by Starla Night
He sighed and put the car in gear. “In one rom-com, the hero and heroine had sex while driving on the freeway. I think I can operate a human motor vehicle while holding your hand.”
“Just drive.”
“And if you still have concerns, we could always leave the car and I could fly you.”
“What’s the big deal about holding hands?”
He stopped at the exit to the parking lot and looked her full in the face with his earnest, gorgeous, sexy eyes. “I’ve been in love with you for years. The difference between all that time and right now is that we can touch. Kiss. Snuggle. I have dreamed about it and yet now you won’t touch. We’ve only had one kiss. What if you won’t want to snuggle?”
She rubbed her thighs. “I’ll want to snuggle.”
“It’s hard to believe anything has changed when nothing has changed.”
“I have to get used to the change too.”
“Are you sure that you really want to?”
The ragged edge of his question squeezed her heart.
No, he was right. Embarrassment wasn’t a good enough answer. She was still scared to offer, scared to reach out because she was so sure something bad would happen. She would reach out for him and close on empty air.
She reached over and caressed his jaw.
Smooth brown scales shivered beneath his skin. He sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, while his brown eyes gleamed with iridescent flecks of yellow, green, and gray-blue.
“Yes,” she said, uneven. “I am.”
His gaze centered on her lips. He leaned across the seat and she lifted her chin to meet him.
A car behind them honked.
She jumped. “Oh! Sorry.”
Jasper lingered like he still wanted to kiss.
She pushed him into his seat. “What are you doing? Drive.”
“We’re supposed to kiss.”
The car honked again, longer.
“What? No, we’re in the way. Get out of the way.”
He pursed his lips. “Rose…”
“Move your car. Jasper, we’re blocking whoever’s behind us from leaving. The last thing you want after a full shift is to get stuck in the parking lot.”
Third honk, definitely annoyed.
“Jasper!”
He sighed and pulled out onto the street.
The car behind them peeled out, zoomed around them, screamed up to the stop sign, and sped onto the main road. They were lucky that the driver hadn’t flipped them off.
She didn’t blame them. Normally she was more aware of her surroundings.
Jasper made her forget her surroundings. He created a little bubble just for them where they could meet in the middle.
“It’s like you’re making excuses not to take the next step,” he said.
“Blocking traffic isn’t making an excuse,” she said flatly.
“In a rom-com movie, couples block traffic all the time. No one minds. Most people even cheer.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I’ve seen it in your human documents many times.”
Rose shut her mouth before the next retort snapped out. She loved this adorable dragon living in his own fantasy world. She really did.
But on the other hand, good lord, this would be a long day.
Chapter Nine
Jasper struggled with his new feelings while he followed Rose’s street directions to pick up her son from his daytime care. “Which date is this? Golf? Dinner and a movie?”
“Dinner and no movie.”
“But that—”
“Some of us have small children.” She held up her hand to forestall any arguments. “And some of us have work tomorrow. This is a work night. Dinner, no movie, take it or leave it.”
He’d thought the moment she agreed to date him, everything would change. He would change, and so would she.
But other than agreeing to spend more time with him, nothing had changed.
“This is hardly a date.”
“Don’t whine.” She tensed in his bucket seat like a loaded spring under increasing pressure, her hands twisting into fists until she couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop here.”
He stopped at the mouth to the complex. “Your grandmother lives inside this complex.”
“Right, but there are a lot of potholes, so I’ll run and grab Liam.”
“Potholes aren’t a problem.”
“There’s a ton. Really. People bottom out all the time. I don’t want you to wreck your car five minutes after knowing me.”
“It’s fine.”
She pulled on the door handle. Nothing happened. “Let me out.”
He shut off the engine. The locks disengaged. The doors slid open and their seat belts released.
Jasper got out of the driver’s seat.
She paused on the opposite side of the car poised to run. “What are you doing?”
He thought it should be obvious. “Introducing myself to your friends and family.”
Her face pinched. “Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s the next step in dating.”
“Not…necessarily…”
He stood by her side. “Am I wrong?”
“Well…”
He waited, his own worry pinging. Instead of becoming agreeable, Rose challenged him even more. He had no choice but to challenge her back. “Rose?”
“You don’t fit in here.” She avoided his eyes and twisted her hands. “My neighbors don’t like people they don’t know.”
“Introduce me.”
“And this isn’t a neighborhood where you can walk around dressed like that.”
“Like a businessman?”
“Yeah.”
He studied the human apartment complex. Ten squat double units ringed the parking lot. The grounds had a barren, hard-baked look and the structures peeled like human skin after sunburn. Plastic detritus crinkled and crunched underfoot.
It didn’t look that different from anywhere else.
A few hours of paint, resurfacing, and landscaping could transform this complex. Humans preferred individuality over the boxy gray efficiency of dragon living spaces, and their designs went awry of environmental factors, requiring continuous maintenance and updates. Such was the state of this complex. And what were a few hours to a dragon like Jasper?
But he was trying to train himself to understand human nuances so he could live a successful life as her partner.
