by Jenn Burke
Nassim gave his skull one last rub. “I’ll live. Would you like coffee?”
“I, uh….”
Nassim gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry. Yes, you like coffee.”
“Then, uh, yes. Please.”
Nassim turned to face the machine he’d placed on the countertop and straightened his back and shoulders as though he were prepping for war. A small bag of what Aidan assumed were coffee beans sat next to the machine—the coffee grinder? Nassim considered the grinder, then the bag, and then the grinder again.
“Problem?” Aidan ventured.
“I—” Nassim gave a small chuckle. “I don’t usually do this.”
“The coffee fairies do?”
That elicited a louder laugh. “No, uh….” He glanced at Aidan and hesitated. “My… my housekeeper.”
“Oh.”
“I gave her a few days off. I thought you could use a break from extra people.”
“Uh… yeah. Thanks.” Thoughtful. In a weird “I’m loaded” kind of way. But Aidan appreciated it nonetheless. “Want me to see if I can figure it out?”
Nassim stepped back and waved Aidan forward. “Be my guest.”
Aidan wasn’t even sure why he offered. How could he know how to work it? But as soon as he looked at the device, his fingers started moving—scooping up beans with a measuring cup, putting them in the grinder, grinding them, and measuring them out in the coffee maker, which he easily found tucked off to the side of the counter, unplugged.
So odd. He moved through each of the steps without fumbling. He hadn’t even needed to search for the coffee maker. He just knew it was there.
“Did I…? Um.” No, he wouldn’t ask. It was a stupid question anyway. When would he have visited Nassim’s apartment before? Even if he were an amazing employee—the best employee—a CEO wasn’t going to invite his assistant to his house. Unless, of course, he came down with a case of amnesia and needed a babysitter.
Silence descended on the kitchen, interrupted only by the burble of the coffee maker. Aidan crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the counter, and tried not to look at Nassim. His latest list item reverberated in his head, and the revelation seemed to have awakened parts he’d mostly ignored since he stepped out of the woods. He’d been glad one particular part was there, but now it was reminding him that it was there. And he didn’t even know what to think about to discourage any awkward… plumping.
“Did you sleep well?”
Aidan glanced up and fought to keep his breath steady and even. A worn, plain black T-shirt stretched tightly across Nassim’s chest, a chest Aidan knew was broad due to the size of the suit jacket Nassim had draped around him, but now he could see just how broad it was with his own eyes.
Would it be furry? A little or a lot? Would the hairs be dashed with silver like those on his head?
“Aidan?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. Great. Feeling good.”
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh. Definitely. Hey, did I mention that your place is really nice?” Aidan pushed away from the counter and walked around the center island and into the living space. “Really bright. Wow, those windows. What a view.”
Another item for his list, though he wasn’t going to race to his room to add it right then—he was a nervous talker. But at least he didn’t sound nervous. His voice was steady, calm, friendly. He wondered how many nerve-wracking situations he’d been in that he’d developed this skill.
Nassim’s living space was amazing, and not just because of the western wall made of glass. Aidan wasn’t sure what sort of furnishings he expected, although he wasn’t entirely sure what he expected. Not the comfy microfiber chairs, stuffed to the brim and looking like miniature peridot-colored clouds, or the solid hefty presence of the massive couch, its brown leather cushions as worn and comfortable-looking as Nassim’s T-shirt. A giant TV perched on one wall, but no wires or other electronics were visible. Its presence kind of clashed with the art on display, as though someone had set up an entertainment center in the middle of an art museum.
“You’ve got a great collection,” Aidan continued, eyeing the objets d’art positioned on pedestals here and there. Some were vases, some were crudely hewn stone figures, and still others were more refined sculptures that used newer materials, like steel or porcelain, and even plastic, maybe. Aidan couldn’t tell much beyond that. Each had its own lighting, and it was obvious they were all treasured.
Treasure—dragon. Ah, this was his hoard.
