by Tina Johnson
She sat down on a stool at the island and watched him finish cooking the bacon. He took the pan over to the sink and set it down. He set the bacon down in front of her, and pulled out a plate of eggs he'd left warming in the oven that was under the stove he was cooking on.
"That's handy to have more than one oven." Misty commented as he grabbed silverware and some butter and jam from the fridge.
"I normally don't cook for anyone but myself, when my sisters come to visit, they take over my kitchen." Hunter told her, while shoving a piece of bacon in his mouth.
"Sisters, how many sisters do you have?" Misty asked him while she buttered a piece of toast and bit into it.
"I have five sisters. All of them are married, most of them have multiple children. I'm the baby of the family." He told her while piling up strawberry jam on a piece of bread.
Misty watched him put some eggs on top of his jam and cringed. The idea of mixing eggs and jam together didn't sound very good, but he ate it and didn't seem to notice that she was watching him.
"So what happened to you?" He told her after he finished off most of the bacon and eggs. He'd noticed Misty had been just eating the toast so he'd left most of it for her.
"I was driving on the road, which had a pretty scary cliff, and a deer jumped into the road and I swerved to avoid hiding it and going off the cliff and hit the rocks on the other side." Misty pushed her plate away from her after eating three pieces of toast, and a couple pieces of bacon.
"So, I'm assuming your car wouldn't start?" Hunter told her while he started picking up the dirty dishes and rinsing them off in the sink.
"I'm pretty sure it's totaled. I had no cell reception to call for help, and I tried calling triple A once I found your house, but they won't help me. I guess my account expired when my dad died and they put all his finances on hold to sort things out. I had to go talk to my ex step mother for a loan to finish school, my Dad never changed his will when they divorced. I was on my way to go see her to talk to her about the situation when everything went wrong." Misty told him and sighed, putting her head into her hands and tried to breath for a moment. It just felt very overwhelming to her.
"I can have the car towed to my house, and I can take a look at it for you." Hunter told her as he dried the dishes off after washing them and put them away.
"You would do that for a total stranger?" Misty blinked at him in surprise.
"Not usually, but you're a damsel in distress and you landed in my castle, what kind of gentleman would I be not to help." Hunter winked at her as he turned around and faced her. "Let me make a couple phone calls. I'll see if I can find you some better clothes and we can sort this mess out, was your step mother expecting you, do you need to call her to let her know you are okay?"
"No, she didn't know I was coming. I wanted to talk to her in person, not over the phone, I don't think she'd turn me down, but she'd have a harder time saying no to me if I'm standing in front of her. I just needed a loan, I can pay it back once I graduate school." Misty told him and stood up, feeling stiff, the pain of her crash definitely left her sore today.
"So there's no one who would miss you all the way out here?" Hunter asked her.
Misty had a sense of feeling stalked and pushed it down, he'd never been anything but polite and helpful to her, yet she wasn't totally sure she wanted to admit that no one would miss her if she disappeared.
"Not for a few days at least, they knew I was headed this way, they'd miss me if I didn't show back up at school." Misty told him instead.
"Do you need to call anyone then?" Hunter asked her as he turned to leave.
"Not today, I appreciate the help." Misty told him, feeling slightly nervous being alone with him. She'd never been alone with any man before except her dad. ****
Chapter-4
Hunter dug through her backpack and realized she had her own clothes with her, although she hadn't appeared to put practical clothes in her back pack. He pulled out a small sundress. She had put three shirts and a sun dress in her back pack, she must have been disoriented, he imagined her wandering around after her accident not realizing how hurt she'd been and trying to get help.
Hunter felt the urge to protect her, even from herself. She was in no condition to be wandering around right now without supervision until he was sure she wasn't more damaged than it appeared on the surface. He didn't smell any internal bleeding signs, but that didn't mean much, he hadn't used his senses like that for at least a hundred years and he was out of practice. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her. She had a small mouth and he wanted to see her laugh. She always looked so serious, he wondered if anyone had ever made a point to make her smile, just to see her happy.
He finished calling the tow company, and then called the cleaning company who also brought his supplies out to his house and asked them to bring some extra clothes. He looked at the size of her shirts and her jeans and relayed sizes before he hung up. Hunter didn't stop to consider that she might not like him just taking charge without asking her opinion.
He went back downstairs to find her and found Misty wandering around looking at all the paintings on the wall. Some of them were very old and he caught her eyeing one in particular that was him in dragon form that his sister had painted, shortly before he'd left home. It was the one thing he took with him when he'd left home as a young adult dragon and his first treasure. His sister had put it in a wooden frame that he later replaced with gold. Back in the day, it had hung on the cave where he hid his treasures, but now he proudly had it in his house, so he could have some of his treasure upstairs to claim his home as his own too. Dragons always left their mark on things. They were extremely territorial.
"This is beautiful, I've never seen anything quite like this before, he looks so real you could almost reach out and touch him, he is proud, look at how he's holding his head. His wing span is gigantic, it makes you want to reach out and touch him to see if he's soft like the hide of a cow, or if he's got harder scales like a turtle." Misty told him, she turned around to smile at him.
