Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) (42 page)

"Oh, really? What was it about?"

The question had a suggestive note to it and Aurora chose
not to dignify it even with a joke. Her entirely chaste relationship with
Greyson was a well-known fact and Sara delighted in teasing her about her
expected wedding night deflowering, actually using that exact phrase, which was
always delightfully cringe-worthy.

"A dragon."

Aurora expected her mother to laugh, or at the very least
engage in some breakfast table psychoanalysis trying to decipher the meaning
behind the dream. Instead, Sara's face dropped and she put her cup down so hard
it hit the edge of the saucer, sending the coffee sloshing over the edge and
onto the tablecloth.

"Why on earth would you dream about something like
that?" she asked, sounding flustered as she scrambled to dab up the coffee
with her napkin.

"I don't know. It was so real, though. I was sitting on
the edge of a lake and when the water touched my dress it changed colors. Then
the dragon appeared and I could actually feel the heat of its fire on my
skin."

"Stop."

The abruptness in Sara's voice startled her.

"What's wrong, Mom?"

Sara forced a smile and shook her head, using one hand to
brush a stray piece of hair out of her face.

"Nothing, Honey. That's just seems like such a silly
thing for you to be dreaming about when there are so many things left to do.
Now, hurry and finish up your coffee. We have a fitting appointment in an
hour."

Sara rushed off of the patio and Aurora watched her
disappear down the hallway toward her father's office. Lee had never liked them
going into his office, but Sara moved with such determination that Aurora
couldn't resist slipping into the house and following her. She tiptoed down the
hallway as quickly as she could without making noise and stopped by the doorway
to her father's office.

The door stood open a few inches. Aurora flattened her palm
against it to push it open a little further. She ducked her head to look inside
and saw Sara standing behind Lee's desk, running her fingertips along the deep
scrolling in the dark wood edge. Aurora felt uncomfortable watching the painful
private moment and was stepping away from the door when it seemed like Sara was
suddenly jostled from her thoughts. She opened the top drawer and dug through
the papers inside. Apparently not finding what she wanted, she started making
her way down the drawers along the side of the desk.

Aurora's heart pounded nervously. Sara closed the last
drawer and looked around the office, an anxious expression in her eyes. Feeling
like she was tempting fate hovering there by the door, Aurora rushed past the
door and stepped into Lee's study. Only a moment later she saw Sara leave the
office with nothing in her hands. Aurora knew that as soon as she had the
opportunity, she needed to get into that office. There was something that her
mother was desperately searching for, but she wanted to find it first.

Throughout the fitting Aurora found her mind wandering back
to the dragon and to her mother's strange reaction to her dream. Sara had
reacted with something bordering on panic, almost as if she had been expecting
the revelation.

As if she had been dreading it.

Aurora allowed her mother, the dress designer, and the
tailor flitter around her like hummingbirds, primping, adjusting, gathering,
pinning, and squeezing until she felt like something somewhere between a
cupcake and a piece of experimental art. Their words drifted over her, but none
of them really registered. She couldn't stop thinking about her dream. It felt
so incredibly real and she found herself focusing on the intense draw she felt
to the dragon, unable to keep its fearsome, yet beautiful body out of her thoughts.

Sara stayed close to her for the rest of the day and by the
time Aurora finally rested her head on her pillow that night, she still hadn't
had the chance to visit her father's office. She closed her eyes, unsure of
what to expect, and a moment later, surrendered her consciousness.

Aurora's eyes slid open slowly and she was back on the bank
of the lake, lying on the damp ground with her head rested on her arm. The
dragon lay a few yards away, its body curled in a way that almost mimicked
hers. A shiver rippled through her when its eyes opened and met hers. She
pulled herself up gradually and crawled toward the dragon, keeping her gaze
focused steadily on its eyes as she drew closer. Close enough to really look at
them now she saw that his eyes were not just black like she originally thought.
Instead, they looked like watercolors poured across darkly smoked glass, a
blend of shades just visible against a background of charcoal.

No longer feeling fear, she brought one hand up to touch its
face. As soon as her fingertips brushed the smooth skin, Aurora felt the
strange impression that this was not an "it", but a "he".
She touched further, cupping her palm around the curve of his jaw and stroking
it down his powerful neck. He lifted his head slightly, the pull causing her to
raise up from her knees. The movement brought her closer to him, and she
stroked her hand up higher so that her arm draped over his neck.

The dragon tucked his head down so that it pressed against
her, touching from just beneath her chin to her mid-thigh. Aurora gasped as he
raised his head again and her body lifted off of the ground and onto his neck.
Her legs came down on either side and she glided down to settle right above his
shoulder blades where his wings stretched from his body. The color-swirled
skirt rose up her thighs as she tightened her knees to hold herself in place.
She ran her hands down his neck, then reached to her sides to touch his wings.
They felt warm and thick beneath her palms and she curled her hands around the
edges to hold them.

When she gripped his wings on either side of her, she felt
his body rise beneath her so that he stood. Her breath caught in her throat,
but Aurora felt completely safe against his warm skin. His muscles shifted and
tightened against her thighs as he walked toward the edge of the lake. The
water rose up around her as he sank into it. He swam slowly so that she was
beneath the surface from the waist down. She shuddered with the cold. As if he
felt the shiver, the dragon opened his mouth and sent a stream of fire along
the surface, creating a warmer space around them.

Aurora felt mesmerized by the brief glow of the flame across
the water and as she stared into it, she felt herself slipping. She fought to
keep her hands on his neck and her thighs around his body, but a moment later
she felt her chilly sheets beneath her and the cold grey darkness replaced her
world of color.

