Burn: Dragon Shifter Romance

by Ava Frost

  He shrugged, looking around. "Few years. I don't spend all my time here though. It's kind of a home base situation, but I travel with the guys quite a bit in the summer."

  "Ah..."

  He sat down next to me and we drank in silence. Things seemed so much less comfortable now than they had last night. The silence between us was thick and awkward. I kept my eyes focused on everything else in the room except for him. For some reason, looking at him made me feel unbalanced.

  Finally, he spoke.

  “Annabeth. I'm sorry for bringing you to that place. It wasn't appropriate.”

  I exhaled and smiled.

  “That's okay.” I said.

  “I'm not oblivious. I could see that you were uncomfortable.”

  “Are you involved in organized crime?” I asked him abruptly.

  His eyebrows shot up in apparent surprise which seemed odd because, really, it was a question I should have asked him before now. You didn't have to be an expert on motorcycle clubs to know how they are generally funded. I'd chosen to ignore the possibility that I was, for all intents and purposes, dating a serious criminal. But now it seemed harder to ignore.

  “It's not as organized as people might think.”

  “So you're just involved in disorganized crime?” I asked.

  A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth.

  “I'm being serious, Cole. I know we aren't like...an item or anything. I know it's just casual. But I think I have the right to know what kind of man I am getting myself involved with.”

  “You aren't in any danger with me.” He said. The smile had faded and he looked like he was treating the situation with the seriousness that I thought it deserved.

  "That's not an answer." I said.

  "The less you know, the safer you are. I'm serious. It's okay. I promise you that nothing bad will happen to you because of me. What I'm involved with has nothing to do with you. And even if it did...I have everything covered. Nothing is going to happen to me either. My involvement is indirect at best."

  I sighed. It was a bit reassuring. If not his actual words then at least the earnest and gentle way in which he said them. He was looking straight into my eyes with a soft intensity. He wanted me to trust him. If he didn't care about keeping me safe, it wouldn't matter to him if I believed him or not.

  "You can promise that nothing dangerous will happen to me, or to you?"

  His smile returned then. "I can promise that nothing dangerous will happen to you. If anything happens to me it will be my own fault for being an idiot. I'm not disingenuous enough to promise you my own safety. I never have been great at assuring that."

  "I just...I've never done anything. You know. I have never even gotten a speeding ticket. I have no experience with anything and I have to trust you and...I want to be smart."

  "I can drive you home right now if you want, Annabeth."

  I glanced out the dark window. Icy wind buffeted against it.

  "Even in the snow. I will drive carefully. You don't have to stay here with me. You don't have to have anything to do with me. You know that."

  I had to smile. "You were right about not being able to assure your safety. You'd really go out in this kind of weather?"

  "Not for myself." He laughed.

  I reached out a hand and laid it gentle on his cheek, feeling the apple of his cheek raise up as he smiled against it. I rubbed my thumb over his stubble. He looked innocent. Leaning over, I kissed him gently on the bottom lip, tasting the lingering flavor of the beer he was drinking. He barely moved, but rested a hand on my knee.

  "Can I give you the tour?" He asked, his lips grazing against mine as he rested his forehead against my own.

  I smiled and nodded. He took my glass and placed it with his own on the coffee table, then took my hand and led me down the short hallway.

  "There's not much to see. You could see the kitchen. And the living room obviously. Down here is the bathroom." He flipped on a light and I poked my head in. It was nearly immaculate except for a toothbrush and uncapped tube of toothpaste on the counter.

  "There’s a spare room down here. I guess it's a guest room but I don't get no guests really so it's pretty much empty. And here..." He pushed open the last door. "Is the bedroom."

  "You think you are so slick." I laughed, stepping into the room.

  "The tour was necessary. I wouldn't want you getting lost in my mansion."

  I laid down on the bed. It was unmade and smelled of shampoo and faintly of cigarette smoke. I snuggled into the well-worn and soft sheets, smiling up at him. He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking around the room as if trying to imagine it through my eyes. It was much like the rest of the apartment, sparse, utilitarian, and masculine.

  I crawled onto his lap this time, facing him with my legs straddling his hips. I tangled my fingers possessively in his hair as I kissed him, abandoning my fears and insecurities. I trusted him, for now at least. And I wanted him, every part of me wanted him. I sighed with a feeling of fulfillment when he kissed me back passionately and let his hands roam over me.

  I stayed on top of him as we made love the second time. And really, that's what it was. He was too attentive, too generous, too gentle for it to be called anything rougher. I would never have guessed, that day in the bar, that the scary looking man with the fierce jaw could be like this.

  He guided my hips as I moved over him, but he let me have control. I savored our time together like this, not rushing to orgasm, but allowing it to build incrementally.

