Dazzled: Reckless Desires - final ARC (15 page)

There were such things as dragon shifters in the world.

The parts of her brain that had stopped thinking were slowly spitting out puzzle pieces that clicked into place. The Bernal family's association with dragons, such as on their crest. All the dragon-shaped items that come across her way during the past year of studying the Californio culture and Sebastian's own personal legacy. The paintings, pendants, statues of dragons. The extraordinary treasure room in the hacienda.

The man's own luxurious, powerful, bordering-the-edge-of-deadly presence that propelled him through this world in a blast of wealth, intensity, planet-wide desire.

Yes, it all made sense now. Even so, it was too much for her to process in the moment.

After a last inhale of the cedar-y, dark spiced pine scent of his hide, Lacey stepped back again. She couldn't quite see the color of his eyes in the darkness, but she could see the gleam as one of them regarded her, slowly blinking once or twice during the long moments of her observation.

Finally, she quietly said, "Okay. Can you change back?"

Before she could take another breath, his huge shape shimmered, disappearing into the fully clothed, still fully sexy man she knew was Sebastian Bernal. Lacey swallowed as she held her ground.

Finally, she managed, "Okay. I believe it. I believe everything. And I want to go home. I'm sorry, but I can't take this right now. Take me home? Please?" But she didn't direct the last part at Sebastian. Instead, she gave a pleading look toward Maria and Ricardo.

There was another short, almost pained silence while they clearly waited for Sebastian's answer, although by the tightness on Maria's face Lacey guessed that the older woman would have some particularly sharp words for Sebastian later on. Sebastian nodded, murmuring that he would call the pilot to meet them at the plane.

As Maria put her arms around Lacey's waist and gently guided her to the vehicle, Sebastian stepped forward as if to join them. Lacey stopped, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I feel terrible saying this, but I can't. I just want them to take me. Please, Sebastian. Please understand. I believe you, but I can't deal with this right now."

With that, she turned and got into the car, closely followed by Maria and, somewhat more slowly, Ricardo. As he pulled away, Ricardo flipped the lights back on.

Sebastian stood in their glare, watching with an expressionless face as Lacey left him.

For the first time in her life, Lacey missed work the next morning. She called in sick, which made her feel vaguely guilty. Her justification was that she was sick. Sick to her heart, at least. While she was fairly sure now that she wasn't sick in her mind, there was still a vague possibility that she really had dreamed the entire past day. Either way, it would be impossible for her to function at the place owned by the man who had ripped her soul into fifty different pieces.

Gabi still wasn't home, and she hadn't answered Lacey's last text. Really, though, she wasn't even sure what she would say to her best friend.

Hi. So, I had head-banging, world-shaking, life-changing sex with the hottest man on the planet, he took me to his private family ancestral home, showed it off to me, let me into his secret treasure room which I'm pretty sure is literally worth more than Fort Knox, wined me, dined me, and then, oh yeah. This other guy showed up, turned into a dragon, carried me away, dropped me, at which point my sexy man, who was also apparently a dragon, swooped in and saved me. Like, he flew in to save me, because he was, you know, a dragon. The kind with wings that can fly. So I didn't die, but I may have lost my mind. How was your day?

Nope, not so much.

She had to think about it for a while before she could talk to her closest friend in the world about the situation. As for anyone else, absolutely not. Not her parents, who would definitely think she'd lost her mind. She had been so immersed in her grad school network during the last several years that Gabi was the only one with whom she felt truly comfortable sharing information.

Apparently, she wasn't supposed to do that anyway. Because, right. Dragon shifters weren't supposed to exist. No one could know about them. At least, that's what Maria had told her when they drove back to the plane.

The only thing she could really do was shove everything aside and take a break to be certain her mind didn't snap after all.

So she did. She watched TV, but it made her feel like her brain was being dumbed down into a pathetically sheeplike idiocy, so she shut it off.