****

Aurora fought to get her trembling breath back under
control. She could still feel the dragon beneath her and there was a strange
tightness in her belly that made her breathless. The house around her was
silent. Unable to even close her eyes much less fall back to sleep, she climbed
out of bed. Slipping into her bathrobe, she made her way through the dark house
toward Lee's office.

She paused just outside the door and listened for the sound
of her mother moving around the house. Satisfied that she was still sleeping,
Aurora pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing the door behind her as
quickly as possible. Finally alone in the office, she took a moment to
experience the presence of her father around her. The space still smelled like
Lee and she felt a twinge of the grief she had been so carefully suppressing.

Forcing herself to pull her thoughts away from the fog of
sadness filling her mind, she brought them back to the one time when Lee
actually allowed her into the office. When she closed her eyes she could see
him sitting in the brown leather chair behind the desk, giving her that
special, secretive look she gave her when she was a little girl and they would
sneak chocolates before dinner.

She walked across the office and ran her hand along the desk
like she had seen her mother do the day before. Sara had been feeling for the
memories of her husband in the curves of the wood. Aurora was searching for
one, particular flaw. Her fingertip felt the rough edge of the masterfully
hidden button in the carving and pressed on it. There was a faint click and a
slim section of the front of the desk popped forward, revealing the secret
drawer her father had shown her.

"This is where I hide my secrets," Lee had told
her in a conspiratorial whisper.

The drawer was empty when he showed it to her then, but as
she pulled it toward herself she saw a grey folder rested on the bottom. Her
hand shook as she picked it up. There was a single word written across the
front of the folder: Killington.

Aurora closed the drawer and held the folder in both hands,
inexplicably afraid to open it. The sun was coming up through the
floor-to-ceiling windows behind her and the faint light illuminated the folder
as if encouraging her. Taking a long, steadying breath, Aurora lowered herself
into her father's chair, finding strength in the smell of the leather, and
opened the folder.

Her hand flew to her mouth to muffle the gasp that escaped
her lips. Clasped within the folder was a stack of papers and on the top sheet
was a drawing of a dragon. She turned the page and found another drawing, this
one of a different dragon. Neither was her dragon, but she could see the
resemblance in the shape of their bodies and the spread of the second one's
wings.

"Oh my god," she whispered, "Dad, what did
you know?"

Suddenly she heard a door close above her and knew that her
mother was awake. Not wanting to risk bringing the folder into her room and
having someone find it, Aurora opened the hidden drawer again, tucked the
folder inside, and closed it. She slipped out of the office and rushed toward
the kitchen so she wouldn't look suspicious when Sara made it downstairs.

That night she dreamt of her dragon again. She walked around
him slowly, running her hand along his body and wrapping her fingers around the
sharp claw-like points at the ends of his wings. He nudged her onto him and she
lay on her back between his wings, one leg hanging by his side as she stared up
at the stars. Just like everything in the dreams she shared with him, the stars
glittered back at her with breathtaking clarity against a sky so lush they
looked like shards of ice scattered across velvet. His deep, even breath lulled
her to sleep on his back and she rose out of her dream into reality.

It was another four days before she was able to find time
alone in her father's office again. Sara was meeting Greyson's mother for
lunch, which meant that the women would be engrossed in last-minute plans and
preparations that would likely carry them well into the afternoon. There were
only three days left until the wedding, and the thought of the minutes slipping
away made Aurora even more desperate to find out what was in that folder.

Locking the door behind her, Aurora pulled the folder from
the drawer, settled into her father's chair, and opened the grey cover against
the desk. The first several pages featured drawings of various dragons. Some
were massive like her dragon, others smaller and more delicate looking. Many
were shades of orange, red, and blue. Only one was the slick, gleaming black of
her beautiful creature.

Finally she came to a page with words and began to read. Her
heart started to shake in her chest as she tried to take in what the words
said. They were written in brief, stark sentences that sounded like the code she
sometimes overheard her father muttering into his phone in the few seconds she
would wait before knocking on his office door when her mother sent her to get
him for dinner. The strange wording, abbreviations, and occasional symbols made
it so that Aurora didn't understand most of what she read. By the time she got
through a few pages of text, however, she was fully aware that her father was
not who she thought he was, and that his career was far more complex than he
ever let on.

Aurora turned another page and found another drawing. This
one, however, was not of a dragon. She was looking at the naked back of a man
and a large, intricate tattoo that stretched across his shoulder blades and
down to his hips. Many people may have just seen an abstract pattern or only a
vague impression of a design. She, however, knew those lines, the curve at the
top and the tips at the bottom. She had run her hands along them and lain
between them. That tattoo was of folded wings.

That night Aurora gave herself into her dream and in what
seemed like a blink she left her bed and was back on the moss-covered boulder
at the edge of the lake. Her feet swirled through the water like they had in
her first dream and within moments she felt it growing warmer. The roughness of
the water told her the dragon was coming and she swept her eyes across the lake
to see the first glimpses of him swimming toward her.

He drew closer until he was directly beneath her, running
his back against her feet. She giggled and pulled her feet up out of the water,
hoping it would tempt him back. He took the lure and swam back. The water
stilled and his head came up out of it to rest in her lap. Aurora stroked it
tenderly, watching his eyes close in response to her touch. Nervousness swept
through her as she prepared to speak to him for the first time.

"I know what you are," she said, not raising her
voice above a whisper for fear of breaking the peaceful, comfortable calm
between them.

His eyes opened and stared at her for a moment before he
lifted his head from her lap and sank beneath the surface of the water. Her
heart clenched painfully as she watched his dark form seem to sink further and
further away from her until she could no longer see it in the moonlight. She
was beginning to stand, ready to walk back down the path toward wherever it
would lead her, when she felt something against her ankle.