by JJ Jones
They lay in silence on the bed for only a short while before they slowly and reluctantly sat up and began to get dressed. After all, it was still the middle of the day, and neither of them were the sort to just waste an entire day languishing in bed.
Clarissa reluctantly went in search of all of her clothing and found that, somehow, her shirt had landed halfway underneath the dresser, about eight miles away from the rest of her clothing. She tugged it out and gave it a shake before pulling it back over her head once again. Finding her pants was a simple matter of fetching them from where they had slumped against the wall and stepping into them to tug them back up her legs.
When she turned back around, fully dressed once again except for her shoes, Abel was already dressed and running his hands through his hair as if that would put it back into some sort of order. It was a lost cause at that point, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
She didn’t bother with her own hair. If she came up with any plans to be out in public, then she would worry about it then. For the time being, though, there wasn’t much of a point in trying to look presentable when she knew Abel thought she would look attractive if she wore a burlap sack with a bag over her hair.
They wandered back down the stairs after that, getting comfortable in the family room, sprawled in a heap together on the couch. There was something they needed to talk about, hovering over them like a heavy cloud, but Clarissa couldn’t bring herself to speak, as if someone’s hand was pressed over her throat and squeezing.
It was Abel who finally broke the stalemate, tipping his chin down to bump it against the top of her head, her face partially buried against his neck.
“Any thoughts on whether or not you’ll be leaving?”
His voice was quiet as he asked, with just the faintest edge of apprehension in it. And really, that seemed to make her decision for her. He didn’t want her to go, and truth be told, she didn’t want to go, either. She had been through a lot, true enough, but all of that was over and she had some serious doubts that anything like it was going to happen again.
And even if it did, they would just handle it again. Just like they had already.
Even so, she was quiet at first, turning her choices over in her mind. It was a big decision, and she wanted to be sure. She was never one to run off half-cocked, and she wasn’t going to start.
“I think I’m staying,” she answered eventually, her voice sure and steady. From the conspicuous silence after that, she could only assume that Abel had been expecting a very different sort of
response.
The silence lasted a little longer than she would have expected, and when she leaned away to chance a glance at his face, he had a look on his face like he had been slapped upside the head with a fresh haddock. It wasn’t a bad sort of look, but rather just entirely stunned. Gobsmacked, even. She couldn’t quite refrain from giggling at him, and that, finally, seemed to break whatever fugue state he had fallen into and he jerked back to the present, his gaze snapping to her face.
For a brief moment, his eyes darted over every inch of her face, as if he was checking to be
entirely certain that he had heard her correctly and that she had meant what she said. She arched one eyebrow at him, and finally he closed the last little bit of space between them, bending his neck as he leaned down to kiss her, one of his hands sliding up her back to cup the back of her head.
She squirmed into a better position, until she was draped over his chest, her hands cupping either side of his jaw as she pressed towards him, trying to get impossibly closer, just doing all she could to keep up as he kissed her like he was trying to inhale her. Like he had been expecting to never get to kiss her again, and so he had to go all out right then and there once he realized that he could still kiss her whenever he wanted to.
(For the briefest moment she thought about being offended that he thought she might show up purely to fuck him and then immediately leave, but only for a very brief moment. They all had their moments of anxiety, after all.)
The rest of the world seemed to grind to a halt around them, until it was just the two of them, just Clarissa’s lips against Abel’s. And really, that wasn’t so strange. Tucked away in his townhouse as they were, it seemed as if the world really did consist of only the two of them, and they had no complaints about that. They had no complaints about having their own little hiding place away from the rest of the world, free for them to take advantage of it as much as they wanted to.
When at last the kiss broke and they tentatively leaned away from each other, it was only
because the need to breathe had become rather pressing, and they were still close enough that Clarissa could feel Abel’s breath washing lightly over her face.
She leaned up for one last, brief peck against the corner of his mouth before she settled down against his chest once again, and they lapsed into silence. Content on Clarissa’s end, and still slightly bewildered and amazed on Abel’s. She supposed he would process the fact that she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon in his own time, and she felt no need to try to hurry the process along. It was sort of endearing, in an odd sort of way.
Besides, it wasn’t an unpleasant sort of silence. It was relaxing, in its own way, and she felt no need to end it just then.
“Could you take me flying?” she wondered after a few minutes passed, when it seemed like the silence wasn’t going to be broken otherwise and they might wind up staying on the couch for the entire rest of the day.
