He stumbled away from his table, trying to find the woman—his mate—in the flow of pedestrians filling the footpath that ran between the café and the beach. He had to get to her. What the hell he was going to say, he didn’t know, but he had to get to her and, if nothing else, kiss her. And hope to all things holy that simple contact would quell the shift.
“Sonny, did you know you have a very large erection?” his ever-informative elderly neighbor asked on another raspy whisper, her voice somehow punching through his stunned disbelief.
Tyson blanched. He jerked his gaze back to her, down to his groin, to the bloody obvious hard-on tenting his cargoes, back to the woman. “Err…”
She smirked, and for an insane moment, she didn’t look old at all. Or duckish.
And then fresh fire razed Tyson’s flesh, licked at his balls, his groin, and he forgot about old ladies. Fresh fire accompanied by a bone-deep shudder, and he knew his Fire Mate had turned around. She was jogging back toward him.
Fast.
He bolted. Vaulting over chairs, tables and the café’s neat row of potted palms. There was a shocked shout from behind him, a few loud “what the hells”, a bray of stunned laughter—and then nothing.
Nothing but the thumping of his heart and the roaring of blood in his ears.
Bloody hell. He was about five minutes away from an uncontrolled and unwanted shift into dragon form, he was still fighting a mean case of heartburn and he was sporting an erection the size of a cricket bat. What a perfect first impression to make on the complete stranger he was going to kiss right here on the busy Bondi Beach foot—
He ran straight into her.
There was a muttered “Oof,” a growl, a warm and firm body pressed to his…and an explosion of heat over his flesh, through his body, into his soul.
Two wide, stunned blue eyes stared up at him.
“I’m sorry,” he ground out, “I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to—”
He crushed her lips with his. He kissed her and invaded her mouth and let the demand pounding through his body be consumed by her sweet, destined blaze.
A stranger’s tongue was in Sera’s mouth. In her mouth.
Holy smack, a stranger’s tongue was in her mouth, rolling and sliding over her tongue. A stranger was kissing her.
No, not just kissing her. He was fucking her mouth. Making goddamn love to her mouth with his tongue while something long and thick and wicked hard that was most likely an impressive erection poked at her belly, and while all this was happening, what was she doing?
Was she fighting him off? Was she pushing him away and kicking him in the balls? Was she letting Hannibal rip said kicked-in balls off?
No. She was standing there letting him. His tongue was practically playing with her tonsils and she wasn’t putting up a fight. Far from it. She was kissing him back. Her tongue was stroking his, her lips were parted and she was kissing him back big-time. Holy smack, she was even moaning.
What the hell was wrong with her? It was like she had lost control of herself the second the guy smacked into her. Shit, even her hands had strayed to his chest—his broad, hard, smooth chest that seemed to burn under his light-cotton shirt with a heat that should have screamed fever! But instead it made her pulse quicken, her body tremble and her tongue stroke his some more.
This had to be some random act of impulsive seduction. Like the guy in New York who gave out hugs, except this guy gave out mind-blowing, tonsil-stroking kisses. Had to be.
She had to stop him.
Except she didn’t. Someone else did.
“Hey, hey, hey,” a man barked to her right, a second before the tongue-fucking stranger was hauled backward. “There’s none of that here.”
Something growled. An animal. A big animal.
Sera snapped her gaze to Hannibal, but her cousin’s dog was just sitting at her heel, licking his balls.
She jerked her gaze back to her stranger—her stranger?—and almost let out a yelp.
She hadn’t gotten a good look at him before, just remembered a quick flash of hunky, dark yumminess a second before he slammed into her. Now he stood glaring at the cop still holding his arm, very much still hunky and yummy, with his dark, floppy hair, equally dark straight eyebrows and dark-dark eyes. Yummy, but also very much frightening. Menacing. Malevolent.
As dark and hunky and yummy as he was, he looked like he was about to rip the head off the cop who suddenly didn’t seem to appear as brave and determined and authoritarian as he had a second ago. Now the cop looked scared.
Scared of her stranger. The guy who had come out of nowhere, kissed her until she moaned and was currently glaring at the cop, nostrils flaring, chest heaving, growling in an utterly inhuman way that turned Sera’s pussy to liquid.
Oh God help her, she’d just French-kissed a psychopath. And was horny about it.
“Y-you can’t…” the cop stammered, stumbling back a step.
Her growling, nostril-flaring stranger sucked in a breath and swung his gaze back Sera. “I can smell your want.”
The claim was a low murmur through barely parted lips. His eyes seemed to glint, another growl rumbled in his chest and, with a shudder unlike any Sera had ever seen, he turned and sprinted away. Through the bustling footpath, toward the crowded sands of Australia’s most famous beach.
He didn’t slow. He didn’t deviate from his path. He ran straight for the water, stripping his shirt as he went and splashing into the surf. Still wearing his cargo shorts, he dove under the first breaking wave.
Gone.
Sera blinked.
Shook her head and blinked again.
Whoever he was, he didn’t emerge from the water. She scanned the waves.
