“Two-Bit and Flame are in no shape for staking it out,” he said, his tone halfway reasonable. “And the others are out selling. Hang with it until tomorrow, then you’re off the hook.”
Bean nodded. “Okay. Until tomorrow.”
Lucky took longer to agree, and Tank didn’t much like the speculation he saw in the man’s cold gray eyes. Lucky was smarter than Bean, who took his marching orders like a good soldier. If anyone formed a rebellion, it would be Lucky. He held Lucky’s gaze until the man dropped his eyes, then nodded.
“All right.”
“Good. Get going then.”
Lucky stood up from his chair, uncoiling like a deadly viper, lean and dangerous, and walked from the house without another word or a look. Bean grinned weakly, then followed, leaving Tank to worry over Lucky. The man was well respected, and if he cut Tank’s throat and took over the gang, most would follow him without a murmur.
“You think she’ll show back up?” Two-Bit asked, blowing out a lungful of pot smoke.
“Yeah. It’s her ticket outta here. She won’t leave it behind.”
“How you know she wants out?”
“Cuz she told people who told me, idiot,” Tank snapped. “She wants to go south to Florida, says she’s got people there.”
“Yeah, warmer than fuckin’ New York.”
With the whiskey hardly putting a dent in his pain, Tank contemplated a Vicodin while still fretting over Lucky’s subtle defiance. The man may have dropped his eyes in submission, but the danger he exuded when he walked out made Tank wonder if the leash he had the man on would hold.
He’s one to bite the hand that feeds.
Lucky was a vicious and cold-blooded killer and made no secret of his ambition. Maybe ole Lucky needs to have his luck changed. Maybe he should have an accident. While murder was an option and would keep his gang’s respect, as well as the respect from other gangs, Lucky had friends. Friends as cold-blooded as he was and who were not affiliated with gangs or their ties.
Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
Even if a murder by accident happened to Lucky, and no murder could be proven, his friends might still exact their revenge. Tank glanced at Two-Bit, who nodded vapidly, completely stoned out of his mind. “Is Lucky loyal, Two-Bit?” he asked.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah, man.” Two-Bit grinned, his eyes glassy. “He’s a good guy, stand up guy, ya know? I like Lucky.”
Tank snorted. “You like everybody.”
“Lucky will do you if he can,” Flame said quietly. “I seen his eyes when you ain’t lookin’.”
Instantly, Tank knew he’d made a mistake in keeping Lucky watching the station. If Flame was right, Lucky could easily kill Daryl and her boy-toy, keep the money for himself. That kind of cash would set him up with his own business. But until that moment, he never doubted Lucky’s loyalty.
Then it’s good that I’ll be there tomorrow. I can send Lucky off to his woman and catch Daryl myself.
Just when he was about to get up and find himself a Vicodin, his door opened again. “What is this?” he groused. “Grand Central?”
Four of his guys trooped in, all of them as drunk as lords. One by one, they sat on his furniture, passing a bottle of Wild Turkey around. Two-Bit grinned upon seeing them and slapped the one called Dawg on the arm. “Gimmee a drink o’ that.”
Dawg passed him the bottle and Two-Bit drank deep. None of them met Tank’s eyes, and they all looked scared shitless.
Tank scowled. “Where the fuck have you been?” he demanded. “You were supposed to be watching the terminal for Daryl.”
“We was,” Dawg replied, taking the bottle back and downing a large gulp. “We chased her and a guy. The guy changed into a dragon.”
Tank’s pain surged the instant his heart beat faster, the burns on his chest and stomach flaring madly. “What?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Dawg said, nodding. “Set my Navigator on fire. It’s nuthin’ but a heap o’ slag now.”
“The dragon nearly killed us, too,” Two-Bit told him happily. “Dint it, Tank? It blew a ball o’ fire at ole Flame there, and crisped Tank. Dint it, Tank?”
Four sets of eyes stared at Tank in dire accusation. “You knew there was a man who could change into a dragon, and you didn’t tell us?” Dawg looked ready to leap from the couch and cut Tank’s heart out.
