Chapter 4

When she says ‘pull out’ the respectable thing to say is ‘yes ma’am.’ Not ‘you’d look good as a single mother.’

-Things to never say to a woman

Nikolai

I woke up the next morning, refreshed and bright eyed.

I hadn’t slept this good since…

I shot up in the bed, tripping over the sheets that were tangled around my legs, and made a mad dash out of the door, completely unaware of my near nakedness until I hit the mouth of my room and ended up in the living space shared by all the quarters.

And there, on the bright red poufy couch that Keifer called an eye sore, sat Brooklyn.

She had a mug of coffee in one hand, and a bag of powdered donuts in the other.

She froze with the mug inches from her mouth, and stared at me.

I stared back, letting my heart rate return to normal as I took her in.

She looked like she was fine.

She didn’t look like she’d spent the past couple of months in a coma.

In fact, she looked almost healthy today.

“You forgot to put pants on when you left your room,” Brooklyn waved a half-eaten donut in my direction.

I blinked, looking down at my boxers, then turned right around and returned to my room.

Guess I was lucky to have anything on. Normally, I slept completely naked.

The first thing I did was take a quick shower, washing as quickly as possible before I got out.

I may or may not have gotten lost in the feel of the towel on my erection while I was drying off; and, before I knew it, I was slowly working my cock up and down until I was ready to blow.

And when I did, it was to images of Brooklyn taking my cock down her pretty throat.

Embarrassed beyond belief that I’d blown my load like some fifteen-year-old boy, I threw the soiled towel into the linen hamper and walked into my room, naked as the day I was born.

Had I known that a certain little brown headed woman was standing in my door, I wouldn’t have.

“Eeek!” Brooklyn squealed, covering her eyes with both hands.

“Shit,” I hissed, walking to my drawers and pulling out a pair of boxer briefs, followed by a pair of soccer shorts.

Once they were on, I turned back to Brooklyn.

“I’m decent,” I cleared my throat, crossing my arms over my chest.

She slowly moved her fingers apart to survey me before she removed them completely.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.

A beautiful blush stole up the front of her, going all the way up her neck, past her cheeks, to disappear into her hairline.

“For what?” I asked.

I actually kind of liked having her know what I looked like naked.

I scared women when I first presented my cock to them.

It wasn’t freakishly large, like Guinness Book of World Record’s big, but it was on the larger side of large.

With her knowing what I looked like before we ever got started let her have the chance to know what she was getting into.

And from what I could tell, she wasn’t averse to the package.

“I thought you called my name…,” she hesitated, sneaking a peek down at my crotch once more. “No, I swear you called my name. I would’ve never come back here had I known…” She trailed off, and I was left wanting to laugh my ass off.

Tell her, Perdita urged.

No, I snapped. She’s not ready.

Fool boy.

I mentally flipped Perdita off.

And I was sent back a mental picture of me jacking off only moments before.

Don’t you dare, I shot back.

Brooklyn’s eyes went wide and surprised, and I knew seconds later that Perdita felt it her God given womanly duty to protect all woman kind.

Which was why she’d shared it with Brooklyn.

I sometimes thought that Perdita didn’t really want me as a dragon rider.

Sometimes, I felt that she secretly hated me at times.

I don’t hate you. I just think, sometimes, it’s good for you to come down a few pegs, she said reassuringly.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

Brooklyn jumped, then her eyes went back to my dick once more before she turned around.

“Do you want pancakes?” she asked as she walked away.

I followed behind her slowly, studying her gait.

She looked like she hadn’t been lying in bed for days and days upon end.

Her ass was tight, from what little I could see of it.

Her legs trim and toned.

She was wearing my grey shirt that I could’ve sworn I’d thrown in the wash last night, as well as a pair of pants I’d unearthed from a box in her suite where I’d stowed all her belongings.

They were about two inches too long; even the small size seemed to bag on her ass.

Which meant that my t-shirt swamped her.

Later this afternoon, I planned on taking her into the city to find her clothes that fit.

Something that I really, really didn’t want to do.

I didn’t do shopping.

In fact, the last time I’d stepped foot in a mall, willingly, was when I was fourteen and wanted a cookie from The Cookie Factory in the mall’s food court.

I was what one would call a loner.

I didn’t do big events. I didn’t do movies. I didn’t do dates.

I really didn’t do malls.

But I would go for Brooklyn, even if it’d give me hives to do so.

“Yeah,” I said, following closely behind her into the kitchen. “I could go for some pancakes, but how about you let me make them.”

My suggestion was met with a glare from her part.

“I think you’ve done quite enough for me the last couple of days. And I feel fine, so you just sit and watch the master work,” she ordered.

Needless to say, I sat.

Then I watched as she pulled a covered bowl out of the fridge and walked to the skillet that was surprisingly already hot.

Just how long had she been waiting for me to get up?

“There was something crawling along the ledge of my window this morning around five,” she said once she placed the first round circle of batter on the skillet in front of her.

I blinked.

“That would probably be one of the terrible trio,” I guessed.

She tilted her head slightly and looked at me over her shoulder.

I jerked my eyes away from my contemplation of her ass, and gave her my attention.

“A blue dragon?” she confirmed.

I nodded.

She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t them. I looked for them thinking it was them, too. But I found the three of them by the pool, each lying on their own lawn chair.”

I pursed my lips, then got up to look outside.

Our kitchen had a sliding glass door that faced the back patio, and I could see the whole yard clearly.

The pool was centered in the middle of the back two wings.

The left side belonged to Keifer, and the right side belonged to me.

I looked to the right side of the house and studied what was Brooklyn’s window.

