Naked Dragon

by Annette Blair

  “Breasts, ye—” McKenna looked down at herself and grabbed a blanket to hold in front of her. “We’re naked!”

  “I know.”

  “Oh, no,” she wailed. “I forgot!”

  “What? What did you forget?”

  “Wine makes me horny.”

  “Define horny.”

  “I want to have sex, damn it. With you!”

  “That is good, yes?”

  “That is good, no!”

  Apparently, he experienced all her physical reactions, not just pain, but pleasure, and the act of being horny, too. “I want sex with you, too, believe me,” he said, “and then some.”

  “Too late,” she whispered as she sat and fell forward, her face smashed against his chest, one breast falling into his open palm.

  “Another gift from the gods.” He looked up. Thank you.

  McKenna began to sound a bit like a swine. A baby one, maybe. He knew the sound. Since his return to earth, he had awakened from sleep hearing that sound, except that he was the only one in the room. Sleep? “McKenna?” Please no. “Why, why, why?” he shouted to wake her. “Why is it too late?”

  She stirred, looked up at him, smiled, snuggled deeper against him, and brought all their naked parts into contact. “Wine,” she whispered, “makes me horny and sleepy.”

  “No, wait. I know how to fix—”

  TWENTY

  Dragons wake with the sun, unless, before sunrise, a breast is being taken from one’s hand along with the sweet pressure against one’s magnificent morning lance.

  Bastian had had a hard night. In every way.

  In experiencing McKenna’s physical reactions, sleep had also claimed him . . . at the peak of his arousal. Fighting it had not helped. Worse, he dreamed that fiery lava rocks burned the brothers he forgot existed while he took McKenna to his nest.

  A magickal warning? Or a threat?

  Perhaps he should not mate with her.

  He mocked himself with an inner laugh. Tell his man lance that.

  He opened his eyes when McKenna’s bathroom door clicked softly shut, and he found himself in her bed with a headache, worse than after cracking a tree with his skull.

  He placed his hands on his head to heal it, without success. So this must be McKenna’s headache. Without relief, in any way, he rose, gathered his clothes, and left her room.

  He would need to consider this mating question more carefully before acting on it. He should concentrate on making her quest his own, and find the sign of the crowned dragon, too, though he believed that sharing McKenna’s physical reactions proved she was his. Still, he would follow Andra’s mandate. None of the dragons in Gran’s collection were crowned, though the one that looked most like him did have something broken off the top. At any rate, he needed to keep looking.

  He had been a crowned dragon, triple horned, two curved toward the sides, his center horn tall and tilting back. The three together resembled a human monarch’s crown. He did not miss his crown as much as he missed his wings.

  But he was a man now, a sex-starved man.

  The weather lashing his window—Killian style—would not allow for searching or working outside today, and he hardly expected to find a crowned dragon in the house, though perhaps he should mention having seen one somewhere. See how McKenna reacted. The dragon carved into the mantel had not been crowned. Were there more dragons hiding in her house?

  He stepped beneath his shower. The water hitting his head hurt. He wished he could heal McKenna’s headache, but after last night, he did not think she would let him place his hands on her, anywhere. He looked forward to seeing how she reacted to their having slept together, both of them naked.

  Anticipation rushed him, but McKenna Greylock was worth biding his time for.

  His thick, throbbing lance agreed, and while he washed it, he imagined going alpha on her and doing the deed, with her full and happy compliance, of course. But he would fight his nature here and let his heart mate lead him. An alpha always did what he must to save his men, in this case, his dragon brothers. Besides, knowing now that his alpha tendencies were safe, being led by McKenna did not feel as much a burden as an adventure, with the possibility of a sexual prize for his efforts.

  After his shower, an earthside habit he embraced, he wore the clothes she had given him, appreciating the extra room for his “horny” man lance, and made his way to the kitchen, following the scent pulling him toward her.

  “Cinnamon rolls,” she said, avoiding eye contact.

  “Is that a morning greeting, McKenna? You use no enthusiasm.”

