Her Dragon (Book 2 of The Circle Series)

CHAPTER 15: BACHATA AND WINE

VALENTINA

Everyone stares while our hostess leads us to our table. Men and women alike are straining their necks, gawking openly, and it’s not me they’re ogling. There’s just something about the way Amadeo moves, so smooth and serpentine for a man his size.

Unphased with all the attention, he’s as charismatic as ever, while our poor blushing waiter takes our drink order and looks like he will faint any second now.

“You should try the paella,” he points to it on my menu. “It originated here in Valencia. You’ll find variations all across Spain, but we make it best.” He’s been adding little snippets of information to our conversations today, and it’s as though I have my own personal tour guide.

“Rabbit, chicken, lima beans, green beans, and… sweet paprika?” I read the ingredients aloud for him to confirm. “I don’t think I’ve tried sweet paprika on anything before. I wonder if there’s a noticeable difference?”

“You understand Spanish?” One dark eyebrow shoots up.

“Not really.”

He snorts, and I peer up at him. “Why are you downplaying what you can do?” His forehead creases while he waits for my answer. “You translated ingredients. You must understand something.”

“I’m not downplaying anything. You underestimate me because I don’t share much, that's all. People do it all the time. No big deal.”

“I’m beginning to think you like that,” he responds. “Being underestimated.”

“It has its moments.” I close the menu, and we stare at each other for several seconds. The tension between us is at an all-time high, and the urge to climb over the table and rip his clothes off overwhelms me. “I can get by ordering something or asking for directions to the bathroom, but that’s about it.” I clear my throat and put down the menu as the waiter brings the wine.

“Do you understand what I say to you?”

“Some of it.” I can feel my cheeks heating up. Him speaking Spanish is such a turn-on. “It’s similar to French and Italian because of their Latin base, as I’m sure you know.”

My grandmother insisted Giada and I learn Latin. Many ancient spells passed down through our ancestors are written in the dead language.

He takes a sip of his wine, and I appreciate the way his Adam’s apple moves when he swallows. “Je ne savais pas que tu palais français (I didn’t know you spoke French).”

“Je l’ai étudié à l’école (I studied it at school).”

“Je parle toutes les langues romanes, ainsi que l’arabe, l’allemand et le mandarin. (I speak all the Romance languages as well as Arabic, German, and Mandarin),” he boasts.

“Seulement neuf langues après presque 500 ans? (Only 9 languages after almost 500 years?)”

His laugh draws the table’s attention beside us, filled with giggling girls. “Tell me more about the languages you speak.”

“There’s not much to tell. We spoke Italian with my grandmother, and I went through French Immersion up to high school along with the rest of my Circle. As for the Spanish, my grandmother liked to watch soap operas. A channel back home plays them in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. We’d watch them all for hours; it didn’t matter which language was playing.”

“You’re telling me you learned some Spanish from telenovelas?”

“That and from one of my exes.”

His eyebrows slam down, and his expression is so sour, it’s hard to suppress my laugh. “How many boyfriends have you had exactly, Valentina?”

“That speak Spanish, or in general?”

His snarl is low, but it holds a delicious warning, and I press my thighs together. Neither of my two human exes before hooking up with Charlie taught me anything useful, let alone Spanish, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I’ll tell you my number if you tell me yours,” I tease, enjoying the sudden flush to his cheeks and his inability to look my way. I take a sip of my wine and enjoy his discomfort. It’s not often he gets flustered, so I’ll take what I can get.

The stage lights turn on right then, and a man appears accompanied by a guitarist. I don’t understand all of the words in his song, but minutes later, the tempo changes and a dancer in a vibrant red costume joins them. Her initial solemn expression quickly turns intense.

I’ve never seen a flamenco performance, so I have nothing to compare it to, but the rhythmic toe and heel clicking along with her hand movements are captivating. I’m so enthralled with her routine and the three other dancers who join her that I almost miss Amadeo pouring me another glass of red wine sometime later. I want to protest, but the waiter takes that moment to bring us our food. Colorful and rich in flavor, the paella does not disappoint. I hum in pleasure as I eat beyond the point of being full, and still, there is a lot left.

Amadeo watches me intently, and I revel in the attention. I like when he watches me. “You haven’t touched your wine,” he observes. “I can order a different bottle.”

“It’s very good, but I’ve already had a glass. A second might make things messy.” I don’t know why I shared that. I look around the room quickly, and he follows my eye movement.

“I can handle messy. Treat this week like a well-deserved vacation. You don’t need to worry around me. I can protect you against the handful of shifters in the room, so you don’t have to be on alert.”

I turn my attention back to the quartet on the stage, trying to ignore his words and his piercing gaze. I can’t help feeling Katya is somewhere lurking in the shadows and ready to attack at any moment.

“I would never let anything happen to you,” he vows, and I know he’s serious. However, he doesn’t know what she’s capable of, how horrible of a witch she is.

We watch the rest of the performance in silence. When it’s over, staff swiftly create a makeshift dance floor by moving some tables and chairs behind us. Amadeo drags my chair closer to him, so we’re sitting side by side when the music starts again, now louder than during the performance.

He turns his body slightly to face me and leans in. The warmth he emits is addictive, and his smell… Goddess, his smell is amazing. Pure man and orgasmic. I lean in as well, trying not to make it obvious. I work with fresh herbs and flowers all the time, and there are so many pleasant scents and combinations, but if I could only choose to inhale one for the rest of my life, it would be his. It’s that incredible.

“Can I ask you something?”

I don’t like the seriousness of his tone, but I nod anyway.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

That’s a safe question. Right?

“I have a little over two years left to defend my thesis. If I’m successful, I can get published and get a job at the university or another in the city. Then travel and spend time honing my magic.”

