Dragon Bitten (Shifter Paranormal Dragon Romance) (The Fire Dragon Series Book 2) Read online

  He's not there. Seth, or whatever his name was. I'm used to that. Waking up alone. Waking up in a strange man's bed, though, that's different. I look over at the clock beside his bed. It's two. That's not unusual either.

  Once upon a time, I'd hoped that I would be a 'real' adult. That I'd get up at reasonable hours, at the crack of dawn maybe, and then I'd go do useful things. But that's not how it's happening, and today's no exception.

  "You up?"

  I blink at the man standing in the door. He's dressed differently than he had been last night. Last night he was wearing jeans and a tee shirt. There was a certain yuppie quality to them, like someone who had too much money to spend of clothing. But that wasn't anything unusual. There are dozens of clothing stores at the mall where you can spend a hundred dollars and up on a pair of jeans with holes worn in them.

  But now, it's a suit, and he's sipping a coffee. His hair's matted to his head.

  "Cat got your tongue?"

  "You look nice," I finally manage.

  "You do, too. That look suits you."

  "Uh, about last night," I say. I don't know what's going to come after that, but I'm sure that when I start trying to avoid him, he'll get the message. At least, that's what I'm going to let myself hope.

  "What about it?"

  "It was great, but…"

  "But it's just a one-time thing?"

  "Yeah," I say. I don't know if that's what I want. Someone driving me absolutely insane in bed is exactly what I want at this point. Someone who's not going to beat the hell out of me would be a plus, too.

  "We'll see," he says. "You never told me what it was you did."

  "Because it wasn't important," I tell him. I get out of bed, and I can feel his eyes watching my nude body as I start moving around the room picking up my stuff.

  "But I want to know."

  "Mostly, I just did it on the side. Part-time and stuff. Kyle wasn't a big fan of me being out of the house too much."

  "Sounds like a control freak."

  "Yeah, well, I'd better get back. Maybe he'll believe that I just crashed at a friend's place."

  "Maybe it would be smarter not to go back there."

  "I have to." I can practically feel how pathetic he must think I am. And I guess I am pathetic. But I'm not a big tough man, and I'm not enough of an idiot to expect one to stick around long enough to get me out. So I do what I have to do. "He'll find me."

  "Maybe someone ought to deal with him."

  "Who? You? Why would you do that?"

  "I dealt with him last night."

  "What, was he dealing on your territory or something?"

  Seth laughed. It wasn't an amused, happy laugh. My first instinct was that he was angry, but he didn't have the look. That made me even more afraid, because it meant that when things went bad, I wasn't going to see it coming.

  "Just tell me what you do, will you? I'm trying to make small talk here."

  I pinch my lips together. Volatile, I think. Impossible to read. Impossible to predict. Impossible to predict means dangerous. When someone's dangerous, you don't go around pissing them off. Rule number one.

  "I'm a tattoo artist."

  "Oh yeah? Where at?"

  As I start to press past him into the front room of his apartment, I can't help noticing how soft the fabric of his suit is. How smooth. And how well it seems to fit him. I don't know anything about men's clothes, but it feels expensive.

  "Uh, place up on thirteenth. 'Rose Red.'"

  "Rose Red? Okay. Maybe I'll come by. So you don't have any brothers, or anything? Nobody to come around and put the fear of God into this mother fucker?"

  "No brothers, no Dad, no particularly interested Good Samaritan. I guess if I wanted to, I could start screwing some bouncer at the club, but I don't know if they'd move against Kyle, and it would just be trading the devil I know for the devil I don't."

  "What if they didn't have to be the devil?"

  He had a faint smile on his face. I smile back, equally faintly.

  "If they weren't the devil, then why would they want to fuck me in the first place?"

  The smile widens. There's wickedness in it. It's a bastard's smile. Maybe this guy's more my type than I thought. Dangerous seems to fit real well with me anyways.

  "Maybe you're right," he says. "The devil you know, huh?" He sets the coffee down on the kitchen table, and from the sound I can hear that it's empty. "You might be right about that. I'll definitely be by for that tattoo, later. When are you working?"

