“Come dance with me.” It sounded like a command.
But I’d had enough of being a well trained dog tonight and making him look good, only for him to get that icy stare in his eyes and look at me like I was somehow doing it wrong.
“No,” I said. I drained my glass of wine and stared at the lavish centerpiece of orchids and roses. “I don’t want to dance.”
“Why not?” Justin said, unsmiling. “Isn’t it your job? Yes, I think it is.”
“Why are you being such an asshole?” I snapped. “You’re getting everything you want. It’s working. All anyone is talking about tonight is how your board gave you a vote of full confidence. Your stock is up. What more do you want?”
“What do I want?” Justin sneered at me as if I was the dumbest woman alive. “Doesn’t matter what I want. I’m rich and powerful and I can’t have it.” With that, he stalked off.
I was pissed. I followed him as he shoved through the crowd. He was heading out of the banquet hall to the hotel lobby. I was a little slower, wearing heels, and even that pissed me off now as I followed after him. I watched him huffily pace in a circle like a caged tiger and then he stomped off to the elevator and pounded the button to go up
“Where are you going?” I said.
“Leave me alone,” he said, all but growling. “I need some damn air.”
I wondered if this was the asshole CEO playboy I’d always heard about. Maybe this was the real Justin, the one I’d always rightly hated. Perhaps he’d only been on good behaviour this whole time and now he was showing me who he truly was. The elevator doors slid open and he stepped inside, looking away from me. At the last second, I slipped inside with him.
“What are you doing?” He pressed the button to open the doors again but the elevator was already moving. “Did I look like I wanted you to come with me?”
“You don’t own this elevator, asshole,” I snapped. “One of the few things you don’t own, I guess.”
We were both fuming and yet I felt as if some piece was missing. I couldn’t understand what Justin had to be angry about and he was looking at me like I’d killed his cat. I hadn’t even looked at what floor Justin was going to. I only stared at the wall, silently huffing, hearing him breathe next to me. On some level, I think I just didn’t want to be away from him, even as angry as I was. I was pissed and yet the sound of his beating heart seemed loud, and I could feel his dragon’s fire radiating off his body. To feel that means you’ve really become close to another dragon. It was comforting somehow but I still clenched my fists and glared.
The doors parted and Justin walked out to the roof where it was raining and windy. The rooftop of the The Palace Hotel was like a larger version of Justin’s roof except without the garden and dragon perches. But there was a pool and patios. No one was out there now, since they would’ve gotten soaked pretty quickly. But I hardly noticed and Justin didn’t seem to care either. All the better. We could be alone in our anger toward each other. I felt like we’d just been waiting to have it out.
“Why are you following me!” Justin exploded, spinning around to face me. “What do you care! Don’t I look like I want to be alone! You’ll get your money! Do you want it now! I didn’t bring my checkbook!”
“Why are you being such an asshole!” I screamed back at him. I shuddered in the cold. The rain was going to ruin my gown and my hair was already wet but I didn’t care.
“I’m being an asshole!” Justin said, throwing up his hands. “Really? You’re the one who kept reminding me how we’re pretending, like we’re just pretending, right?”
“You haven’t said otherwise!” I shouted. I was somehow simultaneously turned on and pissed off, the fire of my dragon roaring up within me. I felt myself wanting to shift as we stood there on the roof and I clenched my fists. “Why would you care! You’ve got everything! Tell me what you want that you don’t have! I’ve got nothing!”
“How can you say that?” Justin said, all but growling. I saw his eyes flash, he was starting to shift involuntarily. We were inches away and I didn’t know if I wanted to shove him or kiss him. “All I want is…”
“What!” I said, screaming over the howling rain. “What do you want!”
“You want to hear me say it?” He said, baring his teeth. “You want to hear me say it so you can throw it in my face!”
“Yes!” I shoved him and his eyes flashed again and all at once he shifted.
