Badass Dragons - Complete Set (8 page)

CHAPTER TEN

Third glass of champagne. Cheryl
wasn’t sure she even remembered having the second.

With little
prior explanation, Synrith had stepped off the bench and pulled his shirt and
jacket off his muscular body. Cheryl tried to keep her eyes off him as he
continued to undress, all the way down till nothing. It wasn’t easy.

She saw him
dive into the pool and disappear underneath the bubbling water. Within a few
seconds he was already on the other side of the pool. A few more seconds and he
had swam back again. He was that fast.

Cheryl put
down her glass and stepped forward towards the edge of the pool. She felt
relaxed. Light headed. The scent of the air, the heat of the pool, and … the
perfectly built Synrith doing laps in the water at lightning speed.

She looked
around her, almost disbelieving of her surroundings. She thought about her job.
How hard she had worked yesterday. It was a million miles away from this.

She crouched.
Sat down at the edge of the pool and let her feet spill into the hot water.

She opened
and closed her eyes.

God, she
thought. He can’t see me like this.

But there he
was. Swimming towards her. He put his arms over the edge and looked up.

“So, have you
thought about your kiss then?” he casually asked.

“What?”
Cheryl exclaimed.

“Our kiss.
You do remember it, don’t you?”

Yes, she
remembered. All too well.

“I was with
Jet last night,” Cheryl said, deflecting his question. “Just like you asked me
to be.”

“I know.
That’s why he slept over at yours.”

“Right…”

“And after
all this is over, you’re going to need to be there for him.”

“For … Jet?”

“Of course.
You will hold him. Lie with him. Fuck him. Say you love him.”

“But why?”

“Because
he’ll need that from you. More than need. He’ll expect it.”

“Just…”
Cheryl muttered. “Just why do you keep pushing that on me?”

“Do we really
have to go through it again?”

Cheryl’s head
tilted. “Can’t you just be nice to me? I mean, it should be my choice who I
sleep with. What you’ve done is blackmail. It’s almost like … rape…”

“Who’s raped
you? Jet? Or me?”

Cheryl shook
her head. “I don’t know.”

“I thought
you were my friend, Cheryl.”

“Friend?
Since when are we friends?”

“You like me,
don’t you?”

Now she could
hardly speak.

“It’s okay to
say you do.”

She scoffed.
Stared at him.

He reached
out. Touched her ankle.

Her shoulders
hunched.

“I
know
you
like me,” Synrith said. “You don’t have to say it. I knew the moment we kissed.
It just felt so right.”

She kicked
his hand away. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Manipulating
me.”

“I’m not
manipulating you. I’m just being honest. Is that so wrong?”

Cheryl
laughed. “God, man.”

“Jet really
likes you now,” Synrith said after a moment. “It is right for you to be with
him.”

“Hmm.”

“You don’t
like him?”

“It’s not
that.”

“What is it
then?”

“I feel like
you’re … we’re … fucking with his head.”

“He’s a big
boy. He can handle a little head fucking.”

“Okay…”

“So anyway.
What about our kiss?”

Cheryl looked
at him, alarmed. “What about it?”

“Do you want
to try again?”

“What? No!”

“Come on, I
dare you.”

“You dare me?
What is this?”

He touched
her ankle again. His hand moved up and underneath her knee.

Cheryl knew
she could kick him away again.

But this time
she didn’t.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Water splashed up to the edge of the
pool. It went underneath her legs. Synrith’s grip was all the more threatening.
He knew it too. Their eyes locked for a moment, nothing but the pool’s hot
bubbles, and the sound of the rainforest around them present. He was going to
do it. She knew it. Her face was flushed with adrenalin, and she felt her heart
beating faster. This anticipation, was killing her.

It felt…

So good.

Like a cat to
a mouse, Synrith yanked her from the ledge and forced her entire body
underneath the water, clothes and all.

But soon the
clothes were slipping. They were being ripped and torn from her body. Cheryl
surged through his arms to gasp for breath, only for him to push her back down
again, and take the rest. She struggled again to rise to the surface, but it
was useless. She felt his bare chest against hers. His hands were behind her
shoulders. Her neck. Her hair.

His lips
moved to hers and through the darkness of the water, he kissed her a second
time. When their lips parted their heads were outside the water, and Cheryl
could breathe. He only let her take in another gasp before he had given her a
third kiss. She counted them like that. She knew she would remember it.

They moved
through the water at his command, and she felt her back being pushed towards
pool’s wall. Once there, he kissed her neck, bit her ears, let his tongue run
gently across her eyes. Cheryl’s mouth was frozen open. He put his mouth to it
and licked her tongue and she licked back.

His hands
moved from behind her and cupped her breasts. She parted her legs as his body
moved into her, and his erect cock scraped her clit. He broke from her kiss and
looked at her a moment, in a cunning, observational type of way. Like he wanted
one final assessment of her before their privates interlocked.

Just to see
something.

Anything,
almost.

Cheryl
couldn’t read his mind. She knew he was the bad guy, and really, really wrong
for her. She wasn’t like him at all. But as his stiff cock entered her, and he
put his teeth to her shoulder to leave his mark, she knew she had fallen for
him.

