29
JESSICA
We drove in silence down the abandoned Louisiana road.
Calm, happy silence.
Our victory was almost anti-climactic since the dragon and his psycho girlfriend got away. That they were still out there somewhere, ready to try to kill Ethan once again, gnawed at the back of my mind. But he didn't seem to care, so I didn't bring it up.
A victory was a victory, even if it was just for now.
It took half an hour to drive to the nearest town with a Motel 6. We ordered three combo meals--yeah, that's right, three, that's how damn hungry we were--from the Waffle House next door, and took them up to our tiny $45 per night hotel room.
We'd eaten half the food before we were sated enough to talk.
"You know, it would have been more useful if a bazooka were in that chest," I said around a mouthful of bacon. "Swords aren't exactly state of the art weaponry in 2018. Just saying."
That pulled a smile onto Ethan's face, and the sight filled me with glee.
"He's still out there," Ethan said, but the smile didn't fade. "I can feel him, the way I could before."
"Can he shift into a dragon? After you blew up his emerald collar, or whatever?"
Ethan shook his head. "I think he can. Well, I mean, I don't really know. But it feels like he still can. I damaged his emerald, fractured it, but I think he's only wounded." He nodded to himself, confidence growing with each word. "I'm certain he'll be back when he's healed up."
"That sounds like a problem for future-Ethan," I said, stealing a phrase I'd heard him use before. "You should let that guy worry about it."
"I couldn't agree more."
I looked over at the chest. We'd brought it inside, not trusting to leave it in the car. "So, those gemstones."
"Six of them," he nodded. "Six gryphon brothers."
"Which also means six dragons," I added.
"Sounds like it, based on what the Emerald Dragon said."
"But only your gemstone was glowing. The others were dormant."
He blinked as if he hadn't thought about it. "Yeah?"
I finished chewing on a bite of pancakes. "Why? Because you were the one to find it? Because you defeated your dragon? Because emerald comes first alphabetically out of all the gems?"
Ethan chuckled. "Ahh yes, alphabetization. The most important factor to mythical creatures." Then he pointed at me. "Amethyst and diamond come before emerald, though."
"That doesn't answer the question."
He shrugged and focused on his food. "You're acting like I have the answers."
I expected him to. I needed him to. Because I sure as hell had no idea what was going on, and it was more comforting to pretend someone did. But of course that wasn't fair to Ethan. If anything, he had a right to be more frustrated than I did.
"The only thing I know," he said slowly, "is that we have to defeat them. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but we do."
"When I was kidnapped, the dragon said he and his brothers had to defeat the gryphons." I made my voice into a husky imitation of his. "And then we can end this world. His words, not mine."
"Great," Ethan muttered, putting down his fork. "As if the pressure of all of this wasn't already high enough."
I rose from my chair and sat on his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. "It's a good thing you have me to help you along. Otherwise you wouldn't know what the hell you were doing."
"Ain't that the truth?"
I kissed him, and he kissed me back, and then he was lifting me and carrying me to the bed and falling on me with his weight.
We made love, soft and sweet and comforting after the trauma of the day, and then fell asleep even though the mattress was lumpy and the air conditioner rumbled like a diesel engine.
And then we woke in the middle of the night, our lips finding the other's simultaneously with supernatural force, and fucked quick and hard with groans of surprise and ecstasy so loud we probably woke the entire hotel.
We fell back asleep and snuggled until morning, when Ethan rolled me over to spoon but I grinded my ass against his crotch, and then he was gently tugging down my panties and making love to me on our sides while kissing the back of my neck.
We giggled, and cuddled some more, and then it was time to shower and leave.
*
"He's somewhere far," Ethan abruptly said. We were 20 miles east of Dallas, on the endless and straight I-30. "Far from us."
"In which direction?"
Ethan turned to look at me--no, not at me, but beyond me. Out the window. "North. Maybe as far as Iowa."
"I didn't realize dragons liked corn," I said, but Ethan didn't laugh at the joke.
"I think that's as far as they could travel since our fight. They drove all night to get away." He nodded to himself. "I think they're still driving."
"Good. Maybe they'll never come back."
But the silence that followed was both of us thinking about how we knew that was unlikely.
We got to my apartment in the late morning. To be safe, we backed the car up to the service elevator, made sure the coast was clear, and then carried the chest inside.
"I'm surprised there aren't cops here," Ethan said as we opened the door to my apartment.