"Beautiful." The robe had fallen open, exposing the top parts of her abundant breasts. Hunter was busy looking at them when he responded to her, but he wasn't talking about the painting.
"Who was the artist?" Misty asked him, seeming oblivious to the robe falling open further when she pointed to the picture.
"My sister painted m... it." Hunter had almost said 'me', and caught himself. "Yes, dragons are noble and proud creatures though, I would imagine a dragon like him would be proud that his wings were finally big enough to carry him on whatever adventures he wanted to experience."
Misty laughed. "I love it. I've noticed you have other dragon themed paintings throughout your house, did your sister paint all of them?"
"My middle sister is the painter. She did most of them, yes. I have a lot of photography upstairs, not of dragons of course. That's my newest hobby. Do you have any hobbies you enjoy?" Hunter shared with her, something personal of himself to see if he could get her to share more about herself.
"Not really, I mostly just focus on school. I love animals though. I could happily spend all day with a happy dog frolicking at my side, or snuggling with a cat who's content to just sit by my side." She smiled at him.
Hunter considered her answer for a moment, he wondered how she'd feel if she saw a dragon, he'd never had a pet before, as they hadn't interested him, but he could see her sitting in front of the fire place in his study leaning on a large dog, one to protect her when he wasn't here. He always thought dogs were fairly dumb creatures, and dragons and cats fought for power too much, which is why he had no idea how three of his sisters had married feline shifters.
She seemed drawn to his pictures and enjoyed the fantasy of it, but liking the fantasy was very different than the reality. He decided he needed to seduce her before he broke the reality to her. Make sure she was on her way to being in love with him and under the pull of the mate-bond before he told her the truth.
&n
bsp; She was human, not a shifter, so she could reject the bond before she realized what it was. She had to be totally accepting for the mate-bond to work. Most shifters knew what the mate-bond was, and would accept it if they found their potential mate agreeable. But a human might panic. He had to tread carefully if he wanted to keep her.
He reached out subconsciously and touched her blond hair and rolled a chunk of her hair between his fingers. So soft, and it glinted in the lights when it rolled. He wanted to bury his fingers in her hair and rub his face on it. He was a sucker for gold and hers wasn't white-blond, it was more of a reddish gold blond, like his gold bars down in his cave.
He wondered what she would think of his treasures. She didn't seem the greedy type, the few women who'd been to his house that his sister's had sent his way over the years were attracted to his fortune and the size of his house, not a single one had ever noticed the paintings his sister had done, it was his most prized possession, something that couldn't be replaced.
Misty froze and Hunter was oblivious to her eyes getting all big as she looked up at him. She started to pull back and her robe fell open enough to show the dusky color of her nipples. When she reached up to pull her hair out of his hands and take a step back, bumping into the wall, she looked like a panicked deer almost when he finally looked down at her face.
It made his predatory instincts kick in and he took a step forward.
****
Chapter-5
Misty stared up at him, feeling the wall dig into her back. She could feel the air blowing across her exposed skin and reached up and drug her robe together to cover herself. Despite the look on his face, he wasn't acting violent.
She wasn't used to men looking at her like she was beautiful, or desirable, and here he was, looking at her hair like it was the most fascinating thing on the earth. She realized that her breasts had been mostly uncovered and yet he'd been focusing on her hair. She was confused. She wasn't sure if she should feel frightened, or if the knot her throat was from feeling excited by his touch. He was so close she could smell him. He smelled like leather, and soap and bacon.
When he put his hand on the wall by her head and leaned into her, Misty didn't move away, he didn't trap her, instead he just braced himself with one arm on his right side. She could move away if she wanted too, and because he didn't trap her, she didn't struggle, she debated on this was a wise decision, to wait and see what he was going to do next.
He was a beautiful man. Toned, muscular with darker skin suggesting he spent a lot of time outdoors. He was broad shouldered and he towered over her, making her feel petite and feminine. It was weird sensation to her, to feel so small next to him. She was an average height, with curves that almost put her into double digit dress sizes, with large breasts that made it impossible to find shirts and dresses that didn't draw unwanted attention to her assets. She tended to dress fairly plain most of the time.
"I like gold." He told her, whispering it almost in her ear. She shivered as his breath touched her ear and neck.
"Gold...?" Misty whispered back feeling slightly dazed, she looked up at his face, the words not entirely registering what he meant.
"Your hair is gold. It glitters when the light hits it. I wanted to touch it." He told her. He didn't move towards her, didn't push into her, or touch her again, but he was so close she could feel the heat of his body. "I find you beautiful, but you must know how beautiful you are."
"I... uh..." Misty stammered, and shivered as his other hand finally came up and started touching her hair again softly. This was probably a bad idea, but she couldn't resist him or pull away, she wasn't even sure she wanted too. She didn't ever actually answer him.
