Dragon Isle Boxed Set, Books 4-6: Lost to the Dragon, Beware of Dragons, and Catching the Dragon

by Stern, Sophie

  There wasn’t much Penelope couldn’t do.

  As soon as she was gone, Emerson swept a little frizzy-haired sub over his shoulder and marched over to Miles.

  “What did you do to her?” Emerson practically growled, his voice low.

  “Hi!” Said a cheerful voice. The sub was hanging over Emerson, facing away from Miles, but she sounded quite pleasant and cheerful. “Nice to meet you, Miles! I’m the wife! Clan leader’s wife! That’s me!”

  “Stop talking,” Emerson swatted her on the butt, and she stilled, but Miles thought he heard a tiny giggle.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Miles said calmly. So this was how it was going to be. Emerson was going to play the – what? Overprotective father? Older brother? Ex-lover?

  He’d better not be her ex-lover.

  “Why did she leave so suddenly? She’s really been looking forward to tonight.”

  That was when Miles noticed that Emerson wasn’t angry. He was concerned. He was concerned about Penelope and what could have caused her to leave.

  “Penelope and I have a bit of a history,” Miles said. “I think she was a bit overwhelmed to see me tonight, but I promise that I didn’t do anything to scare her off tonight. We were watching the scene,” he motioned with his head toward the couple on the nearby stage. “She got frightened and left.”

  Emerson ran a hand through his hair and muttered. Then he looked up to glare at Miles. His eyes were daggers.

  “Stay away from Penelope,” Emerson said.

  Then he turned and stormed off.

  Miles headed back to the bar. He was going to need another drink.

  4

  “And then she just kissed me!” Janae was telling Lindsey when Penny walked into the office on Monday morning.

  “Yeah, Renee does that sometimes,” Lindsey said with a knowing smile. “Hey, Penny,” she greeted the dragon when she walked in.

  Penny mumbled something in response and headed for the coffee. Luckily, Janae had been kind enough to brew her some. She needed it.

  “What happened after you left the club?” Janae asked, never one to beat around the bush. Penny frowned and slumped down into her office seat. Emerson was just a room away and with his damn dragon ears, she knew he’d be able to hear anything she said. Penny must have been staring at the door because after a second Janae added, “he’s not here. He ran over to the clinic.”

  “Nothing happened,” Penny finally said. “I went home, went to bed.”

  “And you and Miles, was it? What happened there?”

  “Nothing.”

  Janae and Lindsey exchanged knowing looks before Lindsey perched her slim little human ass on the edge of Penny’s desk. Lindsey was a counselor on Dragon Isle and full-time live-in slave to Kade, one of the scariest fucking dragons Penny knew. How Lindsey had managed to tame his angry heart, Penny didn’t know. Kade’s wife, Olivia, who also happened to be an amazing artist, had died years before and he had been lost without her.

  When Lindsey arrived on the island, everyone knew Kade was doing something weird. He’d paid Lindsey to be his slave for a year. A whole year of just sex and fun. They had fallen in love and called off their deal. Now Lindsey lived here and Penny couldn’t imagine the island without her.

  “She means in the past, hon. Obviously, there’s some history there.”

  Penny stared at her coffee, then sipped it. Then she sipped some more. When the mug was empty, she set it down and looked at the girls.

  “You know how I don’t date humans?”

  “Yeah.” Both females were humans, but they were well aware of Penny’s dragons-only policy.

  “He’s the reason.”

  “That makes sense!” Janae said, her voice high and squeaky with excitement. “I knew you had fucked him! I knew it! The way he touched you,” she wiggled her eyebrows. “I knew it wasn’t the first time.”

  “This isn’t happening,” Penny laid her head on her desk. “It’s too early.”

  “It’s been six years,” Emerson said, waltzing into the front office. “That’s more than enough time. Darling,” he kissed Janae, then turned to Lindsey. “Lindsey.”

  “Emerson,” Lindsey said politely. “How did everything go at the clinic?”

