Oh, My Dragon

by Lani Lynn Vale

  He nodded.

  “Listened to the police scanners, and Johnson kept me updated,” Keifer said. “Wanted to hear from you exactly what happened, though.”

  I sighed and recounted how I’d walked in on his brother, who’d been hovering over the dead girl’s body.

  “How did you know it wasn’t him?” he questioned.

  “A trail of DNA that led from the body into the apartment across the hall from hers, where the tweaker who used to call the cops on the two of them all the time lives,” I explained.

  Keifer’s eyes narrowed.

  “And the girl?” he asked.

  “Which girl?” I hesitated.

  There were two, after all.

  “The one who got dead,” Keifer said slowly, rolling his eyes like he was trying hard to contain his annoyance.

  I shrugged.

  “She’s dead. What more do you want to know?” I asked.

  Keifer rolled his eyes again.

  “Why is getting information out of you like pulling teeth?” he asked angrily.

  I snapped my mouth shut on the retort that wanted to burst free of my lips, barely containing my knee jerk reaction to go on the defensive at the first hint of a threat.

  “She’s dead. She was dead for a long time when I found her. Her murderer watched from the comfort of his peep hole as he waited for someone to find her for over an hour. I followed the fucker to the jail, then stood outside his cell, making sure his heart stopped, apparently from natural causes. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  Keifer’s eyes narrowed.

  “You can’t just go around killing humans, even if they are guilty,” Keifer growled.

  I turned my back on my king and then shut the door behind me.

  I couldn’t deal with that man anymore.

  Not if he wanted me to still be a part of the team.

  If that’s what it was even called anymore.

  My throat burned as Wink’s sweet and flowery scent hit me the moment I walked through the door.

  It took everything I had not to go straight to the TV and replay the day’s events.

  Instead, I walked to the kitchen, grabbed the bottle of whiskey that was sitting on the kitchen counter and proceeded to drink the entire fucking bottle.

  Chapter 2

  I have three moods:

  1. What the fuck?

  2. Are you fucking kidding me?

  3. Fuck this.

  -Wink’s secret thoughts

  Wink

  The next day dawned bright and early, and I was just stepping out of my apartment when I ran into something solid.

  “Oomph,” I groaned.

  I looked up, and my neck stretched painfully.

  I’d had a rough night.

  It’d started out bad due to the dead body between my apartment and me, and got worse when I had to run for my life and was caught by a beast of a man. The shitshow that was my day was capped off with me not getting a wink of sleep.

  I did manage to get one hell of a crick in my neck, however.

  Surprisingly, though, it wasn’t because of the dead woman, but because of the sexy man who I didn’t see again after I closed my apartment door on him, the one who was the cause of my sleepless night.

  I cursed myself for not looking in the mirror before I’d thrown my pants on.

  I was on the way to my darkroom to develop the newest shots I captured during my lunch break yesterday. First though, I had to get the processing chemicals delivered.

  I’d just gotten the door open and had started to back out with the door handle in one hand and my keys in the other, when my body hit something solid.

  Solid as in steel.

  I turned and found myself getting lost in those same captivating eyes as last night.

  “H-hey,” I whispered. “Can I help you?”

  He stared at me for a long couple of seconds before he blinked and his lips lifted in the barest of smiles.

  This caused my heart to race and my face to flush.

  Now, I wasn’t so happy I’d decided to just leave instead of taking an extra five minutes to look after my appearance before exiting my apartment.

  “Gosh, I’m sorry,” I said, stepping back.

  His eyes went down to my face and even further to my neck.

  “S’okay,” he muttered, his eyes focused. “You want to catch breakfast?”

  I lifted my hand self-consciously and ran it along the column of my throat, surprised at the tenderness there.

  Studying him, I licked my lips and began to appreciate the fine specimen of man in front of me.

  He was tall and built with dark black hair and a strong jaw.

  He was wearing a leather jacket and a… scarf?

  It didn’t detract from the manliness that exuded from him, however.

  He was what you would think of when you thought ‘male.’

  Strong jaw. Jacked arms and tight abs. Dark, captivating looks. Big hands. Large feet.

  The scarf, though. That was weird.

  “Breakfast?” he asked again.

  I snapped out of my contemplation of his manliness and shook my head.

  “No,” I said softly, clearing my throat. “I have to go meet the guys who are delivering my chemicals.”

  I had to have certain chemicals to run my photo lab, and if I didn’t meet them at this ungodly hour, they wouldn’t be able to get back to me until late next week. Meaning, I was up to meet them at the ass crack of dawn instead of sleeping in my nice, warm bed.

  He looked at me, then nodded.

  “Care if I tag along?” he asked gruffly. “Then we can get breakfast afterward?”

  I bit my lip.

  What the hell was going on?

  This man was gorgeous. I’m talking so fucking handsome that it hurt to look at him for too long.

  And his eyes. God, they were practically sucking me into his soul!

