Hollywood Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance (7 page)

She saw no one out at all she headed toward the line of eucalyptus, their scent distinctive in the heavy morning air. A faint fog lingered in silvery wisps over the sloping lawn that two nights ago had been impenetrable darkness. When she passed the trees, she gazed beyond—and made out the grove of oaks surrounding the performance shell, and beyond that the back end of the LaFleurs’ house, just as JP had said.

She hadn’t realized how very large the house was. Was that really the home of only two people? Or one and a half, as she remembered JP mentioning his house in Hollywood. No, wait. There had to be an army of servants.

As she crossed under the sheltering branches of an oak, she spotted movement beyond the lacework of rose trellises off to the left, on the side of the house that she had never seen. She veered sideways so whoever it was wouldn’t see her. She had been invited to the music room, but she would rather avoid awkward meetings with people she didn’t know.

Still, her path took her along the roses, through which she glimpsed a silhouette in black moving with stylized grace. The mist lingered more thickly here, drifting in a slow swirl that did not quite obscure someone performing martial arts kata with double sticks that whirled through the air.

Somehow—
somehow
—she knew it was
him
.

She remembered Shelley doing morning workouts in the dormitory common room before anyone else was awake. Shelley had been pretty good, but nothing like the leashed power JP’s silhouette revealed.

She watched until his kata took him around three sides, but when he was about to face her way she quickly ducked back. She remembered that Shelley didn't like being broken out of her concentration, and besides, she hated the thought of JP looking up and finding her lurking like some kind of stalker.

So she backed away and retreated to the Shakespeare herb garden—pausing to glance at That Spot—and up to the house.

The door was open, the air beyond quiet and undisturbed.

She quickly let herself into the music room and made sure the door was firmly shut. Trusting to the sound baffles, she sat down at the piano, looking down at the keys that JP’s fingers had touched. She spread her hands, wondering what his touch would feel like on her skin . . .

He was so cool, so elegant, so beautifully put together. He was even cool and collected while doing kata. She was seized by an intense desire to see him utterly undone.

Oof. Heat pooled deep in her, and she expelled her breath sharply. Talk about useless daydreams!

She hit middle C, and began her vocal warm-ups.

When she was finished with those, she pulled out the music for Shelley’s aria. Five times through it, and she knew she had it down.

She looked around the room, wishing that the walls had captured the sounds of JP’s piano music, and that she could somehow move back in time to see and hear him play. What did he express through his music? Was he always so cool and controlled?

She let herself out, quietly shutting the doors again, and began to pace through the garden when she looked aside at the shell. The temptation to test the sound was so strong. She had been too embarrassed the day before because her voice was cold. But that was no longer true, and she was even alone.

So she turned left instead of right, and slipped past the rose border into the secluded dell, then onto the stage.

For a moment she breathed, listening to the faint, slow whisper of air. She listened to her soft footfalls until she knew she was at the perfect spot, then she closed her eyes, lifted her face, and sang.

* * *

The only way JP could stay awake after a night of aerial patrol in his phoenix form was to do a full set of kata.

He finished and headed back to the house for his shower. He had a long day ahead, beginning with a strategy meeting. Not that they could do much until they found out who they were dealing with.

Instinct—the metal detectors—that awareness he had sensed in his flight two nights ago—it all pointed to another dragon, one who had sensed the LaFleur hoard.

You can want it, but you’re not going to get it
, he thought. And his mind ran ahead, sorting the day. He knew that Shelley’s family had arrived, and he had promised his help in wrangling the Willis males, but at the same time, his mother and the Consejo insisted on a meeting to go over what little they knew.

Two steps, and he stopped and swayed, caught by a river of brilliant sound so compelling that he was pulled around by an invisible force as powerful as steel.

It was
her
voice, soaring up and up, in the aria “Ruhe Sanft” —
sleep in peace
—the extraordinarily poignant love aria from
Zaide
.

The beauty of Jan’s voice coming so suddenly in the cool hush of early morning was so exquisite it was nearly anguish. The sound shell amplified it perfectly, carrying the soaring notes softly through the still air.

JP was not aware of his steps until he reached the top of the rise, and looked down into the grassy shelter of the bowl before the stage. She stood alone, papers clutched in one hand as she sang.

Slowly he approached, drawn almost against his will. He knew he should make a noise—announce his presence—because he was fairly certain she thought she was alone. He loathed men who stalked women for whatever reason, and yet his breath froze in his throat. He could not interrupt that cascade of captivating song.

She wore something gauzy in shades of pink printed in elegant art nouveau lines that softly fell over her bewitching curves, stopping just above her dimpled knees. Her pretty feet were enclosed in those sexy sandals. She looked like a Botticelli angel standing there with the morning light shining in her pale hair, glowing along the arch of her ear, down her neck and over her rounded shoulder. Except for those spike heel sandals, which ignited thoughts far from angelic. Did she know that?

When the song ended, and the last exquisite note had died away, she gave a deep sigh, turned—and their eyes met.

“I apologize,” he said contritely. “But I was walking to the house—the sound amplifies so well—I could not stay away. That was beautiful.”

Her lips parted, her cheeks flushing. Her hands made a helpless little gesture that caught at his heart as strongly as her music, pulling him up onto the stage. Then she gave him that bright, heart-stopping smile, and took a step, her fabulous hips swaying the soft skirt above those bad-girl sandals . . .

Oh, yes. She knew.

He didn’t know what he meant to say, or do, only that his hands came out to touch hers, and the shock of her touch was so electric that his fingers of their own accord drifted up her arms to cup the back of her neck, ever so gently, and when she turned her face up to his he bent and kissed her.