  “No, it’s a Greylock breakfast. Would you like coffee?”

  Bitter brew. “Milk?” he asked. “I am fond of a cold glass of milk. Dragons do not normally drink—”

  “What about dragons?”

  He found himself following her around the kitchen. “Your grandmother’s collection got me to thinking about dragons. They do not drink milk. Did you know?”

  “I know only that dragons are fiercely beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What?”

  “How is your hand?” he asked.

  “Weird, but it healed practically overnight as if it never happened.”

  So, after one day in her presence, when McKenna cut herself, he experienced her pain, and when he healed himself, she healed? And when wine made her horny and sleepy, he got horny and sleepy. Their interwoven physicality made no sense. It might point to her as his heart mate. But it might also be a new flaw in his magick, a result of Killian’s counter spell.

  “May I see your hand?” he asked.

  McKenna shook her head, but she stilled, winced, and raised both hands, as if to keep her head from falling off.

  He knew exactly how she felt.

  “I don’t take to pampering well,” she admitted. “I’m more likely to mow you down as let you touch me.”

  Son of a bustard, her maternal ancestors had forgotten to mention that.

  She turned pink, probably remembering how she had awakened nearly blanketing him.

  He reached out, placed his hands over hers atop her head to heal her, and soon his own headache receded. She did not fight him, which meant she liked his touch, or she embraced a clear head. He took the hand she’d cut without permission, and resisted her attempt to take it back.

  A small scar, he saw between her thumb and pointing finger. Satisfied with the way it had healed, he wished he had perfected scar removal. “Looks good. What will be my grunt task, or tasks, today?” He sat and she placed a plate before him. “McKenna, my food is staring at me with big yellow eyes. I do not usually let my food see me.”

  “Where did Vivica say you came from?” McKenna filled a plate for herself.

  “I came from the Island of Stars.”

  “It sounds lovely, but did you have no eggs on the island?”

  Eggs? On the island, he sucked them from their shells.

  “They’re from my chickens, sunny-side up.” She beamed. “This bacon is from the brother of the swine you tried to defend yourself from yesterday.”

  As a dragon, he would have eaten that swine for dinner. Nothing frightened him. Well, except for the depth and speed of his kinship to this woman. “McKenna, I meant to save you from the swine, not myself.” It had reminded him of a beast from his journey through the planes.

  McKenna sat across from him at the table. “The day I need a man to save me is the day I lose my self-respect.”

  “I see.” Another McKenna lesson her ancestors forgot to impart. “So, what animal do cinnamon buns come from?”

  Her hair bounced like a horse’s tail as she looked up and raised a winged brow. “Cinnamon buns come from ticklish white dough boys.”

  “Do you raise those here on the farm?”

  McKenna slammed her pronged eating weapon on the table. “Are you for real?”

  Bastian shooed Dewcup away from his milk glass with a quick hand that he brought up to scratch his nose. His pesky faer
y had nearly drowned trying to drink. How foolish he would look trying to rescue an invisible faery. He’d leave some milk in the bottom of the glass for the minx. She could have his eggs, too, if she wanted.

  “Yes, I am real,” he said. “Amazingly so, considering my awkward start and wretched journey. Everything is as it should be with me. Well, almost everything.”

  “Mysterious, again. Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it.” She rose from the table, her breakfast half eaten.

  “Play it?” He never played, even as a human boy, except at learning how to be a warrior. “You would play with me?”

  “Watch it, Casanova! Last night was an aberration. No more wine for you.”

  For him? The wine had affected her more than him, though he would never tell her so. Let her enjoy the wine and him the results.

  “I don’t trust easily,” she said, “and you’re not making it any easier. I’m no shrinking violet, whatever your scam. I don’t need anybody, including you. If you’re not part of the solution, you are the problem, and you can be replaced, like this.” She snapped two fingers together, yet seemed to doubt her own words.

  “My name, I tell you, is Bastian. Not Casanova. Not Buster.”