And she’d
never been fucked this good.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

The sex only lasted for five or six
minutes. Cheryl wondered with all the hot water around her if she would even
feel Synrith come, but as he did he quickly set the record straight. What he
shot inside of her was like lava. This was also strange to her, because when
she touched Synrith, his skin was always so cold. Part of that coolness made
the sex that much more real…

But then it
was over. Immediately afterward, he avoided eye contact with her and said
nothing as he jumped out of the pool. Upon his leaving, Cheryl closed her eyes.
Continued to relax in the water. She wasn’t relaxed inside though – it was a
mixture of feelings. She was still giddy with the initial girl-meets-boy euphoria,
and the sex had taken it to a whole other level. But she also knew that he
didn’t feel the same. This was something else for him. And as callous she knew
he could be, she was worried that she would still allow him to hurt her.

She opened
her eyes.

No.

No, she
wouldn’t be a victim.

If he wanted
to play games with her, then she could play games with him too. At least she
thought she could. In any case, her main priority should be tracking down
Sophie and making sure she was okay. Beyond that, who knew what the future had
in store…

A few minutes
passed. More than a few minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Cheryl was more than ready to
get out of the pool now. Unfortunately what was left of her clothes was a
soaking lump hovering on the other side of the pool. Synrith would have to
bring her some dry clothes. She hoped that he would.

Eventually
the door opened. He had returned.

Cheryl swam
across the pool and looked up to him apprehensively. He was now dressed in one
of his black and green suits. Shoes and all.

But he had a
robe underneath his arm for her.

“Out you
come,” he said.

He stooped
down and retrieved her from the pool. He put the robe around her and she stood
there dripping.

“No towel?”

“You’ll be
dry soon enough,” he said.

He opened the
door to the next room for her. The temperature rose a few degrees here, and she
felt the water melting away. Together they walked across a long hallway and
continued around the corner to stop at one of several closed doors. He opened
it and let her inside.

It was a
dressing room. The adjacent wall had an enormous walk-in-closet attached,
filled with exquisite women’s clothing. There was a dressing table on the
opposite wall with a large mirror and an assortment of cosmetics.

“Is all this
necessary?” Cheryl murmured.

Synrith walked
across the room. He turned the light on inside the closet and plucked a
shimmering black cocktail dress from it. As he laid it across the bed, she saw
there was a ruby red streak running at the shoulders and base of the dress.
Simply beautiful.

“You’re going
into unchartered waters now. You have to look the part.”

“But you’ll
be there, won’t you?” Cheryl asked. “If things go wrong.”

“Who knows
where I’ll be,” Synrith replied. “You need to rely on yourself.”

“I will. I
mean, I do.”

“Good.”
Synrith took Cheryl’s phone from his pocket. He handed it to her. “I will soon
have my team drive you out to the vampires’s whereabouts. My number is in your
address book. You are to contact me when you’ve gotten the wolves’s likely
location. I will take it from there.”

He stepped
back and edged towards the doorway.

“I’ll leave
you to it then,” he said.

“Wait,”
Cheryl said quickly.

“Yes?”

She walked
forward to him. “When will I see you again?”

“That’s up to
me,” Synrith replied. “But for you, right now, there is only one dragon that
you love. And his name is Jet.”

He left
Cheryl standing there, feeling foolish.

Before
turning back to the dress he’d left for her, she scrolled through her address
book to make sure he had put his number in there under a name she recognized.
She soon saw that he hadn’t written his full name.

He’d simply,
called himself…

Syn.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Perfect black dress. Perfectly combed
hair. Perfect purple eye shadow. Perfect purple lips. The face in the mirror
didn’t look like Cheryl anymore (except maybe on Halloween) but this is what
Synrith wanted her to look like. Almost as soon she was finished, two of
Synrith’s guards appeared in the door to escort her to the elevator. From
there, they went back down to the limousine where they’d been dropped off an
hour or so ago. Cheryl got into the car and it sped away, leaving Synrith and
his enchantments behind them.

Cheryl felt
nervous. Mostly about the guards. She couldn’t tell whether they were looking
at her. Now that she was openly flaunting her beauty she felt exposed to them.
As if they shouldn’t be able to see her this way. Of course, now that she was
closely working with Synrith she doubted they would make a move on her. She
could only imagine what would happen to them if they did.

At the sight
of a main road, the limousine pulled over to a stop.

When after a
moment no one made any move to exit the vehicle, she asked, “What’s happening
now?”

“We’ll sit
here for a few hours,” one of the guards said. “Till night time.”

“What?”
Cheryl protested. “Why didn’t you leave me back with Synrith then?”

“He had other
matters to attend to,” the guard explained. “These were his orders.”

“But what are
we supposed to do? We’re going to go crazy with boredom.”

The guards
looked at each other.

Cheryl
surveyed them all. “Hello?”

“You should
lie down,” one of the guards suggested. “Go to sleep for a while. You could be
in for a long night.”

“Why? I just
have to talk to these … vampires and then I’ll be done.”

“Not
necessarily.”

“What? Why?
What are you talking about?”

“If you care
about the Master, then you’ll do as you’re told.”

Cheryl
lowered her eyes. She’d been put in her place.

She looked
through the glass to the side of the road one last time, and then leant across
the seat. As she did, she realized they were right to tell her to sleep.

She was
tired.

So, so, so
very tired.