Chapter Two
Tyler
A cross-country trip from the east coast to the west had seemed like a good idea when Tyler started out. Now as he rolled his stiff shoulders, he wasn’t certain who to blame for this bright idea. Himself for thinking of it, or the other idiots in his motorcycle club that had agreed.
“They’ll be talking about you for years to come,” one of his friends, Jackson, chuckled as he slapped Tyler on the back. “How many weddings did you crash? Was it four or five?”
“Six,” Tyler grunted back. His scowl deepened as he considered all those beautiful brides. Dressed in white with their flowers and veils. All of them gorgeous and excited about their future. And here he was, the idiot who left a string of broken hearts in his wake wherever he went. “Can we not talk about it?”
Jackson rolled his eyes and moved away. Tyler made a beeline for the bar, skirting around the men with their girlfriends and boyfriends cuddled on their laps. It seemed like since the road trip, half of the club had coupled up. Many of them were even in the wedding-talk part of their relationships. Was it real, or where they just trying to rub it in his face?
“Tyler,” one of them greeted, slapping him on the back. “Giselle and I are getting married next month.”
Tyler chewed on his cheek to prevent himself from snapping at him. As it was, he was only able to throw a mumbled congratulations to him. He didn’t miss Giselle’s eye roll at him and he glared at her.
“What?” he demanded.
Giselle shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just that you’ve turned into a real asshole lately and I, for one, am tired of sitting back and saying nothing about it.”
Tyler’s fires flared. “You’re one to talk.”
The dragon that had greeted him snarled, immediately on the defensive. Tyler held up his hands as a surrender to him, even though he’d have liked to deck him in the face, just to have something to do. But overt violence wasn’t his style, so he merely walked away. Jackson had made it to the bar before him and chuckled under his breath.
“So which one was it?”
Tyler grunted at him.
“Come on, now. We all know what you’re like. Which one of the brides did you have a passionate tryst with and you discovered she was the girl of your dreams and—”
“I don’t sleep with married or engaged women.”
Tyler ordered a firewhiskey, a special blend that the bartender had created after watching Harry Potter. Every hot pepper in existence soaked in whisky, then blended into a very fine pulp. It was just the thing to get a dragon’s fire roaring.
He hunched his shoulders and tried not to glare at the couples around the room. Giselle’s words may have stung, but it was true. He had been acting like an asshole of late.
And for no reason, too. It wasn’t as though he was suffering from a terrible heartache that made it impossible to breathe or be with women.
She had promised to call.
Tyler ran a hand through his hair, his scowl deepening. It had been just under a year since he had last seen Bernice Gardner, but he still couldn’t get her out of his mind. Yes, he knew he had a tendency to fall in and out of love like flipping through channels late at night. But since her, none of the women he met lit that spark inside of him.
He couldn’t imagine being with any of them other than a quick fling here and there when his physical needs grew too great. Even that made him feel sick and he couldn’t go through the physical action of it.
Had Bernie dated other men? When he left he was sure that she’d call, but he hadn’t heard anything from her. He’d pulled that same stunt enough times to know what it meant. And man, was it shitty. He was never going to do that again, that was certain.
Of course, first he’d have to be with a woman to have the opportunity.
“Aw, is Tywer sad?” Phil, a real asshole of a dragon, slid into the seat next to him. “Come to realize that since you’ve slept with all those women that you’ll never find your mate now? You used up your body and even if you were to find her, she wouldn’t want used goods?”
Tyler’s nostrils flared, but he forced himself to be calm.
In many dragon clans, it was thought that the first time a dragon had sex, that person was their mate for life. Mating and sex were so intrinsically linked that it was impossible to consider them two separate things. Sometimes Tyler did wonder if that was what was wrong with him, but he’d never really believed it.
Mates weren’t destined, they were chosen. Simple as that.
“Here,” Tyler slapped some money on the bar. “Let me buy you a drink, Phil.”
Phil chuckled. “You know, there are sites that you can use to buy yourself a mate. Human women who are desperate for a big, hunky man to take care of them. Usually ugly as hell, but when you’re out of options…”
Tyler sipped his whiskey and considered. If his older brother, Shane, was here, he’d punch the guy out. But then he was big, even for a dragon shifter, and had years of Navy Seal training to back him up. While Tyler didn’t back down from a fight, he preferred other weapons.
“So, Phil.” He lowered his voice so that not even Jackson could hear him. “That’s a nice collection of My Little Pony pictures you have on your computer… did you draw them yourself?”
Phil choked. His face paled as he glared at Tyler.