She decided to go to the beach. Yet when she got there, the sight of all the happy, oblivious families making sand castles and splashing in the waves that rolled up onto shore was so bizarrely normal that she couldn't stand it.

She tried bookstore browsing, going to the other museums in town, even taking a drive up the Angeles Crest Highway to get above the murk of the city and clear her head. As it turned out, being so alone with her thoughts on the winding highway in the mountains was too eerie, so she turned around and just went back to her empty apartment.

Sebastian called once.

Just hearing his deep voice sent that sweet arousal through her body, despite the reality of the situation. But she needed first to be sure of two things.

One, that she could regain her own equilibrium after the chaotic events.

Two, even more importantly, was that she was grappling with the stark fact that she was actually in love with a man who could become a dragon.

“I can't yet,” she whispered on the phone, before gently ending the call.

He didn't try to reach her again, which was almost more painful than anything that had happened yet.

Midweek, Lacey returned to work after surreptitiously checking on Sebastian's whereabouts. According to the assistant in his office when Lacey called, he was in Europe on business till the end of the week. Lacey hung up without leaving her name. She threw herself back into her work with a frenzied passion that reminded her of her grad school days.

It was hard because everywhere she turned at the Center, she was reminded of him.

She felt a deep yearning for him that she just couldn't shake. He'd said something about her being his mate. She wasn't quite sure she understood that meant, but she also knew on some deep, primal level it had something to do with her unshakeable knowledge that she was connected to him in a way that went beyond the eroticism, beyond the simple, easy conversation they shared when they were together.

Frankly, being away from him even though by her own choice sliced at her heart more than she would have thought possible after such a short time of realizing the depth of the connection between them.

On Friday, as she left her office fairly late in the evening, her cell phone rang with a number marked
PRIVATE.
Biting her lip, she stared at it for a long moment before steeling herself and answering. To her half disappointment, a female voice answered her tentative greeting.

"Lacey? It's Maria. Maria from Señor Sebastian's household.” The woman's voice was hesitant, but Lacey could hear the determination beneath it. “May I say something to you?"

Lacey, who had just gotten into her car in the parking garage, nodded dumbly at the phone before saying, "Yes. Of course."

Without preamble, Maria went on. "I know you do not understand everything. It is expected. But you must know, this is genuine from him.” Her voice strengthened. “You have his heart, Lacey. He's a very hard man to know and to love, but he will protect you to the end of your days. He will never forgive himself for how cruelly he yelled at you, but that is only his own pain talking."

Lacey sighed. "I understand that. It all made sense," she added softly. Staring through her windshield at the soft spring rain that was beginning to slide down over the openings of the parking structure, she added, "I forgive him, if that helps. I just—I still don't know what to do with this. I truly can't make sense of it.”

In a firm yet kind voice, Maria replied, "You will. See here now, he would kill me if he knew his mamacita had called you."

Despite herself, Lacey had to laugh a little bit.

"But," Maria went on, "I called not just for him. I called for you, too.”

Lacey was motionless as she listened.

“The moment you walked into the house, Lacey, I could see it.” Conviction rang through Maria's voice. “You love him just as much as he loves you. Don't lose that just because you don't understand everything. True love is very rare in this world. You were very, very lucky to have found such a thing as your mate."

Her mate. Slowly, the word had begun to seep into her consciousness. She was Sebastian's mate.

Did that mean that he also was hers?

As she drove home, Maria's words bounced around Lacey's head. The closer she got to the apartment, the more the events of the week and her own churning thoughts since then finally settled inside her.

It was true. Never in her life would she have thought that she, Lacey Whitman from not the wrong side of the tracks but definitely not the right side of town, would achieve as much as she had, with her education and her career. Just thinking of Sebastian, his masculine scent, incredible presence, the amazing trust he had shared with her by letting her into the deepest sanctity of his home which he was his heart, solidified everything in one flashing moment.

Sure, it was crazy. But it was true.

The man she loved was a dragon.

And she could handle it.

