I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie (The I Like Big Dragons Series) (2 page)

It was something that was so normal to me that it happened sometimes whether I wanted it to or not.

Often times when I was busy working on ledgers at the office or working at the shop, things sort of floated around me.

I had to be exceedingly careful when I was doing that. If the wrong person saw, a shit storm of epic proportions would be swirling around me within minutes.

Dragon riders were highly sought after and
very
popular.

It was also well known that the only people who could utilize the powers derived from the elements
were
dragon riders; and I most certainly didn’t want to have my face plastered on billboards like Derek did.

Poor bastard.

I also borrowed power from one of my two brothers if the need ever arose.

Most of the time it wasn’t a problem, but they’d send back a gentle push over our bonds if it wasn’t a good time.

Which rarely ever happened.

My brothers could also do the same with me.

If I let them.

Something I almost always allowed.

The younglings swirling around my knees bumped me with their heads, their sharp horns poking me like large needles in my thighs in their excitement.

“Chill,” I reprimanded gently, pushing the one getting entirely too close to my dick away with a gentle push.

They all looked at me with their softly glowing golden gazes and sat.

Their blue and purple wings folded at their backs tightly, and their little butts quivered as they waited.

The younglings were ice dragons, as their coloring denoted. Most dragons could be identified by the shades of their hides.

They loved the cold, and would normally be at our northernmost safe area, but it’d been compromised a few weeks ago, which had contributed to Derek, one of the best dragon riders in the country, being injured.

These three were only a few of the ones saved, and our sanctuary was now nearly at full capacity.

“So, how cold do you want it? Cold, as in frozen solid, or cold like mostly frozen on the surface and cold water beneath?
” I asked.

Their wings quivered, and I blinked, somewhat unsurprised by their answer.

A picture of a slush from Sonic appeared in my mind, and I made a mental note to speak with Declan about letting them watch too much TV.

They wanted the water slushy.
Got it.

Narrowing my eyes on the large inground pool, I focused my mind and withdrew the heat from the water.

The change was immediate; one second it was a cool, crystal blue, and the next it was a slushy gray, with a layer of thin ice thick enough to hold the three up if they so wished.

Cute roars of excitement left their mouths as they bound through the air. Their wings flapping faster than a butterfly’s in their exuberance to get to the water.

They reached it in a matter of moments, diving into the water and breaking through the ice easily.

I smiled as I watched them play, wishing we had a way to keep it this cold for them all the time.

Sadly, it wouldn’t be happening until we got the newest place in Anchorage up and running.

Which would take some time because not only did we have to set the place up, but also it couldn’t just disappear from sight without raising suspicion amongst those in the area surrounding it.

We had to slowly transition the site’s disappearance from the area, a process that would take many months, if not years, to do without garnering the attention of others.

You’re too nice to them,
Declan said.

I shrugged.
Yeah
.

I shouldn’t be wasting my time on things like this. Although the ice dragons preferred colder climates, they could survive just fine in warmer climates. They just didn’t like to.

“What can I say?” I asked as I approached Declan
. “I like keeping my charges happy.”

What do you want to bet he’s doing her instead of answering your call?
He asked, an amused lilt in his tone.

“We’ll see about that. Where is he?” I asked as I vaulted onto Declan’s back.

The apartment near the American Airlines Center,
he answered back quickly.

Fucking perfect,
I thought.

Life was a lot better when naps were expected of me.

-Blythe’s secret thoughts

Blythe

I walked out of the restaurant where I worked and hurried quickly to my apartment, thanking God that I was so close. I didn’t think my legs could take much more.

My knees were killing me after being on my feet for the past eight hours straight. I’d gone the entire shift without a single break.

Thanks Macy, for not showing up for your shift and making me work both our sections. It was fucking awesome,
I thought sourly.

The walk home wasn’t bad. It was less than a mile. Normally, the walk was refreshing.

Today, however, it was not.

Thankfully the walk was easy, and I arrived at my apartment building no worse for wear.

I entered the building, forgoing the mail. Honestly, if I stopped, I wasn’t sure I would make it any further.

I took the one flight of stairs up to my apartment, and walked quickly to the end of the hallway, not bothering to look at the shitty wallpaper that could’ve used a facelift six years ago. Nor did I look at the floor, though I probably should have since the crappy wood floors were separating from the subfloor underneath them.

I’d nearly reached my door when a large man came barreling out of the apartment next to mine.
Macy’s apartment.

He was a
huge
man.

Big, with beautiful brown hair, a strong jaw and
gorgeous
eyes. Whiskey-colored eyes that actually leaned more towards gold rather than brown.

Those eyes flicked up to me and away just as fast, focusing instead on the man he was dragging out of the apartment with him, kicking and screaming.

A kicking and screaming nearly
naked
man.

I flattened myself against the wall, but the shoulders of the large man in his impeccable business suit still brushed my collarbone in the narrow hallway.

His bare hand brushed along the exposed skin of my thigh where the damn booty shorts my boss at the diner insisted we wear, ended. I mean really, it’s a diner for Christ’s sake, not Hooters.

An electric jolt surged through me, causing my spine to straighten and my eyes to find his as he passed. This shouldn’t be so natural – even if my body did somehow yearn for the stranger.

His eyes were just as wide, and he was looking at me like I’d just grabbed his testicles in a one-handed grip… which I most certainly did not.

Not that it wasn’t tempting, but I didn’t think I could work up the energy to have sex with the handsome man, even if my body did yearn for his.

I started walking away on wobbly legs just as he passed me, ignoring the man he was dragging completely.

I’d seen nearly naked guy before, of course.

The apartment they came out of
was
Macy’s. The man being dragged was Farrow, her boyfriend. He’d probably been the reason that Macy hadn’t come into work today,
the big bastard.