I gasped and jumped back, watching Justin quickly transform into a huge male dragon. As angry as I was, it was hard not to appreciate his beauty. His scales were silver and red, one color fading into another in a kind of ombre pattern. He whipped his huge head away from me and reared back, knocking over patio chairs and tables and I stepped back as he spread his wings.
Now I was angry again. We’d been having it out and he was just going to run off?
Typical guy.
I watched the ripple of Justin’s muscles beneath his scales and he threw his head back and rasped a howl before taking off into the dark night, his massive wings flapping as he flew away from the hotel and down toward the park.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I grumbled, and I shifted.
Some shifters feel like shifting is a pleasant stretching of the muscles. I’d always felt like shifting into my dragon self was like tearing off a fake layer of skin to reveal the real one underneath. It also hurt but in a way that kind of felt good too. My bronze scales shimmered as my dragon body reared and I howled into the rain. That felt even better. There was something so cathartic about screaming my rage and general upset into the night. I took a running leap and spread my wings, soaring up into the night sky after Justin. There was no question as to whether or not I would follow him. Of course, I would. And I could tell myself it was because I was just angry and I wanted him to face me. But it was more than that.
I wanted him. He was for me. He was my mate. If he was upset and flying off into the night, of course I was going to follow. There was no question. I might have been angry but still, I was hopelessly, in love.
The rain whipped my scales like tiny bullets but it felt good, a pleasant freezing sting as I soared like a rocket after Justin. I could see him up ahead and I screeched after him, trying to get his attention. He glanced back at me, glowering. He breathed a little billow of fire which, in dragon terms, is sort of like yelling back at somebody. This is how dragons have a little fight.
Justin kept me chasing after him. He was fast and obviously very strong but I pushed myself, flying after him with everything I had until I was nose to tail and I breathed a billow of fire back at him, a kind of warning shot. Justin howled and then dove in a feint toward Central Park. It wasn’t very late yet. Anyone who happened to be looking in our direction would have seen a blur of two big dragons diving into the trees. Justin landed hard on the ground, and he shifted as he whipped around to look at me. I landed and shifted back and we stood there, facing each other, breathless and riled up.
“Why can’t you leave me alone!” Justin shouted in my face.
I shoved him back. “You didn’t tell me what you want! Tell me! What do you want, Justin!”
The rain was still falling and the wind blowing whipped it, the two of us soaked to the skin in our fancy clothes, I watched a rain drop slide down Justin’s cheek and curve around his lips and I wanted to kiss him so badly it was physically painful.
“I want you!” Justin said, his voice now deep and thunderous. “I want you to be mine! My mate! My everything!”
I was breathless with astonishment, utterly unable to speak. I thought I might be hearing things. Justin stomped over to me and gripped my bare shoulders, shaking his head, his eyes dark and wide. “I want you, Nicole. How do you not see that? I want you for real and forever. For me. Mine. My mate-”
I ducked forward and kissed him, the fire inside me raging and we were all over each other. Justin’s kiss was somehow hot even in the cold of the rain and wind. It was his fire, I was sure of it. It was maki
ng him warm. The thought turned me on. His mouth covered mine as his strong arms wrapped around me and we were both whimpering, in a kind of agony of want and desperation.
I broke away long enough to look into his eyes. I was in a daze but I needed to see what he was feeling, make sure I wasn’t just hearing what I wanted to hear.
His expression was entirely different now. He was looking at me with naked adoration. It was as if he’d been wearing a mask all along and now he had finally taken it off. I felt his heartbeat against mine as he gazed at me, his lips parted, the rain beating down on us.
“I love you,” he said. “Nicole, I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said, holding him yet tighter. “I love you so much, Justin.”
We kissed each other again and it all happened in a blur. The rain beat down but we barely felt it there in the darkness of the park, in the long wet grass. We collapsed to the ground, a tangle of limbs and Justin pushed up my gown and unzipped his fly. I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him closer, wanting him heavy on top of me. We couldn’t seem to get close enough, the two of us melting into each other. My clit throbbed with need and all at once he plunged into me, big and hard and unrelenting in the best way.