As lightness suddenly buoyed her, she pulled into a parking space at home and darted up the stairs to her door. The first real smile she'd managed in a week spread across her face as she suddenly realized she couldn't wait for him to come back from his current travels so she could tell him that she was the one who was actually the fool.

At the top of the stairs leading to the outside door of her building, she stopped short, staring.

Sebastian waited for her. Tall, lean, exuding his inexorable power, he peeled away from where he'd been leaning on the wall beside the door and stepped toward her.

Lacey's breath caught his dark, spicy scent as it reached her, sparking that little electric snap she felt every time she was near him. His face was open. Vulnerable. More raw than she'd ever seen it before.

She felt abruptly tongue-tied with shyness.

He was here. Sebastian had showed up at her humble little apartment, by himself. Lacey opened her mouth but literally didn't know what to say. He stared back at her, just as silent. Finally gathering some of her wits about her, she simply said, "Do you want to come in?"

He nodded, the motion sending a coal black strand of hair sliding across his forehead. Lacey swallowed hard, opened the door, and gestured for him to come in. Once inside, they stood in the little living room the front door opened up to, still staring at each other. Lacey felt a brief flicker of embarrassment at how tiny and not particularly interesting, although quite clean, her apartment was in comparison to his elegant hacienda.

But Sebastian didn't seem to notice anything except her. He swallowed and licked his lips, but didn't say anything.

With a stunning jolt, Lacey realized that Sebastian Antonio Bernal, world-famous billionaire, self-assured mogul, and also apparently badass dragon shifter, was nervous.

Because of her.

The realization blasted her with such a sense of wonder, her lips suddenly curved up. She let her purse and her soft leather work briefcase slide down her arms to land gently on the ground, and took a step toward him. Another step, then she suddenly stopped cold again.

Tears were shimmering in Sebastian's gorgeous, velvety black-brown eyes. Though unshed, they were there. An expression of equal wonder bracketed his face. Finally, he spoke, his voice just barely dipping into a ragged edge.

"Lacey. There are so many things I need to tell you. So many things I want to share with you. It all begins by trusting you, implicitly.”

The rawness on his face, the vulnerability, made her heart thump out of rhythm.

His voice was soft. “You are the treasure of my heart. My beautiful, amazing treasure of a mate.” Sebastian blinked as he said that, his smile growing even bigger. “I think I knew that from the first moment I saw you. You dazzled me even then, but I didn't know what to do with it. "

Lacey took another step toward him, tendrils of pure joy starting to dance through her body. "Sebastian, you don't have to say anything else," she said just before he opened his mouth again. "I don't understand it either, but you're right. In fact,” and she suddenly felt wetness pooling in her eyes and thickening her tongue, “I think you're actually
my
treasure. I want nothing more than to be able to spend the rest of our lives together, discovering together what exactly that means."

With a groan that rumbled through Lacey from head to toe, Sebastian closed the gap between them, put his arms around her, and captured her lips with his in a long, deep kiss that melted away the rest of the world.

He pulled back just enough to trace her cheek with his finger as he said in that deep, wildly sexy voice, "This is only the beginning, Lacey. Thank you," he whispered, his voice filled with intense conviction.

"But you aren't simply my mate, Lacey," Sebastian added. He pulled back to suddenly, gracefully drop to one knee.

Lacey's hands clapped over her mouth as she stared at him, although she could feel her smile breaking out from behind her fingertips.

"I am also hopeful you will do me enormous honor of becoming my wife." Sebastian held up a small black velvet box, which he opened.

Lacey gasped through her fingers. Really, at this point she should be used to gorgeous golden objects sparkling in her eyes every time she was around Sebastian. But this one was exceptional. A stunning diamond set into the gold band caught the light with its facets. Nodding her head, she sputtered out, "Yes, yes, yes!"

Through a new barrage of overjoyed tears, she reached her hand out for him to take. First, though, he gently pulled the ring from the box, and lifted it toward her to she could see it more closely.