  4

  There are things that I'm not proud of. I've done plenty of things that I regretted. Plenty of things that I had to do, in order to survive my situation, and I'm proud of precisely none of them. I did what I had to do, and I'm not proud of them, but I'm not going to let myself be ashamed, either.

  And more than anything, I'm not proud of my feelings as the day goes on. But I'm happy. I'm happy because I went back to Kyle, and he kept his blows below the neck, so I can hide them easily. I can stomach the pain, and I can keep myself on my feet long enough to get everything else figured out.

  What I can't stomach, what I can't stand, is the idea that there are people looking at me and thinking about what a poor, pathetic girl I am. Thinking that they should feel so sorry for me.

  I'm not willing to accept that. I may be pathetic, I may be weak, and I may not be willing to stand up for myself. But I'm not going to let anyone look down on me for it. So when I can hide the bruises, that's all I ask.

  I managed to get through the whole day like that. It was only a four-hour shift, but it was a long one, and just like I knew was going to happen, I didn't get a visit from impossible pretty-boy Seth. Just the usual collection of more or less the same junkies that visit Kyle, along with people hoping to commemorate some occasion. People hoping to feed their ink addiction, and think their whole body is just a canvas for me to paint on.

  But nobody wearing a pinstripe suit that probably cost more than my car. "Hey, I'm going to get going," I tell Brian. He nods. His ears have such big holes in them that they sway as he does it, back and forth.

  "Hey, kid. Take care of yourself, will you?"

  I'm one foot out the door when he walks up. He looks down at me. I hate that, but when he does it, I don't feel like he's pitying me. I don't even feel like he's judging me. I feel like he looks at me like a big, juicy steak, and it lights a fire in me that has always been a bad idea to stoke in the past.

  "Am I too late?"

  I shrug. "I was going to go back home."

  "You in a big hurry to get back?"

  I should be. There's going to be a debt to be paid, every time that I do anything other than follow the routine. I have to pick my battles, and this isn't one that I should get distracted by.

  "No," I tell him. It's the truth, for better or worse. I strip my coat back off and step inside.

  "Who's your friend?"

  I look up. Brian's watching the guy, his eyes almost concerned. Almost. He's a good guy, but I don't think that he'd stand up to anyone. Then again, I'm aware that he keeps a .38 behind the counter in case there's any trouble again, and he's probably pretty good with it.

  "He's just some guy."

  "I thought you were going home."

  "He asked me to do some work on him."

  "I'm not going to pay you overtime, if that's what you're thinking."

  Seth speaks up this time. "I'll just cover it with a tip. Unless you're saying she shouldn't? I could always come back tomorrow during business hours."

  I don't work tomorrow.

  "I'm not saying anything, boss." Brian shrugs again. "I'm just saying that it's on her time, not mine."

  "Is that a problem for you, Meg?"

  "No problem for me," I say.

  There's a moment of silence before Brian shrugs a third time. "Knock yourselves out, then. If you take forever, can you lock up for me?"

  "Sure I can," I say. It wouldn't be the first time ever, but it's not something I do a
lot. Still, I'm not going to be a bitch about it, particularly not since I'm going to be using his stuff more or less free of charge.

  I look at Seth. He's already looking across the wall of tattoos, the photos that we take of every piece we do. Some of them are small, simple. Hearts, filled with the name of someone that died, or the name of someone who they'll forget about in a year.

  Others aren't simple at all. Spider webs, or big animals, or whatever. It can mean something, and it can be art, and it can even be both. Or it can be neither. I wonder what it's going to be for Seth.

  He lets out a long breath as he looks. He's not just browsing. He's looking for something specific.

  "Did you have something in mind?"

  He doesn't react at first, just keeps going down the list. "Sort of."

  "Oh?"

  "Hard to put it into words. I'm looking to see if anything calls out to me, and I can explain it better."