  McKenna shook her head and let her arms fall to her sides. “It’s still raining so we work in here, today, and every rainy day from here on. After breakfast, bring Toffee an apple. She’s pining for you. She pouted when I went to muck her stall without you.”

  “Muck?”

  McKenna’s lips curved upward, a rare sight, though she looked anything but pleased, except at some wicked intent, perhaps. “Tomorrow, you, me, and a predawn mucking lesson. I can’t wait.”

  “And today?”

  “You’ll paint the first of the spackled and sanded rooms. My decorating scheme is early yard sale, so I can work around whatever colors you choose. Cans of bargain paint line the shelves in the shed. After you sweet-talk Toffee, pick whatever paint you want and go to town. No, you’re literal. Don’t go to town; you’ll get lost. Go to the first bedroom off the hall on your right, and paint it. When you finish that one, move on to paint the bedroom next to it. I’m off to the barn.”

  When McKenna turned to put the rest of her food into the cold box, Bastian inhaled his breakfast, ignoring Vivica’s eating lessons, his speed making him able to sprint to the barn in the rain with McKenna—between the raindrops, she said—both of them with apples for her horse.

  “Do you use Toffee for anything besides plowing?” he asked as they got to the barn, shaking rain off themselves. “We failed to run between the drops,” he remarked.

  McKenna laughed. “My plow,” she said, pointing to a big green monster with tires half as tall as him, “has a motor.”

  He pointed to the corner. “But that’s a plow.”

  “Yeah, my great-great-great-granddaddy’s. Sometimes, I think you came through a time warp.”

  Close, he thought.

  “I like to grow flowers and plants free-style around the property,” she said. “You know, willy-nilly, the more unusual the arrangement, the better. Sometimes I use Toffee to pull up stumps, clear dead trees, and thin out the sun hoggers. Don’t tell anyone, but I keep her because I love her and like to ride. She’s my one luxury.”

  Bastian liked McKenna’s respect for nature and the way she loved her horse. Free-style flowers, he had never heard of. He should research the expression. “Do you have a computer?” His favorite new earth invention held much information, which he would never tire of absorbing. Not as quick as reading a book but more diverse in offered lessons, plus McKenna kept using words he needed to learn.

  “I do my bookkeeping on the computer,” she said, “so the answer is yes, I own one. Whether I let you use it is another matter.”

  “I took lessons,” he said. “Extensive lessons from Vivica.”

  “We’ll see. Right now, until the sun shines again, if it ever does, you’re painting bedrooms.”

  “I look forward to it.” Yesterday, after making applesauce, he had taken a minute to read a book on painting, and he figured that if Michelangelo could do it, so could he.

  TWENTY-ONE

  In the shed, Bastian found paint cans with many different and beautiful colors. But so many cans of each? McKenna must plan to paint all the rooms.

  Choosing an assortment of paintbrushes, he took a can of each color up to the house, figuring he could return for more as needed.

  In the kitchen, he found a note from McKenna. “Gone to town for supplies. You paint. Your lunch is in the fridge.”

  The fridge? He went to her library, looked up “fridge” in the dictionary, among other new words, and read a few books. He returned to the kitchen a half hour later, opened the fridge, and found his name on a note stuck to a covered dish.

  Unable to tame his dragon-sized hunger, he devoured the contents, whatever they were, as fast as he inhaled breakfast. Plates and dishes, he had learned from Vivica, were not for eating.

  After three Creamsicles and the last piece of key pie, he went to work.

  The white walls called to him. He and his brother dragons may have been trapped on the island as it began to die, but it had once been a vibrant paradise, until lava from the sea mountain boiled the Endless Sea dry, and replaced the water. The lava continued to rise, burning plants and trees on the island’s shores, and threatening their existence.

  He had gotten away. His brothers had not. Yet.

  As he opened paint cans, his brother dragons and centuries of island scenes filled his mind. He picked a favorite scene, and began.

