Dragon's Curvy Assistant Read online

  3

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  CASTLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DEAD SEA

  ARTHUR

  “I could use a scullery maid,” I say to Brogan, who’s been acting weird as hell all day. Restless and shifty, the way he gets when he’s planning something complex—complex for him, at least. “Oh wait, I don’t have any fucking sculleries in my castle. So nope. No job openings in my castle.” I snort and shake my head at my idiot brother—who clearly thinks I’m dumb enough to fall for his lame-ass plan. “Seriously, Brogan? This was your plan? Hire some woman to show up in a maid costume and strip for me? And then what? My cock decides she’s my fated mate and so I marry her and live happily ever after?”

  Brogan blinks and tries to look innocent. But the fucker looks guilty even when he’s asleep. “Hey, I had nothing to do with this woman coming here looking for a job! It’s totally out of the blue!” He widens his eyes and gasps. “Ohmygod, it must be fate! Yeah, that’s it! Fate has brought your mate right to your doorstep. Now lock her in your turret and show her your . . . dragon.”

  He breaks into a goofy grin but I’m not fucking laughing. It’s one thing to prank me—I’ve seen it all over the centuries. But this involves someone else. Some poor woman who’s probably a stripper or call-girl from Brogan’s rolodex. “Seriously, that was your plan? To make me think that this woman was sent to me by the gods, that she showed up on my doorstep like in a myth or fairy-tale, that the moment I see her I’ll decide she’s my fated mate?”

  “She’s not a stripper and she’s not a call-girl,” Brogan says, finally dropping the facade and sighing. “Look, bro. You need some female company. It’s just not healthy to go hundreds of years without feeling the inside of a warm pussy, suckling on nipples as big as the moon, spanking a big round ass and spreading some nice-sized rear cheeks like the dirty dragon you were back in the day.”

  I hold back a smile as Brogan gets to me a little. But I’m not going to break. I believe in the myth, and I’ll wait for my mate. “That was three hundred years ago. Things were different back then. We could Change back and forth at will. We were free dragons, powerful like the sun, mighty like the moon.”

  Brogan narrows his eyes as my seriousness now gets to him. He’s a hundred years younger, but he remembers when it happened: When all the remaining Dragons lost their wings, lost their scales, lost their fire.

  Lost their way.

  “Well, that was then, this is now,” Brogan says, shifting uncomfortably. He knows I’m judging him—judging him just like I judged myself when the Dragons fell from grace. At first I couldn’t understand why our Dragons had retreated, withdrawn, refused to come forth even when we commanded, when we called, when we fucking begged!

  It took me decades to understand, and it was only when I was cleaning up the old library and flipped through that dragonskin-bound book of the Old Ways that I got it:

  Our Dragons had withdrawn in anger, in frustration, in straight-up protest!

  She is not our mate, my Dragon used to remind me centuries ago when Brogan and I would go carousing like the hellraisers we were in our youth. Every time you take a woman who is not our mate, you lose a little of yourself. You lose a little of me. Soon I will be gone, and you will be just a man.

  “Well, hurry up and find our mate then, you grumpy sourpuss,” I’d snap back. “I’ll be in the alley out back.”

  I wince as those memories haunt me—hazy memories obscured by the cloud of drunkenness that always hung over me back then. I ignored the signs that my Dragon was pulling away, that the same thing was happening to Brogan, happening across the world to the few remaining Dragons.

  And then one day I couldn’t Change.

  “Brogan, listen,” I say, shaking my head and folding my arms across my bare chest (I never wear a shirt in my home). “I appreciate the thought. But this isn’t the way. I’ve given up trying to control the way you live your life. But I will not waver from my faith. One day my fated mate will come into my life. Then you’ll see I was right, and you can do as I did.”

  “You mean sit in a paint-spattered castle like some weirdo? No thanks.” He sighs and turns as if he’s resigned to his fate—which is losing to my will. “All right. You win. We’re both too stubborn to convince the other that our way is right. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking anyway, hiring this woman and flying her out here. Though I gotta say, I don’t know what she was thinking to actually say yes when I barely even gave her a job description.”