Abel blinked at her slowly, before he nodded once in ready agreement. He led the way out of the townhouse, glanced around briefly to make sure the sidewalk was clear, and transformed. He hardly had time to lower himself completely to the ground before Clarissa was climbing onto his back, and he straightened up quickly once she was situated.
He offered only a brief, “Hold on,” before he launched himself upwards with a jolt like a rocket taking off, and Clarissa had to squint against the wind. Only for a moment, though, before she got used to it, and she kept her grip around his neck relaxed. She could keep her balance well enough, and she knew he wasn’t going to simply let her fall.
She peered around in every direction as they rose steadily higher, watching buildings rise alongside them before they were too high even for that, and then watching as clouds got closer and closer above them, even if they didn’t get high enough to pass through them. That was alright with Clarissa, though. It was a little difficult to see the view down below with the clouds in the way.
It was a view she was happy to appreciate once Abel leveled off and began flying in earnest. It was too early for most of the lights to be on, but she could appreciate the sight of the city beneath them nonetheless, and she could see the Eiffel Tower rising in the distance. She reached out
towards it, far enough away still that it looked as if she could close her fist around it and pick it up like a child’s plaything.
She was never going to get tired of such a view. She was never going to get tired of flying. It didn’t even matter that she couldn’t fly under her own power, since she was wholly convinced that it was better with company anyway.
She couldn’t quite help it when she threw her hands into the air and let out a gleeful whoop, though she wobbled and had to grab onto Abel’s neck again when he threw his head back to
unleash a jet of flame, as if to underscore her excitement.
Maybe he enjoyed it just as much as she did. She hoped that was the case, at least.
They spun through the sky in loose, languid patterns, not caring where they went because that didn’t matter so much when there was no true destination in mind. And in truth, Clarissa wouldn’t have it any other way.
She had made the right choice. She knew that with a certainty that she had felt on only a few
occasions before.
Maybe it was silly, just how long she had to think about whether she wanted to stay. After all, even with everything that had happened, it already felt like she was home.
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*
DRAGON: UnSEALed
A PARANORMAL
MILITARY ROMANCE
JJ JONES
Copyright ©2016 by Author
All rights reserved.
About This Book
When Navy SEAL Chase Bends' secret life as a dragon shifter was discovered he had no choice but to go on the run.
Tracked by female FBI agent Aubrey Conner, she was determined to be the one to bring the dragon in and she would stop at nothing to make it happen.
However, when Aubrey finally met Chase she found she was unable to resist his supernatural charms and very soon instead of bringing him in to custody, she was letting him in to her bed...
This is a Paranormal Military romance with lots of action, adventure and thrills alongside romance, love and sensual scenes. Start reading now if these themes sound good to you!
CHAPTER ONE
“What do you think, Chase? What sort of game do you think we should play tonight? We are going to play, aren’t we? Or else this thing is going to be so boring it’ll kill me. That’s a promise.”
“Katie! Don’t promise things like that. You shouldn’t joke about dying. It invites bad luck and we don’t want any of that, now do we?”
“No, Mom, no bad luck. Sorry.”
“Your tone sure doesn’t sound sorry.”
“Mom, come on!”
“Well, it doesn’t, and if there’s one thing I’m planning on doing while I still have a chance, it's teaching you two how to be proper little ladies and gentlemen.”
“Ugh,” Katie said while she rolled her eyes and poked her little brother Chase in the side over and over again, just to make sure he was every bit as indignant as she was. “I can’t think of anything worse.”
“Katie, please! I don’t understand you sometimes! And if you keep going this way, you’re going to spoil your brother completely as well.”
“Ha! I knew he was your favorite! What did I tell you, Chase? You stole my thunder when you were born. Now she likes you the most.”
“Alright, kiddos, that’s enough of that. We’re almost there. Time to settle down.”
It wasn’t just Katie and Chase who stopped speaking at that soft voice. With only those few words, Mr. Edward Bends (Eddie to only his closest friends) brought all of the car’s occupants to an abrupt, almost reverent silence. That was just the sort of man Mr. Bends was. He didn’t need harsh words or a raised voice to get what he wanted.