  “Just fine,” he said. “Alan has some great ideas for improvements and we’re going to meet later to talk about possibly expanding the offices and maybe bringing on more staff.”

  “A bigger dragon clinic?” Janae asked. “That’s great! Alan was wonderful when we had our baby. Having more doctors and nurses who know about the problems dragons face…well, who could argue with that?”

  “Not me,” Emerson kissed Janae again, then vanished into his office.

  “So,” Lindsey turned back to Penny. “What’s the story?”

  “He came to the island because his grandpa died.”

  “I thought you said he was human,” Janae interrupted.

  “He is. His grandpa was a widower who married a widow on Dragon Isle. Mrs. Thurman. They were only married a few years before Pops passed away.”

  “How sad,” Janae murmured. Lindsey just watched thoughtfully as Penny spoke.

  “We met at the funeral and really hit it off. He stayed for the whole summer. We did everything together.”

  Everything.

  The first thing she did when she woke up was run to his place. They’d spend the whole day swimming, hiking, kissing. When she gave him her virginity, it was on a star-filled night on the beach. It had been perfect. It had been magical.

  Sometimes, she’d shift and he’d climb on her back naked. His soft skin had felt wonderful against her scales. He’s never minded how big she was as a dragon. He didn’t want some tiny, miniscule, pixie dragon.

  He liked her.

  Loved her.

  Or so she’d thought.

  “One day, I went to his grandmother’s house, and he wasn’t there. He was just gone. She gave me a note he’d left, but she couldn’t do anything else. She’d tried to get him to tell me he was leaving, but she said he was too stubborn. He thought it would be easier.”

  “Where did he go?” Janae asked.

  Penny just shrugged.

  “I didn’t know for a long time. His note never really said. Just that he loved me, but hoped I’d move on. Hoped I’d find someone else, someone who would be good to me. Later I found out he’d joined the army. He even deployed overseas, fought in the war. He started writing to me while he was gone. He sent me letters for awhile, but I didn’t write back.”

  “You never really got over him,” Lindsey commented wisely.

  “I thought I did, but you’re right. I didn’t. No one ever compared to him. Every guy I met or tried to date was held to this impossible standard of Miles. I haven’t been with another human. I couldn’t. Only dragons.”

  “But it’s not what you want,” Janae said. She placed her hand on Penny’s hair and pet her softly. Since giving birth to Weston, she’d become even more affectionate. Penny didn’t mind. She loved knowing someone cared enough about her to touch her hair.

  She only wished that someone was Miles.

  “I hate that I still feel this way around him,” she said.

  “Sounds like he’s your one true mate,” Janae commented.

  Lindsey raised an eyebrow.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in mates.”

  Janae just shrugged and kept touching Penny’s hair.

  “Sometimes I do, depending on if it’s the right situation.”

  “Look, Penny, I’m going to give it to you straight,” Lindsey turned back to her friend. “No charge. This is free advice. You have to talk to him. Whether or not you have feelings for him, you’re struggling to move forward with your life. If you don’t address these issues, you’re never going to be able to have a normal, healthy relationship with another man: human or dragon.”

  “This coming from the girl who likes to be locked in a cage?” Penny said.

  “Don’t knock it ‘ti
l you try it,” Lindsey winked. “But I’ve gotta get to work. Good luck, Pen.” She kissed Penny on the cheek and headed out.

  “You heading over to the library?” Penny asked Janae. Janae worked at the little library on the island. Before moving to Dragon Isle, she had worked as a librarian in another city. When the older dragonwomen on the island began pestering Emerson about building a library, Janae had been their first choice for a librarian. Janae shook her head at the question.

  “Nope. I dropped Weston off with Ashley for the day and I’m going to, um, I’m going to be in there.” She jerked her head toward Emerson’s office and Penny waved her off. So her friends were going to be having super hot, steamy sex all day while she was just sitting in the front office at her desk.

  No big deal.

  She could cope.

