Dragon's Luck: Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (Shifter Agents Book 3)

by Lauren Esker

  "Welcome to the Memphis," she said with a small, formal bow. Despite the exotic locale, her accent was pure California coast. "Molina party?"

  Roxy inclined her head in a slight nod.

  "This way, please."

  The blond crew member led them down the length of the docking bay. There was a delay while they were thoroughly patted down by more red-clad crew—Lucky decided to think of them as redcaps—and then taken through a metal detector. Their cell phones were confiscated; Jen, he noticed, had acquired a phone somehow, probably wherever she got the clothes from. Roxy's goons were relieved of their weapons. Phones and guns went into neatly sealed and labeled plastic bags, to be returned upon departure. Their luggage was searched.

  "This is all you have?" the blond redcap asked, looking up from Lucky's valise.

  "We weren't expecting a long trip." Jen twined her fingers affectionately in Lucky's. He managed not to tense, with an effort. "It was only supposed to be overnight."

  Lucky untangled their fingers and snugged a quick arm around her waist. Now he could feel her trying not to tense up. "Maybe if someone wasn't such a silly goose. I tell her things, but it's just in one ear and out the other every time."

  "Oh, you," Jen said playfully, grinding her shoe on his toes. He tried not to grimace.

  They must have passed inspection, since the blond redcap took them through a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Roxy's henchmen brought up the rear, each carrying one of the two suitcases they'd brought on board with them, along with Lucky's small valise. They went up two flights of stairs and stepped into a wide corridor that could easily have been imported from a luxury hotel on land. The carpet was thick and red, with broad geometric gold patterns; there was an arched gold-leaf ceiling overhead. Widely spaced doors bore a brass letter C and room numbers: odd on one side of the corridor, even on the other. The ship's swaying was a little more noticeable here.

  "This is Deck C," the redcap said. "You may order room service for your meals, and there is a communal lounge on each floor where you are welcome to socialize. Please do not leave your assigned floor unless accompanied by staff."

  A gleam came into Jen's eye at these instructions. Lucky placed a mental bet with himself on how long it would take her to go exploring.

  "How many suites do you need?" the redcap asked.

  "One," Roxy said, at the same time as Lucky said, "Two."

  "Absolutely not," Roxy snapped. "How many bedrooms are in a suite?" she asked the redcap.

  "Two, ma'am."

  "So we're sharing with them too?" Lucky asked, jerking a thumb at Henchman the First and Henchman the Second. "Who gets to share the bed with Goon One there? He looks like he snores."

  "Hey," the henchman said mildly, giving him a look. "I do not."

  "Yeah you do," the other one murmured.

  "Fuck off, Dorian."

  "My honey-bun has a point," Jen said, tucking her arm through Lucky's and leaning into his side. "I don't see why five people have to share a single suite if we don't have to. There's plenty of room, right?"

  Roxy's mouth tightened into a line. "All right," she said. "Two suites, together. And all the keys go to me."

  "Wait, we're going to be locked in?" Lucky protested.

  "Only when I can't keep an eye on you."

  The redcap didn't even bat an eye at this exchange. She did work for a mobster, after all, Lucky reminded himself. That wasn't a toy gun at her hip. "Suites 3 and 4 are yours," she said, and handed two key cards to Roxy. "If you need anything, please use the phone in your suite, or summon any crew member you see."

  Roxy turned the key cards over in her long fingers. "I suppose both of you have opinions on which suite you want, as well."

  "You decide," Lucky said magnanimously.

  Her glance was dark. "Where's your lucky gecko?" she asked, swiping one of the cards in the door to Suite 3.

  "Sleeping," Lucky replied promptly. "In my pocket. Shhh, don't wake her up. She had a hard night."

  Jen's lips twitched before she went poker-faced. Roxy frowned slightly, as if she knew she was being made fun of but couldn't quite figure out how. Then she shook her head and opened the door.