"Why? Because of the great gryphon-dragon battle in the skies above bumfuck, Louisiana?"
We set the chest down in the corner, and he wiped his hands. "Mrs. Arnold called the cops after the dragon kidnapped you. They were taking her statement at the office when I found them yesterday."
"Maybe she didn't even mention my kidnapping," I muttered. "If anything, she probably saw it as a problem being removed."
"Still, you'd better call them just to let them know you're safe."
I turned the deadbolt on my door, not feeling safe until I heard it click. "And tell them what?"
"Umm. Good question."
"Let's relax a few minutes before we come up with a good story."
I fell into the couch and savored the feeling of home. It was all so wonderfully normal after the past day.
Ethan opened the screen of his laptop at the breakfast bar and typed in his password. After a few seconds, he groaned. "500 work emails."
"No rest for the wicked." I shook my head. "Have fun with that. Now that my contract's essentially up, you're on your own there."
Ethan's eyes widened. "Don't speak so fast..."
I sat up. "What?"
He didn't answer, so I got to my feet and joined him, placing my chin disruptively on his shoulder. I squinted at the email he was reading.
"Who's Jacob Bonner?"
"Director of I.T.," he muttered. "Mrs. Arnold's boss. He wants to meet with me first thing on Monday morning."
"You don't think they found out the datacenter trip was all made up, do you?"
But Ethan was shaking his head, and opened another email. One sent to the entire company. "I think it has to do with this."
My jaw dropped as I read the words. Susan Arnold, a dutiful employee for 22 years, is resigning her position effective immediately...
"It says she's leaving for personal reasons," Ethan muttered, eyes glued to the screen. "She's been talking about retirement for years, but it's always just been talk. Sounds like the dragon attack put some fear into her."
"Thank God for small miracles, huh?" I said. "Sounds like your job is about to get a whole lot easier!"
"No," he said, finally turning to face me. "I think this meeting with Mr. Bonner means they're going to promote me to fill the vacancy."
The realization was obvious once he said it out loud. "That's awesome!" I blurted, hugging him.
"And if that's true, I get purview over all temp contracts and hirings." A smile slowly crept onto his face.
I ran a seductive fingernail down his chest. "Well now. Can you think of anyone who can fill your positions?"
"None come to mind, no."
I shoved him playfully, and we laughed with the first real lightheartedness of the past week.
"Well perhaps I can convince you to consider me..."
He twisted on the stool and pulled me close. "You'd have to be awfully persuasive."
I kissed him, the barest brushing of my lips against his. He tasted like mint and cinnamon, and I looked deep into his eyes with lust.
He reached for me, but I was in control right now. I pushed his hands away and kissed his chest through the cotton of his T-shirt. I ran my hands across his pecs, then down the bulge of his biceps. He pulled his shirt over his head to reveal his muscles in all their glory, and I sighed at the sight alone.
We'd had sex more times in a 24-hour period than I ever had before, and I still wanted him like it was the first time.
I kissed along his sternum, the soft strands of dark hair that were there, and let my hands drift down to his thighs. He was rock-hard inside his jeans, and I considered teasing him, drawing things out until he squirmed, but I didn't have the patience for that myself. While my lips drifted to his abs my hands removed his belt and unclasped the button of his jeans, and with a quick yank he was down to his boxer-briefs, which clung to his thighs like another layer of skin, a hard cylinder of cock pushing against them eagerly.
I pulled the cock through the hole in the front, and he sighed into my hair.
Running my hand along his shaft, caressing its hardness, I let my lips slowly move down his abs. He trembled on the breakfast stool and ran his fingers into my hair, not guiding or tugging but simply feeling me. My fingers tightened on his base and he exhaled as I moved them, up and down, the skin running over the meat underneath.
I looked up at him, and he looked back at me with love.
My lips brushed past his tip, the way I'd kissed him before. A polite acknowledgment. And then I tilted my head and opened my lips wide around it and took him in the mouth, not just the head but the entire thing, as deep as I could go, almost feeling my gag reflex kicking in but I didn't care because I wanted to feel all of him, needed it to feel as good as possible for my mate. He groaned with surprise and bliss, and then I pulled back, keeping my lips as tight around his circumference as I could.
"You feel amazing," he said.
I gripped the base of his shaft with one hand and caressed my sex with the other as I went down on him, slowly bobbing my head on his hard cock. His pleasure was mine, a muted sensation through our shared bond. I loved that I could make him feel this way.
