Damian was cursing under his breath when he got in. He popped the car into reverse. He didn’t look back first, although she heard photographers leaping out of the way. She guessed that when you were a billionaire, you could handle a manslaughter charge.
“Does that happen often?” she asked.
“No.” He wheeled the car around so quickly it made her stomach twinge, and then landed in drive to take off. “Because I never go out.”
She folded her arms. Liar.
“You don’t believe me,” he said.
“Why should it matter to you?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, the last few times I went to Bastian’s wasn’t with dates. It was with…trouble. We covered it up by leaking some crap about wild parties. The paparazzi know that billionaire bad boy exploits sell ads.”
She twisted to look back the way they’d come. “How did you know?”
“It took too long for them to check in when I rang. They needed to give the photographers time. I doubt it was Bastian personally, but I’ll put him on notice after this.”
Andi kept her arms folded around her, deliberately not looking at him, but it was impossible to forget that he was there. She watched the coin swinging underneath his rearview mirror in silence, wondering if she’d made the right choice yesterday. If she’d let him make her forget everything that had happened, she’d have been at work tonight anyhow without any of the drama, mysteriously richer and dragon-free—and she never would’ve come like that, for him or around him. She felt her thighs getting warm at the memory, her body betraying her still very pissed off mind, and she squirmed.
“Can you turn off the fucking heated seats, please?”
Damian scanned his dashboard. “They’re not on.” Then he jerked his chin at her side of the car. “What’d the hospital tell you?”
“It’s a robocall we get when they want us to come in,” she said in a tone she hoped conveyed how little she wanted to exchange words with him. The sooner she got out of his car, the better.
All her life, Andi had just been an afterthought to her family. According to Auntie Kim, all her older relatives had rejoiced at her mother’s pregnancy: twin sons, which meant double luck on the clan. Danny had come out just the way he was supposed to as the much-hoped-for boy, whereas she’d started life as a disappointment—because no girl could ever rightfully pass on the family name and legacy.
She dared a glance over at Damian and saw him in profile, watching the road intently. It was like she came with a fucking manual, and he’d read it somewhere—maybe in her background check? She snorted, then looked out the window again. Go ahead and treat Andi Ngo like dirt. It’s what she’s used to. Don’t even feel bad about it. No one else ever has.
For the first time in a very, very long time, Damian did not know what to do.
In the restaurant with Andi, he’d just wanted to answer her challenge with his own, to prove to her that whatever she thought she could offer him he could take that and double it—and a dark part of him had wanted to ruin her for others, taking all of her for him.
But fucking her had been too perfect. She fit him like a glove, and he fit her like a key, and if he thought about it for too long now, he’d definitely get a hard-on again. Goddamn. Without ever having had it before, he knew they’d had the kind of sex that made men’s heart’s soft, with a pull so strong it could yank an arrow from its path.
But he was a dragon. And he had people to worry about—not to mention civilians. His life was not his own.
So, he’d hurt her. Like an asshole. Intentionally fulfilling every fear he thought would trigger her from her file. He’d watched his words wash over her and he’d known the whole time he’d said them just how bad they’d make her feel and now she was curled up like a comma in the car beside him.
His hair was still wet from the water she’d thrown at him, and he didn’t blame her for that—not one bit. He dared a glance over at her and saw her staring out the window with a small frown. She was still beautiful, even when angry.
Especially when angry, his dragon said, and it was right.
Why was he so drawn to her? What magnetic north for him did she possess?
Why was hurting her like hurting himself?
Damian dared a second glance. She’d turned, so her hair hid half her face from him and he wanted to stroke it back, feel his fingers part it to expose her jaw and neck, and then take so much more. He ground his teeth together, refocusing on the road, trying to force wild parts of himself down. His lust was hard to conquer as his dragon. Goddamn, he thought again. Every inch of him still wanted her. He would be a fool not to after she’d made him feel like that—it would take weeks—if not years—to erase the memory of her from his body, and his Forgetting Fire did not work on him.
What was it about her that made him weak? He’d hurt hundreds of people in his lifetime—maybe thousands—and here he was, half-dragon, worried about what a single mortal human thought of him.
His hands wrung the steering wheel, and then he turned toward her. “Austin said Zach was in danger.”
Her attention was on him again in an instant, and he knew she’d caught the fact he’d given her former patient a name. “What kind?” she asked quickly.
He downshifted, swept into the left lane of the highway, and then upshifted again. “The types of danger that my kind of people get into.” He hit one hand against the steering wheel, angry at himself for breaking. “Look, I can’t be holding your hand right now, Andi.”
She took off her shoes and tucked her feet under her skirt on the seat again, making herself small, and he fucking felt bad—him! Bad! What was it about her?
You like prey that fights, his dragon told him.
Stay the fuck out of this, he told it back, and then looked at her again. “I’m not apologizing,” he told himself more than her through gritted teeth.
“I’m not asking you to,” she said primly, then rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Don’t worry, I’m used to doctors.”