  But by Janae’s third orgasm, Penny realized she couldn’t cope. Not even a little bit. She grabbed her purse and headed out to get something to eat. Emerson didn’t have any meetings until after lunch and Penny had finished most of her work already, so she could spare an hour to go have a sandwich.

  She went to Dragon’s Inn: Restaurant and Tavern and headed inside. She bypassed the hostess and headed straight to the bar.

  “Rough morning?” Victoria said from behind the bar. Victoria was another human. Damn, if the island wasn’t full of them these days. She owned the restaurant and was good friends with Lindsey. They’d been roommates before their Dragon Isle days.

  “You have no idea.”

  “What’ll it be?”

  “Crown.”

  “And?”

  “More Crown.”

  Victoria chuckled, but nodded.

  “Coming right up.”

  She turned to prepare the drink and Penny looked around the tiny restaurant. It wasn’t even 11:30 yet, but the restaurant was nearly packed. Victoria’s mother had owned Dragon’s Inn before her death and when Victoria came to the island, she didn’t believe she’d be able to run it. She had proved to herself and everyone else, though, that she had what it took.

  Victoria set the drink in front of Penny.

  “You wanna talk about it, doll?”

  “Not particularly,” Penny sipped at her drink.

  “Men can be tricky creatures,” Victoria continued on as if Penny hadn’t just turned her down. “Sometimes they do things that don’t always make sense to us.”

  “What makes you think I have a problem with a man?”

  Victoria just laughed.

  “You know, before I came here, I didn’t know a damn thing about men. I worked for an asshole billionaire, did you know that?”

  Nope, Penny hadn’t known that. She knew Victoria wrote dragon shifter romance novels these days that were wildly popular among human women, but a billionaire?

  That was a new one.

  “When I met Daniel, I was prepared to hate him. Imagine my surprise when he didn’t turn out to be nearly as bad as I thought he was.”

  “Didn’t he try to spy on you before you arrived?”

  Daniel was one of the few dragons who could become invisible while he was in dragon form. Even on Dragon Isle, it was a closely guarded secret. If anyone wanted to sell out the dragons or capture them to experiment on, Daniel would be their first choice.

  “He followed my boat from Nellenston to the island,” Victoria grinned. “He thought he was looking out for the dragons, though I had ill intentions coming over. I threw a shoe at his head.”

  Penny laughed. She’d heard the story before, but it still cracked her up.

  “Well, I wish my problem could be solved with a shoe.”

  “You might be surprised,” Victoria nodded toward the front of the store. “How simple many of life’s problems really are.”

  She disappeared into the back and Penny turned around to see what she had been pointing at. Miles stood in the front of the restaurant. His hands were tucked into the front pocket of his low-slung jeans, and his eyes looked hopeful. Penny turned back around before she did something stupid, like try to go down on him in the middle of the restaurant. Her body instantly felt hot and heated. How could he elicit such reactions from her?

  She stared at her drink, then chugged it, trying not to cough as it burned on the way down.

  “That looked painful,” Miles said, taking a seat next to her.

  She wished he didn’t smell so good. Penny wanted to risk a look at his package, to see if his dick was as hard as her pussy was wet. Just being around Miles was enough to make her go crazy. She might have been hurt by him, but her body hadn’t gotten the message.

  No, her vagina wanted him just as badly as ever.

  What was she supposed to do about that?

  “It was,” she finally admitted.

  “You’re hiding from me,” Miles said.

  “No,” Penny shook her head. “I just don’t have anything to say.”

  “We need to talk,” Miles insisted.

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “I’m not giving you a choice. Tonight, meet me at The Dungeon. 9:00.”

  “It’s closed tonight.”

  “I know a guy,” Miles said, and Penny remembered he had become friends with Anthony long ago.

  “Anthony is letting us use his place?”

  Miles cocked his head and watched her for a moment, then nodded.

  “As long as we don’t knock down any walls, I think everything will be okay.”