  ‘Wait, she’s really not a stripper or call-girl?” I say. “She’s like a normal, everyday woman? Where’s she from? And yeah, why the hell would some normal woman take a job offered by your sketchy ass?”

  Brogan stops and glances back over his shoulder, a strange gleam in his eyes. “Why don’t you just ask her yourself, Arthur? After all, she’s here anyway.” Then he turns all the way to face me again. “And since we’re on the hokey topic of fated mates and that bullshit, lemme ask you this: How does fate work, anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” I say with a frown as a chill rises up my hard, long back.

  “I mean, how does a Dragon’s Fated Mate show up in his life? Magic? Just pops out of nowhere?”

  I rub the back of my head and shift on my feet. “Well, no. Not magic. She would just kinda show up, I guess. I think. Maybe a strange coincidence will make our paths cross, and the moment I see her I’d know she’s mine.”

  “So doesn’t this qualify?”

  “Doesn’t what qualify?” I say blankly.

  “This,” says Brogan, holding his arms out wide. “My dumbass plan to bring some woman to your castle and set you up is the “strange coincidence” that put this woman in your path. Now all you have to do is look at her and decide if she’s your fucking fated snuggle-bunny or not. In fact, you have to look at her now! How can you not look at her, bro? I mean, what if she is— ”

  “All right!” I shout, cutting him off and grinning. “One look.”

  I’m still grinning, but my blood is hot, and I swear I feel my Dragon stir inside me. Or maybe it’s just my cock—after all, I am still a man with balls the size of Jupiter, a cock that does yearn to invade and plunder, to claim and crown, to take and possess.

  I’m already out the door and heading down the winding stone staircase when I hear Brogan call after me.

  “Yo, maybe put on a fucking shirt first, you weirdo.”

  4

  ADDIE

  “OK, there’s a weirdo without a shirt standing on that spiral staircase and staring at me,” I mutter as I snap my heels together and stand as straight as I can. My butt is sticking out, my boobs standing up, my thighs tight together just like my toes. I have no idea why I’m standing here like the help preparing to be inspected by the head of the household. In fact I have no idea why I’m standing here at all!

  “You are so taking this job,” Bonnie had said. At first I thought she was kidding, just teasing me. And then when she showed me the picture on her phone I was sure she was kidding. It was Brogan in the picture—the man who hired me for this job: A superbly well-paid temporary assistant gig to help what he called his “elderly brother” organize his “stuff.”

  “Handsome,” I’d said. “But doesn’t do it for me. Maybe you should take the gig, Bonnie.”

  “Maybe I will,” Bonnie had murmured, looking at Brogan’s pic and licking her lips. “But the job says it’s for the brother, not Brogan. Arthur, his name is. Can’t find a pic, though.”

  “Elderly brother,” I’d said, pointing at the sketchy job description Brogan had sent with the offer. “Arthur is probably some decrepit relic holed up in an attic somewhere, jerking off to porn all day.”

  “Sounds just your type,” Bonnie had said with a snark I could almost taste. “You like to clean spooge off the walls, right?”

  I’d doubled over with laughter as we went back and forth, our wisecracks getting filthier as we got down and dirty with our wit. But when we came up for air the quest
ion still lingered:

  Was I gonna do it?

  Was I gonna even respond?

  “Here’s how you test if it’s legit or not,” Bonnie had said. “Ask for a crazy-big advance payment to your PayPal. My bet is that’s the last you hear from Dead Sea Drilling.”

  I’d blinked and cocked my head. I was still feeling kinda slap-happy, but it was safe enough to at least respond. It was all done through this website, and my real name and location was hidden until I chose to share it. All Brogan would have seen was my public profile and a very proper photograph that is totally businesslike. (Well, given the constraints I’ve been blessed with, of course: mostly a set of ta-tas that do not obey the rules . . .;))

  “Show me the money, right?” I’d said before shrugging and shooting off a message. “There. Done.”

