Nella kissed a dragon.

His scales rippled like sapphires. Orange spikes lent him menace. His eyes burned red like a lithium flame.

She pressed her lips along his scaly armor but found her tender explorations interrupted. Though Nella kissed a dragon, a man was kissing her back.

Whether the dragon tattooed on the man's shoulder had a name, she did not know, but the man's name was Baz. Around campus, he was known as Sexy Tat Guy, on account of his trendy tattoo shop in the downtown area. And on account of him being so freakin' hot.

In all the ways.

His touch scorched her skin as his fingers stroked her lower back beneath the hem of her shirt, and his breath fired in her ear as he kissed down her temple, then across her cheek, meandering to her lips. She abandoned exploring his tattoo and yielded her mouth to his.

The thrust of his tongue bar shocked.

Even though she'd been kissing him on and off for an hour, she gasped. The tongue bar was a new experience, and her mind leaped ahead to other potential scenarios with that particular piece of jewelry.

God. Baz the Sexy Tat Guy would be the real deal in bed because he made out like it was his favorite pastime.

Nella sighed into his mouth and reminded herself she hadn't invited him home to go to bed.

Okay, who was she kidding? Possibly, she had invited him home to go to bed.

But first... she wanted to share a secret with him.

In order to do that, she had to stop trying to swallow his tongue. Regretfully, she did so, pushing against his chest as she broke the kiss. Baz released his hold on her. Somewhat to her surprise, he retrieved his shirt from the couch cushions and put it back on.

"That was fun." His voice lilted with ease.

Fun? Nella thought. That was fantastic. That was flawless.

"Fun," she repeated in a daze. "Um... thanks for showing me your tattoos."

He gave her a devilish grin. "My pleasure. I doubt anyone has ever said that and meant it as much as I do right now."

Sexy and witty. Likes to read. Co-owns his own family business. And that tongue piercing. Too good to be true.

"I should probably tell you..." She traced the scaly blue tail that extended down Baz's bicep from beneath his t-shirt. "I've never done this before. You'll be the first."

His icy blue eyes widened. He bit his lip, trying to hold back a smirk, stretching an arm to the back of the couch. "As honored as I would be to be your first, I thought I was here about a book..."

Nella pushed at his chest. "You are not my first hook-up. I've had... plenty."

"Plenty" might be an exaggeration, but hooking up wasn't the issue wrecking her nerves right now. Showing him her story was the scary part. Her blood danced with fever, her emotions warring, her decision wavering. Was she absolutely sure she wanted to let Baz into her most private sanctum—her dragon world?

While she debated internally, Baz stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles, examining his shoes. "Plenty of hook-ups, huh? You sure know how to take the pressure off, yet simultaneously raise the bar..."

The gentleness of his tone made Nella amend her words. "Well, not that many. Not like... vast numbers or anything... I mean... don't feel... intimidated..."

"Darlin', I'm not intimidated." He clicked the tongue bar against his teeth. Then again, for emphasis. She blushed. He chuckled, but the sound was more sexy than sweet.

"Neither am I." She felt like it had to be said, even if it wasn't entirely true.

"Right. Like you said, you've done this plenty," he grinned as he scratched his close-cropped beard. "As for me... I'd love to see that book."

"A story is not a book unless it's published. What I'm going to show you, I have no plan to publish. It's just a manuscript. I've never shown it to anyone."

Nella's heart pounded, and not just from their making out. She was nervous to share her most closely guarded secret, but her gut told her Baz was the right person.

He was still giving her the heated gaze. "I'm ready whenever you are."

The manuscript was in the black leather trunk that served as Nella's coffee table, in front of the couch where they sat. Clearing away some books, she unlatched the trunk, ignoring the quaking inside. It was terrifying—the idea of anyone reading Rindlewinn.

Her dragons. Her world. Her words. Her refuge.

Nella shook her head and clawed the latches back in place.

"You know what? Forget the story. It's silly. We can do the other thing."

Sexy Tat Guy looked even sexier slightly confused. "What other thing? You mean bake cookies?"

Dammit, she had promised him cookies while he read the first few chapters, hadn't she? Why did she get big ideas to bake after a few drinks?

