Hollywood Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (15 page)

But if he ‘heard’ by GPS, maybe it would be better if she tried from somewhere that was not standing in the middle of a road being rained on.

Think! His house? She lifted her gaze to Mick, not bothering to wipe the rain streaming down her face. All the little stories she’d heard—it seemed that JP had in some ways been more at home with Mick and Dennis than in his big, beautiful, tragically empty house.

Go to
their
houses? No—not quite right. . .

And she knew where to go.

“Okay,” she said. “If he’s in that dragon, I will find him. Whatever form he’s in,” she promised. And she heard her voice coming out firm and assured, but doubt made her tremble.

Dennis turned away, and the other shifters glanced at each other, uneasy.

“Move your cars!” she added.

Dennis said, “Where are you going?”

Jan didn’t know who was aware of the grotto, so she said nothing, just climbed back into Niklos’s steel silver Mercedes. She said through the still-open window, “Can you get me to Alta Alvarado?”
Where the Porsche had opened up to fly down the road . . .

Mick’s expression cleared. “Faster if you follow me.”

He retreated. She wiped her face on her wet, limp summer sleeve, and gripped the wheel, her mind racing ahead. The fear ghost wailed, but Jan gritted her teeth and ignored it.
My romcom went straight into horror, and now it’s . . . what?

No answer.

The cars melted out of the way. Mick drove Shelley’s sporty new red Mercedes, leading. Jan followed, her hands moving automatically on the wheel. She paid scarce attention to Sanluce as Mick quickly wove through the quiet streets to his neighborhood. She paid scarce attention as she reached back in memory to her precious evening with JP, and how he’d driven her to his grotto.

Because she knew that if anyplace was the right one to call him down from the sky, it would be there.

Mick slowed, waving his hand out of his open window, and she flicked her lights and passed by.

She picked up speed. Alta Alvarado sped by. She remembered that . . . left turn? What had they been talking about?

She navigated by memory, all his words, and her sensations as she looked at him, listened to him, touched his hand, sniffed his scent, it came back to guide her.

Driving as fast as she dared, she leaned forward, peering out. Flashes of green and gold light glimmered, and there was a huge rocky outcropping. Oh yes, the turn that seemed to go nowhere.

She slowed, made that turn . . . and there instead of a cliff or mud was a narrow road.

Up and up and up she drove, bearing left once more. She’d gone too far? No—there was the clearing. She was there! She threw open the car door, not caring if wet got into it, and left the engine running and the lights on. She had no idea how to turn on the twinkling lights, so she groped her way up the little rocky path past the flowering shrubs. Here the headlights penetrated little, and she almost tripped and fell, stubbing one toe painfully.

Her bare toes found the moss. She was at the pool.

She lifted her head—and realized that the lightning had stopped a while ago. Good or bad?

She peered upward. She was here. Now how to call him? She remembered what she’d been told, and squeezed her eyes shut. Yelling inside her head felt like yelling inside a shoebox. And hadn’t Mick said something about a GPS? You didn’t get words with GPS. Only direction.

“I’ll sing,” she said to the waterfall.

That seemed equally stupid, because really, how far could a voice carry past all the water around her? But then so much had happened that normal people would insist made no sense.

She only knew that this was the place he loved, and she loved him, and if she truly believed what she had told poor Toby—that love was stronger than anything—it would work. It
had
to work. And singing was the best way she knew to truly express all that lay in her heart.

She cleared her throat, sifting her repertoire for the aria that would mean the most. Oh, yes, oh yes, the powerful, beautiful, anguished “Casta Diva” from
Norma
, who sings as she walks into the fire after being cast aside by her lover. But he hears, and is so heartbroken at what he has done that he follows her into the flames.

She lifted her voice and sang.

Chapter Fifteen

Through storm clouds the dragons fought, soaring upward to the icy reaches of the sky where air was too thin to breathe—too thin for fire—and then down again, swooping dangerously near the mountain peaks.

At first the cockatrice pursued this new dragon, obviously new to his powers and clumsy, but the fire dragon learned fast. The chase reversed, the fire dragon meeting each deadly stream with its own fire, and then coming after the cockatrice with teeth and claws.

The cockatrice first tried mental invasion, knowing its telepathy was far superior. But the fire dragon had its mind locked hard. The cockatrice screamed in frustration, running low on its venomous fire. It tried to trick the fire dragon into meeting its gaze, only to be slashed across the face.

The maddened cockatrice finally threw itself at the fire dragon, willing to die if it could lock itself hard around the foe and drag it crashing to the earth.

It was then that the fire dragon loosed the last of its fire, and the cockatrice screamed its death cry as it tumbled in a massive fireball to smash into a mountainside fifty miles from Yosemite.

The fire dragon cried its triumph to the skies, and flew above in a circle, watching its foe consumed in flames that began to spread.

The fire dragon flew away, unconcerned with the fire, with anything that crawled on the earth. It was king of the mountains, its challenger defeated. With that death cry echoing in its ears it soared high above the peaks still snow-topped, circling as it searched the vast kingdom of its mind . . .