  “How much did you ask for?”

  “Forty grand,” I replied nonchalantly.

  “Forty thousand?” Bonnie’d shrieked.

  And again we’d laughed at even the idea that someone would pay an advance of forty thousand dollars based on a resume and headshot.

  But then my phone beeped.

  And my PayPal dinged.

  And I fucking passed out.

  The next two weeks floated by like I was in a dream. The money was real, and since I’d already accepted it, it meant that I was accepting the job! I totally didn’t expect this guy Brogan to reply, but now that he did, I was committed to flying to the fucking Dead Sea and help some elderly brother organize his “stuff!”

  “Worst case I end up buried at sea when they’re done with me,” I’d said to Bonnie when she drove me to the airport.

  But Bonnie wasn’t laughing. “I feel like this is my fault,” she’d muttered. “I convinced you to go, and now I’m never going to see you again. Just return the money and call it off.”

  “I can’t,” I’d said firmly. “Asking for the advance was basically a promise that if he paid, I was taking the job. And I don’t break promises.”

  “Since when?” Bonnie had said with a raised eyebrow. “You’ve broken like a million promises in the twenty years we’ve known each other.”

  I’d snorted and shrugged. Bonnie was right. Commitment and follow-through are not really my strengths. But I’d stayed silent as we pulled in to the airport, where there was a ticket waiting for me. Truth was, I didn’t know why I was doing this. Yes, forty thousand dollars is a lot of money. But any woman with half a brain would suspect that nobody pays forty grand in advance unless there’s something super-weird going on. Or super-dangerous. Or super-illegal.

  Still, there was something about the weirdness that captured my imagination—or at least my curiosity. Who was this mysterious brother? What “stuff” needed organizing? If Brogan had so much money, why hire an anonymous freelancer? Why hire me?

  “You know I’m irresistibly drawn to weird coincidences like this, Bonnie,” I’d said. “It’s so out of the blue and random that it can’t be random.”

  “Um, that’s what random means,” Bonnie’d said.

  But I knew she understood even if she didn’t see the world that way—or at least wouldn’t admit it. Although I’ve spent a good chunk of my life drifting, I somehow never felt directionless. It’s like I’ve been drifting towards something, and I can’t help but think this is it. After all, that’s how fate works, doesn’t it? Coincidence that’s too weird to be random. You make the choice to take a step forward. And you step into a new world.

  “A weird new world,” I mutter now as I try not to look at the shadowy, shirtless figure standing in the distance. “What the fuck is he doing?”

  “I would come closer but I have no shirt and it is rude,” he calls out to me from his perch a few feet above the cold stone floor.

  His voice is deep, resonant, thick and masculine. But the words come slowly, almost like he has to make some effort to speak. I know the feeling. It happens when you spend most of your time alone and don’t talk that much.

  “I’d rather you be rude than weird,” I call back. “Also, when you say you have no shirt, do you mean you don’t own a shirt? Like, not a single shirt?”

  “I have a thousand shirts of the finest silk,” he says slowly, his voice echoing off the walls as he makes his way down the winding staircase. “But I cannot stand to wear them lest they get stained.”

  The man steps closer until he’s standing beneath a massive chandelier that may or may not have bulbs in it. It’s glowing green and gold, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s designed to catch the sunlight coming through the castle windows and reflect it back. There are no lightbulbs in it.

  In fact . . . I think as I scan the walls looking for plug points in case I need to charge my iPhone—you know, in case 911 actually responds out here in the middle of the Dead Sea. OMG, I am so dead.

  “Arthur,” he says, and I just stare as his bare chest tenses up, his tight stomach muscles ripple like the ocean, his black silk pajamas rise right where his—

  “Why aren’t there any plug points?” I blurt out, forcing myself to look into his eyes and ignore the rising thing in his pants. “Don’t you need electricity here?”