  Lucky had stayed in expensive hotels during his brief high-roller period in his early twenties before he quit the life—forever, he'd thought. Now the memories came rushing back. The hotel room, too, could have been lifted out of any nice hotel anywhere. High ceilings, art on the walls, minibar, stylish furniture in conversational groupings. A door on each side of the common area stood open, leading to two bedrooms. Each had its own attached bath.

  Jen crossed the deep red pile carpet and pulled back the drapes. What appeared to be a window was actually a sliding glass door leading out onto a balcony. Right now, there was nothing to see except darkness gathering outside the ship. Rain streaked the glass.

  Without awaiting instructions, the two henchmen set down their luggage, took out small electronic devices, and began sweeping the room.

  "You think they bugged the place?" Lucky asked.

  "It pays to be careful," Roxy said. She turned to go back into the hall.

  Jen skipped after her. "Wait! Can we see the other one too?"

  Roxy sighed. "Whatever you like."

  Lucky and Jen trailed her into the other suite. It was identical except the layout was reversed. Jen immediately went to the window again, lifting the drapes. What do you think is going to be out there that you didn't see on the other side? Lucky wondered—but, to his surprise, warm green light streamed into the room.

  "Whoa," Jen said.

  Lucky went to her shoulder. The rooms on the other side of the hall looked out on the sea. This window, however, looked out on ... a jungle? He stared at a bright-colored bird swooping past the netting-draped window. Green leafy treetops made it hard to see anything inside, but after a minute he caught the glint of other windows on the far side. Looking down, he saw a pair of redcaps two stories below them, raking gravel on a winding path. The light came not from the sun, but from banks of daylight-simulating lights that could be glimpsed through the treetops.

  The residential areas of the ship were constructed around an arboretum large enough to grow full-sized trees.

  "We'll take this one!" Jen chirped.

  "And you're welcome to it," Roxy told her. The camaraderie they'd enjoyed on the boat had clearly frayed along with her patience. "Just let my boys sweep it for bugs first."

  The bug sweep took a few minutes. Jen toed off her shoes and flopped on a couch. Lucky entertained himself by investigating the contents of the minibar. If this was all on the Molina family's dime, he planned to take advantage of it.

  Jen flipped through a fashion magazine from a small stack on the coffee table—an assortment that made Lucky think of a dentist's office: Better Homes & Gardens, Smithsonian, Style. Eventually the henchmen declared the room bug-free and camera-free, and left Lucky's bag beside the door before they departed.

  Lucky padded quietly to the door, tested the knob, and opened it to peek into the hallway. No one was around, though he glimpsed someone who wasn't a redcoat down at the far end—visible only as a swirl of a long dress vanishing into one of the other rooms. He tested the doorknob on the outside: perma-locked. "Well," he said, closing the door. "At least we aren't locked in. We just need her help to get back into our room." Unless they could dupe the key cards.

  "Better than the alternative, I suppose," Jen said, tossing her magazine back on the table.

  "Any specific reason you wanted this room instead of the other one? Aside from the view."

  "Duh," Jen said. She hopped up and padded to the window. "It's because of the view, lizard-boy. Think about it. I'd much rather climb around in there than try to scale the outside of the ship, even with gecko feet. There are privacy walls separating the balconies; I'd have to go all the way outside, into the ship's windshear, to go from balcony to balcony. This way, I can just run along the wall."

  "Until a bird eats you."
/>
  She flapped a hand. "Details."

  He shook his head and went to the minibar. "Want a drink?"

  "Oh, why the hell not. I have no idea what time it is anymore and I don't remember the last time I slept. Can you make mojitos?"

  "Why on earth would you want a mojito?"

  "Because," she said patiently, "we are on a cruise ship, and it's a tropical drink."

  "First of all, we're at about the same latitude as Seattle, which isn't precisely tropical—and besides, isn't a mojito composed mainly of mint and sugary horror?"

  "And booze." She wandered over to join him at the bar. "Don't forget the booze."

  "How about I just pour you some booze in a glass and forget the mo and the jito parts."

