Kissed By The Dragon (Paranormal Shifter)

by JJ Jones

  KISSED BY

  THE DRAGON

  A PARANORMAL DRAGON SHIFTER ROMANCE

  JJ JONES

  Copyright ©2015 by JJ Jones

  All rights reserved.

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  About This Book

  Yvette is bored with life and craving some excitement.

  So much so that she finds herself browsing the missed connections section on Craigslist. It is there that she comes across one that sounds like it is talking about her.

  Curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to meet the man behind the post.

  That man is Alistair. Handsome, intelligent and very mysterious with luscious lips.

  She finds his lips impossible to resist but when she does kiss him she has no idea that she is actually being kissed by a dragon and she has just opened the door to a whole new world.

  The excitement that Yvette was craving has well and truly arrived...

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Prologue

  Hi, my name is Yvette. Wait, no, that’s a horrible way to start this story, but I can’t think of a better way so I’m just going to jump right in there. I can always change this later, isn’t that what we always tell ourselves? Anyway, we’re going to see how this works. Here I come, ready or not. Heh, it’s the best I can think of. Starting things like this can be hard sometimes. I’m not very good at this kind of thing. I’m not known to be a writer, so I’m relying on other people to examine and explain my feelings for me.

  Let me tell you a little something about myself. I’m not skinny and not really fat. I’m not tall or short. Basically, I’m stuck in the middle. That’s pretty much where I’ve been my entire life -- not really incompetent, but not exceptional either.

  My looks are the same way. My skin is mocha colored, somewhere in between the contrast of my parents. My eyes are a light greenish brown, again, stuck in the middle, and my hair is that shade that stays stuck between blonde and brown. Basically, I was a pretty boring girl. I had a few friends, but I was not really close with anyone.

  I’ll be the first to tell you, I wasn’t someone who anyone really wanted to know. No one in the world was eager to see me; that’s the truth. I can say that I didn’t exactly feel the same way about them. It was something to pass the time, a distraction that kept me from sinking further into my own head. I was losing my sanity, one endless task after another. I tried to distract myself from whatever I was missing in my world. That was just the way of things.

  I had always felt like there was something missing in my life. There wasn’t anything really wrong. I had a good job and my own apartment. I had my cat and a car. I didn’t suffer for anything, and yet I was suffering. It was all-silent because I had no words to describe what was wrong with my life. I didn’t know that what I was missing even existed. I’ve learned more since then, but at the time it just felt like my mind was playing tricks on me. I tried to hide what I was certain would eventually become some form of insanity. I hid it well, brightening up my image the only way I knew how: with my passion for interior decorating.

  I don’t know why I hadn’t made a career change. The truth is I was afraid. It’s a hard business to get into and I wasn’t sure that I had the strength to take that kind of risk. I shouldn’t have doubted myself. Everyone who had ever come into my apartment told me that I had a sense of color and style that was unmatched by anyone, other than a professional. They would tell me this, and I would believe it, but I had no idea where to start. I didn’t know what I would need to do to get into that kind business. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if a degree was required. I already had a degree and was pretty sure that I wasn’t interested in getting another one.

  I think perhaps, that it was all excuses, a way to keep me trapped in my comfort zone. If you don’t reach out, you can’t get hurt. That was how I did things. I didn’t want to get hurt. I had better things to do, anyway. I had a steady job and got a steady paycheck. I had a decent place and I had some money saved up, well, a lot of money saved up because I didn’t really do anything.

  I cooked for myself and packed lunches. I drove a gas-efficient car. I did all of things that a responsible adult was supposed to do. And because of all that, I was boring, just about the most boring person that you will ever meet in your life.

  **

  I guess it all started to change that day at work. At the time, I didn’t realize that it was a fateful day, but looking back, I can see how it was the start of everything changing for me. I suppose that it started earlier for him, but for me, that was the day that changed my life.

  “Yev, you got to see this!” Barbara, we called her Barbie, yelled across the breakroom.

  I was looking down at my sandwich. It was a sad little thing made of floppy bread and smooshed dabs of mayo against cheese that came in plastic wrapping slapped next to thinly sliced lunch meat that was hard to identify because it was in between the normal colors. It might have been turkey or it might have been ham. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t beef, but that was the only idea that I had.

  I didn’t hear her talking to me at first, I was so drawn into trying to remember what my sandwich was, other than a sad piece of food begging to be put out of its misery. She called out to me again, rushing up to my table with her arms moving faster than the speed of light. “What?”” I looked up, still feeling a little dull. Everything felt a little fuzzy and had for the past couple of days.

  She ignored my ennui; instead, she shoved her phone in my face. I jumped back a little, startled by the invasion of my personal bubble. “Check this out.”