  What would he want with someone like me?

  I was not beautiful.

  In fact, I was so far from beautiful, especially without makeup on, that I would consider myself troll-like.

  Well, perhaps troll-like was exaggerating a little.

  But that’s what it felt like sometimes.

  Especially right now.

  I was nauseous as hell. My hair was in a knotted ponytail on the top of my head. My eyes had deep bags under them.

  And he was everything I was not.

  “Ummm,” I said. “I don’t…”

  See, here’s the problem. I didn’t really know how to say ‘no.’

  Never had.

  Which was why I ended up selling my house when my every intention had been to say ‘no.’

  However, the money had spoken to me, and here I was.

  Which was why I said, “Sure.”

  He grinned and backed up, allowing me to step into the hallway.

  I turned and locked the doors with my keys before dropping them into the top of my bag and zipping it up.

  “Where’s the house you’re working from?” he asked.

  I blinked.

  “I told you about my house?” I asked in confusion.

  I didn’t tell anybody that I worked in a house. In fact, I know I didn’t tell him.

  I was already somewhat nervous around him. There was no way I would’ve told him where I worked.

  “Last night,” he said swiftly. “You were talking about it when you came up the stairs.”

  My mouth dropped open slightly in relief. I had been talking about the house when I’d rounded the stairs.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “It’s on the South Side.”

  He blinked.

  “Why’d you want to have a studio over there?” he asked curiously, offering me his hand when he started going down the stairs.

  I ignored it, and instead grabbed the rickety banister that ran the length of the stairs.

  Mainly because I wa
sn’t sure if I grabbed a hold of his hand if I’d be able to let it go.

  There was something about this man that affected me, and I didn’t even know him.

  I’d seen him a total of two times, and the first time had been under less than ideal circumstances.

  Speaking of which.

  “So, how did last night go?” I asked softly. “I tried to come back and see what was going on, but the cop told me to stay inside my apartment until they could clear the crime scene. I fell asleep about an hour later with all of them still stomping around in the hall.”

  “They found the man who did it in the apartment across the hall from yours. He was trying to burn his clothes in the kitchen sink,” the man mumbled. “Apparently, he did it because she scorned him. I didn’t get much before I was told to leave, too.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked suddenly, stopping next to my old truck.

  His eyes seemed to be alight with some inner fire.

  “Ian. Liam Ian McHugh.”

  I blinked.

  That was a powerful name.

  “That’s a cool name,” I said demurely, turning my back on him to open my truck’s door.

  He crowded me close, and my heart started hammering.

  Not because I was afraid, though, but because of his nearness.

  I wanted to lean into his body about as badly as I wanted to take my next breath. Press my breasts against his solid chest.

  Did I, though?

  No. I managed to just barely bring my heart under control and turned my back on him, sliding into the seat of my Dually.

  I was about to give Liam directions when he pushed me over, sliding my body across the seat as he moved into the driver’s seat, and my ass was planted in the passenger seat for the first time in my life.

  “Wait!” I said. “You can’t drive my truck!”

  “Why not?” he asked, taking the keys from me and finding the right one before starting it up.

  “Because I don’t have you on my insurance,” I mumbled. “And I don’t know you!”

  His hand went up to his neck as he ran his fingers underneath the scarf he was wearing.

  “Yet,” he murmured. “You don’t know me, yet.”

  I didn’t bother replying.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  I bit my lip.

  He sighed and reached for the GPS, tapping a few buttons before he made a triumphant sound and backed out of the parking spot.

  “Never mind,” he said, putting it into drive and pulling out into traffic. “I found it without your help.”

  I cursed myself.

  I should know better than to leave that kind of information in the GPS. But I relied on it way too much. I was one of those directionally challenged people who rarely, if ever, was able to find her way from point A to point B without getting lost.

  “Ian,” I said. “I don’t really know you that well. I think we should maybe start with dinner later, and go from there.”

  The words that left my mouth were the right ones, but what I was feeling on the inside was anything but.

  “Breakfast,” Ian said, mostly ignoring me and what I had to say.

  “What?” I asked in confusion.

  “You said dinner. And we’re having breakfast,” he answered distractedly. “Your truck needs to be aligned.”

  I blinked.

  “No it doesn’t. I just took it in to get aligned and had the tires rotated,” I said smartly.

  “You’ll have to tell me who you took it to because it’s obvious that whomever did it was an imbecile,” he growled, pulling into traffic and merging onto the freeway. Under his breath, I could’ve sworn I heard him murmur ‘dumbass.’

  I licked my lips and tried not to stare at the way the corded muscles of his wrist bunched and shifted with each move of his arm.

  Instead, I chose to fill the silence by telling him about me, out of pure nervousness rather than my wanting him to know anything more about me.

  Because had I been thinking straight, likely this would’ve been one of those times where I realized that me telling him about myself probably was more of a turn off than a turn on.