“I won’t touch them,” Aidan assured Nassim.
Nassim leaned against the staircase that extended to a second floor. “You could. If you wanted.”
Dragons don’t share. Aidan wasn’t sure where that thought came from, but it felt like a truth. Did the fact that Nassim would allow Aidan to touch his collection mean that this wasn’t his hoard? Or was he just a weird dragon?
One item in particular drew Aidan’s attention—a necklace made of thick plates of gold held together by small hinges. Its patina made Aidan wonder how old it was and why he felt like breaking his promise of just a moment ago to touch it.
“That’s a family heirloom,” Nassim explained. “The Kader torque.”
That wasn’t a term that existed in Aidan’s swiss-cheese memory, but he nodded as though he knew it. He redirected his attention. “What’s up there?” he asked, nodding at the stairs.
“My bedroom and office. Also the balcony.”
“You have a balcony?”
Nassim smiled. “I have a rooftop patio and a balcony.”
Multiple exquisite pieces of art. A two-story penthouse. A rooftop patio. State-of-the-art kitchen. Aidan didn’t need any more hints that Nassim was so far out of his league it wasn’t funny.
The coffee maker beeped to signal it was done brewing. Aidan started back toward the kitchen. “Coffee. Good. Can I get you a cup?”
“You don’t—”
“I’m your assistant, right? I get you coffee at work?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me see if I can get it right.”
Smiling, Aidan retrieved two mugs from the cupboard above the coffee maker. Though it would be nice to pretend it was his memory kicking in, in reality he knew where the mugs were due to logic—as close to the coffee maker as possible. He poured out two cups and put the carafe back.
And waited for inspiration to hit.
Steam curled up from each mug, teasing Aidan with the aroma of the brew, but it didn’t trigger anything—no memories, no unconscious actions. The optimism Aidan felt all morning wilted.
“Aid—”
“No.” Aidan gripped the counter and refused to look behind him.
Nassim’s voice was soft, almost tentative. “You don’t need to—”
“I can do this.” Fake it ’til you make it. He wasn’t sure where that saying came from, but it was a good philosophy. “Two sugars, one cream, right?”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me you put something weird in your coffee.” Aidan tried to make light of it, but his voice, the unfamiliar voice that was so confident moments before, shook. “No, you take it black.”
“No.”
“Fuck.” God, this wasn’t worth that sort of language. “Sorry. I, uh… I’m going to go have a shower.”
“One sugar, one milk.”
Goddammit. “I didn’t want you to tell me.” And why was his nose running? He sniffed and brushed his arm against it.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
Suddenly Nassim was there, encouraging him to turn around. He moved his hands in a weird sort of gesture, as though he didn’t know what to do with them, where to place them. His fists clenched and relaxed, and he let his hands fall to his sides.
“It’s okay,” he repeated.
“Don’t.” Aidan pressed his back against the counter and hugged his chest.
“It’s inconsequential. Not important.”
“You don’t get it.” A
idan closed his eyes as the reason for his disappointment made itself clear. He swiped a hand across his nose. “You’re right. It’s small, it means nothing—except it means everything.”
Nassim cupped his shoulder, a comforting touch, but not one Aidan should lean into or anything. But God, that wasn’t easy to avoid. “Aidan, you—”
“It would have been something,” Aidan breathed. “Something little, sure, but something. But no. There’s still nothing, and I… I don’t—” He shook his head.
“Things will come back.”
Aidan sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m going to go have a shower. Excuse me.”
Nassim didn’t say anything as he left the kitchen, and Aidan wasn’t sure if he was glad for that or not.
AIDAN’S apartment building was not as impressive as Nassim’s.
The cracked tiles in the entryway and the lack of any sort of building security were his first clues that he lived in a not-so-great location. The slight sour stench of urine in the hallway outside his third-floor apartment was another.
Nassim’s scowl had only deepened the farther they ventured into the building. Aidan didn’t know if the smells offended his dragon nose or if he hated the color of the walls—a yellowed white, with peeling spots that revealed an ugly slime green underneath. Maybe both.