Couples crowd the dance floor. I focus on a woman wearing bright orange stilettos and a form-fitting colorful dress with a plunging neckline. Her hips sway seductively, and her partner can’t keep his hands off of her. I want Amadeo’s hands all over me. Maybe I should ask him to dance?

“And after that?”

“Hmm?”

“After all of that? What are your plans?”

I take a few seconds to think about it. “Be the High Priestess of my coven, or maybe something will work out with the Witch Council.”

“What about love? Do you want to get married?”

I turn to look at him, trying to read his thoughts. Where is he going with this? “I’m not entirely opposed to marriage, but I’ve never really got the whole in-love thing,” I answer truthfully, turning my attention back to Miss Orange Stilettos. She’s on fire.

“Why try to understand it? You feel it. You meet someone, and you slowly begin to care so deeply you would do anything for them, and then you can’t picture your life without them.”

I don’t have the courage to ask him if he’s speaking from experience. Did he love that blonde from my vision? Does he love her still?

“You told me that you didn’t want children. May I ask why? I realize that’s a personal question, but I’m genuinely curious.”

It seems I’m going to need more than two glasses of wine for this conversation. I don’t know what makes me reach for the citrine pendant at my neck, but I do, and his eyes follow the movement. The stone is warm and oddly comforting.

“It must be hard for you to see me wanting something different since you were born in a time where a woman’s sole purpose was to be a broodmare.”

He sighs loudly. “Not at all. It’s hard for me to watch you keep your heart and mind guarded and for you not to trust me.” His hand rests on my thigh right above my knee, hiking up the material of my dress slightly, and my breath hitches. “Maybe it feels like self-preservation by keeping your walls up, but what if it’s self-harm?”

Part of me sometimes wishes I could let him in fully or anyone really, but unfortunately, I can’t. I can only be who I’ve always been. His thumb rubs across my thigh as he waits patiently for me to say something.

“My mother left when I was young, and my father died before I was born. His family had no interest in getting to know me, so I’ve never met them.” I don’t say anything for several moments, focused on the dancers blurring past me. I’ve never talked about this with anyone except maybe Giada when we were younger. “Add in the fact that I sometimes see some messed up s**t from my visions and that I was raised by a grandmother and an aunt, both seers who weren’t exactly the warmest and cuddliest, and you might understand.” He listens with rapt attention. “I had a good childhood despite what I just said, don’t think I didn’t.”

“I can tell you’re close with your family, and I know love doesn’t look the same for everyone. Isn’t there five love languages, or something?”

I laugh at his attempt to talk psychology and lighten the mood. “Is tough love one of them?”

“Ciertamente (Certainly). I know all about that one. My father thought I was too soft and that my mother spoiled me with affection. Can you believe that? I’m a trained killer and predator by nature, but that didn’t matter to him. I was always hugging my mother and teasing her, and she loved it.” He smiles sheepishly, and I can picture a young Amadeo being a typical mama’s boy. “I would laugh and joke around with our help, too.

He didn’t like that because my older siblings weren’t like that. They were more serious, more like him. I never held it against him, though. I knew he cared for me in his way. He simply had an idea of how he thought things should be for a Serrano. It was based on the type of dragon he was, not the one I was trying to be.”

I know exactly what he means. “And the dragon you are now, is he a family man? Someone who wants dragonlings of his own?” My heart hammers in my chest waiting for his answer, but I already have it. It’s written all over his face.

“I’m not very maternal,” I admit. “Of course, people have a lot of opinions on that, but I’m okay with it.”

I expect him to deny it or say what everyone usually says about me changing my mind and wanting children when I meet the right person or my favorite, that I’m selfish, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t say any of those things. My hand is still encircled around the pendant, waiting for the repulsion to appear in his eyes. He gives me a small smile instead filled with warmth. It’s disarming.

“Dance with me.” His outstretched hand and the softness in his eyes seem to ask more from me than just a dance.

I place my hand in his, willing to pretend for the week that I can be exactly who he wants.

Just this once.

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AMADEO

She moves effortlessly to the music. Her usual reservedness is gone. Whether the bachata playing or the wine is the cause, I’m not sure, but I’m not complaining. I inhale a lungful of the dizzying combination of her scent, sweat, and her arousal while she leans her head back on my chest and grinds her perfect ass against me.

I want to savor this. This courtship. This push and pull dance we’ve been doing for weeks; agonizing and much slower than I’d initially planned, but perhaps the most beautiful one of my long life.

I’m convinced she knows she’s my mate. She has to, especially after what happened in my bathroom. I know I’m selfish, and I should have told her already, but there’s a real possibility this may blow up in my face when she finds out everything. Risk and reward are inextricably bound, however, and I’m determined to have her love first, consequences be damned.

“Let’s get out of here.” She wraps her arms around my neck and kisses the cusp of my jaw.

“So eager.”

“Please,” she begs softly, and my beast roars in my mind. That small word from her does things that nothing and no one else ever could. Valentina ready and willing is a different type of dangerous.

I capture her edible bottom lip with my teeth, tugging and sucking it into my mouth.

“Dígame (Tell me). What do I get if I do as you ask?” I cup the side of her face with my hand and place my thumb on her bottom lip pressing my ring into her skin. Now that I know she likes feeling it on her, I will never stop doing it.

Her tongue darts out to lick her lips and brushes lightly against my thumb.

“Everything.”

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A/N:

Day one in Spain is almost over for Val and Deo. Was dinner and a flamenco show a good idea?

At this point, they've known each other for about six weeks, but a good month of that was spent apart. If you've followed Her Wolf, you know I like to build up the relationship and I try not to rush the falling in love part. I hope you appreciate and trust my process. Let me know what you think in the comments.

xoxo