  Halfway through the afternoon, Dewcup fell into a can of yellow paint, pulled herself out, and flew blindly around the room, bumping into walls, each bounce leaving her perfect imprint behind. “Thanks for helping,” he said as he carried her to his bathroom sink, filled it, and set her on a raft of soap.

  She crossed her arms in stubbornness and refused to bathe, so he grabbed her by her wings and dunked her three times.

  “May your teeth grow warts,” she cursed between dunkings, “and your ears harbor—gurgle, drumble, slub—spiderweeds!”

  Clean, she tired of taunting him, and he went back to work, adding a bit of color to the wings, and sparkling light to each faery impression, before he continued.

  After painting for hours, he heard cars outside and saw McKenna and Vivica arriving together, McKenna in her truck, and Vivica in the car she called her Vette.

  Vivica suggested he wait to learn to drive. He agreed. Cars called for roads that went in wrong directions. He would prefer to fly as the crow—or, in his case, the dragon—flew. Though, around McKenna, especially after sleeping naked with her last night, he would most assuredly rather be a man. A man who would get to try last night again and hopefully follow it to its natural conclusion.

  He wiped his hands on a cloth and went to meet them as they came up the porch steps. The rain had not stopped or slowed. Killian, he suspected, was continuing to make her presence known.

  “Good to see you again, Bastian,” Vivica said.

  “Why are you here?” he asked his acclimator.

  “I wanted to see how you and McKenna are getting along. I try to sense my clients’ needs beforehand, but I do like to make sure my placements, and their employers, are happy.”

  Bastian relaxed. “I am happy. McKenna, are you not happy?”

  “I’ve been confused,” McKenna said, “but not unhappy.”

  “Good. Come see the room I painted.” Bastian led the way.

  McKenna yelped and stopped walking the minute she stepped inside. “Now I’m unhappy.”

  “I think it’s marvelous,” Vivica said turning in a circle to see it all. “I’ve never seen anything so wondrously magickal. Who wouldn’t want to sleep in a fairyland like this?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” McKenna said. “People who are afraid of dragons? I could have nightmares about that big blue beastie.”

  “Cedrig? He is harmless.”

  “
And the gold dragon?”

  “Jaydun. He roars when he does not get enough sleep, but he is a fine figure of a dragon.”

  McKenna rolled her eyes. “Did you escape from an asylum?”

  Vivica cleared her throat. “Bastian speaks his mind always, no matter how fanciful. He’s like an actor who gets into his role. This is a work of art and he’s in character to create it.”

  Bastian understood that Vivica’s words were spoken as a warning.

  “I meant to please you, McKenna,” he said. “I read about painting in your library, but I know I have a lot to learn. Please say that you did not bring Vivica to take me back.” His chest got tight at the thought of losing McKenna, yet his very attachment to her made him growl inwardly. This need for her frustrated him because it marched beside a loss of control. He could not leave his likely heart mate, because if he did, Andra and his brothers would suffer. Besides, he did not want to leave.

  Neither did he want to spin out of control.

  Vivica looked through her bag. “McKenna and I met by accident, Bastian. She didn’t complain, but she did wonder why you thought cinnamon rolls were meat.”

  “I guess I still have a lot to learn on this . . . America.”

  “Ya think?” McKenna snapped. “You’ll have to start the room over again tomorrow, and stick to one color.” McKenna looked out the window. “Vivica, that idiot television journalist who keeps reporting about . . . whatever coming through the veil is parked at the end of my driveway. I thought I saw his car behind us on our way here. Is he following you?”

  Vivica shook her head. “He thinks I’ll lead him to a story. Don’t worry. He’ll give up one of these days. Forget about him, and forget about repainting the room, maybe?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Tourists can sleep in one-color rooms anywhere, any day. Here, they can leave the real world behind, float on clouds, dream of pink skies, green stars, blue trees, and purple swans—” She stepped closer to the wall. “Double-winged purple swans. Bastian’s work has depth, light, sparkle, life! It’s quite magickal, even the ceiling.”