Probably both.
He used the key the office had given him. It took some effort—the lock stuck. Finally it burst free of the jamb, and Aidan got a first look at the place he called home.
It was clean. He could say that, at least. The aged, tiny kitchen was the first thing he saw, and it had no plates on the counter or in the sink. There was no evidence that he was the type to leave food out. A good practice in a place like this. Exposed food would just invite vermin. Ugh.
There was no room for a table in the kitchen and barely room for the oven and stove. No dishwasher. The counter edges were chipped, another indication that it had been decades since the building was updated.
The walls were off-white, but not yellowed like the hallway. The floor was linoleum, worn but not peeling, so that was something. There was a medium-sized flat-screen TV on a low stand facing a lumpy couch and scarred coffee table. A throw rug delineated that space as the living room—at least that’s what Aidan assumed the throw rug was trying to do. It matched the furnishings in level of quality, which was to say it was cheap-looking.
God, if he’d known this was what he would walk into, he would have asked Nassim to wait in his fancy, too-nice-for-this-area car.
“Do you recognize this place?” Aidan hadn’t thought Nassim’s scowl could get any deeper, but he was wrong. His tone suggested that even if Aidan did, he shouldn’t.
“Not a bit of it.” Aidan sighed. On the way over, he hadn’t voiced his hope that something would click when he saw his home, but now that it hadn’t, he was disappointed.
“It seems… rather impersonal,” Nassim observed as he wandered around the small—very small—space. “Your fridge has no magnets.”
Aidan eyed the avocado-colored appliance. Nassim was right. The metal was bare of magnets or papers, which… didn’t feel right. Aidan liked his lists. He hadn’t been able to leave the guest room at Nassim’s without writing down a new item on his list of Aidan Bishop characteristics.
I’m a coward.
Thinking about that line made him squirm inside, and he didn’t know if it was because it was too right or too wrong. Either way, it was what he’d felt at the time. He’d left the kitchen instead of talking stuff out with Nassim. Not only that, he’d refused to even consider what his attraction to Nassim might mean. Where it might go.
Those two things didn’t sit well with him. At all. But he didn’t know if he was strong enough to confront his fears.
“No pictures either.”
Aidan turned his attention back to Nassim. “Loner, remember?”
Nassim made a noncommittal sound. “Perhaps. But there’s no art of any sort on your walls. Not even a band poster.”
“Maybe I don’t like music.”
Nassim opened his mouth but shut it before saying anything, which piqued Aidan’s curiosity.
“What?”
“You like music.”
Aidan frowned. Why would Nassim hesitate over sharing that? “Yeah?”
“You went to a Twenty One Pilots concert a few weeks ago.”
The name of the band didn’t ring any bells. “Really? With who?”
“Oh, I—I don’t know.” Nassim waved a hand. “Why don’t you check out your bedroom? I’ll have a look out here.”
Was Nassim… flustered? Why? Was he embarrassed that he brought up the concert but couldn’t give Aidan any good information about it? With a sigh and a shake of his head, Aidan headed down the hall.
He stopped in the bathroom first. The toilet and tub looked about as old as the appliances in the kitchen and were also 1970s avocado green. Yuck. A quick examination of the medicine cabinet revealed nothing but over-the-counter painkillers and toothpaste. No prescriptions, which was good. He was glad to know he wasn’t missing any meds.
The first sign that someone lived in this apartment—that he lived in this apartment—was the mussed bedcovers. Cheap venetian blinds covered the single window, but they did an adequate job of darkening the room. Aidan drew them up so the sun could help illuminate what the shitty overhead light could not.
The room held the rumpled double bed—no wonder the queen-size at Nassim’s place felt so big—and a single dresser. A laptop sat on the nightstand, along with a phone charger. His phone was long gone, though Nassim had assured him he would get a replacement at work. One less thing to worry about.