In all honesty, she knew why. There was a reason behind her drunk baking, but she didn't want to think about that reason now. Right now, she had a hunger in her that a cookie couldn't cut.

"The other other thing." She aimed for husky as she whispered.

His eyes darkened with desire, but his voice was even. "Ah. That thing that you've done before? Plenty of times?"

"Yeah. Let's do that..."

She straddled him and kissed him hard, but beneath her ardor, Baz's kisses turned to slow honey. Sweet and stuck.

He slid her off his lap and nestled her beside him, leaning a muscular arm on the back of her sofa while searching her face.

"Let's talk a minute."

Really? They'd talked for three hours.

While Baz figured out what he wanted to say, Nella enjoyed his hotness. Glossy brown hair waved back from his forehead in a smooth undercut, and his face was well-framed with strong brows and a neat beard. His eyes were icy-light but warmed by intelligence. A cohesive sleeve of tats completed him.

He twirled a lock of her hair. "You know how you said I would be the first person to see your manuscript? Tonight is a first for me, too. Never talked a sober chic out of getting inked before."

Nella felt herself flush. He'd probably never had to. Most people think at length about getting a tattoo. They didn't do what Nella did... walk into a tat shop on a whim, minutes before closing, with no idea what they wanted, deciding on a quote scratched down the moment it came to mind.

"I was in a weird mood." Because work on her graduate thesis had been tedious and unproductive. Because her worst frenemy had called her writing predictable one too many times. Because she wasn't sure what kind of writer she was supposed to be, and she was itching to break out of her metaphorical box and try something new, something out of character.

Like get a tattoo.

Maybe reckless described her mood better than weird, but either way, her mood had improved almost the minute she'd walked into Baz's shop. He put her at ease at once by recognizing the quote she had scribbled down and chatting easily while she filled out the paperwork. Paperwork that ended up being unnecessary, thanks to Baz.

"I could tell you were in a weird place. That's why I suggested my try-it-before-you-buy-it program."

Baz took her hand, merging their fingers, extending their arms as if they were old-fashioned dance partners. With a pointer finger, he traced his temporary work on her inner forearm.

She examined the bold script he'd drawn with a Sharpie.

It was a quote by her favorite fantasy author, J. R. R. Tolkien.

There cannot be any story without a fall.

She'd been sober when Baz started drawing it out in the tattoo chair, but happily buzzed by the time he finished it at the bar next to the tat shop, three hours later. He took breaks, what with all the drinking and flirting and discussion of their favorite books.

"So what do you think?" he asked.

Baz had done beautiful calligraphy, but she already disliked the prominent size and placement she had insisted upon. Not to mention the quote itself. Good writing advice perhaps, but sinking into her skin as a shade too pessimistic for a mantra.

"I think... maybe you are right about the quote."

In the bar, Baz had declared the quote wasn't quite right. Stories weren't about the fall. They were about the wings one found to survive it.

"So you don't want to make it permanent?"

"No," she admitted.

Baz the Sexy Tat Guy nodded. "Yeah, I figured." He played with her fingers. "You know what? I don't wanna go home, Nella, but I don't want you to regret anything between us. Not my ink or... anything else. And you were sober when I met you tonight, but now... I'm not so sure. So maybe we hang out and wait for the sun to rise? Yeah?"

Nella watched their fingers playing together. This man was kind of gorgeous, and it had nothing to do with his looks.

"Well, I do have an excellent view," she smiled.

"I think I have the excellent view," he touched her cheek. "In the meantime, show me your dragons, girl."

"I believe I promised you dragons and snickerdoodles, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did mention cookies. And I am starvin'..."

He pressed a soft kiss to her temple, and she breathed him in. He smelled like ink and desire. She had never caught a scent so powerfully attractive as this man in this moment. Everything about her wanted to say yes to everything about him.

"Well, I am a woman of my word. So..." She opened the lid of the trunk and pulled her manuscript from it.

She had trusted no one with what she was about to show Baz. It was her imaginary world dreamed up in childhood. Her first story begun so long ago she couldn't remember when, expanded to a novel-sized manuscript in high school, revised and rewritten too many times to count. She had never talked about it, never typed it into a word program.