“I knew there was a dragon, yeah,” he replied, impatient. “I didn’t know anything about a man changing into it. You’re saying Daryl’s boy-toy changed? Right in front of you?”
“That’s what I’m sayin’.” The menace in Dawg’s eyes didn’t leave after Tank’s explanation. “You shoulda warned us about somethin’ like that, Tank. We coulda got killed chasin’ that girl for you.”
“How can a man go from being a man and then a dragon?” Tank mused, thinking back to the boy-toy’s sheer menace, his speed and strength. All of that made sense now. He’s a fucking dragon.
“How can a dragon fuckin’ exist, man?” Dawg yelled. “And now that dragon who’s sleepin’ happy with Daryl is protectin’ her. Don’t that bother you at all, man?”
“Maybe he come from a different planet,” Tank shouted back. “How the hell do I know where or how a dragon exists? But it does, and we have to deal with it.”
“Naw, man.” Dawg glared at him. “You deal with it. We’re outta here. We ain’t gonna get fried by no damn dragon. And you owe me seventy-five Gs for my Navigator.”
“I don’t owe you shit.”
Dawg stood up. “Let’s go, guys.”
“You ain’t going nowhere unless I say,” Tank snapped, also standing. “Get your asses back here.”
Not one of them obeyed him, and they all filed out the door, slamming it behind them. Fear shivering through him, Tank would have shot them all had he a gun in his hand. Now he was left with two stoned and injured, however loyal, guys, and two others whose loyalty may not hold. And a man who could change into a dragon at will, and whose shit-list Tank was on.
“That’s how he goes around without nobody knowin’,” Flame observed. “He’s a man unless he turns into the dragon.”
“If he’s a man, he can be killed,” Tank growled. “Now that we know about him, we can deal with him.”
He sat back down, aching in more places than he could count, and thought once more about the Vicodin. He didn’t care that he was on a dragon’s shit-list and four of his gang departed and could spread word about how Tank was losing it. All he wanted was the pain to stop.
“How much would a dragon be worth?” Two-Bit asked the air in general and took another hit from his joint. “Catch ‘im and sell him. Millions? Maybe billions.” He laughed, nodding, and sucked on his joint.
Tank forgot about the Vicodin. He forgot about his pain. He forgot how close he was to being killed by his own gang for his business and turf. “How can we catch a dragon?”
“Daryl as bait,” Flame offered quietly. “Hit him with a big dose of something, knock ‘im out.”
Tank stared. “Ketamine.”
Chapter Fourteen
Daryl woke the next morning at half-past eleven, bright sunshine streaming through the curtains. Her head aching, feeling as though she’d gone six rounds with Mike Tyson, she lay staring at the ceiling. Looking over, she found Ronan still asleep beside her, his breathing light and even. Though they were supposed to find disguises and get the money that day, Daryl knew she wasn’t quite up to the task.
I just want to lie here for a while.
Lifting her arm, she stared at the fresh needle track and recalled how close she had come to dying the night before. Never again. Never. I can’t let Ronan down. Shit, I can’t let myself down. Not again. Lying on her side, Daryl gazed at Ronan’s smooth skin, his impossibly huge bicep that lay on top of the sheet that covered them.
I have an amazing man here who loves me. I can’t risk losing him. I love him. He loves me.
As though her eyes on him woke him, Ronan blinked, then yawned and rolled his
head on his pillow to look at her. “Hi,” he murmured.
“Hi, back.”
“You okay?”
Daryl smiled slightly. “I’m alive.”
“That makes me very happy.”
His warm hand cupped her cheek under her hair, his green eyes glinting in the sunlight. “You know I love you.”
She set her hand over his. “I love you, too.”
“When you saw my other self and weren’t afraid, I think I knew then that you were meant for me.”
“How could I be afraid? You kicked three guys’ asses to protect me.”
“I would do much more than that to protect you.”
Propping her head on her fist, Daryl leaned over to kiss him. She tasted her own morning after a heavy party morning breath in her mouth but kissed him long and deeply anyway. Ronan didn’t seem to mind, for he slipped his tongue between her lips, his passion rising.
