Alpha Dragon's Nanny: A Dragon Shifter Romance (Billionaire Shifters' Nanny Mates)

by Alicia Banks

  ***

  It was all over again, and Antonio was breathing hard next to Josselin. She was still on her back, eyes closed and looking at the ceiling. Antonio hadn’t felt that good in a long time and before he could really stop himself, he was asking her how it was possible she was untouched before then. She’d been out of it after the first time around, so he hadn’t been able to ask.

  Josselin shrugged. “I guess I just hadn’t found the right person yet. I wanted it to be right.”

  “And was it?”

  Josselin agreed that it was and Antonio calmed down. After what he was feeling, anything short of that would have been devastating for him.

  “I wish I would have known.”

  “Why?”

  Antonio was puzzled for a moment. Would it have been better to be told ahead of time? He didn’t think so.

  “I could have made it feel better.”

  Josselin didn’t believe him, telling him that there was no way that it would have felt better than it already did.

  “Prove it.”

  Antonio was surprised she was ready for more, sure that he had stretched her to her limit. Antonio didn’t have to be asked twice, though. As soon as she said it, he knew that he was going to do exactly that. He couldn’t help it.

  He snatched her up and pulled her into his lap. Neither one of them had any clothes on and it was advantageous. He only had to lift her up and position her to slide right in. She was quickly screaming in pleasure, making him push her down and thrust up faster. Josselin liked it that way, and it really wasn’t long at all before Josselin was eating her words. It wasn’t just to hear it, but for her to realize it as well. He was claiming her, not just having sex. It was so much more than that.

  Chapter 17

  Josselin was left to her own devices. It was Monday morning and even though Ophelia was still at her uncle’s, Antonio had to go to work. She hated to see him go, but there was a part of her that needed a bit of a break. Antonio was a lot to deal with all at once and she was still trying to get over what had happened before. He did not seem to understand that he was more than she could handle. It was not something that she wanted to admit, but it was the truth.

  With him gone, she had a little bit of time to take stock of the situation and the feelings now running through her. He and her together made sense, until all the factors were considered. Then it made no sense at all. While she didn't want to believe that their feelings were just for the moment, she couldn't help but wonder. There were a lot of questions that she still had.

  After he left, she took a long shower and tried to work out some of the soreness in the muscles of her legs and arms. He had just been so intense that she hadn't been able to prepare herself for him. He was a lot to take on.

  Even in the midst of it all, Josselin had not forgotten in the back of her mind the lines from the journal. She didn't want to believe what was on those pages, but it was kind of hard to deny it. There were some differences between him and other men. It was the sort of differences that she couldn't help but recognize. His eyes had literally glowed at some point in the midst of it and that was far more than she was able to make an excuse for. What kind of excuse was there for someone’s eyes changing colors?

  So, even though she knew the last thing she should be doing was what she was doing, she went right to the library. She wanted to know everything. Not to mention she had seen him writing in it the other day and she wanted to know what he’d said. She believed that it had something to do with her.

  Her hands were shaking when she finally got to the book. A part of her had imagined that it would be gone, and she would not be able to read what she was so sure she would find. Josselin had, of course, considered that maybe she didn't want to see what it was, but her curiosity pushed her forward whether she liked it or not. Josselin let out a breath slowly, trying to calm herself and started to flip through the book. She went right to the end and she really couldn't believe what she was reading. Was that real?

  November 13th, 2020

  Josselin is proving to be more difficult to be around than I would have imagined. She reminds me of someone, but I can't remember who. Who am I kidding? I know who she reminds me of. She reminds me of Katarina. I feel the same way for her as I did for Katarina. That unnerves me. What Katarina and I had was built over years of love and trust. Why do I feel the same way for a human I've just met? The human that I can't even have? How can I have her, when she can’t know the truth? Josselin would never want to be with me, if she knew what I really was.

  She flipped to the next page, but there was nothing else there. Josselin made a frustrated sound. She wanted to know what he was, why he was constantly calling people human in his writings. What was Antonio? She had a right to know.

  Josselin decided that instead of driving herself crazy with all of those questions, she was just going to find out. She went back and read more, flipping and scanning, stopping and gasping during much of it. She wasn’t sure what to think, but one entry got her attention. It was made over sixty years before, but Antonio wasn’t normal. He wasn’t human. Antonio was a dragon!

  March 15th, 1959

  As much as I want to believe that things can be different, I know it to not be true. I know that me dealing with humans is the final straw. They are weak and all they do is fear me if they know who I am. If they don't, they try to ridicule me and take advantage. I know now that I should have listened to my uncle and my father. I need to turn my back on the regular world full of a kind of people that don’t even know their place. I need to go where I am trusted and where I belong. I need to go back to my dragonkin.