The other man likely was Farrow’s brother—a man that Macy continuously spoke nastily about due to the fact that he made Farrow be responsible.
How dare he?

Although, now that I knew that the mere graze of his fingers along my leg could set my vagina on fire, I needed to avoid him at all costs.

Something I could easily do since it was more than obvious he’d never stoop down to my level. Slumming didn’t even look like it was a word in that man’s vocabulary.

As I got my door open, though, I looked over my shoulder to see the handsome, suit-wearing man’s eyes on mine.

He was staring at me intently.

I didn’t grab your balls, why are you staring at me like I did something inappropriate
? I wondered.

His smile widened, almost as if he’d heard my thoughts.

My eyes narrowed on him, and he began to laugh as he started to pull his brother down the flight of stairs by his hair.

Farrow got to his feet. He stopped fighting the man and went willingly. Walking, because it appeared that he didn’t want to be dragged down the stairs. He likely didn’t want to scrape any tender parts, though I noticed that his nakedness didn’t appear to affect him.

The suit-wearing man didn’t look like the type of guy who would take no for an answer, anyway.

Closing and locking the door behind me, I headed right to the kitchen and grabbed a cold can from the fridge

Dr. Pepper in hand, I headed to my room, ignoring the large pile of clothes on the floor at the entrance to the hallway that I’d yet to pick up from where they’d fallen that morning.

I hated doing laundry. And it wouldn’t matter if I did. My cat, Teller, a.k.a.
Slimeball
, would knock them down regardless of whether or not I’d taken the time to fold them.

My shoes were kicked off in the hallway, and my shorts soon followed, discarded at the entrance to my room.

My shirt was the last thing to go as I made it into my bedroom.

I stood by the open window, taking my jewelry off and placing it on the nightstand when I looked up and screamed.

A~ because there was a dragon sitting outside my window, and B~ because it was looking at me. A huge motherfucking dragon. Right there,
outside my goddamned window.

His head was level with my
open
window, and his large face was turned and looking in on me curiously.

He was a beautiful gray beast. Not much larger than a cement truck, but he definitely created a presence with his size. He had large red horns glistening in the sunlight extending from the top of his head. His eyes gleamed golden picking up flecks of the ruby of his horns. Following the scales of his concrete colored skin, his back was covered by the beautiful shades of red on his folded wings. They ranged from a red so deep it resembled blood to a purple on the tips, which were so bright they glowed with an inner fire.

His red tail flicked like a cat’s, thick and strong. The end barbed with what resembled one of those medieval metal balls with spikes attached to a chain on a stick.

I reached out in awe, my hands only inches away from the dragon’s nose.

Then I thought better of it and yanked my hand back.

I covered myself by pulling on a T-shirt off of the floor, even though he was only a dragon, and I was happy I’d done it a moment later when the suit-wearing man dragged his brother out the backdoor and straight up to the large dragon.

His eyes flicked up at me, and his lips curved into a sexy grin as he threw his brother at the dragon.

The dragon caught Farrow with a giant clawed hand, and then extended his tail to the other man.

The man climbed up onto the dragon’s back.

His strong powerful thighs hugged the dragon’s sides expertly as he reached for his sunglasses that were in his front suit pocket.

He slipped them on over his eyes, winked at me, and disappeared.

I gasped in disbelief.

I hadn’t realized that they could do that.

My gaze darted to the sky, looking for the dragon and its rider. I scanned the area for them for long moments, but they were gone.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

I’d seen dragons, of course. Everyone had.

They were beautiful creatures, centuries old, and very popular around our area. It wasn’t uncommon to look up and see one flying high above the city of Dallas. I didn’t know of a time in my life where they
weren’t
around. Unlike migrant animals, the dragons stayed year-round, filling our sky with their beauty.

My soul always found this soothing even though they had no interaction with people. Not normal people anyway.

Seeing one outside your window, well,
that
was highly unusual. They liked to settle in open areas. The tight alleyways and bustling of the city wasn’t anything that appealed to the winged beasts, according to the many articles I had read over the years. They were simply too large, and the cramped city too small.

Woodenly, I turned and surveyed my room, feeling strangely as if my life had just somehow been changed.

Why, I couldn’t say. I just knew I felt different.

With nothing else to do, I went to bed, my thoughts consumed with the suit-wearing man and his dragon.

Mostly, though, I was thinking about the way that single brush of his fingers against my bare legs felt. How hot his touch was, and how the feeling had gone straight to my core.

A feeling that was still wracking my body.

I’d give just about anything to have his hands where I really wanted…

I squelched the thoughts in their tracks. I was not going there with that man. No ifs, ands or buts about it. He was bad news with a capital
NO WAY!

He’d eat me up and spit me out.

Though, just because I couldn’t have him didn’t mean I couldn’t think about him.

In my dreams we were made for each other. Reality could eat shit and die.

***

I woke up to my lower half on fire.

At first, I thought it was just an aftereffect of my dreams, but when I finally peeled my eyes open, I could smell smoke.

When I opened my lids and looked down, it was to literally find my panties on fire.

I screamed and rolled; rolling so far in the bed that I hit the floor and kept going.

By the time the fire was finally out, my panties were burned to ash. However, my skin was perfectly fine. In fact, the hairs that I’d planned on having waxed later in the week were gone.

It’d given me a fire waxing…minus the wax.

“What the fuck?” I yelled, staring down at my
now hair-free mound.

Blasphemy
.

My eyes widened and I looked around. Was someone in the room with me?

I started reaching for the lamp but couldn’t find it. There was a pile of things beside the bed that I’d knocked over in my haste to get up. I could only assume that the lamp was one of those things.

“Light, light, light,” I chanted, shifting through the things on the floor.