Misty realized she wanted to see what it would be like to kiss him. She expected it would be as unexpected as everything else that she'd experienced so far since she crashed her car. She tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes when his mouth came down by her ear and left a gentle kiss below her ear.
She realized she could have died and wanted to live a little. If she'd jerked her car to the right instead of the left, she'd have fallen into the ravine, and there's a good chance they'd be scraping her off the rocks below rather than standing in this man's house dreaming of kissing a hot stranger. It made her feel impulsive.
She felt like she could hear her own heart beating, and it was thundering in her ears. She tilted her head further to the side and almost moaned out loud when his hand that was touching her hair moved to cup the side of her face as he planted small kisses up and down her neck.
Misty sighed as he kissed his way back up from his collarbone to the bottom of her chin and then planted a gentle but firm kiss on her lips. She sighed and parted her lips. She wondered for a split second if it was silly that this was her first kiss at almost twenty three years old, unless the kiss when she was in first grade counted.
She brought her arms up and wrapped them around his waist and kissed him back. When he pushed her firmly against the wall with his body weight she felt like she was melting against him. Her knees went weak and she lost track of time as his tongue traced her bottom lip and teased her, when she finally opened her mouth he plunged his tongue in her mouth and kissed her deeper.
Misty could feel his tongue stroking in and out of her mouth and wondered if he would be as good at other things as he was at kissing. She pressed her breasts against him, and felt her stomach start to clench when she felt his thickness through his jeans press against her leg. He was large, like the rest of him and she felt a moment of panic because she didn't know how they'd even fit together if it went any further. Her lack of experience got in her way.
She started to pull back and he raised his head and looked at her. His eyes were dark and shuttered and his lips were swollen from kissing her.
"I can't..." She whispered. "I... I... don't get me wrong, you are very attractive, but I don't think I can do this right now."
Hunter released her and stepped back, giving her some space. He looked at her for a moment, observing her.
"Are you a virgin?" He finally asked her.
Misty blushed, and dropped her gaze to the ground, and nodded. "I was too busy with school, I never had time to date, or fool around with boys, or even go to parties. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to lead you on."
"I'm patient." Hunter told her. Then he leaned forward and kissed the top of her forehead before stepping back. "I found you a dress in your back pack. When your car gets here, you should have the rest of your things and we can see what we need to do to get your car fixed."
"I appreciate that." Misty told him. Her entire body feeling achy and almost wishing he hadn't let her pull away. She wondered what it would be like to be with him, tangled in sheets, his hands all over her body.
Misty realized that despite how much he'd seemed to want her, he'd given her space and backed off when she'd seemed scared. The attraction was definitely mutual and she wondered if maybe a summer fling wasn't exactly what she needed to move on with her life.
Maybe she needed to take some time to explore how she felt about him, and put school on the back burner for a few days. Maybe a vacation was exactly what she needed in this situation before she went back to the real world to deal with everything else.
Living in a temporary fantasy world could be a nice break from all the harsh realities of the stress of real life. Maybe she'd gain some knowledge and experience that would make her better appreciate the good she did have, or get her some life experience she understood why it was such a big deal to everyone else.
One of the reasons she'd always avoided sex was she wanted to wait for the right man, but she'd never met anyone who had inspired her like this, who, just looking at her, made her think about sex, and wondering what it would be like to have his hands cup her breasts.
"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a cold shower." Hunter told her. "Your dress is upstairs. Have lunch with me later, we'll talk more then. After that your car should be here and I can take a look at
it."
"Ok." She nodded at him and watched him leave her standing in the hallway alone. She felt the urge to follow him and stopped herself.
If she went upstairs with him right now, there was a very good chance he wouldn't make it to the shower, and she barely knew him. His idea of lunch was a good starting point. They could talk, get to know one another better, and see what developed. She wasn't looking for a relationship, she had to finish school, but a fling for a few days might be doable.
She wondered if he'd be patient with her inexperience and open to having a short fling. He didn't seem the type to have strangers in his space, yet he took her in with in and took care of her when she was hurt. He'd cooked for her, he was being patient with her, he didn't seem to have any ulterior motive that she could see, after all she was the one who intruded on his personal space and property.
Dragon’s Desire
Part-2
Chapter 6
Misty observed Hunter as he stared at the wreck that was her car. He was shaking his head as he turned to talk to her.
"This thing is completely totaled. There's no way I can fix this in a day or two. We are looking at a few weeks, plus the time it takes to get the parts, a bumper, and new glass." Hunter told her.
"How much will that cost? I don't think I can afford it, and my insurance won't cover an accident it considers my fault." She was worried.
"Don't worry about the cost of your car right now. It may be worth just getting a new car." Hunter told her.
"I can't afford a new car, or a rental." Misty rang her hands and then burst into tears.
Hunter stared at her awkwardly for a moment before walking over to her and gathering her up in his arms trying to comfort her. He hadn't tried to a hug a woman who was upset since he moved out, a few hundred years ago. The last woman he comforted had been his mother.