“My mate,” he said, panting, staring down at me with such love in his eyes. “Are you?” He breathed. “Are you mine?”
I couldn’t answer because I couldn’t speak. Justin was filling me up and that connection between us, that merging into one that had happened up in the vault was happening again except now it was even fuller and more ecstatic a feeling because there was no doubt anymore. There was no fear and no uncertainty. We belonged to each other and we both knew.
“Yes,” I breathed. “Yes, I’m yours. Justin, I’m yours always.” I felt tears sliding down my cheeks and Justin cried out, thrusting in and out of me as we clutched each other on the slick, muddy grass in Central Park under the moonlight, the fires of our dragons entwining. “Please,” I said, sobbing now, on the peak of pleasure but unwilling to fall over it yet. “Please, don’t ever doubt me, baby. Please don’t ever doubt me!”
It had never happened to me before but now we were both coming, Justin pulsing inside of me as electricity rolled through my body like lightning. We were in full human form and yet in that moment I felt just as much like a dragon as I ever had. Me and my mate; joined together.
We came down from our euphoric high but I kept myself wrapped up in Justin, unwilling to let him go. I’d already run from him once and let him walk away too many times. I wasn’t letting him go again, or at least I was a little bit hysterical, wanting to lie there with him for as long as possible.
“I thought you hated me,” Justin said, still catching his breath as he gazed down at me. He stroked my cheek and kissed the corner of my mouth.
“I thought you didn’t want me,” I said, whimpering a little. But that was alright. For once, I really didn’t care about giving myself away. “I mean for sex but-”
“No,” Justin said fiercely. “I mean yes, I love being with you. But...so much more than that. I feel like I knew you were mine before I could admit it to myself. And I never thought you’d feel the same.”
“You’re not just my mate,” I said, reaching up to push back his wet hair. His eyes were red. I think he was crying too though it was difficult to tell in the rain. “You’re my soulmate. I feel like we’re part of each other. Do you feel that too?”
“Yes, sweetheart.” He kissed me softly and we lay there, a soaking, sated mess in the grass in the middle of Central Park.
The rain stopped and I snuggled up to Justin, unwilling to move. We ended up falling asleep there in the grass, curled into each other. We didn’t mean to, we were just so exhausted and sated. I was wearing an evening gown and lying on cold, wet grass and yet I’d never been so content in my life, secure now in the knowledge that this was true love between the two of us.
Morning dawned and we stirred. We chuckled when we caught each other’s eyes and realized what had happened. It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d done in years. It was a wild reckless thing. But at least I knew that Justin’s people would have taken perfect care of Tyler overnight. Eventually Justin sat up, smoothing down my gown. He looked down at me and chuckled, tugging gently on my hand to help me sit up as he smoothed my gown. We stretched, sore and achy in the most satisfying way, even if we were a little unpleasantly sticky and still quite damp as the sun rose over Central Park.
“Look at us,” he muttered. “Flying around New York and fucking in the park? Sleeping in the park? I’m supposed to be settled now.”
“Yeah, well this is as settled as you’re gonna get with me around,” I said, leaning over to bite his shoulder. “Hate to tell you.”
“Oh really?” Justin was beaming. He looked like he couldn’t even contain his smile and it made my heart jump in my chest as he helped me to my feet. “What happened to my perfect fake trophy girlfriend?”
“She turned out to be real,” I said, kissing him softly once more. “And definitely not perfect.”
“Thank God,” Justin muttered, rubbing his thumb along my lip. “C'mon. Let’s fly home. I’ll text Charlie when we get there. He won’t be too worried. He knows I can get impulsive.”
Justin squeezed my hand and then the two of us shifted, now two dragons flying in tandem back to the Lower East Side, as we ducked and spun around each other and playfully bumped wings, all the way back to my building as the horizon turned from purple to peach.
Chapter Fourteen: Justin
“Are you sure the sitter didn’t freak out?” Nicole said.
I took her hand. We were on the roof of her building, having just landed and shifted into human form.