He took off his suit jacket, tossed it in the trunk, and pulled his shirt out of his pants, unbuttoning the top two buttons. “Better?”
She jerked her gaze away from his pectorals and blinked, then frowned. “Uh…”
“Rose!” A short, tanned middle-aged man in ragged jeans, a torn gray T-shirt, and work boots swaggered off a porch. “Eh, Rose. Is this pende—jerk bothering you?”
Jasper’s implant switched words mid-sentence as the human dropped in a second language; his implant stuttered to catch up.
“No, Luis, he’s fine.” She rested a hand on her hip.
Luis lowered his voice. “Police?”
“No.”
“Child Protective Services?”
“Also no.”
Jasper held out his hand to shake. “I’m her fiancé.”
Luis smiled, revealing dark yellow gaps from missing teeth, and gripped Jasper’s hand with aggressive strength. “Oh, you think you are, male goat?”
Rose hugged her elbows. “Luis…”
Jasper accepted the grip without using a fraction of his strength. “Yes, but I’m not a male goat. I’m a dragon.”
His smile vanished. “A what?”
Jasper let his scales emerge on his cheeks and jaw, the scales piercing his human hair follicles and interlocking into brown diamond for a second before sucking back into his more vulnerable human skin. He heard his implant translate the words as it struggled to manage the mix of languages being used. “Eres dragon.”
“Aiy!” Luis let
go of his hand and jumped back. “What in the—how is there a dragon at my house, Rose?”
“He was my boss.” She turned to Jasper. “Stay here.”
“Rose…”
“And this is your car?” Luis recovered from his shock and rubbed his hand on his thigh. “You have a Jaguar? Can I take it for a ride?”
“No, Luis, I need it for…” She frowned. “Jasper, do you have a car seat?”
“I have two seats in my car.”
Her eyes widened a fraction, and she stared at the car without seeing it. “You have…you don’t even have a back seat.”
He shook his head.
Luis walked over to it and swooped his hand over the curves. “This is nice, male goat—my friend.” Jasper’s implant pinged as it inserted the proper translation. “Really nice.”
Rose closed her eyes and rubbed her temple. “Then we can’t take Liam home in it.”
“I’ll fly you home.”
“What about your car?”
“I’ll leave it here.”
She choked. “No.”
“No?”
“Okay, look. Anything left in this neighborhood won’t look so nice when you come back if it’s even still here.”
“Hey, my friend!” Luis opened the driver’s door. “Yeah? A ride?”
“I’ll drive it back to the office and meet you here.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay. See in you, what, an hour?”
“An hour? The office is ten minutes away by car.”
“Right, but coming back, the bus—”
“Rose.” He kissed her wrinkled forehead. “How slow do you want me to fly?”
Her lips parted. She blinked and touched her forehead, softening, and then a quiet smile replaced her worry. “Right. Okay. See you soon.”
He watched her walk to a house where a group of women clustered. He waved, but they did not wave back.
Luis climbed into the driver’s seat. Jasper got into the passenger’s seat and handed him the key.
“My friend, this is an amazing machine.”
“Please drive it to my work.”
“Yeah, sure.” He revved the engine, bringing out everyone in the neighborhood, and tested the sound system. Then, he popped the convertible top. The roof rose and folded into the rear compartment. A crowd of males formed around the Jaguar. Luis waved at the crowd. “Hey, we’re driving to this guy’s work. Who wants a ride?”
Males piled in, hanging from the back, and Luis peeled down the road, squealing rubber.
Jasper directed him. At this pace, missing lights and stop signs, they would be even faster than his estimate. “Luis, do you ever feel frustrated when dating a human woman?”
“Frustrated, man?” He merged onto the freeway, which wasn’t necessary to the route but wasn’t far off either. “Yeah, all the time!”
“I want to be close to Rose, but she won’t kiss me or touch me. She won’t even introduce me to family.”
“Yeah, she’s a classy lady, always got her eyes on the stars. Don’t worry about it, man. How long you been dating?”
He checked the time on the dash. “Forty minutes.”
Luis laughed. “Forty minutes! No, man, you gotta be patient. Give it a day, you know. A night. You can’t give a girl like her one ride in the car, you know, even if it’s a car like this one. Eh? She’s classy, man. Classy.”
They exited the freeway and zoomed up to the office building. Luis squealed the tires, drifting into the slot, and everybody piled out. They admired the car more and then Jasper folded up the top and secured it.
“So, how we going to get back?” Luis asked. “You have a limousine or a stretch Hummer or what?”
“We’ll fly.”
He blinked. “Fly?”
Jasper waved them into a rugby huddle. “Get close. Hold on tight.”
The guys did it and quieted, sober, while Jasper tested the logistics.
Luis cleared his throat. “All right, now what?”
Jasper held his eye. “Don’t look down.”
“Huh?”
Jasper launched in the air. The nice thing about the stellarium in his body was that he didn’t need to shift to access his powers. Even in human form, he could reverse gravity.
The males tensed as the ground fell away from them. They shouted and scrambled at Jasper.
