Free Dark Embers by Tessa Adams

female dragon that would have him, all in search of a mate. There was something liberating—something infinitely arousing—in his attraction to this woman who was so very different from him.
    This woman who so obviously was not meant for him.
    He took a deep breath, and his chest brushed against her breasts. She started, tried to move back, but his hand was still wrapped around her lower back and he wasn’t ready for her to move away. Not by a long shot.
    “Dylan.” Her breath was coming much too fast, her pupils dilating until they all but covered the bright blue of her irises. Her apricot skin had once again flushed a most becoming pink. And her nipples were poking through the thin cotton of her shirt. It took all his concentration to rip his eyes away.
    “Phoebe.” His voice came out low and deep, sounding more like the dragon than he would have liked as he drew his gaze back to her face. But there was no help for it. She was delicious—every part of her sweetly desirable—and he wanted her. Even knowing she wasn’t the one for him, even knowing that it would complicate things unbearably if he had her, he couldn’t stop the burn.
    Didn’t want to stop it.
    Again her tongue darted out to lick her lips. Again he had to battle himself and his beast to keep from sucking the sweet, pink tip between his own lips.
    “I need . . .” What do I need? Phoebe asked herself frantically. Besides to climb onto Dylan’s lap and take him inside her? The ache that had started when she first saw him exploded when his arm brushed against her breast, and now all she could think about was how it would feel to fuck Dylan MacLeod. For a woman who always put her work first, it was a troublesome—yet intensely exciting—feeling. She was so far gone that by the time he’d be buried inside of her, she might not even care that he was certifiably insane.
    She blew a deep breath out through her mouth and tried to focus. Blood. She was drawing his blood so that she could show him, once and for all, that there were no abnormalities. That he and his people weren’t different, at least not on a biological level.
    “I need to wrap this around your arm.” She held up the hot pink elastic band she used to isolate the blood flow in the area.
    “Be my guest.” He held his arm out and it brushed against her breasts—her nipples—for the second time. A quick glance at his wolfish smile told her he’d done it on purpose and that he had no plans to apologize for it in the near future.
    Her nipples tightened even more, though she would have sworn it was impossible just seconds before. They were so hard, so sensitive, that the stiff lace of her bra was fast becoming excruciating.
    Gritting her teeth, she tried to ignore the sensations whipping through her. Tried harder to focus on the task at hand. But since that meant bending over his heavily muscled bicep, running her finger over the hot skin of his forearm as she looked for a vein, it was easier thought than done.
    “Pump your fist for me.”
    “Sure.” His long fingers curled oh so slowly inward, and for one insane moment, a picture flashed in her head of those same fingers curled around his cock while he slowly worked it up and down.
    Her knees trembled until she locked them in place. Refusing to look at his face as he pumped his fist once, twice, she finally found the vein she was searching for beneath the heavy cords of muscle.
    “It’ll only pinch for a second.” With effort, she kept her voice clinical.
    “I’m not worried.”
    Of course he wasn’t. She cleaned the area with an alcohol swab again, having forgotten that she’d already done it, until he smirked at her. Then slid the needle home.
    It wasn’t as easy as she’d expected it to be—his muscles were rock hard, his skin thicker and harder to penetrate than she was used to.
    We’re different. Different blood chemistry. Different . His voice echoed in her head, but she cut it off. The whole concept was absolutely