Kissed By The Dragon (Paranormal Shifter) Read online

  My womanhood was ready for whatever he had in store as he shifted my panties to the side and unzipped his slacks, releasing his manhood. I didn’t know what was coming, and frankly I was ready as he pushed towards me.

  “Give it to me.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung on for dear life.

  His first thrust made my jaw shudder. It was commanding and strong, and one after another, they continued to come. Quick and intense. The kind of moment that seemed to take an eternity, but in reality was finished a few minutes after we started with shuddering waves of release, each one thundering louder than the previous one. I was panting and moaning as he took me, long and strong, each thrust triggering another wave of passion.

  He released inside of me, a slight grunting sound coming with each spurt. We were panting when he put my feet back down on the ground and I just slid down, landing with a flop on my butt. After over a year of celibacy, I had two dates in a row of raucous lovemaking with men that I barely knew. It was a little out of the ordinary for me, to say the least.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I asked Toby to leave not long after we got out of the elevator. Frankly, I needed some time to think. There was something strange going on with me. Sometimes it felt like my mind was racing a thousand miles a minute. But sometimes I was completely at peace. That’s not to say that I didn’t welcome the excitement. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t love all of the attention I was getting. I had already said that I was bored with my horribly dull life.

  There was something about the last couple of days that had me walking on air, but there was no spring in my step. That strange old woman haunted my dreams with her deep eyes and dark stare. Something about her was bothering me. Tuesday morning wasn’t easy, partially because I still kind of felt like I was walking funny, but there was another reason.

  It was a little strange, but I swear that I saw that large winged creature again, this time through the windshield of my car. I leaned forward and stared while I moved down the road. I wasn’t paying attention as my foot slipped off of the gas and I idled down the road and through a stop sign. The honking of other drivers pulled me out of my reverie and I slammed on the breaks for a moment to recover. It was the exact worst thing that I could have done in that moment, but somehow I managed to recover. Still, I don’t exactly know how I managed to survive my trip to work, but the flying creature seemed to follow me all the way to the parking lot of my office.

  I climbed out of my car, which was parked semi-legally, and watched it circle overhead. I squinted and covered my eyes with my hand, hoping to get more details. I couldn’t tell the color of the beast because it was between me and the sun, but I could tell that it was huge. The beast, looking like a backdrop from some cheesy portrait studio, covered the giant fluffy clouds that seemed to swallow up the sky.

  The sun was low in the sky, and the creature was circling, occasionally dipping out of sight behind a building. I wondered why no one else was staring and I tapped someone else on the shoulder as they walked past me. “Do you see that?” I asked.

  I was answered with the kind of stare that greets insane people. “The clouds?”

  “Never mind.” I let them walk away, glad that it was someone from a different floor in the building than mine. I struggled to get my head on straight and walked into the building, not exactly eager to go about my day.

  I made it through and headed out of my building when my day finally ended. I was eager to go home and all I wanted was a nap. It was a little strange to get through any of it, but the dragon was flying overhead once again as I left my office. However, this time it didn’t seem to follow me. I was confused, to say the least.

  I thought that I was losing my mind, that slowly but surely everything was slipping away from me, including my grasp of reality. I didn’t know if I was happy about it or not, but I did know that I was bewildered. Something about this entire situation seemed to feel almost natural, but I don’t know really how to explain it. There were a thousand things that I had to do. They were more important than hallucinating that dragons were flying through the sky.

  Needless to say, it felt like I was losing my mind, and that was not something that I was prepared for at all. I struggled with what I was seeing, worried that I might be going crazy. Seeing dragons and having a sex life revamped in the same week; maybe I was just going crazy from the sex that I had been having. I was losing it, that much was certain, I just didn’t know exactly why.

  What really surprised me was the fact that Toby was waiting out by my car when I got out of the office. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was just walking by and I recognized the car. I thought I would stop by to see you.”

  I felt a little strange. “You didn’t think that this might be a little creepy.” I laughed to try to cover the uncomfortable feeling that was settling into my gut.

  “I was worried about that, but I wanted to see you again and I didn’t get your number.”

  That made me feel a little better. I remembered the fact that we had not exchanged phone numbers before or after our little tryst in the elevator. I had been a little shaken up by my abnormal behavior, so that I didn’t think about exchanging phone numbers. “I didn’t even think of it,” I told Toby.

  “Trust me, I didn’t either until afterwards, and I thought that hanging around your apartment building might have been a bad idea. It might have been a bit creepier.”

  “I suppose, but what if that hadn’t been my car?”

  “Then I would have slipped away.” Toby shrugged at me. His hair was mussed, the kind of wild mane that can never truly be controlled without a ton of horribly smelling products. I was still staring at his hair when Barbie walked out of the office.

  “Who’s he?” She was teasing me and I wanted to punch her in her smiling mouth.

  “Just a friend.” I rushed through the words like some small child trying to hide something that I had done wrong. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but the truth was that I felt guilty for some reason and Barbie just made those feelings a thousand times worse. Barbie left, but she was staring until she pulled out of the parking lot.