And when her hands drifted up his arms to cup his face and then to fist in his hair, his questing kiss heated to command.

She made a little noise in her throat that drove him crazy with desire, then she melted against him one again.

This time it was no accident.

* * *

Kissing was a pleasure she had always enjoyed, but never in the history of the world, she thought hazily, had there been a kiss like this.

His lips began to explore hers ever so softly, taking infinite time and patience, until, desperate with passion, she opened her mouth to him. His tongue plundered hers. She responded with her own fire, lips, teeth, tongue: he tasted of wood smoke and fire, demanding and tender by turns.

She grabbed his hair to pull him to her, wanting that long body tight against hers. His strong, sensitive hands caressed her face, his thumbs gliding along the edge of her jaw and over her throat, and then swept over her neck to the edge of her dress.

She gasped for air, and pressed against him for more, and he was there, the hardness of his cock pressing against her mound. She widened her step, opening her thighs to fit that bulge into her as his hands dipped under the scoop neck to brush over her breasts.

Back a step. They kissed wildly, hands desperate for skin. She got her hands inside his karate tunic, and ran her fingernails over the marvelous contours of his chest, ribs, wonderfully cut abs. Her back touched the shell, supporting her or she would have fallen. As it was her knees wobbled, her toes curled in her sandals, and when his knee nudged her thighs she lifted her knee so she could fit him against her more deeply.

He groaned, one hand exploring her breast under her shirt, the other slipping down to clasp her leg,
oh yes, closer. Tighter . . .

She gasped for air again and he began kissing her face, down her neck, and to her neckline—

“Jean-Pierre! Where are you?”

They broke apart, Jan gasping, dizzy with desire as she gazed at his flushed face. The glossy black hair falling over his forehead. The deep open V of his black karate tunic pulled apart by her hands. The rise and fall of his chest.

She stared at his chest, wanting more of his gorgeous skin that smelled so enticingly masculine after his workout. She swayed uncertainly.

JP steadied her with strong but gentle hands on her shoulders—his thumbs caressing, sending shivers through her in sweet nerve-showers like carillons on glass.

He whispered, “Jan. I didn’t mean to attack you like that.”

“
I’m
not,” she said, for so magic a moment deserved only the truth, whatever happened next. “If it’s the last kiss I ever get, at least I had that one. What I
am
sorry about is stopping.”

“Jean-Pierre!” the voice was nearer.

“Emergency council meeting,” he said, raking his hair off his forehead, the tendons standing out on his hand. “I must go. I am late—and there are . . .” He shook his head.

“I get it. Shelley said town politics.” Her eyes dropped to that open V, and the little dip between his collarbones. Her knees went weak again with the intensity of her desire to kiss him there.

“May I . . . shall we meet later?” he asked, his voice low and rough.

“Yes,” she whispered, pulling her dress straight. “But first you’d better . . .”

“Go.” He gave a quick nod, and leaped lightly off the stage. Four, five steps and he vanished at the top of the rise.

When he was safely beyond the rose trellises, he said, “Mother?”

“
There
you are! This is not the time for playing around with your karate. It’s quite rude to keep us waiting even when there
isn’t
an emergency.”

“I apologize, Mother.”

“Please, change into something less uncivilized and I’ll get things started.”

With fingers still trembling, Jan smoothed her wild hair and straightened her dress. She waited to the count of one hundred, then swiftly left the shell, and backtracked toward the eucalyptus border.

When she reached it, she faltered, gazing up the slight hill toward the motel. She could see figures moving about in the parking lot, and realized she wasn’t ready to face people yet. So she turned and walked away, randomly choosing to walk alongside the row of trees. A narrow footpath had been worn there. She made out horse hooves in the dust, and animal paw prints.

The line of trees curved toward the west, bordering a very, very extensive property. The land sloped beyond, at the bottom of which was a thin stream that widened into a pool, nearly hidden by oak, arroyo willow, and clusters of wild lilac.

She had not emerged from the shelter of the tall eucalyptus when she spied a large bird circling overhead. She paused to watch an egret float downward on a draft. It vanished behind an oak then reappeared, skimming over the placid pond. Its wings barely touched, sending little ripples outward, and then the bird blurred, stretched, and became a tall, gangly teenage girl with long tangled dark hair. A flash of brown skin and she vanished into the lilac shrubs.

Jan froze, staring.

A minute later a perfectly normal-looking teenage girl in shorts and a summer top wheeled a bicycle out of the other end of the sheltering shrubbery, flung her leg over, and rode off toward a distant road, where she met a man coming along on a moped. Jan could barely make out the high put-put of the moped’s engine.

The man, middle-aged, with Hispanic features, stopped to talk to the girl for a few seconds. Then he nodded decisively. She flipped up a hand in farewell, and he continued down toward the pond, and vanished with his moped into the lilac thicket.

A short time later a huge hawk flew out of the lilacs, skimmed over the pond water, then arrowed up into the sky before banking toward the north. Jan tipped her head and watched until the hawk shrank to a tiny dot that vanished into the sun.

* * *

Inside, JP stopped and leaned both hands against the wall, his head bowed as Mick spoke rapidly on the phone, his bear voice a rough growl of anger. “Good news and bad news. Want the good news first?”

“Whatever.”

“Fernando and Isabel found the scent trail of the scumbags who beat up Chief Albert’s kid. They came across the two lurking behind the municipal building, and let’s just say that that pair of fucktards is feeling a whole lot worse than Jason did.”