  We slept bundled together under his blanket. It was cold in his house as the blizzard raged on outside. It was warm in the bed though, and in the morning it was difficult to imagine getting out of the blankets and braving the cold floors. Cole was of the same opinion and we stayed together in bed for more than an hour after waking. My phone had died, but his said that it was ten in the morning.

  “It's getting late.” He said

  "Are you busy today?"

  "Busy isn't the word. But I am expecting someone at noon."

  "Even in the snow?"

  He shrugged. "I doubt it will stop them."

  Neither of us moved for a minute or two, then he opened his mouth as if to speak, closed it, then opened it again.

  "It's a work thing." He looked down at me out of the corner of his eye.

  "I understand." I got out of the bed, goosebumps erupting over my skin as I hurriedly pulled on my clothes.

  Cole sat up in the bed. "I don't want you to think I'm chasing you out. It's just, like I said, the less you know, the safer you are. It's fine. I just don't want you to be uncomfortable."

  "I said I understand." I was smiling a smile that was more confident than I felt. I knew he was saving me any embarrassment or discomfort, but it still stung to be hurried out.

  "You can stay and take a shower. Or eat something. I can make coffee."

  I chuckled. "It's okay. Really, it is. I'd kind of like to get home anyway."

  He nodded and we got ready to go. The roads had been somewhat cleared, but the layer of ice under the snow was still a formidable hazard. Cole drove slowly and before too long I was in front of my place again. He didn't need to, but he walked me to my door, his hand on my elbow in case I should slip on the ice. At my door, he kissed me and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

  Chapter 6

  My apartment felt so strange and empty when I closed the door on him. It felt so strange, knowing that he was hiding something from me. Implicitly knowing it. I took a long shower that morning, scrubbing every inch of my body in an attempt to return my mind to it's normal state. After an hour or two I could almost forget him, and I managed to go about my day as normal despite the snow storm.

  After that weekend, it seemed like we kept missing each other. I was suddenly busy, because my schedule of job hunting and interviews had finally landed me a job in my hometown. It was nothing to brag about, I'd be a tax preparer and general secretary-ish person for a guy who wore tweed jackets and wh
ite socks with his loafers. But it was a steady job with good enough pay to get my bills taken care of. I started working immediately and all of a sudden I was missing calls from Cole, and it was hard to find a time when we were both available to get together. The distance between my place and his hadn't seemed all too far at first, but now it felt like a vast chasm.

  Still, it felt good to have someone to text when I woke up, and someone to say goodnight to before locking up for the night. We kept in touch, if not physically. I thought that, maybe, it had really been nothing more than a fling after all and I would just hear less and less from him and it would peter out all on it's own.

  That was before I missed my period.

  I normally kept a really close track on my cycles, because my PMS symptoms are pretty severe and I like to have a good idea of when to expect them. But this month I...felt weirdly fine. I wasn't getting any cramps or headaches and I wasn't wildly irritable and bitchy to everyone who I came in contact with. I checked my calendar and realized that I was a day late. No big deal. A day late isn't even really late, it's just a shift in the cycle. So I waited it out. Two days. Three days. After the fourth day I was thinking back to the second time me and Cole had sex. Other than the actual act itself, the lead up to it was somewhat of a blur.

  On the sixth day I was too anxious to get any work done. ON my lunch hour I drove to a pharmacy and took a pregnancy test in the public bathroom. I sat there in the stall, my hands shaking, staring at the test as it developed. First one line appeared, then the control line, then....

  It was faint, but the vertical line was there. I stared at it in shock, not feeling anything. My first instinct was to call my mother. I wanted to take a picture of the test and send it to her telling her to interpret it because surely I was seeing something that was not there. The only thing that stopped me was the thought of having to explain to her how I had gotten pregnant, and by whom. She'd probably assume I'd been seeing my ex somehow. She'd never guess that I'd been sleeping with a man who frequented shady bars and was involved with some level of criminal activity of an undisclosed character. I didn't doubt that she would support me as well as she could, but I couldn't bear to handle the initial shock and disappointment at that moment.

  I was shocked out of my stunned silence by the sound of another woman entering the toilets. Straightening up, I put my purse over my shoulder and strode out of the stall. My reflection in the mirror looked the same, as if I hadn't just received life changing, unexpected, bittersweet news. I washed my hands and applied fresh lip gloss, procrastinating because, if it had been hard to concentrate on my work before, it would be doubly so now.

  "Hey, do you have a tampon I can have? It's kind of an emergency." I heard the other woman ask from behind a stall. I could see her manicured fingers over the top of the door.

  "Yeah, of course." I said, digging through my purse for the tampon I'd been carrying around for days, expecting a period that wasn't coming. I handed it over to her with a sense of finality.