For his part, Tyler just smiled back at him and patted his back. Phil grabbed his drink and, muttering various apologies, quickly left the bar. Tyler smirked as he went, but the smile slipped off when Bill Johnson and his little gang of cronies charged into the room, shouting and laughing. Bill was the biggest dragon in the club. What he had in brawn, he lacked in brains. Loud-mouthed, aggressive, and possessive, Bill spoke much and thought little. He thought he ran the club, which was annoying at the best of times.
And this wasn’t the best of times.
Tyler downed his drink, enjoying the spicy burn before he slammed the glass back to the counter. Best to get out of here before Bill started goading him. Seriously, just because Tyler knew how to control his temper it meant that Bill thought he was toothless. Well, one day he’d push too far, and Tyler would show him just how hard he bit.
“Guess who bought himself a mate?” Bill crowed.
Tyler froze where he was. Had he just said bought a mate? His brows rose as he turned. The curiosity was too great to just sit back and watch this time. His gaze went to Phil, who smirked. Well, it was certainly reasonable that Phil had convinced Bill to do this and Bill, being the type of man that he was, thought that it was actually a good idea.
“Yep.” Bill puffed out his chest and sent Tyler, of all people, a gleeful look. “There’s this site I found with beautiful human women looking for a dragon mate and I’ve got one myself. She’s beautiful and loves roleplaying games in bed. Can’t wait to put that into action!”
He threw back his head and laughed. His cronies laughed, too. Several others chuckled and Tyler smirked. Bill would think that they were actually finding him funny. He really shouldn’t stir the pot…
But it was too much to stay quiet.
“So, you had to buy a woman in order to get her to look at your ugly mug?” he called out. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. I wonder how long it will take this one to take off like the others. Who knows, maybe she’ll be the one who stays with you… although it’s a mystery why none of the other girls you’ve paraded around and acted like you owned stuck it out.”
Bill’s eyes narrowed as he focused in on Tyler. His lips curled into a sneer as he stalked towards the smaller dragon. A few of the viewers started to titter, but most of them turned-as though hoping to help prevent this from getting ugly by not giving them an audience. Tyler didn’t care. Life was real shitty right now and if he could do something to brighten it up, that would be delicious.
“You saying I can’t keep a woman?” Bill narrowed his eyes at him. “Ha. You’re the one who’s always off with a new girl every month. You think you’re so cool because of your tattoos and those dimples, but you’re just—”
“Oh, you like my dimples?” Tyler smiled broadly and winked flirtatiously. “Why Bill, I never knew.”
Bill pulled up short. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “You… you’re pathetic. You can’t get any happiness yourself and so you just decide that you’ve got to wreck it when anybody else finds a bit of happiness. You’re not even worth talking to.”
Tyler laughed, even though the words stung. “And yet here you are, talking to me.”
Bill growled under his throat. “Women don’t leave me.”
“No, they run away and hide from you.”
Smoke belched into the air. He was pushing a dangerous button now. Tyler yawned and picked up the new firewhiskey the bartender put in front of him. Now would be the time to retreat. For some reason, though, it rankled to have to do that. Tyler wasn’t one of those overly macho men who had to prove that they were tough in order to build up his fragile ego. Normally, it would be enough knowing he’d gotten Bill worked up to this point.
Today wasn’t normal, though, and he wanted to humiliate the big oaf in front of everybody.
“You’re just jealous that I got a mate before you,” Bill snarled. “And yeah, I bought mine. Better than all this useless running around, trying to find her in the midst of all the women that want sex and will toss you aside as soon as they get it. So, you can shut your mouth now.”
Tyler shrugged again.
Bill reached into his pants, making Tyler grimace and pulled something from his pocket. He slapped the picture onto the bar in front of Tyler. “She’s beautiful. You wish you had a woman half as beautiful as my Bernice is.”
No. It couldn’t be. Tyler looked despite himself.
His breath caught in his chest. It was her. Bernie. And at first, the look she was giving the camera seemed sultry. But he quickly noted that it wasn’t the look she would give him whenever she wanted him to cage and ravish her.
No. This was a frightened look.
He was just able to see the websites’ address before Bill took the picture back. “Don’t want your filthy eyes on her.”
Tyler turned away. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and looked up the website as Bill returned to his bragging, talking about Bernie. Some things–she was an archeologist and beautiful–were correct. Others, such as she liked to play games and pretend like she was a captive while having sex, were utter bullshit.
He found an address for picking up the purchased women quickly enough. Tyler grabbed his keys and slipped from the club.
If she really did sign up for this thing, he’d back off gracefully. But if not? Well… then there was going to be hell to pay.