Aidan smoothed the hunter-green comforter—again, not as nice as the duvet on Nassim’s guest bed, but he supposed it would do the job to keep him warm at night—and sat down. He pulled the computer onto his lap, lifted the lid, and pressed the power key.
Wonder of wonders, it had no password.
“Bad Past-Aidan,” he muttered. “But thank you.”
Getting into his mail was no problem. As he waited for it to load, he couldn’t help the wriggle of excitement. Maybe there’d be an email from the friend he met on Monday after work. A clue. Something to give him a hint.
His inbox was empty. So was his sent folder and his trash too. There was a single message in his spam, but even without his memory, he wasn’t dumb enough to think he was related to a Nigerian prince. He deleted it and closed the application.
He opened the internet browser. It had no bookmarks, no social media, no favorite sites. That was weird, right? People used bookmarks. He went into the browser’s history.
Aidan tilted his head to the side as he regarded the explicit picture he’d apparently viewed sometime recently. He could see all the different parts of the two men, but he wasn’t sure what belonged to whom. Shaking his head, he selected the next entry in the history, an article on a local newspaper’s site that talked about Tuninas Software’s latest acquisition. The details didn’t really mean much to Aidan, though he noted Nassim’s name appeared more than once.
The next entry in the history was porn again, this time a GIF. If the description on the web page was anything to go by, it was a GIF featuring a dragon pounding his massive erection into another guy’s ass. The bottom didn’t look like he minded one minute, and the dragon….
Looked kind of like Nassim.
It wasn’t, but the surface similarities were there—bronze skin, dark hair, intense eyes that flared with dragonfire. Sweat poured down the bottom’s face, and Aidan wondered if that was from exertion or the body temperature of the being behind him.
Whatever. The entire scenario was hot as fuck—the dazed, amazed, overwhelmed expression on the bottom’s face, the possessive glower on the dragon’s.
Well… that answered one thing. His attraction to Nassim was not new.
But that raised other questions, like why hadn’t he pursued anything before? Was it the boss-assistant thing?
Probably. It was an imbalanced dynamic, and his current situation had made the power gap worse.
He should not be thinking about Nassim like this. No matter how badly he wanted to be in the bottom’s position, taking those powerful thrusts from a powerful creature. Aidan’s dick perked up at the thought. He needed to close the browser, and not watch it again.
But the dragon just kept going and going….
“Everything okay?”
Aidan slammed the laptop closed. “Yep!”
“You’re flushed.”
Oh shit. What if Nassim could smell arousal? Were dragons’ senses that sharp? “It’s, uh… kind of emotional. You know?”
“Sure.” Nassim’s face was mostly blank, and Aidan didn’t know what that meant. Did he know that Aidan’s dick was hard as a rock under the laptop or not?
Not. Please not.
“Did you find anything on the computer?”
“Nothing helpful.” Not helpful, no, but Aidan already knew he’d be viewing that GIF again. And maybe trying to find the whole video. He cleared his throat. “You?”
“You have a weakness for sci-fi.”
“I do?”
“Under the TV I found DVDs of all the classic sci-fi movies—Star Wars, Star Trek. Oh, and the complete collection of Firefly. Plus Doctor Who, Knight Rider, Battlestar Galactica, and something called Alien Nation.”
“No shit,” Aidan breathed. “I’m a geek?”
“I already knew that,” Nassim said. “You’ve got a geek collection at work. I just didn’t know how deep that particular streak ran. There are books there too—Asimov, Clarke, and I think the entire extended Star Wars universe. Plus a Kindle. I didn’t look to see what books you had on it.”
“Wow.” Aidan considered that news to see how it fit into the puzzle he was slowly piecing together. He wasn’t sure, probably because he only had the barest of flashes of knowledge when Nassim mentioned each of the movies and authors. Like Asimov—he knew that was Isaac Asimov and that he was a prolific author, a father of modern science fiction, but he had no idea what he wrote or why it was considered classic.
