by Amelia Jade
“I need something stylish. Not formal, but stylish.”
“Stylish,” she said, repeating the word as yet another smile played over her lips. “Of course. If you’ll follow me?” she said, not waiting for his response.
“Gladly,” he said, his deep voice dropping slightly as his eyes focused on her rear as they walked, noticing the mesmerizing way it swayed side to side.
Her hair, while mostly brown, had streaks of black dyed into it that were only visible from the back as she walked along. It was slightly whimsical, and seemed to go well with her. Zander wasn’t sure how he knew that, since he’d exchanged all of half a dozen or so sentences with her, but it just did, as far as he was concerned.
As they moved to the far side of the store, he got a glimpse of the manager in a mirror, staring over at them. Beady black eyes looked out from under bushy eyebrows, and once more Zander felt a flash of rage rip through him.
“Does he always look so unimpressed?” he asked in a low voice, pitching it downward so it wouldn’t carry.
“What?” the woman asked, turning to face him. She followed his look to the mirror, and then he saw her shoulders slump slightly.
“Yes,” was the only word she uttered before turning back to the rack of suits in front of her.
There was more to this story, he could tell, but Zander wasn’t ready to press her on it yet. Something told him it would come out in time. His guard was up, however, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep himself contained if the manager came over and said anything.
Then, to his relief, the man vanished into the back.
“Is there a particular event that you need this for?” she asked.
He turned around and peered at her.
“No, Riss,” he said, noting the nametag across her chest, and hoping she didn’t think he was staring at her cleavage—again, at least.
“Okay, well what do you think of this?” she asked, holding up a suit jacket to his chest and using her other hand to tug him sideways, until he was lined up in front of a mirror.
Her hand was hovering just under his chin, and then something that he should have realized much earlier hit him.
“You’re human,” he said without preamble, not thinking much of it other than being surprised.
He was shocked, however, at the reaction from the woman.
***
Riss
“You’re human.”
There it was. The line she’d been waiting for since the dragon shifter walked in the door.
Oh yes, she knew he was a dragon shifter. There had been no doubt in her mind from the moment she saw past the locks of sandy-brown hair, and the coppery, almost metallic-like glint to his skin. Unless she missed her guess, he was a Metallic Dragon. Brass, Copper, Bronze, she couldn’t be sure just which it was. They all had the same sort of hue to their skin. They had other names, ones based off their breath weapons. Riss knew the Brass dragons were known as Gale Dragon’s, for their ability to use the force of the wind. She tried to rack her mind now for the powers of the Copper and Bronze, but she couldn’t recall ever having heard it.
In addition, they were sufficiently rare that, in her twenty-eight years of living in Cadia, she’d seen but a handful of them. Enough to know their type compared to the other, more populous sub-races of dragon, but not enough to be confident labeling him from there. What it did tell her was that she needed to be extra nice.
The Metallic Dragons were, to be blunt, a prickly bunch. Combine that with the glower that had been plastered across his admittedly gorgeous features as he came inside, and Riss knew things were going to be a little nerve-racking unless she could cheer him up.
Then he’d looked at her, and the brass-brown eyes had focused on her with an intensity that practically took her breath away. She had been rooted to the spot momentarily, and tried to cover it up, though she was unsure if her efforts had been successful.
Now though, any fantasy she’d entertained about him, however unlikely, evaporated as he said the words that almost anyone she ran into did.
“Yes, I am human. Yes, I live in Cadia, and yes I know that that’s unusual. I’m the daughter of a human-grizzly pair, and I got unlucky and didn’t get anything out of the deal. There, that answer your questions?”
The tall shifter—though somewhat short for a dragon—looked down at her in surprise.
“I did not say it was a bad thing,” he rumbled, and once again Riss was forced to keep ahold of herself at the way his words seemed to warm her core.
Get a grip on yourself, woman. This is not the first shifter to walk into your store. It’s not even the first dragon shifter you’ve ever run across. The whole town is full of walking mountains of muscle with amazing features. Why is this one rattling you so much?
Could it be the square cut of his jaw? The way he occasionally had to push his hair back to keep it from dragging across his eyebrows and likely hanging just inside his view? Maybe it was the muscle she’d felt through his shirt, the hardness of his skin when she’d tugged him closer to her, the smell of fresh-cut wood wafting up through her nose and setting her skin on fire.
She wasn’t sure what it was, but something about him was, simply put, different. Riss just didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet.
“What is your name?” she asked, ignoring his comment, the suit shopping momentarily forgotten as her neck craned back to look him square in those beautiful brassy-brown eyes.
Brass Dragon. He has to be. With those eyes, I can’t see him being anything but.
“Zander,” he replied after a moment of evaluation, as if trying to determine whether she was worth giving his name to or not.
Riss was used to that. As a human living in Cadia, and an unmated one at that, she was considered to be beneath many of the shifters she encountered. Some were polite, but even fewer were outright friendly.
“Well, Zander,” she said with as much neutrality in her voice as she could manage. “In Cadia, you get used to everyone using it as a slur pretty quickly.”