It was not meant for public consumption. Somewhere early in college, she'd decided her goal was to write literary fiction. This was not that. This was a fantasy. This was a child's attempt to escape a painful reality. Nella wasn't that child anymore, and this wasn't written by the writer she'd spent her college and graduate years trying to become.

Yet, the dreamer who wrote it still lived inside her.

She looked down at the book she cradled on her knees. A firstborn babe, swaddled in purple tapestry with golden stars. She'd taken a seminar in college to learn how to bind a book, and she'd crafted this one with care. Each page of parchment carefully torn and weathered at its edges, each sentence written in neat, archival ink. The first letter of each new chapter stamped in medieval drop cap.

Inside unfolded the tale of Princess Indaghia, a dragon shifter—the last ruling member of her line. The story of Rindlewinn was the story of Indahgia's quest to regain lost magic and shield her people from the most fearsome enemies of all—humans and their mechanical war machines.

"You're wrong," Baz objected as he admired the craftsmanship that sat on her bouncing knees. "That's a book. That's a beautiful book. You did that yourself?"

"From cover to cover," she murmured.

Now, for the first time, Nella placed Rindlewinn in someone else's grasp. Baz received it with reverent hands, but before he could open it, she jumped to her feet and strode into the kitchen.

"Hey, wait—"

"Go ahead. I'll get started on the cookies." No way could she sit still, watching his expressions while he read. She would die by degrees with every twitch of his brow.

Baz read. Nella baked.

So deep in the night they were near dawn, as she plated warm cookies, Baz wandered into the kitchen, his nose still stuck in the handmade book. He embraced her from behind with one hand, holding the book in the other, still reading.

She sucked in a breath, her desire bursting back into brightness. She snaked a cookie over her shoulder, and he wrapped his hand around her wrist, guiding it. He ate it from her fingers, still reading.

"Your story is addictive, Nella," he murmured into her hair.

Nella felt a flood of anxiety release into something much more pleasant.

"You like it?"

"I more than like it. I can see it. Rindlewinn is a place I could get inside of and stay awhile. With you."

He snapped the book closed, tucked it under his arm, and pulled her around to face him. Their caresses became less careful and more magical. Soon they were lying in her bed, feeding one another as Baz read aloud and Nella covered her eyes, but not her ears, against her own words.

"Beautiful," Baz said as the sky outside began to lighten, but he didn't mean her words. The cookies consumed and the book discarded, they found themselves bare chest to bare chest, hearts roaring.

"Sober now?" he asked between kisses.

"Mmm-hmm," she murmured into his mouth.

"And you want this? You're sure?"

"Mmm-hmm."

He groaned as she tugged at his jeans. "Can you use words to say so, darlin'? Coherent and complicated ones?"

She put her hands on his chest while she considered. Was she sure? Really sure?

Baz was a big detour in her night. That was for sure. She hadn't planned on ending up in bed with the guy who worked in the tattoo shop downtown. But detours, she reminded herself, weren't any big deal. They were side trips, bringing you right back where you started. Detours were not mapped in indelible ink. They were pencil marks on the map of someone's life. If Baz wasn't as awesome in the morning, she could erase this. She could chalk it up to lust. To his overwhelming attractiveness. To his charm. To his tattoo.

The dragon made me do it.

She smiled at the thought, but Baz was not smiling. He was watching her carefully, waiting for her consent.

She gave it instead to his bold familiar.

"What's your name, Gorgeous Creature?" she said as she stroked the scaly creature on his shoulder. "Can you talk to Baz for me? Tell him I'm a woman in charge of what she wants, and I want him. He doesn't have to worry. He can be fearless with me, like you would be."

She kissed across the brilliant blue dragon, then nipped at his throat—which ran the length of Baz's collarbone.

Baz's groan was his surrender and her victory.

"That's it." His words blew hot in Nella's ear. "You tease the dragon, and you're definitely getting fucked."

Baz's tats became a maelstrom in her vision as he rolled her beneath him. A kaleidoscope of scales and wings flashed like blue lightning as he bathed her in his fire.