Free Crouching Tigress Horny Dragon (Fire Mates #3) by Lexxie Couper

around,” the order came again. “Slowly.”
    Stare fixed on his escape route, Ryan let his lips curl into a smile. “Dude,” he tossed over his shoulder. “I’m afraid slowly isn’t an option for me anymore.”
    Without waiting for a response—and really, there was no response that would change his next course of action—Ryan sprinted for the floor-to-ceiling picture window farther down the corridor, threw himself bandaged-shoulder first at the single pane and launched himself—in a shower of splintering glass—out of the hospital into the darkness beyond.
    He shifted just as gravity took greedy hold of his human body.
    Turned into his dragon form with such speed his body screamed in agony.
    The chilly night air licked over his scales and he propelled himself higher into the clouds. The fact it was still night was a cold comfort to him. Not just because it meant there was less of a chance of him being spotted flying away from the hospital. It meant he hadn’t been there long. It meant Deanne couldn’t be far away.
    It meant he would be able to find her, track her, easily.
    Once he found somewhere safe to land.
    Beating his wings with more force than he ever had before, he flew higher. The clouds would offer some coverage.
    His senses detected faint shouts way below him. If he were to risk a look backward, he suspected he’d see his gung-ho cop/guard gaping up at the sky from the broken window.
    He didn’t risk a look backward.
    Instead, he thumped his wings faster, streamlining his body as much as he could to increase his speed.
    For reasons he didn’t think entirely sound, he returned to the park near the bar where Deanne had first approached him. The chances of his clothes still being there were slim, but slim was better than buck-naked-and-hunted.
    With the craziness of actually mating with Deanne, her freaking out about it, her trying to run away from him, her denying what she was, and then her sucker-punching him after he’d let her plummet through the sky for a while, he’d forgotten there was an Extraho Venator out there somewhere with Ryan and/or Deanne in his malevolent sights.
    The cold night wrapped around his human form the second he shifted back. Curled into a semi-crouch, he scanned the surrounding area.
    No movement. No hint of life beyond a family of squirrels in a nearby tree, startled, no doubt, by the sudden appearance and disappearance of an apex predator so close to them.
    He lowered his gaze to the dark ground, resuming his search for his previously discarded clothes. Hell, even his jeans would suffice. Something to allow him to get back to his hotel room without being arrested. As incredibly well hung as he was, he didn’t think the size of his dick would save him from being cuffed and dragged away for walking the Chicago streets naked.
    “C’mon, jeans,” he murmured in his best I’m-wanting-to-win-a-million-on-roulette voice.
    It took him way longer than he would have liked, but eventually he found his clothes. At some point while he’d been flying all over the place with Deanne dangling beneath him, some kind of animal had taken a dump on his shirt. Maybe one of the squirrels in the tree?
    Casting aside his shirt (damn, he’d really liked that shirt, as well), he let out a wry chuckle. Rendered shirtless by a small furry critter. Huh. Tyson would never let him live it down if he knew.
    A few moments later, wearing his jeans, sock (only one. Who knew where the other was?), boots, and jacket (suspiciously smelling very musky. More squirrel attention, perhaps?), he exited the park.
    By the time he reached his hotel—located a few blocks from the bar he’d first met Deanne—the tugging pull of the mating fire was beginning to build to an almost painful heat within him again.
    His body, his soul, everything he was, craved Deanne. Not just in a sexual way, but in every way. He ached to hear her voice, to smell her hair. He wanted to have a conversation with her. They’d yet to