He frowned, his face screwing up into a look of confusion. “I have never used it as a slur,” he said matter-of-factly, like his opinion counted more over all others.
“Well, I appreciate that,” she said genuinely. “I really do. Unfortunately, there are ten thousand others out there that do not feel the same way as you. So, you’re kind of outnumbered.”
“Why do you stay then, Riss?” he asked, and she shivered at the way her name rolled off his tongue.
She snorted in disbelief. “Contrary to popular opinion, dragon-boy, not all of us can just rip up our lives and go elsewhere. My parents left me here, for starters, but I don’t make anywhere near enough money to move to a human city and start over. I’d be living on the street trying—and I emphasize trying—to turn tricks in a week.”
Zander, if it was possible, looked even more confused. “Tricks? You would become a magician?”
Now she outright laughed. He glared at her and she cut it off abruptly, shaking her head. “No,” she explained. “I meant I would be forced into selling my body.” She shrugged. “Human slang, sorry. I forget that you don’t spend much time on the internet.”
Now he smiled, slightly. “No, I do not. No need.”
Again, she thought, just like that, as if his word is God or something. What is it with these shifters?
“But you should not be selling your body,” he continued almost protectively.
Riss was stunned at the level of passion in his voice.
“I’m not,” she assured him. “And I have no intentions of it. That’s why I work here,” she told him with a wave around the store which was, in essence, her life.
“Good,” he said, and turned his attention back to the suits. “No, this will not do,” he said with a shake of his head, neck muscles bulging slightly as they turned this way and that. “Too plain.”
“Okay,” she said haltingly and put it back on the rack. “This way,” she told hi
m, absentmindedly grabbing him by the arm and pulling him along.
Her fingers felt through the thin shirt he was wearing and wrapped themselves around a bicep made of pure steel that didn’t give an inch when she pulled on it, though Zander himself came along as if he were as light as a feather. Heat seared up through her fingertips and she yanked them back as inconspicuously as she could.
“What about those?” Zander asked as she stopped in front of another section.
Riss followed his outstretched arm, to where it was pointing at a small curved area at the back of the store.
“We can go there,” she said, a nervous trepidation in her voice that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that his voice sounded like it could crush rocks, and yet somehow managed to make her heart flutter.
Who the hell is this guy? Things were getting far too intense, far too quickly for her, especially considering how comfortable with it all she was. That wasn’t right. She had just learned his first name a few minutes ago. Not even his last name! Flirting was one thing, but the rest…she needed to calm down.
Besides, it’s not like he would see anything in me.
“Show me,” he said, then, “Please,” he added belatedly with a grimace.
“Of course,” she said, practically bouncing over to the section he’d indicated.
Her excitement was doubled now, because this section of the store was where their expensive, imported suits were kept. Just one of these would make her enough in commission to equal nearly three months’ worth of pay.
He is a dragon though. Money likely is no issue.
“These are much more expensive. I feel like I should say that up front,” she said, not liking herself for saying that, in case it scared him off. He was scathingly scrumptious, but it was her own inner sense of “right” that made her say it.
“I want the best look,” he said firmly. “That is all that matters.”
Internally she shouted with glee, while trying to keep a calm look on her face. “Very well, help me narrow it down a little then. Black or gray?” she asked.
“Let’s start with black,” he replied after a moment’s thought.
Riss nodded and picked out an ensemble from the much more limited selection. They did not carry nearly as many of these, due to the sheer cost of them. With each piece she showed it to Zander for approval before putting it into a fitting room.
“Okay, in you go,” she commanded, putting a hand on his shoulder and pushing him inside. “Let’s see how it looks,” she said, hoping she was the only one who caught the hitch in her voice as her hand once more touched the rock-like muscle of his body.
It was so totally unfair that they—meaning every shifter ever, despite any size difference—could be so naturally blessed with such muscle. Riss hated them for that. Okay, no, she was just extremely jealous that they could eat and drink whatever they wanted and look like they were carved from marble statues at all times. But she liked food; it was a guilty pleasure. It just tasted so damn good! So she dealt with the differences.
“Ahem.”
Riss whirled in surprise at the noise, as her boss cleared his throat from behind her. She turned to see him hovering over her shoulder, hands clasped in front of him, a dismissive look on his face.
“That’s good Riss. I’ll take it from here,” he told her, one hand flicking toward the back as if to command her to move.
“Mr. Barnesworth,” she protested. “I can do this, I promise.”
Not that either of them had any doubts about that. She was an experienced salesperson. After working there for four years, she had better be. But that wasn’t why he was trying to weasel into her sale to take over. No, he was doing it because he didn’t want to pay her commission on it. That much money was a big chunk to the store, and she knew that he would want to keep it for himself.
And unfortunately, he was her boss, so there wasn’t much she could do about it. If he chose to take over the sale, it was either let him or risk her job. Either way she wasn’t getting the commission for the sale.