  *******

  They say that the Mona Lisa's smile is so mysterious because she is secretly pregnant. They also say that she is a gender swapped secret self-portrait. I have to say that, with my own limited experience with secret pregnancies, my smile was more like one of those plastered on, slightly terrified customer service smiles that airline stewardesses wear when dealing with drunken passengers. I still had work to do, I had errands to run. I needed to make an appointment with my OBGYN. I had to come up with the money it would take to bribe the people in the doctor’s office to not spread around the fact that I was there.

  I had to tell Cole.

  That last item on the list was by far the most terrifying. Everything I knew about him so far was that he was kind, generous, and honorable. But that was only under the circumstances of trying to woo a woman he'd recently met into his bed. He'd succeeded there, with flying colors. But an unexpected pregnancy was a whole other ball game.

  It seemed an inopportune time to realize that I knew next to nothing about this man. I had never met, seen, or even heard of any of his family. I had no idea where he came from. I didn't know his age or his last name. I knew his phone number, the shape of his smile, and what kind of lover he was. Not exactly the most useful information to have on the father of ones unborn child.

  Unborn child.

  I was still thinking mainly in terms of "my pregnancy." And even that was still unbelievable to me. The words sounded foreign to me. But to think of it as a child, currently growing inside me. My child. My son. My daughter. It was at once thrilling and more terrifying than anything I had ever experienced in my life. None of the typical first trimester symptoms had hit me yet, though I expected to be feeling nauseated soon and kept an emergency sick bag in my purse just in case. Any nausea I felt at this point was purely nerves, fear, and excitement.

  I kept the information jealously to myself for a while. I wanted to see my doctor first before telling anyone. I didn't know what she would be able to tell me but if anything unfortunate were to happen, I wouldn't want to have to go around and tell everyone "whoops, never mind!"

  So I made the appointment for a week later and I smiled my own bastardized version of Mona Lisa's famous grin.

  Three days before my appointment I got a call from Cole in the evening. I had heard very little from him lately and so to see his name appear on my phone with no warning that he would be calling made my heart skip a beat. A part of me wanted to let it go to voicemail. I was afraid that at the sound of his voice I would be forced to spill the beans all over the place before my planned announcement.

  In the end, the thought of his voice was less of a deterrent and more of a reason to answer the phone. I missed him. I felt vulnerable. I wanted to hear him.

  "Hey you." I said. I thought my voice sounded a little screechy, but he didn't say anything.

  "Hey, Annabeth. Finally."

  "Finally."

  "I haven't seen you in forever."

  I laughed. "It's been a few weeks. How are you doing?"

  "I'm doing good. I have a big job happening at the moment so I've been all around. Not at home a whole lot. I've missed you though. What are you doing tonight?"

  "Tonight?" I looked out my window, it was dark already, but then, it was winter so that didn't mean much.

  "Yeah. I mean I know it’s short notice but if you aren't doing anything, I'd love to get you a meal."

  I thought that I might have been slowly forgetting what his voice sounded like. Hearing it again, rather than making me more nervous, was like a wave of comfort over me. He sounded too kind to abandon me. Hearing him on the phone was one thing, though, and seeing him in person was another. I didn't trust myself to keep the secret if I saw him, and it was important to me to talk to my doctor to make sure everything was on the up and up first.

  "I'd love to, Cole..."

  "I hear a 'but' coming." He said, sounding dejected.

  "I got that new job, remember. And I actually have a lot that I need to get organized tonight." It was a bold faced lie.

  "Oh. Well that's okay. Soon though, okay?"

  "Definitely. Soon. I miss you." That was not a lie. I'd give anything to have him by my side while I struggled with this unexpected turn of events.

  "I miss you too. The guys think I made you up."

  I laughed. "We'll show them."

  I hung up feeling less certain of myself than ever. The next three days were agony. I couldn't wait to tell him. To tell SOMEONE. I was going to burst from the size of this secret inside me.

  Chapter 7

  "Good morning, Annabeth." Dr. Bells said, her warm smile greeting me. She was dressed in holiday colors and had jingle bell earrings which seemed a little campy, with her name and all, but it worked. She was a sweet lady with red hair and a deep and apparent love for her job.

  "Good morning." I said, subtly peeling at my cuticles.

  "What brings you here today?" She asked, folding her hands over my chart and looking in my
eyes.

  "Well. I got a positive pregnancy test and I just want to...you know. Make sure. Check up on things. Establish care. All that...I guess." I blurted out nervously.

  The woman, bless her, didn't blink. "Sure, we can certainly do all that. Congratulations, hon. How are you feeling?"

  She took me through the exam and I had a blood sample taken to confirm the pregnancy. There was no heartbeat yet, but at the end of the exam she assured me that I appeared in good health and she was not concerned. I explained to her, in vague terms, the situation surrounding the pregnancy and she gave me a pamphlet with numbers on it for crisis pregnancy centers and various places where I could get any aid that I needed. I assured her that I would be fine but it was nice to have the numbers anyway, just in case. It felt good to know that she cared enough for that, at least.