  He finally does. He taps on one of the ones embedded in the top of the counter, under the glass. It's a half-sleeve, and it's got an intricate design of a dragon on it. The dragon's black and showing off his teeth.

  "Can you do something like that?"

  "Not in a day," I tell him. "But I mean, can I? Sure. I can do that."

  "How much?"

  He says it like it's not really an issue of anything except what number to write down on the check.

  "Eight hundred is the usual rate," I tell him.

  He sits down. "But I'm here after hours, is that right?"

  I look at him for a moment before I nod. "Kind of."

  "So a little extra would be appropriate, then."

  I nod again. "If it's not a problem."

  "What kind of extras can I get on the side?"

  "What kind of extras do you want?"

  "I want you to stay away from that guy tonight."

  "And you want me to spend the night with you, huh?"

  I'm already starting to draw something out. Something evocative of what he picked. Blocking out general shapes to start. Eventually, he'll need to fill me in on details.

  "Hey," he says, like it's a sudden thought. "That's a good idea. You could stay with me."

  I try to let him down easy. "I should just go back, you know? I can excuse working on a client, but… two nights in a row?"

  "You really want to go back to that guy?"

  My teeth click together and I turn the piece around.

  "How's that?"

  He frowns for a minute and looks close.

  "Can we get that red?"

  "Sure. What kind of red you want?"

  He looks over at the rack of ink bottles. I pull out a few. I try to run the gamut.

  "That will do," he says. I start to make the adjustments he wants, and I make a note of the bottle.

  "So what are you going to be doing tonight?"

  "Tonight? I'm going to finish this drawing, and then you're going to okay it. That's probably an hour or two right there, minimum."

  "And after that?"

  I let out a long breath. "After that I don't want to let him hurt me again."

  5

  I smiled at him. He smiled back. His smile's hard and mean and the truth is that I like it. I shouldn't. I should know better. I've had a long time to learn what I should and shouldn't like. But I am who I am. I am what I am. And that's just the reality of it.

  There's a moment where I try to convince myself that this isn't going to go the way I know it will. Then there's a moment where I try to convince myself that it's going to go into the bedroom, but I'm going to be in control.

  Then he wraps his hand around the back of my neck, not hard, not soft. Firm. Like he's not expecting any back-talk. And he walks me into the other room, our lips pressed together and legs tangling. Somehow, he manages to avoid falling. I don't know how he does it, but he manages to avoid it, so I manage to avoid it.

  "You ready?"

  I nod. He strips off my shirt, and I let him. I like the way he looks at me when he does it. Like I'm a fuck toy for him, but I'm the only one that he wants. It's what I've always wanted. What I've always needed.

  Then he pulls my jeans off, as well, and I'm left without any clothes on, while he still wears the suit he'd been wearing this morning.

  "Sit down on the bed, I've got to get something ready," he says. Not an argument, not a suggestion. He's telling me because I'm going to follow his orders. I don't.

  Instead, I wrap my arms around him and I pull, hard. Pull him towards the bed. He lets me take him a foot or so, and then stops. His hand comes up, onto my chest, and he pushes hard. The force spreads across my body, and it doesn't hurt. But there's no fighting him, either. I topple over, land on my back, looking up at him.

  My breath comes hard and heavy, forcing my breasts to heave. He watches that for a second before he turns to get up.

  "Trust me," he says. "You're going to like this."

  I don't trust him. I trust myself. I want to fuck him, and that's what I'm going to get. My head's already hazy just from the rough stuff so far, just violent enough to get my motor running, but it's not there yet. Not ready. But it will be soon.

  Through the haze, I force myself onto my elbows, force myself up from the bed. And then he moves in front of me and the sound of wood scraping against wood catches my attention, and in the center of the room is something that looks remarkably like a chest. Like the sort of thing that you'd keep blankets in.

  My curiosity gets the best of me. "What's in the box?"

  He smiles and lifts the lid. Blankets. Like I guessed. But the top is upholstered in leather, and there's a line of hooks along the bottom.