  "I'll settle for a rum and Coke." She was standing up against his shoulder, just as he'd been leaning over hers at the window. The top of her head came up to his nose. She wasn't wearing perfume and the scent of her shampoo had faded to a spicy, compellingly female smell.

  "I see rum here, but no Coke."

  "Seriously? What do they have?" She leaned over and opened the minifridge; Lucky made an effort not to check out her ass, and failed. "Oh, they have Kirin. I'll settle for that. Do you see a bottle opener up there anywhere?"

  This, at least, he found. She cracked open the bottle of beer, while he poured himself two fingers of whiskey in a glass.

  "So what are you doing here, Lucky Lucado?" Jen asked, taking her beer over to the couch. "And are you ever going to tell me your real name?"

  He decided the last question was safe to answer, if slightly embarrassing. "It's Ambrose."

  "Ambrose? Really?"

  "Why do you think I'd rather be called Lucky?"

  "I suppose I can't argue with your logic. It used to annoy me that I got to share my name with half the other girls in America. Though, at least, Jennifer was on the wane in popularity by the time my parents got on the bandwagon."

  "See, I am lucky. Ambrose was never popular."

  Jen laughed and patted the couch beside her hip. Lucky sat down at the other end. The whiskey was potent, already going straight to his head. He knew he should probably eat something, but even picking up the phone to call room service seemed like too much work right now.

  He was starting to think the drinks might have been a mistake. His acute awareness of her hadn't faded; in fact, it seemed that Jennifer Cho was the only real thing in the room.

  "I'm sorry I got you into this," he blurted out.

  "You?" she repeated, eyes going wide. "You got me into it? How in the world do you figure that? Or have you forgotten I'm the one who talked you into taking me along?"

  Because I tilt luck around me, and I think I may have dragged you along without meaning to. Because, if I hadn't given you that little push to knock you off the ceiling, you'd still be doing whatever you were doing, and I'd have never met you.

  Which ... was something he very much didn't want, at the moment. And he could never quite be sure, not a hundred percent, that he wasn't pushing without meaning to, setting a finger on the scales of fate and tipping it in his direction. He'd never been entirely sure how the whole thing worked; he had no one to ask about it, no one even to talk to since Lucia and Angel went away.

  "Er ... you've gone awfully quiet." She leaned his way. "Is that your way of letting me win this argument?"

  "I'm willing to concede every once in a while," he said, forcing a smile. "By virtue of being right the rest of the time."

  "Oh, you aren't cocky at all, are you?" But she was smiling.

  His glass was empty. Wow, he really was feeling it. And the combination of alcohol and exhaustion had knocked down enough of his self-control that he couldn't see a reason not to have another drink.

  "You want anything else?" he asked Jen, as he went back to the bar.

  "Nah, I've still got plenty of my beer left." She frowned a little, watching him knock back another swallow of whiskey. "You trying to get drunk?"

  "Just tired of keeping it together for the marks." Okay, he hadn't meant to let that out. Maybe he should stop. Instead he took another drink. He was just tired ... of everything.

  "Is that what I am? A mark?" She didn't sound angry, though. She was standing now. Walking toward him. She set the half-empty beer bottle down and shoved her hands into her pockets.

  "I don't know." He could tell her that, when you made your living by gambling and lying, the whole world was made up of marks—con-speak for people to cheat. He'd tried to retire, but now he'd been pulled back in.

  "Lucky." Jen rested her hip against the bar, leaning in close. "What are you doing here? What's in it for you?"

  "Money," he said. Somehow the lie didn't come easily to his lips. He didn't enjoy lying to her—but he'd never really liked lying. It was something he did out of necessity, not choice.

  Oh really, Lucado? Or is it yourself that you're lying to? You could've used your abilities to make a killing in the stock market, or to be the world's best private investigator. Instead, this is the road you went down.

  "What about you?" he asked, turning her questions around like a dagger aimed at her secrets, her insecurities. She wasn't the only one who could pry. "You're a big question mark, lady. You show up in the middle of the game, won't talk about your past—"

  "Neither will you," she countered. He was leaning toward her now, but she refused to yield an inch of ground; they were almost touching.

