In the Arms of the Dragon Princes

by Jessica Miller

  “You have a pretty nasty bump there. How are you feeling?” the paramedic asked.

  “I feel like some jackass assaulted me in the parking lot and tried to take my keys.”

  Blake walked over, concern etched across his face. The paramedic turned to him.

  “Sir, is your girlfriend always belligerent or is this a drastic change in behavior?”

  “I’m not his girlfriend,” Samantha ground out through clenched teeth.

  “I’m sorry. Is your wife typically hostile and have you noticed any other changes since she hit her head?”

  “I don’t even know this man, he just came out of the shadows and saved my life-”

  Samantha stopped, looking at Blake when it all sank in. A man had had a knife to her throat, ready to do who knows what to her and Blake had saved her life.

  She looked at the man being loaded onto a stretcher, his hands cuffed and an excessive amount of gauze wrapped around his leg and the knife to hold it steady for the ride to the hospital. She looked at the ground beside her, where the blood from her head wound had made a tiny dark spot in the asphalt. Then she looked at Blake, standing there in the chilly night without his jacket.

  She pulled the jacket closer, her voice barely above a whisper when she said, “You saved my life.”

  “I did.”

  His voice held no hint of boasting, the statement more matter-of-fact than anything.

  “Wow. Thank you.”

  “Now will you go out with me? For dinner. And maybe dancing?”

  She looked him square in the eye, her voice calm and steady.

  “No.”

  *****

  Samantha walked into work Monday morning, her head still a little tender, with three tiny pink stitches hidden by a wisp of brown hair on her forehead.

  “Hey Sammy, how are you feeling?” Jen ask when she walked in and sat down at her cubicle.

  “Like crap but better than yesterday and much better than Saturday. Hey thanks for picking me up Saturday morning. I didn’t want to call my parents and have to explain what happened.”

  “Sure thing.”

  She hung over the low wall between the desks, looking around to make sure no one else in the call center was listening.

  “So, you never talked about what happened with Blake.”

  She arched one red eyebrow and gave Samantha a sheepish grin.

  “Nothing happened, I told you. He asked for my number and I shut him down.”

  “So you don’t want to go on a date with him?”

  She bit her lip, her face suddenly reddening.

  “No. Why Jen. What did you do?”

  “I didn’t know, I swear. I thought you were messing with me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I private messaged him on Facebook, thanking him for saving my friend. One thing led to another and I may have given him-”

  Jen trailed off, looking up as the main door opened and a man stopped at the reception desk for directions.

  “Oops,” Jen said, and quickly changed her phone to available, picking it up and answering a call. When Samantha shot her a dirty look, she shrugged her shoulders.

  The delivery man walked up to Samantha’s cubicle, one arm wrapped around a large vase of yellow orchids and a box of fancy chocolates tucked under his other arm.

  “Are you Samantha Banks?”

  A room full of heads whipped around, many still on the phone, but all eyes on Samantha and the magnificent floral arrangement being placed on her desk. She wanted to wanted duck and hide, but the short-walled cubicles offered little privacy.

  She could always go under her desk.

  “Yes.” Her voice cracked and she cleared it and tried again. “Yes, I’m Samantha Banks.”

  “Good. I need you to sign here and here and I’ll leave these here.”

  Samantha took his PDA and signed, her signature shaky and illegible. The man walked away, passing one of the call center employees.

  Ugh, not Marta, Samantha thought. No sooner had she thought the words than raven-haired Marta’s hand reached out and snatched the card that was buried in the delicate flowers.

  “Jeez Marta. What are you, in high school?”

  Marta smiled and spun out of Samantha’s grasp as she opened the envelope and slipped the tiny, hand-written card out. Samantha shot Jen another sour look, but it was too late. Half the office had put their calls on hold and were waiting with rapt attention to hear what was on the card.

  “My dearest Samantha,” Marta read aloud. “I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I want to make it up to you, and I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

  “Stalker,” a random voice called out and everyone chuckled.

  Crawling under the desk was looking better and better.

  “Would you please join me tonight,” Marta continued, “at Mr. A’s Bistro at the Palazzo Hotel…wait?” Marta stopped reading and looked up at Samantha, “is this dude for real?”

  “Keep reading, Marta. We haven’t got all day,” someone called out, and Samantha’s mortification grew. Why was this happening?

  “I’ll be there at six, waiting for you. I’ll be the man with his heart on his sleeve and his cellphone turned off. I hope to see you soon, always, Blake Stemmons.”

  Marta’s eyes grew wide and she looked at Samantha in shock.

  “Is that the Blake Stemmons, the linebacker?”

  She handed the card back to Samantha and Samantha yanked it out of her hand.

  “Yes. Why do you care?”

  “Holy shit. How did you get a football player to send you flowers and, oh my gosh, what happened to your head?”

  “Let it go Marta. I had a rough weekend.”

  “Looks like it,” her hand flew up to her face in mock-surprise but no one bought it. Marta was known to capitalize on her telenovela good looks and acted the part on a regular basis. “He didn’t, hit you, did he?”