“Don’t let go,” he warned them over the shrieks. “And I told you, don’t look down.”
While he completed the very short, low altitude, very boring flight, he thought about his situation.
Luis was a human male and if he said Jasper needed patience then, okay, Jasper would recalibrate his expectations. He wouldn’t think of it as finally moving forward after almost five years, but that they were taking the first steps for the rest of their lives. He needed to stop panicking about the time gone by and instead savor the first moments of a long, happy future.
Yes. That was it.
He landed in the middle of the apartment complex with a thump. “We’re here.”
Luis let go and stumbled back. He laughed so hard he started coughing and rested a hand against the nearest porch wall. “Man, I saw my life flash before my eyes! Man…”
The others staggered away.
Jasper would stop fantasizing about pressing Rose against his body and sliding his cock into her wet channel while she called his name, and instead, he would—
Rose descended the porch steps with a small backpack in one hand and a young boy on the other. “What did you do to them?”
Images flashed through his body with heat, hunger, need.
He forced them down. No, he would treasure this moment. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Why are those guys crying? Why is that other guy throwing up?”
“Hm? I don’t know. Maybe he feels sick.”
Luis laughed again and pointed at Jasper. “That man has the balls of a steel bull! He kills me, he kills me.”
Rose’s eyes narrowed.
Jasper peered behind her to the house. Her grandma watched out the front window. “I’ll introduce myself.”
“Next time.” Rose rested her hand on the young boy’s shoulders. “We’re hungry.”
“I’m hungry,” the boy repeated, at twice Rose’s volume. He came up to her chest, with a dark mass of crinkly hair and big eyes.
Jasper lowered to be eye level. “Hi, Hungry. I’m Jasper.”
The kid blinked. His default volume was a shout. “I’m not Hungry, I’m Liam!”
“Oh, hello, Liam. We’re having a date that’s dinner, no movie. What do you want for dinner?”
“Play Castle Pizza Feast!”
Rose snapped, “We can’t afford that, don’t be greedy.”
Liam groaned.
“I’ll buy,” Jasper offered.
“No, Play Castle Pizza is this boutique pizza parlor and you need a reservation. The feast is for twelve people. It’s for sports. Anyway, I don’t want to owe you.”
“But…” He double-checked his phone for the local menu and nearest location. “You don’t owe me. We’re a team now.”
She hesitated.
“This is what being a team means,” he said. “When one person can’t do something, the other can, and we get the job done.”
“Okay, but we’re not going to Play Castle Pizza. Liam, what about McDonald’s?”
“Aw!”
“Happy Meal, buddy. Take it or leave it.”
Liam jumped in a circle chanting about Happy Meals. Rose looked calmer. This counted as acceptance.
Very well. “Okay, huddle in and I’ll fly you there in no time.”
The nearest males leaped away like they feared getting picked up again, but that was silly because it was impossible to pick someone up without touching.
Rose stepped out from under his guiding arm. “We’ll walk.”
“Are you sure?”
“Hungry!” Liam shouted.
“It will take longer.”
“It’s fin
e, McDonald’s is close. Come on.” She led the way out of the apartment complex toward the main street.
Jasper waved goodbye to Luis and his new friends, then followed, ambling in the pleasant evening.
They reached the corner with the traffic light. Rose reached out for Liam. “Hold my hand.”
Liam clasped her hand.
Jasper followed behind as they crossed the road. “You don’t mind holding hands with your family.”
“Because he’s four.”
“Oh. Do you dislike holding hands or only holding hands with adults?”
“What?” She glanced back at him, dropped her jaw, and rolled her eyes. “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” She shouldered the small backpack and stuck out her other hand. “Here.”
He swooped forward and took it, interlocking their fingers. Hers were slender but strong, knuckles hard, pads worn.
“Happy?” she grumbled, looking anywhere but in his direction.
He pressed his thumb to the back of her hand. “Very.”
She swallowed, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence.
Patience. He could do patience.
Chapter Ten
Jasper was looking at her like he could eat her up.
Rose struggled to keep calm as she walked with him and Liam to the McDonalds. Who was watching her right now? What were they saying?
How long until it got back to Briar?
She shoved the last thought out of her mind.
Jasper squeezed her hand and then let go to hold the door for her to enter the fast-food chain. They were beyond the dinner rush, but parents got home late in this section of town, and it was still hopping. She let him order and pay—with a shiny black credit card that looked chiseled from a precious gemstone—and they ate in the boisterous kids’ section so that Liam could inhale his nuggets and then clamber up the play structure.
She sat on a wiped-down, red plastic seat that was too short for her. It was nice to eat out once in a while, and even nicer to splash out on one of the real burgers on the regular menu instead of the value menu. She licked a drip of special sauce off her thumb.
Jasper’s gaze fixed on her thumb. His tongue touched the inside of his lips.
She heated with coiled arousal.
And then, even though she knew Jasper wasn’t a danger, her mouth kicked into defense mode. “Don’t think this entitles you to anything.”
