and how long he’d been there. Completely disordered by the possibility that it might be Simon, since it occurred to her forcefully that he might have come looking for her to speak to her about the ‘disaster’ at dinner, she scrambled off the bench. “I have to go in now.”

Since the man was standing in the shadows near the back door, she headed toward the front, moving briskly in the hope that she could make it in the house and upstairs before he could head her off. It wasn’t that she thought she could actually put off a termination speech by running to hide. If he had that in mind, he was going to corner her sooner or later, but she thought later might be better. That might give him time to forget she was in the garden trying to hump his brother directly after the disaster at dinner, because she was pretty sure that wasn’t going to improve his mood.

She almost skidded to halt when she came through the door and saw Simon advancing toward her from the rear of the house. “Uh oh,” she gasped and headed up the stairs at a gallop.

Any hope she’d entertained that he wasn’t actually following her died when she heard his swift ascent on the stairs behind her. Throwing a panicked glance backward when she reached the landing, she sprinted toward her bedroom, hoping he’d decide not to follow her there. He caught the door with his hand as she leapt inside and turned to close it. She stared at him warily and gulped.

Simon tried to steady himself, struggled to reclaim his reason, dimly aware that he was perilously near his limit and running more on instinct than reason. He hadn’t wanted to go any where near Raina, hadn’t trusted himself to do so and retain his wits, but the woman had Tedra quivering on the verge of a nervous breakdown and she’d wrangled a promise from him to speak to Raina.

He shouldn’t have followed Audric. He’d suspected immediately that
he
knew where Raina had disappeared to and, moreover, that it was probably a prearranged assignation between them. In point of fact, it was that suspicion that had goaded him to follow. Otherwise, he would gladly have dismissed his promise to Tedra and waited until he was in a better frame of mind to speak to Raina.

All of which was a moot point. He had gone and instead of turning around and leaving when he saw his suspicions had been confirmed, he’d been rooted to the spot. He hadn’t heard much, or registered it in any event. He’d been far more focused on the sound of her voice, her husky chuckles, the way she looked at Audric--touched him, offered herself to him. And equal parts rage and lust had battled it out inside of him and grown hotter and hotter until, together, they’d deprived him of any ability to do anything but act on instinct.

And then she’d seen him.

And she’d run.

If she hadn’t, his hunting instincts might not have kicked in, but that was a moot point, too. With rage and lust already goading him past the ability to reason, he’d had nothing to stem the instinctive urge to give chase.

As he stared down into her wide green eyes, he saw the uneasiness in them and a flicker of doubt went through him, but he saw the other, too. The look he could never completely fathom. The look that made him feel as if he was the center of her universe, that made him want to be. The look that made him want to hold her and caress her with infinite tenderness. And at the same time made him want to tear her clothes off of her and ravish every tender inch of her flesh until she was screaming his name and begging him for more.