  “It’s a picture of us.” I shrugged. I couldn’t see anything that really made it unusual.

  “Yeah, but look at it. We’re all in that photo. Who took it?”

  I didn’t really care. “Look, I have no idea. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “Yes it does.” Barbie insisted and I had to fight back the urge to push her overly enthusiastic body away from mine.

  “Nope, not really.” I shrugged again, trying not to look like I wanted to punch my coworker. “Some random person at the club took a picture of us and posted it online. That’s pretty normal.” My nonchalant act must not have worked pretty well because she didn’t seem to notice anything that I was doing.

  “It’s a missed connection,” she announced, confident I would immediately know what it was.

  I had no clue what she was saying. “What the hell is that?” I pushed my chair back, away from her. It made a strange screeching sound as it moved.

  “How old are you? Like 70?” She looked at me like I was an idiot. I was starting to feel like one, too. “No, scratch that, I’m pretty sure my grandma knows what a missed connection is.”
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  I stood up, already tired of this entire thing. “I’ve got to get back out there.”

  “I’ll send it to you.”

  “You do that.” I picked up my depressed sandwich and tossed it into the small steel trashcan that came up to my knees. I looked. Someone had forgotten to replace the bag. Instead of heading back to my desk, I tried to ignore my crazy friend as she continued to bounce up and down, hoping to drag me into a conversation that I didn’t want to have.

  I opened the cabinet and pulled out the box of clear plastic bags. “It might be you! It could be me! He sounds amazing.” She was spouting off.

  I sighed. I was going to ask because she was baiting me. I knew that she was, but felt the compulsion to ask. “What are you talking about?”

  “Some guy at the club.” She started to explain. “Somebody really liked one of us and is asking for help to find us.”

  “How can he really like one of us?” I wanted to groan, but I was trying to keep most of the frustrated noise out of my voice. “I don’t remember anyone that I talked to.” It wasn’t the truth. I did remember a couple of the faces, but those were just the guys that would buy a lady drinks, hoping that she’ll want to spend some time alone with him.

  “He saw one of us, he liked one of us, and he wants to meet the person that he liked.” She was practically squealing and I wanted to puke. It all sounded like some person who thought that one of us would be an easy mark.

  “Did he say which one in the photo it was?” I asked, still not believing that any of this was anything other than the desperate dreams of desperate women.

  “Nope, but he said that he saw a beautiful woman at the club and would like to get a hold of one of the women from this photo.” Barbie grinned, a plastic motion just like her namesake. I didn’t like it.

  “Are you going to talk to him?” I wanted out of this conversation, but I didn’t know how to leave it. The truth was, I was curious about who had taken the photo. It was a little strange and made me feel a little weird. Somehow, it felt like something private had been made public. I knew I didn’t have a right to privacy in a public place, but still it felt strange and new and I wasn’t someone ready for new.

  “I was thinking about it. What if it’s me?”

  “What if he’s a psycho killer?” I wanted her to stop. I felt my heart start to race. I hoped that no one was going to die because of this madness.

  “He’s not a psycho.” Barbie chastised me.

  I still felt justified in continuing. “You don’t know that. You don’t even know him. This is insane.” I steadied myself on the counter of the tiny kitchenette that the entire office shared. Suddenly I felt very strange, like something had taken all of the strength out of my knees. “He doesn’t sound crazy.” She was defending him.

  I struggled to keep my head from buzzing. “How do you know what crazy sounds like? A lot of crazy people sound perfectly reasonable.” I tried to remind her, but I felt like I was suffocating and I just had to leave. I walked out of the office break room on my unsteady legs.

  My office felt like it was spinning, but that only lasted a minute. I tried to put the anguished thoughts out of my head. There were other things that needed to be done. I forced myself back to work, but within five minutes there was a link in my inbox. It had been sent by Barbie. I didn’t know if I was ready to look at it. I didn’t open the email, I shook my head instead, moving on to the actual job that I had to do. I was paid to be there for a reason.

  The email plagued my mind for the rest of the day. For some reason that I couldn’t understand, it bothered me so much that my mind and eyes kept wandering over to the listing in my inbox. I forced myself to stop every time I realized that I clicked my inbox instead of doing something else that I needed to do. I forced myself to get busy on the phone, calling clients and verifying various bits of information before selling whatever useless business practice I was assisting companies with that week. That was my job, it wasn’t fun, but it was steady, and that’s the only thing that kept me at my desk every day.

  It wasn’t until late in the day that I finally went back into my email to check the ad. I couldn’t resist any longer. It wasn’t a weakness that I was particularly proud of, but I did it anyway. Immediately upon opening up the classified, I found myself staring at a picture of my coworkers, five women out enjoying a night on the town and myself.