  Penny thought for a moment. On the one hand, she could tell him to go to hell and that would be it. On the other, she was itching to try out some of the BDSM-y stuff she’d seen happen at the club. A spanking? Yeah, maybe she might like that. If Miles was the one taking charge, she could really go for that.

  She could keep on keeping on, being the shy, timid girl everyone felt sorry for.

  Or Penelope Alchemy could take a chance.

  Did she really want to spend the rest of her life wondering what she was missing out on? Did she really want to be scared forever?

  This was Miles she was talking about. Miles. Sweet, wonderful Miles who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Who knew? Maybe he had some incredible reason for leaving the way he did. Maybe, just maybe, he could explain his actions. Then again, six years was a long time. Maybe he was a different person now. Maybe he’d changed, just like Penelope had.

  She wouldn’t know unless she gave him a chance and today, Penelope was ready to stop being the object of pity and take a chance. What was the worst thing that could happen?

  “Okay,” she said finally. “I’ll be there.”

  Miles looked excited and relieved at the same time. She loved his sweet facial expressions. He might be a badass soldier now, but he’d always be a small town boy at heart.

  “I can’t wait to see you,” he whispered, and kissed her. He didn’t give her a soft kiss on the cheek, though. That would be too timid for Miles. He had a habit of going all out when he really wanted something, and he left no doubt in Penelope’s mind that what he wanted was her.

  His kiss was deep and Dominating, passionate and piercing. Then he pulled away and looked at her.

  “Tonight,” he said, and left the restaurant.

  Penelope turned back to her drink. She heard Victoria let out a long, low whistle.

  “Damn, girl,” she said. “I wasn’t even the one getting kissed and my panties are fucking soaked.”

  “You’re going to write that into a book, aren’t you?” Penelope asked. She had read all of Victoria’s novels.

  “Damn straight,” Victoria promised. “Damn straight.”

  5

  Jasmine, Ashley, Janae, and Lindsey all gathered in Penelope’s tiny bedroom and stared at an assortment of clothing sprawled out on the bed. Penelope stood in the corner, leaning against the wall, sipping a vodka cranberry.

  “I like the corset,” Janae said, fingering the soft material. “It’s so soft. When he touches it, he’ll be thinking about other parts of your body that are soft.” She smirked up at Penelope w
hen she said it. Penelope just started thinking about Janae’s curves, wishing her friend was way more bisexual than she actually was, and rolled her eyes.

  “The corset and the g-string,” Jasmine nodded, agreeing with Janae. Jasmine had been playing at The Dungeon since before it was a regular club. “It’ll show off your curvy ass and make him want to bite it.”

  “Jasmine!” She finished her drink. Quickly. “I don’t want him to bite me!”

  Jasmine grinned wickedly and gave Penelope a look that said being bitten might not be so bad.

  “That’s it, then. The corset, the g-string, and…what shoes?”

  Penelope didn’t exactly have a lot of fetwear. Luckily, she was close in size to her friends and they’d happily brought over their favorite things for her to try on and pick out. Penny didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about how wonderful the other women were or she might cry.

  Right now, she really needed to not cry.

  “Heels, of course,” Ashley said. “I know they’re tricky at first, but you’re pretty graceful. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about tripping.” She held up a pair of black fuck-me pumps and Penelope practically drooled.

  They were gorgeous.

  “These are amazing.”

  “They’ll look even more amazing when your legs are wrapped around his back,” Ashley snickered.

  The other girls laughed.

  “Bunch of horny bitches,” Penelope said, but that only made them laugh harder.

  “Okay, but seriously,” Ashley waved the shoes around as she motioned with her arms. “When was the last time you got some?”

  She had to think about it. She literally had to think about it.

  “This is bad,” Lindsey commented. “She’s doing math.”

  “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be miss super-supportive counselor?” Penelope frowned.

  “I might be super-supportive, but I’m not at work right now, darling.” Lindsey took a few steps closer until she was in Penelope’s space. Fuck. She could smell her. Penelope and Jasmine were the only dragons in the room and maybe Jasmine hadn’t noticed, but it practically reeked of sex and lust.