High and faint as the stars, a sound.

The fire dragon turned its head. The sound came from
there
. It needed to be closer, to hear that sound, more powerful than fire, more enduring than gold. The sound rose and fell, carrying images of fire, of two figures entwined surrounded by flame.

The fire dragon lifted its wings,
his
wings. Thrum, thrum, the steady beat of his wings beat in syncopated rhythm, bringing him closer to arpeggios of remembered passion, and oh, the echo of loss.

No, must not lo
se. Faster the wings beat as the song rose, song, harmony in a golden voice. His heart thrummed and he looked below, seeking that song, home, home.
Gold
, and   . . .

For a time the dragon nature fought, but its desire to soar among the peaks shattered against the rising tide of memory.

Home. Gold.

Grotto . . .

And her.

* * *

A sound like a jet airliner coming down roared overhead, rumbling through the rocks and causing the trees to tremble. Even the waterfall jiggled, and Jan stumbled back in a wave of hot, smoky wind.

A male figure tumbled to earth, fiery glowing eyes swept around . . .

And fixed on her.

It was JP, but not quite. He stood, cock rampant, hands reaching.

“Oh, my darling, you’re back!” She had done it, brought him home. Except he was not quite all home yet. His human form was there, but his expression, those strange, fiery eyes—His body had returned to her, but his mind was still caught somewhere between the sky realm and home.

I know what to do!
She reached for her hem and flung her soggy dress over her head and away, shrugged out of her bra and kicked out of her panties. His hands closed hard on her shoulders. She pulled his face into her hands and kissed him.

In that single heartbeat between the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder heat ignited her entire body. They tumbled to kneel in the moss, kissing desperately, mouths hungry.

He smelled like smoke and fire and sex, and her hands roamed all over him, touching, pulling him to her as yearning blazed, igniting a deep ache in her core. But she must not give in yet. His body had homed to her, but she must call down his mind, his identity.

“See me,” she whispered into his face as she fisted her hands into his silky hair.

He blinked, swaying, and she pushed him flat onto the moss, and pressed his shoulders down with her hands as she traced kisses from his lips over his jaw, down his throat to his heaving chest and rock hard stomach.

“See me,” she said again, and closed in on his cock. “Feel me. Trust me.” He stiffened, fingers wide as she nipped her way up the ridge and licked and sucked. “Love me, as I love you.” His back arched, his hands open at his sides.

And he gasped, “Jan!”

She gave a triumphant crow.  She bent to take him into her mouth again, but he sat up and reached for her, and there he was again, at home in his face as this time he pressed her into the moss. It was her turn for the thousand kisses, each kindling a tiny fire in her flesh. She burned with languorous heat, opening her legs wide as his knees thudded down between them, and his seeking mouth found her breasts.

His hands caressed her hips, her folds, then inserted two fingers deep within her, his thumb stroking her clit. Long, hard sucks to her nipples, already tender, shot lightning through her. The fingers withdrew and there was his cock.

And at last, at last he thrust home.

Her body twined about him, rocking in primal rhythm. Her fingers threaded through his hair and gripped as she gloried in the exquisitely perfect fit of his cock inside her.

But she wanted him deeper yet. She raked her nails down his back to his rock-hard buns and gripped as she tipped her hips to pull him harder, deeper,  deeper . . .

He pounded into her, rough and hard the way she wanted it. Urgency soared, building, pressure mounting. He spiraled upward with her, and they flew together to the peak, his thrusts faster than their rib-banging heartbeats, until the sun burst around them in a shower of stars.

Down they fell, through rings of slowly widening throbs of sweetness, until they lay side by side, limbs still tangled. He lifted his head to look at her, and there were his own eyes, and his mouth was tender as he whispered, “I love you so much.”

She dissolved into laughter that hovered very near tears, then whispered as she traced his eye sockets and over his cheekbones to his jaw, and then to his lips, “I love you, too. I loved you the day I saw you, and I even loved you falling out of the sky, because I was there to catch you.”

“I will always come back,” he murmured against her fingers, “when you call.”

* * *

They fell asleep with their limbs tangled.

The faint blue light of dawn sifted through the leaves overhead when JP wakened to the wonder of Jan lying warm and soft and fragrant in his arms. She smelled like crushed herbs and sex and her own delicious scent.

He moved his fingers gently to cup the curve of her cheek, not wanting to wake her, but she stirred, and gave a small sigh, then lifted her head to smile at him.

Her hand cupped over the jut of his hip, caressed his ribs and drifted over his shoulder to his chin. She rubbed her fingers over his stubble, and hummed that low note that never failed to send shivers through his nerves. “What would that feel like?” she asked.

“Want to find out?” he answered, and shifted his weight to kiss her throat, brushed his chin gently down her throat to her breasts, the humming note rose higher as he teased and rubbed the tightened peaks of her nipples.

By then he was hard and ready, and so they made love slowly, languorously, each so sensitive to the other that the slightest flicker brought an answering, echoing response.