  Josselin must have read it three times, because she couldn't believe it. Of all the things that she could have imagined him being, it wouldn’t have been that. Or any animal for that matter. Definitely not a mythical creature. What was she supposed to do with that? The words that he had written about how she couldn't accept him, started to make a lot more sense. It wasn't that she wanted to refuse him or anything like that, but a dragon? Then it hit her again. She had made love to him all night the night before. How is that even possible? What does that mean?

  Josselin put the book down, being careful to make sure that it was put back exactly where it was. Her hands were still shaking from reading it. It was hard to imagine, even harder to believe. Could these words really be true?

  ***

  Josselin went to her room and laid down. She lay there for quite a while, trying to figure out what it was that she had just learned. How could he be a dragon? How was that even possible? Dragons weren’t even real. Right? Her head was hurting from all the possibilities. It didn't seem to make any sense to her. How was any of it possible?

  She went to sleep and awakened with a start,when she felt hands wrap around her. Her initial reaction was to jerk and try to pull away. She had been in the middle of a dream and it hadn’t been a positive one. It was one full of dragons and fire breathing. It was all impossible, and she’d really hoped when she went to sleep that she would wake up and it would all be over. It wouldn't be real.

  It was real, though, and the man in question was looking back at her with his dark eyes and a smile on his face. It was rather clear to her what he wanted, and she was certainly not in the mood for such things. Josselin tried not to react because she knew what happened if it was found out that she knew. They would kill her. It was just that simple. She had read enough to know that her kind, humans, were not meant to know about this and if they were unfortunate enough to find out, they would most likely be killed. There seemed to be some rules that could keep them alive, but she hadn't gotten to enough of it to figure out what that was.

  He started to kiss her and while she did kiss him back, he must have known that it was different than how she usually did. He pulled back and asked her what was wrong.

  “Why do you think something is wrong?”

  “Because I can just tell. What is it?”

  Josselin was nervous. She didn’t know
what to say and she certainly wasn't going to tell him what was really going on. She was scared, because she knew what he was. It wasn't something she was supposed to know. But it was also something that couldn't be changed. She couldn't unlearn it, even though Josselin almost wished that she could.

  “I am just tired, that's all. You’re a lot on a girl.”

  A part of her wanted to admit that she had remembered some of it and wanted to know how he would react to it. Would he try to get more information from her? Would he get rid of her like what had been done in the past? That idea probably scared her more than all the rest.

  “Well, I really don't know what to tell you. You probably just need to sleep more. You've been through a lot.”

  Josselin told him that she was sure she would be fine soon enough. She was afraid to really meet his gaze, learning from the writing that some of them could even read minds. That probably bothered her more than anything else. The idea that not even her own mind was a safe zone, freaked her out. Josselin just wanted a little bit more time, and that meant a little bit more time away from him. She had to wrap her head around it all. How could she do that, though, when he was right there?

  “You're probably right, I probably just need some more rest. I don't mean to be such a fuddy.”

  He grinned and told her that it was okay.

  “Considering what you let me do to you earlier, I can't say that it is all that surprising. It was a lot, I know that. You were perfect.”

  He had this look on his face and for a second, she wanted to just come out with it and say that she knew what he was, and she still wanted to be with him. The sad part about that was she couldn't even say it. He could never know that she knew, because then he would have to make a choice against his own people or her. Josselin didn't want to put herself in that situation, and even though she wanted him to know that she accepted him, she never could.

  Josselin couldn't imagine how she would win in such a situation. It was best to never make him decide between her and his people. She unlikely wouldn't like the answer, anyway.

  Thankfully, he left her to her own devices and Josselin did actually get some more sleep. Her sleep was rife with dreams that made her wake up with her heart slamming in her chest. How was she ever going to feel safe and normal again, knowing that there was so much that was real, that shouldn't be? Where did that leave them as humans, when there were so many things stronger and more dominating?

  She was about to go to sleep, again, but Antonio came in her room and told her that she at least needed to eat.

  She sat up and thanked him for being so thoughtful, even though she wasn't really hungry. She was instead thinking about everything. Her mind was trying to come up with scenarios for the impossible situation she found herself in. Of course, part of her had to realize that she was in a far more dangerous situation than she had ever been in with her family. While they had threatened to kill her, she didn't think that they actually would. They had, of course, not done it in the decade that she'd been with them. Antonio, though. It wasn't like she was afraid of Antonio doing something, but it wasn't just Antonio that was a dragon. He was actually a leader of one group of them, but from what she had read, there were many groups, which meant many dragons. Some other dragons took it upon themselves to make sure that humans like her didn't survive. Like the council.

  He brought her a plate of food and sat down next to her.

  “Are you sure you're going to be okay? Is it about your family?”

  Josselin just kind of shrugged. “Even though they were so awful to me, it bothers me that I don’t know what happened to them.”

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t like that.”

  “I need to know what happened. All of it.”

  Antonio asked her if she was sure. Josselin said that she wasn't, but that there was a need inside of her that had to be fulfilled. It wanted to know, so she wasn't going to be able to think straight until she did.