“This is clearly an important customer,” he replied without even hesitating to consider her argument. “It requires a deft hand to ensure he keeps coming back. I am that deft hand,” he said firmly, once more shooing her out of the way.
A presence loomed up behind her.
“I wish to deal with Riss,” said a voice from behind her. The strength of his words impressed her once again. The deep bass crescendo sounded as if he could make a mountain move with it.
“Sir, I assure you, I am most knowledgeable in all of our products, and—”
“I will work with Riss,” Zander said, and she froze at the sliver of anger that entered his words, hoping that her manager heard it as well.
“But sir,” Mr. Barnesworth said, and she had to give him some credit. He wasn’t a pushover, even if his wolf was nothing to the power of a dragon.
“Or,” Zander said lightly. “I will deal with no one at all.”
Flustered, her boss acquiesced to the request and scuttled his way back over to the counter, giving her a glare that promised she would be most unhappy with her life once he left. Riss just shrugged, and turned her attention back to Zander.
“Well damn, that doesn’t fit at all,” she said, and began to tug the jacket off of him, cognizant of the fact that her hands were basically running from his shoulders down to his hands.
With the jacket back on its hanger and out of the way, she whipped the limp tape measure off her neck and proceeded to begin measuring him.
“Don’t people normally do this first?” he asked.
Riss thought she detected a slight undercurrent of humor in his voice. He wasn’t insulting her, but instead simply teasing her for being so sure of herself.
“I’ve been doing this for years,” she explained. “Normally I’m pretty good. But apparently you, Mr. Zander, have arms more suited to a monkey,” she shot back with equal humor as her hands ran down his arm, getting the length of it just right.
Her fingers lingered on him for a second. Then two. She caught him glance over at her, but Zander never moved to stop her.
“Pierce,” he said softly as she at last got a hold of herself and stopped feeling him up in public. She turned back to the racks to get a jacket that would fit a little better.
“Hmm?” she asked, snapping one hanger out of the way, then another as she looked.
“It’s Mr. Pierce,” he repeated. “Zander is my first name.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “Well, Zander Pierce, try on this jacket for size,” she said, her index finger lifting a new jacket from the rack and handing it to him.
“Is this one going to fit?” he teased.
“Yes,” she replied with a shake of her head. “But not with that shirt.” She spun, digging through the silk shirts until she found a black one, replacing the light purple one she’d initially given him. “Now go, try it all on,” she said confidently, leaning back against the mirror and crossing her arms.
Zander looked her up and down, and to her surprise, he smiled.
Tingles ran up her spine as he directed the look at her, his intense metal-brown eyes seeming to laugh even as they strayed from her only at the last minute as he disappeared into the changing room, the door closing behind him.
Hoo boy.
You are in trouble.
Chapter Two
Zander
He stood in the changing room for a moment, eyes unfocused as his brain replayed everything that had just happened.
The thing that stood out most was the instant surge of building-leveling rage that had exploded within him when her manager, Barnhead or whatever his name was, had tried to weasel in on her.
Zander wasn’t an idiot; he knew what was going on, and why. The manager was a shifter, and clearly one who couldn’t stand humans. That, to him, spoke a lot to Riss and her qualities. If she could not only get hired here, but establish herself enough that he kept her around, she must be quite good inde
ed. It would take nothing short of amazingness for the hawk-nosed boss to keep her on, that was for sure.
But why had he been so ready to tear the store down if she’d been forced to stop working with him? There was something about him that held his attention, pulling him in and somehow keeping him focused on her. It wasn’t on purpose though. No, whatever she was doing was purely by accident. Riss had no idea she was doing it either.
His dragon rumbled and if it could, he was sure it would be belching smoke and flame right now, agitated as he was by his proximity to this strange human woman.
Zander shrugged in confusion, the movement catching his attention in the mirrors in front of him. He eyed the clothing he was wearing, and decided that Riss was, once again, right.
The purple will never do. I’m going to have to admit she was right again.
Laying the new jacket and shirt over the back of the plush chair in the rather opulently equipped fitting room, he began to undo the buttons with one hand, the other fingering the light material of the new shirt. It was very soft, just the sort of stylish thing he’d been hoping for.
Now, he thought with a smile, hopefully it fits.
Sliding off the purple shirt, he eyed the way his muscles rippled in the three-paned, angled mirror in front of him. That was probably why she’d lingered with her touch on him. Humans were always impressed by his muscles, especially when they got to touch them. Zander hadn’t had much contact with them, but the few times he’d ventured to Cloud Lake, their reactions had all been the same.
What was different, however, was his own reaction. The short woman with thick hips and plentiful breasts had caught his attention. Her dimples and tiny little nose, almost lost among the plumpness of her cheeks, had him riveted on the words she said, her voice happy and burbling like winter water runoff into a spring stream.
She was one he would be okay seeing again. Yes, he was positive of that.
Then his mind thought of something. She would be perfect for his needs. A lovely little human that he could take home and show his mother, so that she would release everything to him. It would be pleasant to get things over and done with, so that he could move on with little concern. And then perhaps he would take a tumble with this woman.