His hand left her cheek and trailed down her shoulder, then rested on her slim waist. French kissing seldom failed to get her hot, and within moments, her panties were soaking wet. Breathing in the musky scent that was all Ronan, she put her hand on his rock-hard arm, feeling the muscles under his warm skin.
Rolling onto her back, Daryl invited him on top of her with her arms around his neck, kissing him, matching his desire with her own. She loved the way his thumb teased her nipples, making her sweat with need. And when his tongue licked them—she thought she would explode right then and there. Ronan knew just how to play her body, as though they had been making love for years.
Her hand on his shoulder pushed him over. “I want on top,” she whispered, staring into his green eyes.
Ronan obliged her by lying on his back as she sat up, watching as she stripped her t-shirt from her torso, then her panties. Flinging the sheet that had covered them back, she found he had worn his BVDs to bed and his hard member strained at the flimsy cotton. Her fingers at the waistband pulled them off his hips and down his thighs, where he helpfully kicked them aside.
Lightly, teasingly, Daryl played with his enormous shaft. Velvety soft, yet harder than tempered steel, she had no idea how she had taken that into herself. “Are all dragons as big as you?”
Ronan laughed. “I have no idea. I never see my fellow males naked.”
“How do you make love with your lady dragons?”
“As we are right now.”
“No love in flight?”
“Well, yes, its fun and sensual to make love in our dragon forms,” he answered, his hand playing with her hair. “But also more awkward. And of course, anyone who looks up can see you doing it. No privacy that way.”
She stroked her hands up and down his shaft, then up over his belly to his chest, stretching her body like a cat. “I think it would be sexy to make love like dragons.”
Ronan sat up, his hand caressing her back, his eyes on hers. “Believe me, this is more fun.”
Pulling her to him, he nibbled her throat and cheeks, murmuring, “We have so many different positions this way. Up in the sky, only one. Here, we have hands that touch, lips that kiss. I can put my fingers here.”
He delved into her mound, making her moan as he teased her button. “I can put my mouth there, or yours on my rod. I can take you from the back, or on top of you. Or you can be on top of me.”
Daryl gasped as his fingers made his point. “I think I got it. You are making me so hot.”
His tongue found her nipples and escalated her arousal to dizzying heights. “Up there, I can’t do this.”
Between his very talented tongue and his fingers, Daryl knew she would erupt within moments. “Stop,” she gasped, pushing him back down. “I want to climax with you in me.”
Ronan lay back as she straddled his hips and lifted his heavy shaft to point upward at the entrance to her tunnel. She impaled herself on him, sliding down to his pubic hair, and she orgasmed instantly. Her body screamed under the onslaught of the sheer pleasure, the carnal sensations that ripped through her.
Crying aloud, she gasped for breath, her body shuddering under the enormity of her climax. Before it trailed away, Daryl lifted her hips and slammed back down on him. Over and over, she rode him, moving her hips back and forth, grinding down on him.
Under her, his hands on her breasts, Ronan closed his eyes, moaning with every buck of his hips upward and into her. She grew close to climaxing again, her orgasm building up from deep in her lower belly, growing and expanding until Ronan seized her about the waist.
He rolled over, burying her under his huge body, and pounded her mound with hard, heavy strokes. He possessed her utterly, claiming her as his own, his dragon bringing her to her second orgasm. With a near scream, Daryl threw her head back as Ronan sucked and kissed her throat, her neck, convulsing under the force of her climax.
He thrust hard into her one, two, three more times, his body like iron, straining, the cords on his neck sticking out as he shot his load into her. Daryl lay under him, exhausted, passive, drained of all energy. Ronan collapsed on top of her, his tongue caressing the hickey he no doubt put there, marking her as his possession.
“You are mine,” he murmured. “Mine. I love you.”
Ronan made no objection to the two of them lounging in the hotel room that day, watching television and eating the take out he bought. Daryl laughed as he tasted his first Chinese Kung Pao Chicken. “I guess you don’t have Chinese restaurants up in the north?”
“No.” Ronan conquered the chopsticks quite easily, plucking the food up from the styrofoam plates to his mouth with evident delight. “I think if I ever go back, I’ll set up a business. I’ll make a fortune off Chinese food.”