When at last they slid into the water to sink onto the bench with warmth flowing around them, the light had turned pearly. The sun was cresting the horizon.

“It’s Shelley’s wedding day,” she whispered. “We had better go.”

“We’re only twenty minutes from town,” he murmured. “But we shall go whenever you like. Um, that is, if we have a car?”

“I stole it. From that scumbag Niklos.”

At the mention of Niklos’s name, JP’s mood darkened, and he shook his head, refusing to let the cockatrice ruin the moment. Niklos was gone. He would harm no one now.

Jan looked earnestly up into his face. “I think I get why you didn’t tell me. About the dragon.”

Regret suffused him. “I’m sorry, Jan. I meant to. After the wedding. When I’d figured out how to talk about it. Part of that is how little experience I have. I was afraid I would lose you. And lose myself, if I ever let the dragon rise.” He pulled her tight against him. “Nothing. In all my life.” His voice was unsteady, but he made no attempt to hide or control it—if he even could. “Nothing. Matches the moment I heard your call.”

“Where were you?”

“I don’t know. Above the Rockies, maybe? Jan, I realize it hasn’t even been a week, but will you marry me? Or at least consider—”

Her smile was sweet, tender, with a lilt of laughter at the corners. “I’ve already planned my wedding dress.”

Heat surged through him. “Make sure it’s the kind that comes off fast.”

She uttered another of her delicious laughs, and said against his chest, “It’ll never be fast enough for me.”

* * *

And so they got out of the water, and she rooted around for her dress, dirty and moss-streaked as it was. He had nothing, so they searched Niklos’s car together. JP was not surprised to find clothes in the trunk. They were loose on him, but nothing, she thought as she watched him dress, would ever mar his elegance—even wearing somebody else’s clothes, with his unshaven chin. That elegance was innate, a part of him.

And it was all hers.

As they got into the car, the conversation turned to all the little things in daily life that one can’t escape. Where to go first, a meal. What to do with Niklos’s car.

How many kids to have.

“I want lots,” she said dreamily. “Lots and lots. Mine or someone else’s, doesn’t matter. I was so lonely as a child. And that empty museum of a house of yours is even lonelier. It needs noise and laughter.”

“Yes,” he said.

Weddings.

“Tomorrow,” he muttered huskily, his right hand tightening on hers as his left handled the wheel. “I want everything settled.”

“All that matters is already settled,” she promised, bending to kiss the knuckles of his hand. “The rest is frosting.”

Careers.

“I still want to sing.” She loved looking at him. That shirt was so loose he hadn’t bothered buttoning it. As far as she was concerned, he need never button a shirt again. “Or at least try,” she amended, wrenching her mind back to opera.

His fleeting smile curved his lips. “Oh, I’ll see to that.”

“No undue influence,” she said, quickly. “It hurts too much at the other end.” She glanced at him, and relaxed. “But you wouldn’t do that.”

“No. What I can do is what so many others get done for them, which is to drop a word in a good agent’s ear to give you a listen themselves, and not one of their flunkies who’ve already sat through fifty auditions that day. But I won’t if that makes you uncomfortable.”

She struggled with it, then said, “Just once. And if I make it, I make it, and if I don’t, I’ll be perfectly happy with non-paying venues and community theater. I just want to sing.”

Where to live.

“How fast can you get out of that crappy apartment I’ve heard so much about?”

“Try light-speed. Plus five minutes to write a note to my can’t-be-soon-enough ex-roommates that they have the rest of the lease to find another place. As for where, I don’t care. My home is wherever you are.”

He had to pull the car over for another kiss.

As they neared the town, the questions came faster, and even if they didn’t have answers right away, it didn’t matter. She delighted in the thought that they had plenty of time to decide.

And when at last they reached the LaFleur mansion, he insisted on taking her all through it, ending up in his suite, which featured a king-sized marble bathroom with a sunken tub big enough for two.

Her secret places still pulsed faintly later that day, as she stood in the performance shell in her beautiful blue dress, waiting for the violin to begin the music for her solo.

The rain had broken the heat, and droplets still sparkled on the masses of white roses on the bowers arching overhead. As the familiar bars of introductory music drifted through the air, Jan took a moment to look at all the faces—Shelley and Mick nervous yet happy. Mrs. LaFleur cool and poised. Mick’s shifter friends, sitting in rows behind the Willis clan, who were silent for once, with only a few fidgets here and there. Dennis grinning at Mick’s left.

And last, but oh, the sweetest, JP at Mick’s right. He sent her a secret smile then returned to his duty as co-best man, elegant in his expensive suit. But Jan knew what he looked like utterly undone, and it was to that memory that she sang.

“Rest gently, my dearest love,

sleep until your happiness awakes . . .”

The beautiful aria spun its magic through the air, and even Mrs. LaFleur smiled, eyes half shut. The restless Willis kids so brimming with life paused, and stilled, one with head half tilted. What emotions did they hear, what images did they catch?