  But big mistake to look into his eyes.

  Green eyes that blaze like moons from another universe.

  Dark but seeded with a golden light that makes my toes curl.

  Eyes from a dream I never had.

  Eyes from a dream I just stepped into.

  “The sun provides light during the day. The moon lights the night,” Arthur says, taking another step, those eyes fixed on me, an expression on his scarred, devastatingly handsome face that I cannot for the life of me interpret. “And you light everything in between.”

  “Sorry, what?” I say, blinking like a hundred times even as it occurs to me that this is the “elderly” brother?! “Wait, you’re the elderly brother?!” I blurt out, shaking my head, trying to shake off that strange-as-fuck comment.

  Arthur cocks his head and frowns, half turning to the top of the stairs and then snorting. “Elderly brother? Is that how Brogan described me?” Finally he shrugs and holds his arms out wide. His triceps are thick and toned, biceps popping with veins that look like snakes. His neck is thicker than my thigh, and the guy is all muscle, all power, all . . . man.

  I nod yes, still dumbstruck at the size of this man, even more dumbstruck at how I somehow don’t feel threatened at all.

  In fact I feel safe.

  I feel protected.

  I feel like I’m . . . his?

  Ohmygod, that’s the expression I couldn’t interpret earlier, isn’t it? I suddenly think. The way he stood far back and looked at me before deciding to step down, to come towards me, to even talk to me. He made some kind of a decision after looking at me. I see it in his eyes.

  Yes, he made a decision after one look at me.

  He decided that I’m his.

  It’s crazy, but I feel it so clearly I almost swoon on my feet.

  And then I feel his arm go around my waist.

  I feel his power pull me close.

  I feel his warm breath against my hair.

  And now he’s holding me, stroking my hair, looking deep into my eyes like he knows me, like he wants me, like he . . . loves me?

  “Um, what are you doing?” I mutter, blinking in shock as his tender touch sends waves of raw arousal through every curve. My nipples harden to stiff points. My thighs tense up in the most wonderful way. My panties are sticky with the clean wetness oozing from the depths of my sex.

  “I am claiming my mate,” he says softly.

  “Of course. How silly of me not to notice,” I mumble, my head spinning because I’m somehow aroused and panicked at the same time. “And . . . and what does that mean, exactly?”

  “You know what it means,” he replies, still stroking my hair. I only come up to like his chest, and his heart sounds like a bass drum this close. Strong. Powerful. Almost unreal.

  “No, I really don’t,” I say, forcing m
yself to talk even as my body pulls closer to his, my need rises in a way it never has.

  “I will explain it to you later,” he growls. “My Dragon is thrashing inside. It knows you are its mate, and it is impatient for me to claim you. Once I claim you, my Dragon will be come forth once again. Three hundred years of pent-up energy blazing through the fiery skies once more. It will be magnificent.”

  I look up at him, not sure which one of us is crazier—him for talking like that or me for not pulling away from this beast who could snap me like a twig without even meaning to.

  “Your dragon?” I say, feeling his erection pressed firmly against the front of my body, thick and long, heavy and hard. “Are you seriously talking about your cock in the third person?”

  He looks down at me and frowns, like he’s genuinely puzzled. Then he groans and shakes his head. “Fuck, I forgot you’re a human. Sorry. But like I said, I’ll explain later.”

  “You forgot I’m human?” I say. “What did you think I was? An alien? A ghost?”

  “I assumed my fated mate would be a Shifter, but I do not smell your animal,” Arthur says matter-of-factly. “I will need to be careful with your fragile body when I claim you. Let me know if I am being too rough. Come. Shall we start with a kiss?”

  “I think . . .” I mutter, trying to pull away even though for some inexplicable reason I still don’t feel threatened, still don’t feel like I’m in danger, still feel like I’m under this man’s protection even though he’s talking like a psycho—one of those psychos who’s disarmingly “together” and believes all the shit he spouts. “I think I need to . . .”