  “Sometimes you just have to put thoughts to rest, stop making new ones.”

  “Well, I think your uncle was shot and a couple more of them died in the fire.”

  “The fire? You didn't tell me about a fire.”

  Josselin could feel that dread coming back, and the sinking feeling in her stomach. The fire, from the dragon. The dragon that was Antonio. How could she ever look at him and not see that? It all just seemed so impossible.

  “Well, your uncle's house burned down.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yeah, there seems to be some kind of accelerant in the house, and it went up pretty quickly. By the time the Fire Department got there, it was already gone. It was quite a blaze.”

  Josselin swallowed hard. “Well, like I said, I hate to think about such things, but I needed to know. Now I can give it a little bit of time, and I am sure all of it will be a distant memory soon enough.”

  He told her not to expect that, but that it would get easier.

  “Have you lost someone close to you?”

  “I have lost many people over the years, Josselin. Like I said, you won’t forget, but it'll get easier. You won't think about it near as much.”

  “What about the guilt?”

  “What would you have guilt for?”

  “Because if I hadn’t gone back to town to get those things, and if I hadn’t had lunch with my best friend that betrayed me, they would still be alive.”

  “Maybe that is one way to look at it, or maybe you can look at it as you are finally free.”

  “Is it bad that I already do?”

  “No, it's not wrong to feel that way at all. Everything is going to be fine, Josselin. What you're feeling is perfectly natural, but it will get easier.”

  She agreed, even though none of his words really clicked with her. She did feel an insurmountable amount of guilt and it wasn't an easy kind that could just quickly go away. The truth was that she probably didn't want it to go away. She wanted to feel everything. She promised herself that she would never be like the rest of her family, doing horrible things and pretending like they didn't see the effects. She wanted to go forward with her eyes open, even if it was hard.

  They talked while she ate dinner and Josselin leaned against him. She was becoming used to the idea of what he was, even if not being able to talk about it was secretly killing her. Josselin had so many questions, but this was a scenario when curiosity really would kill. Josselin was just going to have to accept that they would never be able to have that conversation and she would never be able to ask those questions. Instead, she just needed to be content with what she had.

  Josselin was in the best situation that she had been in her life, at least since her parents died. Whatever Antonio was or wasn’t, he was a damn good man who she felt safe with. He had saved her from a future that would have been horrible. There was no way that she could ever look at that in a negative light. Even if they did find out that she knew and even if she was killed for it, Josselin couldn't regret it. She couldn't regret meeting him. She couldn't regret the feelings that he had brought upon her that she didn't even know existed. None of those things could ever be denied, nor would she want to.

  After playing with him for a while, things started to get heated and she was unable to refuse him. Once he started to kiss over her and press his body into hers, she was left to surrender to his touch. Man or beast, Josselin could not deny him. More truthfully, maybe she couldn't deny herself. It was hard to say no to such pleasure, no matter where it came from.

  Chapter 18

  Antonio was rudely awakened by Tommy. Not only was he bothering him, but he had not called. Instead, he came to his house. Tommy was standing over his bed when he opened his eyes, and it was rather impossible to deny what he found there. Josselin was laying naked next to him and he only had some boxers on. When Tommy started to open his mouth, Antonio made a motion for him to leave, so that he could get dressed and meet him outside. Whatever it was they had to say, Antonio certainly didn't want Josselin to hear.
>
  Not to mention, he knew he was about to get a bunch of crap for the fact that he was in bed with a human, something he said he would never do.

  Antonio extracted himself from the sleeping woman next to him and started to go into the hallway where Tommy was waiting. He had a grim look on his face, and he asked Tommy what the hell it was that he wanted.

  “That's not quite what I expected when I came over.”

  “Well, maybe you shouldn't expect something when you come over to my house. What else do you want?”

  Tommy was just smiling, and Antonio found that more irritating than anything else. What in the hell was he smiling about?

  When Antonio asked him that very thing, Tommy just shook his head. “Nothing, Antonio. Just thinking about all the shit you gave me about that human I used to date before I mated. I knew that your rants about humans was all bluster.”

  “How is that?”

  “Because as much as you deny it, they’ve always interested you.”

  Antonio did not know if that was true or not. He had never really been interested where they were concerned, but he certainly had kept his distance. They had a power that he didn't quite understand and anytime he had ever gotten close to one, something bad happened to them. The biggest problem with humans was their lifespan. They didn't live very long and that was, of course, something that was in the back of his mind, and he was trying not to really think about it. He didn’t want to think about how quickly his time with Josselin would be up. He knew that whatever time she had left, though, he wanted to spend with her. That was a given as far as he was concerned.

  “Whatever, what the hell are you here for?”

  Tommy got serious for a moment. “You need to speak to the council. They left a message for you and they say it's urgent.”

  Antonio's face dropped a little bit, and Tommy asked him what was going on.