And now she’d categorized him directly into the box he’d wanted her to at the restaurant. He was clearly like every other asshole in her life. Well, two could play that game. “It’s not just you, you know. I’m like this to everyone,” he muttered.
“Oh, hooray, then,” she said with extreme sarcasm, as they took the next exit off the highway.
Chapter 18
“Wait here,” Damian told her the second the car was in park outside her hospital.
Was he ever going to get tired of bossing her around?
“Uh, no,” Andi said, getting out ahead of him. “You think they’re just going to let you in?” She stared at him over his car’s roof.
“I have plenty of cash on hand.”
Of course. He assumed that he could just buy anyone. Andi shuddered, almost physically repulsed. What on earth had she ever seen in him? “People at the fancy restaurant may know who you are, but security here doesn’t. And they have a pension and they like their jobs. So, whatever you’ve got in your wallet isn’t going to incline them to break the rules for you.” She stepped out from around the car and started bunning up her hair. “I’m the only one with a badge, so if you want to get in, you’re coming in with me. Or you can waste your time. The choice is yours.” She turned and started walking toward the stairs, and after half a second, she heard him follow her.
She led him down the covered sidewalk to the hospital’s door, where a security guard was waiting at a kiosk right inside, peering anxiously out into the night. She knocked on the door, watched him jump, and then saw him hit the switch to open it inside his kiosk.
“Everything okay, Omar?”
It took him a moment to place her. “Nurse Ngo? Look at you, all fancy!”
“Ha, thanks,” she said, grinning at him. “They put out a robocall. Are we Code Black?”
He leaned forward so she could hear him better. “Getting there, sounds like. Shooting downtown. They haven’t caught whoever did it yet.�
� He rapped his knuckles against the glass protecting him. “The ICU’s so busy, they stopped answering phone calls. Plus, it’s a full moon, you know?”
Full moons at hospitals were legendary. While she didn’t believe in superstitions, it was hard to not think they were true when every patient who was even remotely psychotic chose the night of the full moon to act up.
“Oh, man. Well…I’d better get to work, then.” She grabbed Damian’s arm. “This is my friend…he’s dropping me off…just coming in to use the bathroom.”
“Sure thing,” Omar said. He hit the button for the next set of doors and waved them through.
Damian waited until they were well down the hall before asking, “Code Black?”
“When the hospital’s too overwhelmed to take any more patients—not enough staff or beds.” She hit the button to summon an elevator. Zach had to be in the intensive care unit, which was her own floor. Hell, she might get assigned to him tonight.
“Then what happens?”
“We start diverting patients elsewhere. We’re not the only hospital in town—just the biggest and best.” An elevator appeared, and they both stepped in. It was hard not to feel trapped in an enclosed space with him. For some reason, it felt like he took up too much room—breathed too much air. Maybe it was the dragon she knew was inside him.
Damian’s expression clouded. “Are you ever in danger here?”
She half-shrugged, waving away his fears. “People have brought guns in here before, yes. But we get amusing ‘violence prevention!’ classes once a year where they try to teach us jujitsu to break chokeholds.”
“You’re kidding,” he said, glowering.
“Not in the least.”
The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and he blocked her exit with an arm. “Okay. Thank you. Go home now.”
“Now? You’re kidding, right?” Andi took a step back and crossed her arms. It was time to set him straight; she’d suffered through too much nonsense already this evening. “I think you misunderstand our current relationship here, Mr. Blackwood. You’re not my employer, not my family, not even a friend. You’re just some brand-new fuck buddy with no say in what I do. And this?” she said, gesturing at the walls around them as the elevator started its ‘stop blocking the door’ alarm, “Is a hospital. Where I am a nurse. There are people here who actually need me, so if you don’t mind—or even if you fucking do—I’m going to work.”
She was darting down to pass under his arm when he swooped her up, pushing her against the back wall of the elevator before she even had time to gasp. And then when she tried to, it was too late. He silenced the sound between his lips as he leaned in—his whole body matching against hers.
Andi grabbed the collar of his coat to hold on as he kissed her, unsure if she was going to pull him in more or push him away. Heat thrilled through her, her whole traitorous body responding to him—as if at his command—and she fought not to let herself moan because his strange physical power over her was unfair. She didn’t need him, she was better than this, she shouldn’t have to put up with—but his hands were in her hair, and he kissed her like he needed her to live and while she didn’t want to get hurt, she wanted to be wanted like that—and she wanted to let go and let herself feel that way too.
The elevator—which had given up on them—returned them to the first floor. As it opened, Damian took a step back and hit the right button again without looking, keeping his eyes on hers. “Just a fuck buddy, eh, princess?” he said with a smirk, his golden eyes full of fire, and it took the strength of every individual atom in her body to not sway as he released her.
“Yes,” she whispered, not entirely in answer to his question but more as a response to what had happened, and as the elevator doors reopened on the right floor, she ran for them.