Daryl chose to eat her pork lo mein with a fork. “I love this stuff. Maybe someday we’ll go to San Francisco and to Chinatown there. I bet that’s the real deal.”
“You humans really know how to cook good food.”
“I can’t cook for shit,” she answered, her mouth full. “So I guess we’ll be eating out a lot.”
He pointed his chopsticks at her. “No getting fat.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Lying on the bed with her head on his chest, Daryl never felt safer or more complete than she did that day. They watched television, clicking through channels to find movies and shows, some news, some sports. And then as dark fell, Ronan went out to bring back dinner. Daryl lay on the bed clad in only a t-shirt and her panties, content.
I’m not craving a fix. It’s like the need is gone, poof, vanished. For the first time in a very long while, I feel whole. Not a junkie, not a whore, just a regular girl with a regular guy and a normal life. I like it.
While Ronan tidied their hotel room, Daryl looked for costume shops on Google the next morning. “There’s one not too far from here,” she muttered. “Says it’s got all kinds of wigs, clothes, and shit.”
“Then maybe we should get breakfast and head there.”
She glanced up as he hung the towels neatly on the rack. “You don’t need to do that. The hotel maids will change them.”
“I know. I just don’t want them to think we’re messy.”
Laughing, Daryl put the phone down. “They hardly care, sweet cheeks. They’re paid to clean.”
“Should we tip them?”
“Yeah.”
After Ronan slid a ten-dollar bill under the phone, Daryl led him from their room and made sure the door was locked. “Got your money?” she asked.
Ronan sighed with a quick eyeroll. “Yes, dear.”
“Don’t ‘yes, dear’ me, mister. Remember what happened at the last hotel?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Holding his hand, Daryl ambled to the main drag beside him, heading for the diner they liked. “This has to work this time,” she murmured. “I’m sick of running from Tank.”
“It doesn’t bother you to steal from him?” Ronan asked, his tone curious, not accusing.
“Nope. Tank uses that money to hurt people, to deal drugs that ruin lives. I wouldn
’t steal from honest folks, but Tank, oh, yeah.”
“I suppose it’s worth it if it puts him out of business.”
“Unfortunately, the only way to put a guy like Tank out of business is to kill him.”
“I’ll kill him if I have to.”
Daryl’s free hand crept around to the small of her back where the Glock she had taken from Tank sat in her waistband, hidden by her loose shirt. “Same here.”
She felt strange carrying a concealed weapon, especially without a permit. Yet, with Tank looking to kill them, she didn’t want to not be armed if he caught up to them again. “Do you know how to use that gun you have?” she asked.
Ronan glanced down. “I know the basics, I think.”
“Using a gun was part of my self-defense training,” Daryl went on. “I just honestly never thought I’d really have to have one.”
“Dragons, for all our formidable prowess, are quite peaceful,” Ronan said, his tone thoughtful. “We almost never fight one another, we don’t steal mates, and we never kill another dragon. Humans, on the other hand—”
“Are the pits.”
Ronan grinned. “I don’t know. Some are actually quite nice.”
After breakfast, Daryl called for a cab from the restaurant. When the cab arrived, Daryl gave him the address of the costume shop and climbed into the rear seat with Ronan. Unable to say much to each other with the cabbie listening, Daryl watched the traffic they passed, the folks along the sidewalks entering and exiting shops.
After a twenty-minute drive, the cabbie pulled over in front of a strip mall that contained the costume shop. After paying the driver, Daryl and Ronan entered the place and were greeted by a cheerful, plump woman with hair in two long braids over her shoulders.
“What can I do for you folks?”
“What do you have for wigs?” Daryl asked. “And fake beards?
“Come right this way.”
The lady showed them an array of wigs and clothes, as well as non-prescription eyeglasses and false beards. Within an hour, Daryl had gone from a blond with long hair to a brunette with a short bob, a hat, a smock over her tank top and wore dark glasses. Ronan’s black hair was now blond, and he sported new eyeglasses as well as a full beard, a cowboy hat, and a string tie.
Dragon Fever: Limited Edition Holiday Romance Boxset Page 36