  “I’m thirty-one!” I blurted.

  His eyes moved from the road to me, then back to the road.

  “I’m thirty-six,” he said softly.

  My eyes widened.

  “You don’t look a day over thirty,” I informed him. “But my best friend doesn’t either. He could totally pass for twenty-five in a pinch. He still gets carded when we go out gambling.”

  “You have a brother?” he asked.

  I nodded, picking invisible lint off my pants.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “He’s in the Navy. I haven’t seen him in almost ten years now, though.”

  I could feel his eyes on me, and I turned my head slightly to the left and smiled sadly at him.

  “I have a sister,” he said. “But she was adopted when we were younger, and I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Have you tried to find her?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “When I was younger, around eighteen or so. Stopped when I turned twenty-one,” he said, turning his blinker on and leaning back in his seat.

  His hand rested on the gear shift, and I let my eyes trail along the strong limb all the way up to his face.

  Which was on me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You aren’t scared of me,” he stated.

  That was true.

  I wasn’t.

  Why, I couldn’t tell you.

  There was something about him that made my heart feel almost light.

  “There’s something familiar about you,” I answered him. “I don’t know what it is, but I feel like I know you.”

  He smiled.

  “You do know me,” he said. “Just not officially yet.”

  My eyebrows quirked in confusion.

  “What?” I asked. “How?”

  “You work for me…kind of,” he said, putting the truck into second gear as the light turned green.

  I watched his feet move as I tried to make sense of his words. Then understanding dawned.

  “You’re…oh my God! You’re the slob!” I crowed somewhat loudly.

  He looked over at me with a glare as he shifted into third, then looked back to the road.

  He didn’t answer until he turned into the parking lot of my studio and shut the truck off.

  Which was about the time I realized I’d never told him exactly where I was going. Nor did I tell him how to get there. I wasn’t sure how he knew where to look on the GPS to even lead him here.

  That was about the time that my psycho radar started to go off, and I remembered all those scary movies my friend Mattie made me watch when we were younger.

  I’d literally just put myself into the stupid girl’s shoes from my favorite scary movie. You know the one where the girl gets into the car with the sexy man, and then he drives her to a shack in the woods and shows her his doll collection made out of human skin.

  I’d literally put myself into her shoes.

  Of course, Ian had taken me to where I worked, not his house.

  Not that he had a doll collection made out of human skin. I’d cleaned his house enough to know that he did not have one.

  That wasn’t to say that I was currently freaking out over nothing, though.

  I moved my hand along the side of the door, feeling for the for the latch, and crowed triumphantly inside when I found it.

  “Don’t run,” he sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”

  My eyes went wide when he yanked the collar at his throat and started to itch furiously.

  He had a tattoo. A huge one, on his neck.

  And when he saw where I was looking, he yanked the stupid scarf back into place and stared at me expectantly.

  Oh yeah, I was supposed to be running.

  I remembered.
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  Sadly, he reached out and grabbed my wrist before I could reach for the handle once again, holding me in an iron tight grip that would be next to impossible to break.

  And that panic fueled my desire to get away, which set something off in me that I hadn’t realized was there.

  Warmth shot out of my wrist where his hand connected directly to my skin, and I pushed that energy outwards, almost as if I was forcing whatever had built up under my skin at him.

  One second Ian had a hold of my hand and was tugging me toward him, and the next he was lying with his big body slumped over the front seat of my truck, dead to the world.

  My mouth dropped open, and I wondered if he was playing with me.

  But when I kicked him in the head in my haste to get out, he didn’t move, not even to let out a groan.

  He just laid there, and I wasn’t sure if he was even breathing.

  I stopped, just like any stupid movie girl would, and looked at him in dismay.

  He hadn’t actually been threatening me. He’d only asked me not to run.

  I hadn’t given him the chance to explain, and now he was dying because of something that I’d done to him, not that I could tell anyone what I’d done since I had no idea what it even was.

  I couldn’t figure it out myself.

  I crept forward and started to press my hand against his head, but I froze.

  Instead I picked up the old windshield wiper that was in the floorboard of my truck and poked him with it.

  Nothing.

  Nada.

  Zilch.

  The next time I poked him slightly harder and still there was no response from him.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” I whispered, reaching over him into his pocket.

  I found first a set of keys, and then a phone, and smiled.

  Opening the phone, surprised that there wasn’t some sort of lock on it, I flipped through the recent calls on his phone, choosing to go to the first person on his call list, someone who he has called more than once, a man named ‘Keifer.’

  The call took no time at all to connect, and five seconds after the first ring, a man answered with a terse, “You’re fucking late.”

  “I am?” I asked.

  There was silence on the other end of the line and I almost kicked myself for saying that.

  “Who is this?” the man asked.

  “Listen,” I said, backing away from Ian. “I accidentally hurt,” I choked on that word, “Ian. He’s gonna need a ride.”