  I was highly surprised that she didn’t wreck her car while rubber necking after us. Somehow, I thought that I must have looked like that when I was staring at the dragon. Still, she was pissing me off.

  “So, I’m just a friend now?” Toby winked at me.

  “She’s just nosy and I don’t want her to keep getting into my life.”

  “Sweetie, I think that ship has sailed.” A touch of the south entered his accent. I wondered if it had always been there or if I was just imagining it. It seemed like such a southern thing to say.

  I sighed. “I know, but I can keep hoping. Don’t take my hope away.”

  “I won’t do that.” He held his hands up. “So, can I get your number now?” I gave it to him and he left, stating that he was a happy man. I would be lying if I said that the situation wasn’t unnerving. I felt strange about the way he looked at me and spoke to me. It was almost as if he knew me better than he possibly could, and not just in a physical sense, but in a very intimate and personal way. I worried about him, but still it kind of turned me on. What can I say; I’m a confusing woman. It’s exactly how I work.

  My day of strange coincidences didn’t end there. After I left my office parking lot, I found that I was feeling a bit peckish. I guessed that a lot of sex could just make a lady hungry, I didn’t know and frankly, I didn’t care. I just wanted some food and I knew just where I wanted it get it.

  There was a family dining place not far off my route between work and home. I liked the place even if it wasn’t popular, but it was the kind of place with large portions that would last me for several pretty cheap meals. I liked that, and it was good, homemade food, and the truth was that since my parents had died, I hadn’t found much of a reason to get a home cooked meal. It’s just not worth cooking for yourself.

  I had just walked in when I saw him, Alistai
r, sitting at a booth by himself. I don’t know why, part of me wanted to duck out of the restaurant, but I waved and said hello. It was the right thing to do and I know that a bigger part of me didn’t want to eat dinner alone. When he waved me over to join him at his table he was smiling and my hands were starting to shake. “I hadn’t been expecting you.”

  “I’m glad that someone wasn’t,” I muttered in return.

  “What was that?” He looked at me, carefully examining my exhausted frame. It had truly been a long day.

  “I’m sorry, just complaining.” I explained, while forcing a smile on my face.

  He laughed, and I didn’t understand why. “I bet it was. Come on, sit down and I’ll listen to it.”

  My eyes narrowed. “No, I don’t want to bother you.” I was always a little wary of people who were too eager to listen to the problems of others, so I didn’t continue. We ate and made small talk. He paid for my meal before I had a chance to and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  When he walked to me to my car afterwards, I felt it necessary to speak up. “Look, I’m not looking for a knight in shining armor. I have no dragons that I have to kill.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t put my on some pedestal, people always get knocked off of those, and trust me it hurts when you hit the ground.” I tried to explain, trying not to think about the dragons that I had been seeing. “I don’t need you to open doors for me or always pick up the check or anything like that. I want to be an equal.”

  “I understand that.” He didn’t look as concerned about this as I was. It made me worry. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know.” It was the truth. I had no real idea what equality was, what it was to not be treated like some porcelain doll.

  “How about this.” He moved closer and he kissed me, it started gingerly, a tender movement, waiting for me to move away, but that wasn’t going to happen. Something about him just made me want more and more. I wrapped my hands around his neck and the motion deepened, a full passionate moment of clarity and I knew then what I wanted. I admitted to myself that I liked the excitement. There was something about this kiss that made me want more and more of it.

  We didn’t stop until the owners of the restaurant came over to quietly chide us. “This is a family place.” I was embarrassed and flew into my car, ready to go home.

  That night the kiss lingered on my lips. It was a struggle to sleep as my body remembered him in the most intimate way. I tossed and turned until I had to force myself out of my bed in the morning. I don’t know why those men made my body and heart tug at itself, but the truth was, I was worked up into a frenzy. I wanted more, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted one, both or neither.

  *

  The envelope arrived by the end of the week. It was heavy parchment, sturdy and not quite perfectly white. It struck me as the kind of things that would show up in some medieval movie or something like that. It was confusing, to say the least. I looked at the envelope for a long time, turning it over in my hands several times. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to open it and I had no idea why.

  My heart started to beat faster when I had made the decision to open it and hoped that it wasn’t some strange way to send a bill or some other communicable disease. I know that wasn’t the truth, but still the thought entered my mind. I knew that paranoia was starting to get the better of me, and forced myself to open the envelope, hoping that I wasn’t going to regret it later.

  The letter said some amazing things. It stated that I was something called dragon blooded, I didn’t know what it was and the explanation seemed extraordinary. It stated that I was descended from dragons and that I deserved to be treated as the nobility that I was. It was an invitation to some sort of ball and suddenly it all made sense. This was all some sort of elaborate scheme and I wasn’t sure if I was happy about that or not. I knew that I wasn’t crazy and it must have been from the girls at work. They would do something like this and I would walk into this “ball” and find out that it had all been some set-up to throw a surprise party or make fun of me, or whatever.

