Dragon's Pride: BBW Paranormal Dragon Romance (6 page)

“Hard to believe you’ve never done this before,” Cerul grunted. “You were born for this.”

I was born for you, I wanted to respond. All sorts of wild thoughts were flooding through my mind. Emotions I’d only half-recognized before were swimming through me.

And my wish to be Cerul’s girlfriend – to have him be my boyfriend – became clear.

I barely knew the man. But the chemistry between us wasn’t something that could be explained logically, anyway. It was more than that. Cerul didn’t have to tell me all of his secrets for me to know how I felt about him.

I tipped my head back and moaned. This new realization could lead to no good.

Cerul

Since it was Kale’s first time, I went easy on her. I only took her for one hour instead of several, and in a limited number of positions instead of trying the entire Kama Sutra. I intended to do everything I could think of with her, but there would be plenty of time for that later.

For the moment, I was just getting her accustomed to having my cock inside her. I didn’t need anything beyond that. Discovering her luscious body was more than enough to satisfy me – especially when I hadn’t spilled my seed in so many months. Her form was soft yet hard, powerful yet sensual.

I had craved being inside her for so long that stopping seemed unthinkable. When we did finally fall to the mattress together, we were both out of breath and satisfied.

“That was unbelievable,” she said, planting kisses all over my cheeks and neck. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

Kale’s usual cockiness was gone. She was just a puddle of postorgasmic mush. My puddle of mush.

I wrapped my arms around her, and even with her stilled against me she didn’t stop kissing me. She moved from my cheek to my mouth, thrumming with passion. It was hard to believe she had ever rationed out her pecks so carefully before. She didn’t seem able to control herself at all now.

For my part, strange emotions were running through me. The feelings were familiar, things I remembered from before. It was their strength that was strange to me. They weren’t dulled anymore. Something about Kale had made me able to feel again.

“You better believe it,” I said when she finally pulled away. “We’re going to be doing that a lot from now on.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Absolutely.”

If she was planning to start giving me attitude again, she didn’t follow through on it. She lay on my chest, and I could feel it when her lips upturned against my skin. Her body rose and fell with my breathing.

“Tell me more about you,” she murmured. “I still don’t really understand.”

“What part don’t you get?”

“Mmm… You really don’t miss your ex?”

“Not in the least.”

That was the most important thing, I supposed. Still, I had so many other questions. “Tell me why you didn’t want to marry the one girl.”

I reclined, thinking about how to phrase what I wanted to say. “She was a nice girl,” I said. “Attractive, funny, pleasant enough. I just didn’t have any feelings for her. And I didn’t like that she was part of my family.”

Kale cringed. “She was?”

“A cousin.”

Second cousin
, my mother hissed in my memory. Like it made such a difference. I was supposed to marry a dragon, reproduce with a dragon. She would have wanted me to mate my own sister if I hadn’t had any cousins.

“Your parents must have been pretty pissed with you if they stopped talking to you,” Kale mused. “I would’ve thought they would understand.”

“There’s more to it than that, but…”

“Well, tell me!”

I leaned on one elbow and stroked her hair with the tips of my fingers. It was fine and silky soft to the touch. Looking at Kale like this made me want to start round two. She seemed stuck on my family history, though.

“At least they gave you money,” she said. “So you could get this place, strike out for yourself…”

My heart beat faster. Kale kept coming closer to the truth, and I didn’t know how much longer I could keep dancing around it. I didn’t know how much longer I wanted to. “Jewels,” I said quietly.

When she looked up at me in confusion, I pushed her gently off me. The bag of jewels wasn’t far, hidden behind my headboard. Once I had it in my hands, I opened it just enough to let her see what was inside.

The jewels were nothing to me. I’d seen untold amounts of them before. They used to grow freely on my own back, after all. That was why I didn’t anticipate the effect they had on Kale.

Humans were so silly sometimes. These gemstones were pretty, yes. Shiny, sure. There was still no reason for them to make a grown woman rub her hands over her eyes as if she couldn’t possibly believe what she was seeing.

“Your parents gave you those?” she gasped.

“In exchange for never speaking to them again.”

I replaced the bag in its spot. Kale’s eyes were still on me as I lay back down. “Cerul,” she said, “that’s crazy.”

“Just a little.” My cock was twitching, but I ignored it as best as I could. “That was why I was in a bad mood the other day. Jersey spoke to my mom at her birthday party. She thought maybe she could talk some sense into her while she was in a good mood. She couldn’t.”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know which part felt better: hearing her call me “honey” or feeling her softness suddenly wrapped around me. Apparently my mother’s coldness made me deserving of a hug.

I had to put a stop to this, or Kale was going to make me tell her more than I wanted to. Reluctantly, I dragged myself out of the bed. “I’m sure you have things to do,” I said.

“Are you kicking me out? You have to do your mysterious research?”

“Yes,” I said simply.

“And when are you going to tell me what that’s all about?”

I tried to hide my wince as I pulled clothes on. Kale deserved to know. But how could I even start to explain? “Eventually,” I told her. “Everything in due time.”