Clumsily, I unbuttoned my own jeans enough to stick my hand down them, and rubbed a fire into my clitoris.
His breathing grew faster as I worked, each gasp of his sending shockwaves of pleasure through my own body. I wanted to make him cum, to pull every ounce of his load from his body, to feel the evidence of his ecstasy. My desire urged me on, faster and faster, until I was moaning into his cock as I worked.
"I want you," he breathed, hands clenching into my hair. "I want you."
He pulled me up to his lips, kissing me hard while I shimmied my jeans and panties the rest of the way off. And before I could lead him to the couch he was pulling me onto his lap, his hard thighs creating a platform for my body.
"I want you too," I said, easing my dripping pussy down onto his wet cock.
The tip slid in easily, and then I pushed my entire body down, rough and desperate to feel him inside. The ache of him was wonderful and familiar, the way he stretched my inner walls and filled me completely. For several heartbeats all I could do was grind against him, panting and running my hands over the rest of his body.
Ethan's fingers tightened in my hair. He yanked me toward his face, kissing me roughly, biting my lower lip like an animal. Like the beast he was, deep inside him, ready to break free at my command. Because that's what I had: command over him, my gryphon, my mate.
We were a team, a partnership in whatever this was.
I planted my feet on the rungs of the stool for leverage and lifted my hips off him, feeling that wonderful friction. He leaned back and I admired his body from this angle, the curves and ridges of his muscle, a topographical map of sexy man. I lowered myself back down, all the way until my ass cheeks pressed hard against his thighs.
Ethan wrapped his arms around my back as I rode him.
Faster and faster I went, rocking the stool on its legs. Ethan moved with me, his entire body pushing up into my sex, harder and harder as he grew close, impaling me again and again. I was desperate to taste his lips so I kissed him again, and shoved my tongue in his mouth, and we moaned together in mutual lust.
Ethan groaned like a wild animal, and I pulled back to watch the ecstasy spread across his face as he came. He held my hips down on himself, not allowing me to move, and I clenched myself around him tightly.
A grin began to spread across his face, and then we fell.
I yelped as we crashed to the floor, banging my shoulder into the wood. Ethan hit just as hard, wincing at the pain.
"Oww," I said, groaning at the soreness in my shoulder.
His hand shot out to cup my cheek immediately. "Are you okay?"
"I'm more than okay," I giggled. "I love you."
The words fell out of my mouth automatically, something I hadn't thought about saying. Something unplanned. Yet I'd said them, and once the words had left my lips I knew I meant it.
I froze, and tried to think of some damage control. But instead of being horrified, Ethan's face brightened.
"I love you too," he said, the emotion pouring from his eyes. "It's crazy, and it makes no sense, but I do."
"I know, right?" I laughed nervously, and he pulled me to him.
"Not any crazier than everything else from this week."
We cuddled there, naked bodies splayed out on the hard wood, not caring that there were more comfortable places we could lay ourselves.
Eventually we got up. The best story, we decided, was mostly the truth: some psychopath with tattoos of flames all over his body had been stalking me for weeks, and finally decided to act. He'd kidnapped me, taking me to a hideout in Louisiana, and Ethan tracked me down with the Find My Friends app on our iPhones. The tattooed man set fire to the house and fled, and once it burned down we did the same.
They told me I would need to visit the police station to give a statement in-person, but otherwise they seemed to buy it. And they would have it corroborated with the incident in Fort Worth, and the call the dragon had made to my temp agency.
But that was a problem for another time. Ethan and I had a lot we still needed to do. If he was promoted, then I'd need to officially transfer away from the temp agency. I wasn't sure how office relationships worked, but I'm sure that would be a pain to work out. And of course, all the while there was a dragon out there somewhere, licking his wounds, waiting for his moment.
"Not so much pepper," I said while I watched Ethan stir pasta into a bowl that evening.
"I'll have you know this is a family recipe. Any deviation from the precise ingredients will cause great ruin and dishonor to my family!"
"Pepper makes me sneeze," I said. "Like, it makes me sneeze a lot. You don't want my snot all over the meal."
Ethan twisted to look back at me. "Fine. But somewhere, my Italian grandmother is rolling in her grave."
We ate chicken penne pasta, and even without the pepper it was delicious. I smiled across the table at Ethan, my man, my mate, and the word felt right as it settled into place. I reached across to take his hand, and he squeezed it with a smile.
There was a lot left for us to do, and a lot of unknowns.
But whatever happened, we would do it together.