Mated to the Ocean Dragon (Elemental Mates 3)

And if he makes me face his fire dragon, then he can face my Loki...

Chapter Ten: Timothy

He’d only just settled on the deck with a cup of coffee in his hand, another one ready for Liana, when she appeared at the other end of the wooden walkway.

She gave him a delighted little wave when she saw him. The sun was shining, her bare arms gleaming a warm, golden brown, the wind playing with her braids which were freed from the bun. Every time she moved, Timothy could see her luscious breasts shift beneath the tight shirt she wore. He had to swallow and force himself not to stare too blatantly.

She was irresistible. Her entire body was calling out to him. Just seeing her hips sway as she came towards him, dressed in simple jeans and a t-shirt with a comics print, made his body throb with hunger.

He wanted to make her his. He needed to make her his. Now that he’d found her, losing her seemed impossible. Even though they’d done nothing more than kiss, she’d felt so right in his arms.

And not only was she stunningly gorgeous, she also wasn’t intimidated by their fire dragon prisoner. Furthermore, she was smart—smarter than Timothy himself when it came to what made computers tick.

How was he supposed to woo her?

She had a job she loved in the city. She had people she cared for. She was sexy and intelligent.

And then he’d come bursting in. First he’d nearly gotten her killed, then he’d swept her away to his little island where there were no nightclubs and just one single bar on the beach.

Everyone who lived on Wing Island knew each other. It might look like an expensive island resort from the outside, but living here was like living in a small town.

Could someone like Liana be happy here?

We could always stay in the city and come out here on the weekends, he told himself.

But even the thought was enough to make his dragon shift restlessly. And while it was true that Timothy liked traveling, and that he sometimes spent weeks at a time in a different city, his heart had always pulled him back here, to the ocean. To his home.

He’d never much thought about what would happen once he found his mate. But now that it had happened at last, he realized that he’d always assumed they’d build a life here, with shared mornings and evenings with the sound of the waves lapping at the shore.

“This is incredible.” Liana’s face was lit by an overwhelmed smile as she joined him. “Look at the sun. Was it supposed to get that warm this week? I barely ever look at the forecast—I know it sounds sad, but I spend most of my days hunched over my keyboard at work.”

“We get a lot of sun out here,” Timothy said, then admitted, “I give rainclouds a little nudge if they appear. After all, it doesn’t hurt anyone if they let go a few miles further inland instead.”

“Sneaky.” Liana grinned at him. “I would have expected nothing else.”

“I do make sure our peninsula gets enough water,” he added. “I promise that no trees are dying because of my selfish desire to let people enjoy our beaches.”

With a sigh, Liana leaned back and stretched, looking out at the ocean spreading beyond their deck.

“This place is gorgeous. If I had a home here, I’d never, ever leave.”

“The city has a few things going for it—” he pointed out.

In return, Liana laughed. “Like my workplace? Yeah, there’s that. But all I need to work is my laptop and an internet connection. I’ve always wanted to just take two weeks off and rent a lonely little house by the beach, log into work during the day and go for swims in the morning, evening and during my lunch break...”

“Why’d you never do it?” he asked curiously.

She shrugged. “I don’t make a lot—not compared to our senior programmers. Still, I would have been able to save up for it. But I like the security of having some money left in my bank account, just in case of an emergency. We grew up poor, and I guess that just leaves you always expecting you’ll end up like that again. It still feels so irresponsible to spend money on myself. It’s bad enough that I spend money on games and comics and movies, you know? It just makes me feel so wasteful. When I grew up, my mom could barely make rent.

My sister’s the smart one in the family. She worked so hard. She put herself through law school—which, even with a scholarship, made her basically work day and night. And when she’d made it and got her first real job as an actual lawyer, she kept working super hard on her career while also supporting me. Without her, I’d never have made it through college. I’m not a wunderkind like her. Not a smart lawyer. Just a geeky girl who likes her games too much. Sometimes I feel like I should have repaid her by becoming a doctor or something—”

“I think your sister loves you very much,” Timothy said earnestly, “and she knows that you love your job. You’re happy. It sounds like you’ve built a good life for yourself. Being a doctor, helping people, is an amazing talent—but you help people too, in your own way. You make them happy. And just by being yourself, you show other girls that their dreams can come true, too.”

“The dream of being an eternally single, geeky programmer,” Liana sighed, but there was a thoughtful look on her face as she watched him. She played with one of her braids. Then she gave him a warm smile. “Thanks for listening to all of that. I didn’t really think you’d be the type to just listen when I first met you.”

“Hey, just because you thought I was a shallow billionaire playboy—”

“Oh, I never thought that,” she murmured teasingly, her voice low. “I’ve met shallow. I could tell you weren’t—from that very first moment.”