Dragon Lord (14 page)

Dragging small stacks off the first shelf, she emptied it to polish the shelf and then began dusting the books one by one and replacing them. After a brief mental debate when she’d finished, she decided to keep going and clean all the top shelves first, then move to the second row and so on. She’d made it all the way to the corner behind the door to the library when the door abruptly opened, slamming into the ladder. Clutching the ladder with both hands, her heart hammering uncomfortably in her chest, Raina glanced down to find Simon glaring up at her. The color fled from her face only to return again with a vengeance. She looked away, trying to remember what she’d been doing before he’d come in, hoping he’d just do whatever it was he’d come in for and leave.

She heard the door close and then the click of his boot heals after a few moments but it didn’t sound as if he’d left the room. It sounded like he’d moved to the other end. Feeling as if she was being viewed under a microscope, she went back to her work with an effort, deciding to try to ignore him.

It was impossible. She doubted he was looking at her at all, but she felt like he was and, in any case, despite what had happened the day before she hadn’t been miraculously cured of her fascination with him.

Actually,
due
to what had happened the day before, she was in a worse state of jitters. Her heart would race for a few moments and then brake to a halt and then kick in again. She felt over warm and then cold, depending upon what image taunted her at the moment--the kiss, or the fight afterward.

His face bore some interesting bruises.

She wondered what Audric looked like. She hadn’t seen him since he’d left her and stalked down the hall to kick Simon’s ass.

It was too much to hope, she supposed, that Simon didn’t know that was what the fight had been about.

It occurred to her abruptly to wonder if he’d fired poor Audric. She knew he was a bodyguard. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about the possibility before.

Except that she’d been trying very hard not to think about any of it at all.

As sweet as it was that Audric had felt compelled to hammer Simon into the dirt because he
thought
Simon had done something to her, she did wish he hadn’t. She hated to think he might lose his job on her account. He could hardly speak English. He was liable to have a hell of a time finding another job.

She supposed she’d find out when she served lunch.

She sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Simon.

As much as she dawdled over the task, Simon was still planted firmly at the other end of the room when she finished. Trying not to think about it, she descended the ladder and moved it to the next unit, opening the door and pushing it all the way back when she’d situated the ladder.

“Close it!”

Raina jumped, sending him a startled look, but she closed the door again. She was still so unnerved she dropped a handful of books while she was trying to unload the shelf. She stared down at them in dismay. She was trying to decide whether to just leave them there until she finished with the shelf or hurry down and pick them up again when Simon strode to the foot of the ladder. Bending, he collected the books and, to her dismay, examined them for damage. She knew what was coming even before he looked up.

“I trust it is not your intention to throw all of my books on the floor. I would like them dusted, not battered,” he said coldly.

He had to know she hadn’t dropped them on purpose … unless he had gotten the idea that she’d done it to attract his attention, she thought in sudden horror. “Sorry,” she said weakly, wondering just how expensive the books were. “I’ll be more careful.”

He lifted the books to her. She stared at his hand a moment and finally descended a couple of rungs to take them, almost dropping them again before she managed to secure them against her chest and climb up to set them on the shelf.

It would’ve been a lot easier if he’d just go away instead of lingering in the library and making her so nervous. She decided, though, that she’d just finish the shelf she was working on and go to find Mrs. Higgenbottom and ask to work in another room. That thought relieved her considerably and she managed to clean the shelf and return the books without dropping any more of them. She was in such a rush to get down the ladder and evacuate the library that her foot slipped off a rung on the way down. Fortunately, she had a firm grip on the sides. Her heart was beating unpleasantly fast when she reached the floor, though, and her knees felt wobbly as she hurried across the room to grab up her tray. She didn’t look in his direction as she let herself out and rushed off to find the housekeeper.

* * * *

Simon wasn’t certain
what
he felt when Raina fled the library, but satisfaction certainly wasn’t it.

He’d felt almost lightheaded when he had discovered she was in the library and had to fight the insane urge to flee like an inexperienced youth with no notion of how to behave, or control himself, around a woman. Fortunately, that reflection had so thoroughly annoyed him that it had killed the desire before he could retreat in disorder.

His annoyance bolstered him for all of five minutes, just long enough to stalk across the library and plant himself firmly within full view of her … if she cared to look, which she made clear she didn’t. He knew damned well she knew he was there.

Guilt and embarrassment over his behavior the day before reared their ugly heads as he sat staring fixedly at her wiggling ass while she worked the cloth she held back and forth across the shelf. He had not meant to frighten her, had not meant to kiss her, for that matter.

He didn’t know why he had anymore than he understood why he felt such a compulsion to drive her away from him--why he
always
felt a compulsion to drive her way whenever she looked at him--even if she wouldn’t look at him.

She had not tried to entice him, not consciously that he could see, had not flirted or pestered him. There was no need to shun her when she was not importuning him in any way.

He did not know
why
she had not. He was not hard on the eyes. He did not need to be conceited to know that. Women had always seemed to like his looks, anyway, and they did not
all
know he was the prince.

He would not have thought much about the uneasy glances she always cast in his direction if she had seemed
equally
unnerved by all the others. He would have put it down to her human instincts telling her that he was not her species. But she did not behave that way toward Audric--at all--she never flirted with the other men, but she did not seem to pay them any mind at all.

It was
him
she always looked at as if she had a … prowling
leon
in behind her. Every gods be damned time he even glanced her way she tensed up and looked ready to faint or run, and he was damned if he could figure out why. He could not see that there was anything different about his face--it looked like the same face that had appealed to women before, mayhap a bit thinner, a hair older--but still the same.

And he distinctly recalled, by the gods, that the last time he had gone into the city to look for a woman, he had had his gods be damned pick!