The sun was rising. It was morning. It was morning in so many ways. For the first time in my life, I felt so complete. It was like something had always been missing and I’d never known it. I’d been trying to fill a void in my life for so long; searching for something to fill that hole of emptiness I’d known since childhood when I’d been a lonely dragon shifter kid with no friends. My club of fellow dragons helped. I knew I could always rely on them in a jam. But this was different. This was the other half of myself. I’d finally found her. We’d found each other. And we’d never let each other go.
“I told her there was a chance you’d be out overnight,” I said, a little apologetically.
Nicole raised her eyebrows warily but she squeezed my hand as if to assure me she wasn’t actually mad at all. “Oh did you? That was optimistic.”
“Oh, I know,” I said, laughing. “It definitely was. I just wanted to cover my bases. In case. Of course, at the time I thought I was only getting you for one more night. Or nothing more than sex anyway.”
“I’m sorry we…”
I pressed my finger to her lips, as we headed toward the stairs. “We misunderstood each other,” I said simply. “I think we’re pretty stubborn people. We didn’t want to put ourselves out there and get hurt. We’ll have to work on our communication, huh? We can’t always just have sex until the fight stops.”
“As fun as that would be,” Nicole said, laughing. “I think you’re right though. We’ll definitely work on our communication. I’ll never assume I know what you’re feeling again. Or anyway, I’ll try not to.”
I squeezed Nicole’s hand and we made our way up the steep, narrow steps to her floor. We were both sore and exhausted from our long, emotional night. It was a work day though, or it was supposed to be. I figured we’d shower and eat breakfast and probably run late into work. But I wanted to go in with Nicole.
My mind was busy thinking about all the things I needed to do. First and foremost, I needed to talk to Joanie. She needed to know that this fake relationship was now a real relationship. And most importantly, it no longer existed just for the press.
“Oh, the door…” Nicole muttered, finding her front door not only unlocked but slightly ajar.
She didn’t look worried but I found myself reflexively tensing
. It wasn’t even six o’clock in the morning yet. Why would the door be ajar?
“Oh my God...Oh God!” The panic in Nicole’s voice made my stomach turn as I walked in after her and I immediately saw why.
The apartment was a wreck.
I knew immediately that Tyler was gone even as I saw Nicole bolt for his room, her crimson gown still soaked and muddy as it trailed behind her. I just knew somehow. I saw no sign of the sitter as I walked in and took a look around. But a chair was overturned, Tyler’s blocks were all over the floor, and papers were scattered around. A vase of flowers was shattered on the floor by the window, a stack of magazines toppled, a box full of Tyler’s Legos having toppled over and spilled all over the rug. In the kitchen there were plates broken all over the linoleum. Someone had wanted it to look that way.
I heard Nicole scream and my body moved before I ever told it to as I dashed into Tyler’s bedroom. For a split second I thought he would be dead. But instead there was nothing. He wasn’t there. He was gone. Nicole was kneeling on the floor, holding Tyler’s blanket, sobbing. I felt nauseated. For a moment, I thought I would actually throw up.
The sitter was lying on the floor and I ran to her, kneeling beside her. I felt her pulse and relaxed slightly to find a heartbeat. Her head was bleeding. So somebody had knocked her out and taken Tyler.
They had taken Tyler.
My son… The thought was immediate and undeniable. Nicole was my mate and Tyler was my son, blood be damned.
Nicole was sobbing and I was about to reach out and hold her but she was getting to her feet, calling out Tyler’s name as she rushed to her own room. She was desperate, searching every corner. It was wise really. There was always a chance that someone had broken in and knocked out the sitter and Tyler had been able to hide.
Yet I knew, deep in my bones, our boy was gone.
My heart was thudding in my chest. Every second felt wasted even as I helped Nicole search under the beds and in the closets, calling out his name.
“Okay,” I finally said. “I’m calling the cops right now. And I’m calling my guys, my shifter friends. They might be able to help.”
Dragon's Fake Mate Page 13
