Chapter 6
six
Oh No! There’s a Dragon in my Bookshop
My grip is tight on the pink bottle of mace as I stare at the back door of my shop. It’s still locked up, and there aren’t any holes chewed in it, so I know the beast is probably still in there.
Renee offered to watch Oscar for me until the situation was resolved, and though I don’t know her well, Oscar cozied right up to her. I trust his judgement more than my own, honestly.
“Okay, we’ve got this,” I peptalk myself into getting out, but I don’t.
“It’s just a lizard. You are a full-grown woman with mace. Get out and go take care of it.”
I growl and put my hand on the door handle.
“The worst that can happen is it’ll bite you. Oscar has bitten you before, little jerk…”
Nerves batter my stomach and make my heart pound.
“It’s just a little lizard for fuck’s sake!”
I throw open the door and toss myself from the car, then slam it closed behind me.
The gravel crunches under my boots as I march toward the door, keys in one hand and mace in the other.
It unlocks easily and I put my keys in my skirt pocket before opening the door, keeping the mace poised at ankle height.
The hinges whine a little, adding to the drama that’s making my gut tense. There’s no lizard waiting for me on the other side. I take a tentative step in and look right toward the stairs, then left. There’s nothing.
Hold on a second…
There’s nothing.
I run to the desk where I’d left my special editions and gasp at its emptiness.
“How? What?”
The door bangs shut and I scream as I whirl around, mace at the ready. But not ready enough for what’s blocking my only escape route.
It’s just light enough to make out the green of his skin on his bare, hulking shoulders.
Golden scales shimmer across his biceps and chest, then frame his muscular abs down his sides.
I swallow hard as I jerk my eyes back up to his face.
It’s cast in dark shadows but there’s something protruding from his head on either side, jagged and sharp.
“Wh…who are—”
He charges and I press the button to release a spray of peppery aerosol with another scream.
He smacks my arm away and then his hand is around my throat.
I let out the last of my air as my back hits the wall and I wince my eyes shut, not wanting to see my demise.
I claw at his hand and face, kicking his shins as I squirm, but he doesn’t budge.
“Where,” he asks, his voice like a low roll of thunder. Something out of a storybook and not real life.
I take a breath, finding his hand caging my throat isn’t cutting off my airway, but is definitely strong enough to lessen the blood supply to my brain, because the next words out of my mouth are “Where what?” instead of “I’m calling the police.”
God, Randy is probably the police, too, and he’s on vacation.
“Where is my treasure?”
The deep tenor of his voice strikes like a hammer on hot iron in my lower belly. He has an accent that’s vaguely Scottish, and I must still be lying in bed at the hotel dreaming because that’s sexy as hell instead of terrifying.
I open my eyes and look up at the face of my aggressor only to have the wind knocked from me again in a breathy huff.
A full bottom lip, the top one revealing just a hint of fang-like incisors.
High cheekbones with glimmering gold scales that frame his angular jaw.
Pointed ears, long black hair, and horns… broken horns on his head.
He’s gorgeous. Green skin and all.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Get ahold of yourself!
“What are you doing in here?” I ask, my voice trembling like my stomach.
He leans in and his upper lip pulls back in a deadly grimace. Those teeth could bleed me dry. “My treasure. What have you done with it?”
“What treasure?” I ask.
“My Dick,” he seethes.
My eyes involuntarily drop between us until they rest on the thick outline of him sheathed in shadows. Glimmers of golden scales reflect the minimal illumination coming from the long hall to the front of the store, highlighting ridges of what looks like armor along his shaft and a big knot—
“Answer me, pink flesh,” he snarls, jostling me against the wall.
“What?” I whimper.
My brain is addled from the strangest yet most enticing cock I’ve only barely glimpsed.
There is, without a doubt, something wrong with me.
“Where is my Dick?”
I laugh nervously because what else can I do? I certainly can’t tell him it’s between his legs. But then it hits me. Of course he’s not asking about his penis.
He’s talking about Moby Dick.
“The book?”
“Did you destroy it?”
I balk, disgust shooting through me at the thought. “No, of course not!”
He sighs with relief. “Where is it?”
“Where are my special editions? Did you rip off their covers, too?” I ask, emboldened by my outrage. To think, he’d damaged those other books…
“You abandoned them.”
“I did not!”
“They’re mine now,” he says, showing me his sharp fangs with another menacing snarl.
“I left them in my home, that’s not abandoning,” I snap. “Where did you put them?”
“They’re with my hoard. Mine,” he growls, and my pulse quickens.
“Like hell!” I smash my fists against his chest and kick wildly. “Give me back my books, or I’ll…I’ll take them from you!”
He whirls me away from the wall and puts me on the desk with so much ease I’m stunned into momentary silence.
His left hand stays on my throat while his right pins my leg to the desktop.
Something else wraps around my other ankle and my gaze darts down to see a plated tail slithering around my knee.
The tickling sensation of the slow tightening across my stockinged leg makes me shiver. He leans in and I’m forced to crane my neck to look up at him. The light from the stained glass reflects off his milky eyes, revealing flecks of green and gold hidden under the cataracts.
The lizard?
“This is my hoard,” he growls in a challenge.
“Those books are special,” I whisper.
“And?”
“Some of them are from my friends. They made them for me. They’re one of a kind,” I say, emotion rising in the back of my throat.
Am I really about to cry over books when my life is in danger? God, I’m an idiot.
“This is my hoard,” he reiterates with more gentleness, and the words feel more like “I won’t hurt you.”
“And this is my home. I have nowhere else to go.”
His thumb slides over my pulse point and his cloudy eyes trace over my face.
“You can stay,” he murmurs.
My thundering heart wants to tell him he can’t, but my adrenaline-fueled head knows there are talons on his fingers sharp enough to rip open my jugular.
“How gracious of you to let me live in my own house,” I snipe instead.
Still not the smartest option, but I can’t just roll over and take it—despite my body being more than interested in rolling over to take it.
He bends down and shoves his face in the crook of my neck.
I gasp at the sudden intrusion of my space, and tense up. “Stop it. What are you doing?”
He takes a deep inhale as he moves up my jawline to my ear. “You’re…aroused?”
“Am not!” I push his chest, and he moves back a measure.
His head cocks to the side. “I cannot clearly see the flush of your cheeks, but I can smell your pheromones, pink flesh.”
Gosh darn traitorous body.
His claws slide away from my throat and he steps back. I’m lightheaded and shaky, so I support myself with my hands against the desk.
“You can stay,” he says again, then turns for the stairs.
When he crosses in front of the hallway, the light from the stained-glass window reveals a body riddled with scars, some of them so deep it’s as if a monster took a bite of him.
His tail is thick and plated with gold where it connects at the base of his spine.
Each vertebra has a golden diamond protecting it, wider at his hips and thinner near his neck.
There are deep, dark scars at the base of his scapula that make me think he once had wings.
He glances over his shoulder. “Bring my treasure back.”
“What about my cat?” I ask, as if I need his permission to bring Oscar into my home.
I don’t think this overgrown lizard would eat him, would he? But even if he did want to eat him, what would I do about it? He easily overpowered me.
Who the hell can I call to fix a sexy, anthropomorphic reptile problem anyway? No one. There’s no one to call because this kind of thing isn’t real.
This doesn’t happen.
“The feline cannot touch my hoard, nor me. Now go. Fetch my Dick.”
Black liquid zips around his body in a tight whirlwind and he disappears, leaving only a splat of ink on the ground that quickly soaks into the floorboards, evaporating.
My mouth hangs open as I relive the past few insane minutes of my crazy life.
There’s a fucking Dragon in my bookshop.