  “Of course he didn’t hit me you twit. I got attacked by a mugger and he rescued me.”

  The office erupted with questions, the chatter enough to pull the office manager out of his computer games. He poked his head out of his office and addressed the room at large.

  “Get back to work, people. We get paid by the call. I expect you all to be on the phone.” Frank looked at Samantha’s desk, “Sammy, if you can’t concentrate on your job, the boyfriend is going to have to stop sending you flowers. The rest of you, back to work.”

  He closed his door and went back to his computer games, not even waiting to see if anyone was following orders.

  “Yeah, Sammy. If you can’t concentrate, no more flowers for you,” Marta said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and storming off to her desk with a showy little pout on her full lips.

  “Damn, she’s annoying,” Jen said.

  “Ugh. I can’t believe what you did, Jen. Now everyone knows.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

  “Well it is, and now I have to go on a date.”

  “To Mr. A’s, that’s pretty posh.”

  “I know.”

  “What are you going to wear?”

  Samantha looked at the yellow orchids, sad that her little yellow shirt was ruined by the attack.

  “I don’t know. Want to go shopping at lunch time?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Excellent. Since you got me into this mess, you can help me pick something to wear so I don’t look completely out of place there.”

  “Yeah, it’s not really a jeans, boots, and blouse type of place.”

  Samantha’s hands trembled as she pushed the available button on her phone and jammed the headset on her head. It was going to be a long day, and a night she wasn’t sure she was ready for.

  But at least she could get it over with and forget all of this had ever happened.

  *****

  Samantha stepped out of the elevator, dark green dress billowing around her calves, the neckline plungi
ng just enough to show off her figure, but not enough to make her uncomfortable. The fabric felt light as air, and she marveled again at Jen’s taste in clothing. They’d been in the store exactly thirty seconds when her eyes had lit up and she’d all but dragged Samantha to the rack and shoved her into the fitting room.

  Samantha had been tempted to leave the price tag on so she could return it after her date, but she felt spectacular in the dress. Surely that was worth the exorbitant price.

  She looked around the room, spotting Blake almost instantly. He stood, the cut of his casual suit hiding his rippling muscles and accentuating his bright smile and brighter blue eyes.

  He looked delicious.

  Samantha chided herself. She wasn’t here to start a romance. She was here to get a date over with and go back to her life. She wasn’t a princess in a fairytale. Blake was taking her out because he pitied her. There was nothing more to it.

  He pulled back the chair when she reached the table.

  “You look beautiful,” he said, his mouth inches from her ear, hot breath dancing across her bare shoulders.

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you been here before?”

  Was he serious? The place was so expensive that the prices weren’t listed on the menus.

  “No. I think this is more of a millionaire’s type restaurant.”

  He smiled at her joke, choosing not to take offense to her tone.

  “I just thought, a pretty woman like you,” he shrugged. “Their loss. I don’t know how any man could be with you and not want to treat you to the finer things.”

  “If I go on another date in the next few years I’ll try to remember to ask.”

  Blake arched his eyebrow, but he didn’t take the bait. Samantha admitted to herself that she might be exaggerating, but her nerves were shot. He’d looked amazing in the parking lot, but the stress of her attack and the attacker writhing on the ground in his own blood had distracted her from the full force of Blake’s magnetism.

  If she’d realized how striking he was up close, she probably would have stood him up. Already, her body was reacting to his presence, making it hard for Samantha to focus on his words.

  “Did you like the flowers?”

  “I did, and so did the entire office.”

  “Don’t you have a cubicle?”

  “We have the short one. I can look over my cubicle at my neighbor simply by sitting up a little taller.”

  “That’s awful. Sounds like one of those obnoxious call centers.”

  “It is one of those obnoxious call centers.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean-”

  “It’s alright. I hate my job. We all do. Jen and I want to start our own business, but no bank wants to fund a bakery.”

  “Are y’all any good?”

  “We think so, and we have quite a few online customers that keep coming back for more. But we can only meet so much demand out of my house. Plus, we’re baking in our spare time, which we don’t have a lot of with full time jobs.”

  “That’s tough. I could loan you the money.”

  “What? No. That would be too weird.”

  “Why? I like cake, and I have money. It sounds like a great idea.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “So?”

  “So? That’s important. You can’t just go around throwing your money at people.”

  Samantha opened the menu, trying to distract herself from the conversation. Blake was obviously looking for something Samantha wasn’t willing to provide.

  There was no way that kind of money would come with no strings attached.

  “Have you had the mushroom risotto?”

  “I have. It’s delicious.”

  “I’ll have that then, and a Caesar salad.”

  The waiter showed up as if on cue, taking their order from Blake and gathering their menus from the table before he walked away. Another man appeared out of nowhere, filling their wine glasses and pouring water into tumblers beside the wine glasses.

  Somewhere on the other side of the room, a string quartet began to play.

  “Do you dance?” Blake asked.

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do.” He held out his hand, “Join me?”