She didn’t look too happy as she climbed out of bed and threw on her own clothes. “I guess we shouldn’t have sex again until ‘due time,’ then. Too bad I just gave you my virginity out of ‘due time.’”

“Kale, don’t be like that.”

She shook her head, her lips a hard line. “I don’t think I’m being anything. I give you everything, and you won’t even meet me halfway. Why all the secrets? What are you hiding?”

“I answered your questions!” I said, pausing with my jeans unzipped.

“You think I can’t tell how much you’re still keeping from me? You’ve never once given me a straight answer. You practically talk in riddles!” She stopped and glared at me. “The more I think about it, maybe you should find yourself a new trainer.”

I caught her as she stormed towards the door. “Kale, stop. Kale. Honey. Vegetable girl.”

Sighing, she turned to look at me. From the expression on her face, I estimated I had about a minute to convince her I wasn’t a jerk before she left for good.

“I haven’t told you the truth because you wouldn’t believe me. Okay? I can’t tell you my secrets because you’d think I was crazy. That’s all it is.”

One eyebrow rose higher than I thought possible. “So you’re delusional. That makes things a lot better.”

“I’m not. I’m just saying… if and when I ever tell you… you’re going to have a hard time wrapping your head around it.”

“Why’s that?” she hissed. “I’m too stupid?”

“You’re too human!”

Kale gaped at me silently. I had let too much out. I shouldn’t have said so much, so fast. I was going to have to tell her the truth, and then she was going to run out of my house forever. I’d be lucky if she didn’t call the cops. They’d have to be warned there was a crazy person on the loose.

“So what does that make you?” she asked. I could tell she was trying to sound as confident as always, but her voice was unsteady. “Some kind of… vampire?”

“No,” I said, lowering my eyes. “I’m a dragon shifter.”

I don’t know what kind of response I expected. The laugh that bubbled out of Kale a moment later wasn’t it. She laughed and laughed, holding her sides until tears streamed down her cheeks. “A fucking dragon shifter?”

The only other human I’d told was my ex, and I told her by demonstration. I had her over to my parents’ mansion on my last night there. There wasn’t much room for amusement when she was faced with a live, fire-breathing, jeweled-back dragon.

I’d never thought she would mind. True love conquers all – that was what I’d always been told. I’d waited until the last possible moment. With my parents disowning me for being with a human, I’d taken comfort in knowing I’d be with the woman I loved. But my ex just screamed and ran. She couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

“Couldn’t you come up with something better than that?” Kale wheezed. “I mean, a dragon shifter?”

I said nothing, just standing there until she realized I wasn’t laughing.

“Okay, you’re serious,” she said, calming herself. “Okay. Umm… if you really are a dragon shifter, then why don’t you… shift… into a dragon? Then I’d believe you.”

“I can’t.”

As if everything else that night wasn’t bad enough, my mother had seen the display. She smiled, seeming oddly satisfied by what had happened. Then, saying I couldn’t be trusted with my powers, she went into my mind and sliced them away. The pain still throbbed within me, a dull ache that wouldn’t go away no matter what I did.

I was already in deep enough that I figured I might as well give Kale a brief explanation. It didn’t seem to convince her at all, though.

“That’s what I research every day,” I said, gesturing to the books stacked on my desk. “I need to figure out a way to regain my true form. I won’t be happy until I can shift again.”

She looked around, anywhere but at me. Her lips tightened and her eyebrows dug into a frown. “All right. If what you need is to shift again, and the only people who can allow you to do that are your parents, then maybe we should go see them.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s the only way, Cerul. You just said you won’t be happy without shifting.”

“And you won’t believe me until you see me shift.” I could see she was still skeptical. I couldn’t blame her – it was why I hadn’t wanted to tell her at all. “They’ll just say no, and you’ll still think I’m nuts.”

Crossing the room, she picked up one of the books. It was a medieval tome that had cost a small fortune. Considering that my funds were limited now, I had spent more on the books than I would’ve liked.

“Trust me, Kale. I’m going to find the answers in one of these books. I haven’t figured out how my mother took away my abilities yet, but I know it’s got to be in one of them. So much dragon lore is in here. Once I find out, I’ll know how to get my abilities back.”

My mother might have used a spell or an incantation. With my freshly broken heart, I hadn’t had the presence of mind to pay attention. I had regretted that innumerable times over the past months.

“Why don’t we talk to your aunt?” Kale asked gently. “If anyone can help you, maybe she can.”

“She’s tried. She can’t do anything.”

“I think it would be a good idea for us to talk to her again, though. The two of us. You can tell her about this dragon idea…”

Now I understood where Kale was going with this. “And she can have me shipped off to the mental hospital?” I laughed at the thought. “You don’t understand, vegetable girl. Jersey is a dragon, too. My whole family is. She knows I’m not crazy.”

My emotions were out of control. I threw my head back and opened my mouth, hoping this would work. It might be the only thing that could convince Kale that what I was saying was the truth.

Fire shot at the ceiling. The blast only lasted for a second, but it was long and red hot. A wisp of smoke lingered after the fire was gone, and a small black mark stayed on the white paint even after that.

“I’m a dragon,” I told Kale once again. “Do you believe me now?”