  Seeing that I was eager to see the visions of dragons fade, and to find out if Alistair and/or Toby were some kind of actors hired to give me a good time. It was going to feel good to get the joke out of the way. I knew that and determined myself to go, but there was no place to RSVP, no way to say whether or not I was going to go. I didn’t care and I immediately headed to my closet to pick out an outfit that I was going to change my mind about for a thousand times before the party.

  I waited with great anticipation and several times, I found myself wanting to confront my coworkers about the plan, but I decided against it.

  I’ll spare you the agonizing and repeated details and instead cut right to the chase. I went to the party, arriving right on time. That’s what I do. I can’t stand people who are “fashionably late.” The truth is that there is no point in it other than some sort of ridiculous status play.

  I pulled up to the address and had to check the invitation again. Something about this just seemed a little strange. It was a large mansion with a giant semicircle driveway. I was allowed through the gate immediately and I had no idea how they had recognized me. It looked to me like there was almost a hundred cars parked there.

  I didn’t know what to do, but it felt like it was too late to turn back around. There was no way that the ladies could do something like this. It would cost too much money, take too much time. This was insanity, but I still got out of my car.

  To this day, I can’t tell you why I didn’t turn right around and leave. But I know that I would have regretted that decision. I knew that staying was the right choice, and probably one of the best ones that I had ever made in my life. At the time, all I remember feeling was intense fear. Something strange was going on and it was with great trepidation that I climbed those steps to enter the ball, or whatever it was.

  The back of my mind played with a thousand bad scenarios, but I had never been one to be deterred by the possibility of a bad idea, at least that’s the way it had been in the past week.

  The door opened itself as I approached. It was a servant opening the doors, but I had not seen it at first. I found myself whisked into an antechamber.

  “You didn’t wear a mask.” The old man was wearing a nice suit and he looked almost exactly like every butler that I had ever seen on television. His back was straight and his accent had just the slightest tinge of the British Isles. I don’t know where he came from, but he seemed so perfectly stereotypical that it was nearly frightening.

  “I don’t have one.” I was frowning. “What’s going on here?”

  “You’re here for the party.”

  “Yeah, I got this invitation.” I held out the paper and hoped that he was going to tell me what the hell I had gotten myself into.

  “Thank you for bringing it.” The man looked at the paper and then handed it back to me. “The master is going to be pleased that you came.””

  “The master?” I gulped the title, worried that I had made the wrong choice. “Maybe I should go.”

  “No, no, it’s not like that. I’m just an old fashioned butler. He’s not going to hurt you.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” It felt nice to speak to the older gentleman, someone from my class of people. I wasn’t meant to be high society. I knew that a long time ago. It wasn’t exactly something that I was comfortable with.

  “You’ll be fine.” The old man promised me. ‘‘Don’t you worry.” He patted me on the shoulder. It was a comforting gesture, the kind a father would give. I was suddenly reminded of my own father and the way that he would hold my hand if something ever frightened me. He wanted me to face my fears, and know that I was never alone. This old man helped me to feel the same way.

  “Is that dress acceptable?” He frowned as he looked at my dress.

  I was suddenly extremely self-conscious. “Is there something wrong with it?” I looked down at t
he nicest dress that I had ever owned. I had gotten on sale two years before, so it wasn’t exactly the current style. I’ll admit that I was in the wrong season for a long sleeved, black velvet, full-length dress, but it was my favorite and I loved it. I thought that the crushed velvet cloth hugged my curves beautifully. I loved this dress, but I knew that a fancy affair was not the proper place for a dress like this.

  “I didn’t mean to insult. I just didn’t want the others to take notice of you in a way that would be unflattering.” His voice was kind.

  “What is going on here? What is dragon-blooded?”

  “I’m afraid that I’m not the right person to explain that to you, but I do believe that I can find you a more appropriate dress and a nice enough mask.””

  “What are you trying to protect me from? I don’t care what upper class busy bodies think of me.”

  “I think that it is best that you don’t stand out.” He didn’t acknowledge what I was saying. That was probably a good thing, because no matter how strongly I was talking about it, I still felt a little underdressed for the occasion. The party felt a little uncomfortable, too large, too proper, too perfect. There were no spilled drinks on the floor, and servants scuttled through the rooms serving everything that belonged in the party. I felt like I should have been serving.

  “I can tell that you’re nervous. This will help.” He smiled at me and sent for a maid, I think that’s what she was called. I didn’t have much chance to act because I was whisked into another room where I was divested of my dress and helped into the most beautiful silk gown that I had ever seen in my life.

  It not only looked luxurious, it felt so smooth against my skin. It seemed to be tailored directly to me and I had no idea how that had happened, but I wasn’t in a position to ask, as the maid began to style my hair. I felt like a fairy tale princess and it was starting to make me feel a little more confident. My mind called it a Cinderella dress, but it wasn’t, really. It was a more modern style, the vivid blue of a male peacock with green trim and matching pumps in my size.