  Samantha stared at his hand as if it might suddenly turn into a snake. She grabbed her wine glass, throwing back her head and downing it all in one gulp. Her head swam and she felt a little giddy for a moment before the room righted itself again.

  “A little liquid courage?” he whispered into her ear as he led her across the floor and pulled her into his arms.

  “Yep. It’s not every day I get dressed up in a dress that cost me one week’s pay and go dancing with a linebacker from my favorite football team.”

  “It should be.”

  His hands locked around her waist and he pulled her even closer. Samantha laid her head on his chest, surprised to hear his heart pounding rapidly.

  “I see I’m not the only one that’s out of shape.”

  “My heart’s been pounding like that since I first saw you step off the elevator. It has nothing to do with dancing.”

  He spun her around, drawing a giggle out of her before he dipped her and stole a kiss. The touch was so brief, Samantha almost convinced herself that she’d imagined it.

  Almost.

  He waltzed her around the dance floor, completely oblivious of the world around them. Samantha lost herself in his blue eyes, imagining for just a moment that this was her life, her real life.

  She made a decision then and there to embrace the night, and to allow herself to forget her reality for just one night. Tomorrow, life would come pounding on her door in the form of a blaring alarm and probably a slight hangover.

  But for now, there was nothing outside these walls and beyond this man. For just this night, she was Samantha Banks, on a fairytale date with Blake Stemmons.

  *****

  Blake walked Samantha up to her door, even though she insisted she didn’t need a ride home.

  “I rode public transportation to the restaurant, I can ride the bus home.”

  He insisted, and in the end, he’d won. Samantha had reluctantly gotten into his white Lexus, marveling at how the wood trim gleamed in the moonlight.

  Blake had been a perfect gentleman on the way to her house, only reaching out to hold her hand. She’d tensed up, worried that he was going to run a hand up her thigh and try to get fresh, but he never even offered to do more than hold her hand. Samantha found the sweet gesture quite endearing.

  Standing on her narrow porch, she longed to invite him in, to drag this night out into morning so that the fairytale would never end. As soon as he drove away, that was it. She would be back to reality, stuck in her boring little life, answering endless calls for hours on end each day.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Samantha blinked at him, yanked out of her fantasies and back to the moment.

  “I was just thinking about tonight, and how wonderful it was. I really appreciate you. Not just for saving my life, but for the flowers and for dinner. I had a wonderful time.” “I’m glad. I wanted to see you smile.”

  His hand reached out, cupping her cheek and rubbing her cheek bone with a gentleness that almost undid her. Was this guy for real? Why hadn’t he invited himself in yet?

  They always did, invariably ruining a perfectly good night by implying that Samantha owed them something more for the money they’d spent on her. Blake had spent at least ten times that much. Any moment now, he’d suggest that they not “let the night end” and go inside.

  He was opening his mouth to speak, and Samantha steeled herself for what was about to come. She was right, Blake was just like every other man she’d ever dated. What a shame.

  “When can I see you again?”

  The question took her by surprise

  “Aren’t you going to ask if you can come in?” Her tone was a little more disappointment than sarcasm, which wasn’t what she’d intend
ed at all.

  “Of course not. It’s the first date. I am going to ask for a kiss.”

  A kiss? That’s all he wanted?

  “That’s all you want, a kiss?”

  “Well, no. I want to take you out again. If tomorrow is too soon, maybe Thursday night?”

  “Look, Blake. Tonight was great. But I have a life, and a reality I have to get back to. I’d love to live in a fairytale world, but I can’t set myself up like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t want to get my heart broken. I had a wonderful time with you tonight, I really did. But you’ve more than made up for the other night, and I really can’t thank you enough-”

  “Did you think this was a pity date?”

  “Yes.”

  “Samantha, I like you. And I mean, really like you.”

  “But you hardly know me.”

  He grabbed her hands, holding them in his giant hands and clasping them together. He looked into her eyes.

  “I know when someone knocks you down, you fight back. I know when you’re hurt, you use sarcasm and jokes to cover the pain. I know that you place your values and expectations above celebrity status.”

  He gave her hands a little squeeze, “I know that you are honest and responsible. There’s so much more I want to learn about you, but what I know about you, is enough to know that you’re the kind of woman that’s worth getting to know on a deeper level.”

  Samantha wanted to say something witty, to stop the flow of his words and shut herself off from the possibilities. But for the first time in her life, she’d been rendered speechless.

  She shook her head.

  “That’s nice Blake. But you can’t build a relationship on that.”

  “Why not? What would you build a relationship on?”

  “Come on Blake. I’m no fool. Women are throwing themselves at you constantly. You can have your pick. You don’t want me.”

  “You’re exasperating.”

  “I aim to please.”

  Blake snorted, “I doubt that. Regardless, you’re not going to deter me. Go out with me. If not tomorrow or Wednesday, then Thursday.”

  “No.”

  Samantha turned away and shoved her key into the lock. Blake didn’t budge.

  “I’ll send flowers to your work every day with a mushier card until you agree.”