  "Do you trust me?"

  "I wouldn't give you my bank information," I say dryly.

  "I don't need your bank information, Meg. What I need is for you to do what you're told. You'll enjoy it, I promise you that."

  "What do you want me to do, then, Daddy?"

  "Don't call me that," he says. There's a laugh hidden in his voice. I'd thought it was a silly name once, but a previous lover had insisted, and it had stuck even though he didn't.

  "Okay, then. What should I do?"

  "Lay down," he says. He points to the box. I lay down, and he adjusts me until he's happy with my placement. "And lie still."

  I lay very still. The ropes come out and I can feel my heart-beat speeding up. I've always had a thing for rough sex. It makes life very confusing, when I'm supposed to be enjoying getting hit and when I'm not. And when there's bruising involved, sometimes I'd like to enjoy it and I simply don't.

  He loops around my wrists. They're tied together, and then tied more securely. It's not tight, per se. I can wriggle, a little, though I don't think I could get through with my thumbs still attached. But there's no give. I have a little bit of wiggle room, and then it's firm beyond. And then, he pulls it back and down. Over my head, and tight.

  I let him do it. Let him pull my arms until they're right on the edge of hurting. He seems to know where that line is without me telling him, like he can feel by the resistance in my shoulders.

  "You okay?"

  "I'm okay," I say. I hope that I will be.

  Then he does the same to my ankles. Those are a little tighter. A little less loose. The way that he pins them back, looping the ropes through the hooks along the bottom of the chest, I'm splayed out spread-eagle, and no matter how hard I pull, I can't get away. And to make matters worse, he's got a gleam in his eyes, now.

  There's nothing I could possibly do, nothing at all, to stop him. It lights a fire in my belly, a fire of knowing what could come next. And as much as I want to, I can't deny it. I want whatever it is, and I want it bad, and he knows I do.

  "I want to tell you this now, Meg. I'm not going to stop when you say 'stop.' I'll stop if you say 'no,' I'll stop if you say 'it hurts.' I'm not here to hurt you, but you're going to say some things you don't mean. And I'm not going to listen to those things. Do you understand?"

  I nod. Then his fingers
reach down and rub my crotch, through the fabric of my panties, and I let my eyes shut. There's no reason not to; after all, I'm stuck, now. I'm in this until he's done with me. And I love the feeling.

  6

  Seth's fingers started gentle, and for a moment I didn't think that there was going to be any problem with that. It was relaxing, an enjoyable sort of pleasure. Cool and calm and easy. I let my eyes slip shut and let out a breath and relaxed into the restraints. My joints, previously stretching and straining at the edge of hurting, started to calm down, too.

  And then Seth decided that he'd gotten me ready enough, and moved his hand away. I figured that he was adjusting something. For an instant, I waited for his hand to come back. And then I waited a few seconds, and then slowly opened my eyes.

  The sound of a drawer working itself open underneath me drew my attention. It was tight and I could feel it as much as hear it, little jumps and jostles as he worked the drawer free.

  He picked it up and walked across the room to his bed, his back turned to me, and stripped off his jacket. He left the shirt, though he rolled the sleeves up to his elbows.

  I couldn't see what he was doing, but I could hear him moving things around in the box. Getting things prepared. Getting them ready.

  "You feeling alright back there?"

  He called over without looking at me.

  "What are you doing?"

  He turned and smiled, something dangling out of his hand. "Curious, are we? Good. I like my women a little bit curious. But I like to temper that curiosity, too. You can't break something that was never there in the first place, right?"

  The word 'break' sends a shiver down my spine, and for the first time I'm not sure how I feel about all this. Maybe it would be smarter to just go back.

  Seth squats down beside me, the thing in his hands working around my face. Over my eyes. The room goes black.

  "I'm scared," I say. "You're scaring me."

  "I'm not going to hurt you," he says. His voice is soothing, and his fingers run along my shoulders. There's nothing overtly sexual about the gesture, but it still sends a shiver down my spine, one that ends in my pussy.