He should apologize for being so rough, he thought guiltily. That had been enough to scare the wits out of her--
Not
that he would have had a gods be damned chance in hell of kissing her at all if he had not grabbed her before she could flee!

He
would
have apologized if Audric had not taken it upon himself to act like such a complete fool! As if he had dishonored her! Gods!

He should not have bellowed at her afterward. Then again, if he had not, he almost certainly would have behaved even more disgracefully because he had had to fight the urge to drag her into his room and plow into her until he had rid himself of the urge.

Ignoring the book in his lap, he turned to stare out the window, struggling with the frustration that had been dogging him since he’d first set eyes on that twice damned female and seemed to be getting more out of hand. It was worse than useless to keep telling himself he did not want her. He had been in an almost constant state of arousal since the first moment he’d lain eyes on her. His cock ‘smelled’ her whenever he was in her vicinity and stood at attention even before
he
knew she was there himself.

He was becoming obsessed with her. He knew he was. He supposed that was why he was so gods be damned determined to drive her away. Or maybe it was only the contrariness of his nature that, because she behaved as if she thought he was a monster, he felt compelled to behave like one, instead of trying to convince her that he was not.

He did not know. All that he did know was that he could not think straight when ever she was any where near him. And he was not doing a much gods be damned better job of thinking straight when she was
not
anywhere around him.

He had reached a point where he spent half his time hoping that she would just leave and end his torment and the other half fearing that she
would
leave and he would be no better off--mayhap worse.

He despised having to go into the city to look for a woman willing to take him into her bed. He felt uneasy to begin with because he could not walk into one of their taverns without attracting far more attention than he liked. And although he had long since learned their native tongue--more from boredom than for any other reason--he still did not completely understand their speech--because they used words
never
used on the television, which was where he had learned, and dialects that he had difficulty translating--and more than that their customs disconcerted him. There were no clear lines to follow that he could see. The women would flirt outrageously, rub all over him, and then sometimes agree to go with him, and sometimes grow furious and call him names and stalk off.

His need for release had finally driven him to consider going anyway, but he had no sooner decided to do so than he discovered he had no interest it.

Because when he thought ‘woman’, his cock thought ‘Raina’ and he had an uneasy feeling that it might refuse to cooperate with him if he pointed it in a direction it did not want to go.

* * * *

Mrs. Higgenbottom glared at Raina when she reached the kitchen. “You are not done with the library.”

“Mr. Draken’s in there. I thought, maybe, I should work someplace else … and not bother him.”

The housekeeper looked away. “Go and wash up and find an apron. You can help me with these vegetables.”

Oh joy! She was going to get to peel vegetables!

She rushed to do as she was told, but only because she was afraid she might run into Simon again. She wasn’t sure where her ‘arena’ lay--she still hadn’t found the niche that seemed to fit her just right, though the lord knew she’d tried--but she was certain it wasn’t in the kitchen.

Maybe, she thought as she settled down to peeling and chopping vegetables at the kitchen island, she should reconsider taking auto mechanics at the tech school this fall? It had seemed like a good idea at the time because it was a skill that paid well and there would be the added benefit of being able to fix her own car--when she managed to buy one again. But she’d be working around men all the time and she didn’t seem to get along with them in a working environment as well as she’d thought she would--not the men in this household, anyway.

She was getting kind of tired of going back to school to pick up a new skill anyway. With the money she’d already spent on training, she probably could’ve bought herself a house somewhere in this time or at least a mobile home. She hadn’t exactly excelled at anything she’d tried before, though, she thought as she mentally reviewed her work record.

She’d been a fairly good beautician, and she’d liked it well enough. The only trouble with that was she’d had a problem with some of the chemicals, and anyway, after that time she’d burned that woman’s hair off trying to straighten it nobody had seemed too keen on hiring her. So that was out unless she moved to another town.

Driving the school bus had been pretty cushy, and she’d been good at taming the little hellions, mostly, she thought, because she could bellow like a drill sergeant when she wanted to, which seemed to have disconcerted them enough to get their attention. The hours had truly sucked, but she hadn’t seen why she couldn’t handle a rig if she could drive a school bus. Truck driving would’ve been better, she thought, but, there again, nobody had wanted to hire her even with her license and freshly signed graduation certificate from the tech school. They’d taken one look at her and dismissed her on account of her size. She was a
lot
stronger than she looked, whatever those assholes thought, but she couldn’t convince them of that. She’d seriously considered taking body building at the gym but had finally dismissed the idea. Even if she built up until she looked like a small ape, it wasn’t going to add inches to her height and
that
was the main reason nobody took her seriously, or simply walked around her and ignored her.

So maybe she
did
have a chip on her shoulder about her size, but it wasn’t her fault--
people
made her have the chip by either ignoring her or treating her as if she was as cute and useless as a miniature dog.

She needed to find a job where height didn’t matter--that she was
also
good at.

It was amazing how damned hard that was!

She was on her tenth potato when Higgenbottom decided to check her progress and nearly shit a squealing worm. “No! No! No! You do not
chip
the peel off! You are wasting half of the potato!”

And it was
her
fault nobody had ever shown her the ‘proper’ way to peel a damned potato?

Simon opened the kitchen door just about the time Higgenbottom had worked herself up to a good lecture and the woman clamped her lips together abruptly, sending him that special, sour smile she reserved just for him. “My lor… Mr. Draken? Is there something you need?”

He frowned, his gaze slipping from her--thank god!--to the housekeeper. The man always looked like a thundercloud when he looked at her.
That
was why she’d been under the impression that he was always angry, because he always seemed to be when he looked at her. She’d begun to suspect it was the breathing thing that annoyed him--as in, if she’d just stop he’d be a happy camper.