“Goddammit, Andi,” he said, chasing behind her.
She kept running, trying to stay focused. How come he could make her feel like that? It absolutely wasn’t fair. She quickly redid her hair bun, from where his hands had messed it. “I’m going to work. It will be utter chaos in there—people screaming and dying. This is a hospital, and I’m a nurse. This is what I do,” she told herself more than him. She flipped her badge out to swipe it at the next set of doors and when they opened automatically it sounded like there was an entrance to hell distantly beyond.
“Well, you weren’t wrong about the screaming part,” Damian said and took the lead, running forward.
Damian realized he would have to shove Andi into a broom closet and then tear the handle off the door to get her to stay behind as she ran beside him, swiping them through the next set of doors with her badge. He couldn’t lie, running toward battle with her by his side like some kind of humanitarian Valkyrie was hot as fuck, but he couldn’t take the risk of anything happening to her.
Like we’d let it, his dragon muttered.
Michael? Zach? he reminded his dragon of their failures and felt its anger rise.
She is different!
But we’re the same! Which was why he’d gone one-hundred-percent asshole at the restaurant and had maintained at least eighty-nine percent in the car ride here—until the elevator ride when she’d called him a fuck buddy. Something had changed in her scent when she said the word “fuck,” a hint of arousal that he would have missed had he been human. But he wasn’t. And the dragon within him would not allow such a ludicrous denial of the connection between them. Just a fuck buddy? No fucking way. He’d had to erase the words from her lips with his own.
But she wasn’t wrong about anything else. He—and his dragon—were assholes, and he knew it. Another reason why he knew he was doing the right thing in pushing her away.
They burst through the final set of doors into what he assumed was her ward because she paused and put her hands to her lips and whispered, “Oh my God.”
The screaming was louder, and the nearby furniture was in disarray—computers dashed to the floor—and there was blue streaked against one wall. People—staff and patients and visitors—were huddled inside of rooms with the curtains drawn for what good they would do, and some of those who had strength had barricaded their rooms with the visitor couches.
“Fuck,” Damian hissed, and then whirled on her. “Where’s the safest place here?”
“What?” she responded, blinking quickly.
“The safest place. I’m taking you there,” he said, grabbing her shoulders. “Now!”
Andi snapped out of it, her stance firming. “No!” She glanced around at the chaos and looked at the lone monitor remaining, her eyes tracking something he couldn’t see. “Room three,” she said to herself and started running down the hall.
“Andi,” he growled, chasing after her. She stopped to yank a red cart away from its wall, like the same one that Austin made Grimalkin conjure after Zach’d gotten hurt. He paused in front of it, blocking her path for a moment, as she shoved the cart at him. “Andi—”
“There’s no time!” she shouted, angling the thing around him. “You do your job, and I’ll do mine!”
“Goddammit, Andi,” he cursed, and then he heard it—a sound that wasn’t to human ears, at least—the low, keening subsonic frequency of a lurker, the kind like elephants used to call across the plains. He could only hear it because of the dragon in his blood. It was close, and it was the way Andi’d just run.
Damian hurtled down the hall after her, feeling his dragon course just under his skin.
Free me! it commanded, trying to take control.
No! he told it, shoving it down.
He rounded the corner and saw Andi running full bore with the cart, down to the second from the last room, where a nurse had dared to open the door and was directing her in with both arms like an air traffic controller—completely oblivious to the fact that a lurker was crawling across the ceiling above her as fast as it could.
“COME FIGHT ME!” he shouted at it, and as it paused, his senses heightened, and the world around him slowed. He was either going to get
there in time or be scarred for the rest of his life by his failure—worse than losing Michael, worse than watching Zach get hurt. His dragon beat on him from the inside with hot fury and the only reason he didn’t let it out was that he knew there was no time. He raced down the hall with superhuman speed, just as Andi reached the door.
“DON’T TURN AROUND!” he shouted at her, willing her to shove herself inside the room, as he leapt onto a sink counter and threw himself up to where the beast hung, hitting it as hard as he could with his shoulder as a distraction. He thumped into its solid flesh. It was four times the size of the one from this morning—likely because it’d already eaten—and it whirled to face him as he landed, just as Andi let out a shriek of surprise, jerking the door closed behind her.
Relief swept through him. She was inside the room now; he could see her behind the lurker, and the other staff was harvesting the gear from the cart she’d brought, but her hands were on the glass door, and her dark eyes were on him.
The lurker dropped to the ground in front of him, spinning neatly in midair to land on all four feet, sweeping out with its prehensile tail and tongue like some kind of blue demented sea star.
He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it aside, circling the beast, keeping its attention on him. “You know you’re going to lose, right?”
The thing howled subsonically and tensed, preparing to attack.
Damian let his dragon surge just beneath the surface and felt it match him, hungry for battle. He shrugged as he cracked his neck. “All right, then. It’s your funeral.”
Dragon Called: A Slow Burn Sexy Paranormal Romance Page 15