He had a commanding presence and ruled with a benevolent but iron fist that worked on every person he encountered. As far as Chase could tell, anyway. He was only eight years old so he hadn’t seen a whole lot of different kinds of people, but he was pretty sure he was right. At least he had never seen anyone brave enough to say no to his dad.
He had talked it over seriously with Katie, too, late at night when the two of them were most definitely supposed to be asleep. He would never say it to her face because it would make her way too happy to hear, but he knew for a fact that she knew more than him. She was twelve, so she had to know more. And she said that she had never seen anyone say no to their dad, either.
She said that she had seen him talk to plenty of grown ups who seemed really afraid of him, which meant he had to be a pretty big deal. So when he said those easygoing, laid back sounding words, they shut up and their mom shut up as well, and for a couple of minutes the only sounds in the car were the low hum of the air conditioning and the radio playing so faintly it could hardly be heard.
There was not even the sound of breathing and Chase wondered idly to himself if they had been turned off, just the way a television got turned off when there wasn’t anything good left to watch. But then he saw his dad smile in the rear view mirror and he knew they were all still on, that everything was OK. He watched his dad take his mom’s hand and then he was sure that everything was perfectly all right. They all still loved each other. They were still the same close-knit little family they had always been and he was perfectly safe.
“Katie?”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“Did you decide what kind of game you two are going to play? I wouldn’t want you to die of boredom. That would be too sad.”
“Eddie! Really, sometimes I just don’t know what to do with you!”
Now they were all laughing and Katie was poking him again and whispering about what kind of games they would play to make the officers’ ball less dull. Everyone in the car was talking except for Chase, and he wasn’t really listening to any of them. He was just thinking how nice it was to have a really good, strong family to love him. He felt so lucky that he didn’t even mind the little suit his mom had insisted on him wearing.
At least he didn’t mind it so much as he had before. His dad parked the car and they all got out, Chase feeling supremely special to have his dad take him by the hand as they walked through the parking lot to the event hall. Every person they passed nodded and called out excited hellos, all of them wanting to talk to Mr. Bends, every person wanting to talk to his dad. There wasn’t another person Chase could ever love more than he loved this man.
He felt almost like his body was going to burst with the feeling, adoration mingling with pride. Anywhere his dad told him to go he would; anything he told him to do, he would do it without question. He was his father’s son, completely and without ever looking back.
“Look at them, Chase. They look just like movie stars, don’t they? Especially Mom. Look at her dress! It’s like she’s a real life Disney princess or something! Isn’t it beautiful?”
“I don’t know. I think it just looks fluffy.”
“Ugh, that’s because you’re a boy and boys don’t know anything.”
“Not true! I know things. Just not about fluffy dresses.”
“Well, she does, she looks like a princess. They both look so good! Everyone in the room wants to be them. You can just tell by the way they all stare. Don’t you see that?”
Chase watched his parents closely from across the crowded room. From his vantage point, which was underneath a table, the cloth of which he and his sister were using as a kind of makeshift tent, his parents looked like giants gliding across the dance floor. His sister was right. They looked like giant, perfect people up on a fifty foot screen meant to show the “normal” people, the “little” people, what it was to be truly charmed.
Those two figures were that to everyone in this fancy ballroom and Chase got to call them his parents. How lucky was he for that? How lucky was he to feel lucky about his parentage at all? He was too young to really understand what it meant to feel blessed, but had he been a bit more experienced, a bit wiser, he would have known that was what it was he felt. His sister knew it, too, and she took his hand softly; for the moment, their near constant sibling rivalry quieted.
There was something special in this room and they belonged to a small piece of it. Chase felt even then that it was one of those moments he would remember for the rest of his life which, although he couldn’t know it yet, would turn out to be true. It was a little piece of magic in an otherwise surprisingly uneventful world and it had come from, of all places, this officers’ banquet neither he nor his sister had any desire to attend.
“Do you think there’s anyone here like us?”
“Like us?” Chase said absently, slightly annoyed to find that the feeling of contentment had fled from him with his sister’s words. “Wha
t do you mean, ‘like us’?”
“You know what I mean,” her exasperated voice said with a tone that was probably much shriller than she meant it to be, “like us. Different.”
“What makes you think we’re different? Maybe everyone here is exactly like us. You don’t know that they aren’t.”
“Don’t I?”
“No,” he said in a haughty voice that only a child could truly pull off, “you don’t. You don’t know everything, now do you? You aren’t queen of the world or anything like that.”