  "Hey, with me what you see is what you get, sweetheart." Which was so much of a lie that even he could feel it, tainting his tongue like the taste of the whiskey. "I'm a gambler, a con—I'm your basic lowlife. Whereas you ... I don't know what the hell you are. Nothing about you adds up."

  She was starting to look nervous—like his questions were pushing too close to the heart of everything she didn't want to talk about. But her body language didn't speak of fear; she wasn't afraid of him, but of the road he was leading her down.

  And so he pushed harder. "You said you're not a good poker player. You aren't a gambler, and I don't think you're a thief. You don't fit in this world, and I can't figure out how to make you fit. I keep feeling like, if I can just put the pieces together in the right way—"

  She lunged forward and kissed him.

  It was a soft, pleasant shock that completely blew apart his thoughts—Which is exactly what she wants, a small part of his brain insisted, but the rest of him was too busy rising to the occasion to care.

  Jen was an active, inquisitive kisser, which came as no surprise. She explored his mouth with a small, darting tongue, nibbled at his lips, caught him again every time he had a chance to come up for breath.

  Reaching out, he fumbled for a place to put the whiskey glass to free up both his hands. She already had her hands under his shirt, small strong hands sliding up his sides. He pulled her against him with a hand in the small of her back. She seemed so tiny, but from the way she pushed back against him, he knew she wouldn't break.

  And why the hell not? thought the alcohol-fueled, devil-may-care part of himself. They were pretending to be a couple anyway; why not hook up in the meantime? It couldn't possibly last beyond the duration of the cruise, if even that long; his secrets would come out, or she'd turn out to have two husbands and a dark past full of espionage and murder, or, hell, they'd lose the game and find out that tournament losers actually weren't sent home with a suitcase full of parting gifts, but were pushed off the side of the ship instead.

  None of that mattered. What mattered right now was the heat rising in him, and the warmth of her lips on his, and the fact that, from the very active way she was kissing back, she wanted it too.

  Words weren't necessary. Tangled together, still kissing, they stumbled into the nearest bedroom. He'd managed to get his hands under her sweater, but hadn't made it beyond that, despite a fumbling attempt to unhook her bra—he belatedly had managed to figure out that it was a sports bra and didn't have hooks, by the time he toppled backward onto the bed with Jen on top of h
im.

  This managed to break the kiss. Jen sat up, straddling him.

  "Whoa," he managed.

  The room was dim; the bedrooms lacked windows, and they hadn't bothered turning on the light, so the only light came from the doorway. She was a dim shape sitting spread-legged across his hips, a white blur of a face and a dark spill of hair.

  The room was so dark. So peaceful.

  And having her there felt comfortable. A tide of alcohol-borne weariness washed over him, all the stress of the last two days catching up with him all at once. He felt ... safe, for the first time since he'd stepped onto Roxy Molina's ship. Or even perhaps for the first time in years.

  It was very dim ... very peaceful ...

  ***

  "... er ... Lucky?"

  Jen stared down at him. Seriously?

  He'd been out the instant his head hit the pillow. Now he was fast asleep with his lips parted and his long dark lashes sweeping his cheek.

  In sleep he looked younger, less tightly controlled. I like him like this, she thought, without the masks. His dark hair, normally slicked back from his high forehead, had come loose and flopped down; she brushed it back, very carefully so as not to wake him.

  She licked her lips thoughtfully, tasting whiskey. Like most of her decisions, it had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. She had to shut him up, stop him asking questions, and given their proximity, there was only one thing she could think of to do.

  She hadn't meant to keep kissing him, let alone end up in the bedroom.

  Now she was one part disappointed, and one part relieved. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," she murmured, but quietly. It was clear that he'd been very tired.

  She sat back on the bed. It was so serene and quiet here. The rooms seemed to be well soundproofed. Occasionally she could hear muffled noises—a slamming door, voices raised in conversation—but it was faint and distant. The roll of the ship was so gentle and slow that she could almost believe she was on land.