  I saw how uncomfortable I looked in the picture and knew exactly what had happened. A face flashed into my mind. It wasn’t exactly a face that I didn’t like, but still I couldn’t quite place any interaction with him. I read the message. It was witty and charming. He was asking for help. He wanted to find one of the women from the photo, but wasn’t going to identify which one to help her privacy.

  I thought it was odd, I had never seen anything like that before, and the truth was, I didn’t want to react to the words on that page, but I did.

  “You’re looking at it, aren’t you?” The snickering voice flew over my shoulders like an attack.

  I closed out my screen, embarrassed. “It’s probably just some creep.” I tried to shrug it off, but I was just as curious as she was.

  “Ok, but I’m gonna email him tonight.”

  “You do that.” I used the words as a shield. I turned back to my screen, trying to hide my flushed face. Barbie walked away and I was happy to pack up. It was time to go home anyway and I couldn’t get back to the safety of my house fast enough. I checked my work email again from my car. It was still there and I felt a little strange about how excited it made me. It was starting to feel a little like a fairy tale, and I actually began to wonder if I was the one. I sat in my car and responded, sending out an email to the address listed on the ad before I drove home.

  By the time that I had gotten to my apartment, I had a response. It was a glowing bit of mail, shining with witty charm and I actually squealed in delight. He wanted to meet me, that night. I responded again, eager to arrange something. The place we had chosen was about half an hour from where I lived, so I told him that I would be there in an hour. I was out of the door in fifteen minutes and still felt rushed.

  The entire way there, I rushed and fretted, worried about being late, even though it was clear that I was early. Crown Center rose up in front of me and I paid for parking. I generally didn’t spend a lot of time there, but this was a unique occurrence. I debated the pros and cons of actually going in, wondering if I should just blow him off.

  I stood outside of the building for a long time, examining the large doors. I bit my lip so hard that it started to hurt. I didn’t know what to do, but my legs were starting to wobble on the heels that I never wore and I knew that I was going to have to figure something out soon, so I crossed the threshold. I checked my email on my phone again, hoping to find a message stating that this man, whoever he was, couldn’t make it. That he had been in a car accident or something like that. I didn’t wish that any harm had come to him, but a flat tire would have been nice. There was no heaven-sent email in my box. It wasn’t there. That meant that he was somewhere around here.

  I didn’t know how I felt about that, but my heart started to race. I could hear it thumping in my jaw, a dull thudding that only belonged in horror movies right before the bad guy was about to strike. I sat in a chair. I was in the open area around the restaurants on the first level with snazzy food court furniture.

  I was thinking about that when someone sat across the table from me. I heard the chair scrape and jumped out of my own seat, glaring at the intruder. “Hi.” It was all he said, but his face was starting to flush.

  “I’m sorry.” I was panting as I dropped out of my panicked state.

  “No, I didn’t realize that you didn’t see me.” He looked down at the table and began to pick at a spot of ketchup that someone had let dry on the surface. It seemed to be the only spot on a meticulously clean table and I wondered how it had gotten there.

  “I was just lost in thought for a minute.” I recognized him. He
had bought me a drink at the club. His golden hair glimmered in the florescent light and I wondered how he would look in the sunlight. I couldn’t help it.

  “That’s fine.” He looked up, smiling at me. I didn’t think that anyone’s face could actually beam, but it sure looked like his was.

  I smiled back; there was something infectious about his joy. “I want to help you find the girl.”

  “I’ve already found her.” It was a simple phrase, but for some reason I couldn’t respond. It caught me by surprise. I’m not exactly the type of person that is the first pick out of my group. Normally, a man only walks up to me when he’s either got his eyes on one of my friends and wants to play coy, or if all of my friends already appear to be taken. I’m the last choice, not the first one.

  He was pulling out his phone before I forced myself to speak. “Did you already meet with Barbie?”

  He laughed a little, a light chuckle that made his face look like a prince from a fairy story. “No, not really. I don’t know who Barbie is.”

  “She’s the one who told me about your Craigslist ad.” I shrugged, confused. “She didn’t email you?”

  “No, not yet.” He smiled at me, and I felt like the world was going to melt around me. I didn’t really know how to explain any of this. Something strange was happening to me and there was a weird tugging in my loins.

  “She’s planning on it.”

  “I’m taking down the ad.” He shrugged at me, a heavy motion that looked so light on him. His muscles pushed up against his shirt and I couldn’t help but notice the hints of definition that were layered under the silk.

  I tried not to stare. “Why?”

  “Because I was trying to get in touch with you.” He smiled at me again and this time I noticed that his glittering grin and shimmering eyes seemed to play with each other, both parts of his face begging for my attention.