The longer I looked, the more I could make out tiny claw marks on the outside.

The likes of which would only belong to a tiny dragon such as the three innocent looking dragons that were lying on the steps that led down to the yard.

“I’m fairly positive it was one of them. They’re pretty good at fooling us when they want you to come play with them. If they ever do that again let me know and I’ll throw up a ward on your window that’ll keep them away,” I said over my shoulder.

She blinked, then turned back to her pancakes.

Once she flipped them, she turned back to me.

“What’s a ward?” she asked.

I grimaced.

If I told her too much, then she’d get into the semantics of my abilities, and I didn’t want to tell her all of that yet.

“A ward is a sort of protection. I designed them, then programmed them myself.” I hesitated, “It’s more like an imaginary line that animals, or humans, can’t cross. You know that feeling when you don’t want to go somewhere, and your mind’s screaming at you not to go near it? It’s kind of like that. I have one over this entire property.”

In reality, I’d managed to sync my ability to weave illusions into a computer program. Together, with Perdita, I offered a full protection of the estate and the area surrounding the estate for about fifty miles.

The only drawback of using the program, was that anyone that wasn’t a blood relation or bonded to the original Vassago family in some way, couldn’t pass through the barrier.

When Keifer had asked me to figure out how to reconfigure it the day he found out he could possibly be mated to Blythe, I’d been hard pressed to figure out how to open it to allow her through.

I’d been just about to pull it all the way down when I’d felt Keifer pass through the ward.

I’d held my breath, terrified that Blythe would die, but minutes later, Keifer had landed on the back lawn with Declan, his dragon, and Blythe, none the worse for wear.

I’d not told him that I hadn’t gotten the ward down.

I’d decided that bitch fit hadn’t been worth the hassle of worrying him.

But I’d spent day and night since then honing my skills with the design of the ward, and working with Perdita to get the ward under my complete control.

And we’d accomplished it, so there was no reason to worry Keifer…right?

“That’s pretty nifty, actually,” Brooklyn broke into my thoughts. “So you like computers?”

I shrugged. “I guess so. My brother owns Vassago motors; you know that, right?”

She nodded, so I continued.

“I never really wanted to be a part of the hands on business end. Although I know my way around a car just like Keifer does, I don’t enjoy it in the least. It’s more of a chore than a passion like it is for him,” I told her, sitting down at the bar across from where she was currently flipping pancakes. “So I started making myself useful to him elsewhere, and I found that I was much more suited for the computer end rather than the transmission end.”

She smiled. “You would laugh if you saw me trying to change my oil the first time,” she snickered, looking up.

The light in her eyes had me wanting to bring those lips to mine, but I refrained from moving, happy to see her happy.

“Why didn’t you just take it to an oil lube place?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Money, mostly. It was $40 to get my oil changed by them, and $20 to buy the bottles and do it myself,” she explained.

I snorted.

“How’d that work?” I asked.

“I wasn’t really prepared. I watched a YouTube video on how to change my car’s oil in the library at school,” she explained, going behind her to reach above the counter for a couple of plates before returning and piling on pancakes. “So I go out there, armed with a couple old milk jugs, a funnel and a monkey wrench.”

A smile lit my face.

“Ohhh,” I laughed softly to myself.

She nodded back. “Yeah, that’s about how it went for me. I put the funnel in the milk jug, unscrewed that little bolt at the bottom of the oil pan, and was promptly drenched with oil.”

I could imagine.

“So, from then on, I flirted with the boys at school to get them to do it for me. Worked out splendidly and haven’t changed my own oil since,” she confirmed.

Irrational irritation started to pour through me, and I growled.

“I’ll do it for you from now on,” I informed her.

Her brows rose. “Oh?”

She slid the pancakes in front of me, handed me a fork and the syrup, and then turned the burners off.

She rounded the island with her own plate and took up the position beside me.

We ate in silence, neither one of us commenting on the fact that I’d practically taken her off the market with that one comment.

Long minutes later, with my belly full, I turned to watch her shovel the last of her two pancakes into her mouth.

“I have to get a little bit of work done today…will you be alright if I leave you alone for a few hours?” I asked.

She nodded, standing up while still chewing her last piece, then placed her plate gently into the sink.

“I’ll be fine,” she said once she’d chewed and swallowed. “But I wanted to call Blythe today. And one of these days you need to take me to get some clothes like you promised. I realize that you’re busy, but I can’t live in your clothes forever.”

Brooklyn had tried to call Blythe yesterday, but Keifer had answered for her saying that Blythe was too busy puking to come to the phone and to try again tomorrow.

I doubted that he’d even given Blythe the message that Brooklyn was awake.

He was a nice guy like that.

“That’s fine. You can use the house phone,” I indicated the old rotary phone on the wall. “Or you can come to my office and use my cell phone. Whichever one you want to do.”

She nodded, biting her lip.

“Do you mind if I…explore?” she asked hesitantly.

I shrugged. “Fine with me. But, it’s a big place. It’ll take you days to see everything.”

Her eyes slowly slid down my chest, and it was only then that I realized that I was shirtless, showing off the tattoo that had just recently shown up.

Her eyes brightened, and her hands slowly slid up her rib cage.

But when she made to open her mouth to question me, I bolted.

“I’ll be in the room right next to the one you slept in last night!” I called over my shoulder.

I then cursed myself because she knew where my room was. She’s seen me naked in it earlier.

She glared at my retreating back, and I had to say that I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t look all too happy to see me avoid the topic.

And I knew I’d get the fourth degree later, once I was done, or she worked up the courage.

Which was why I avoided her until late that night when I knew she’d be asleep.

Yep.

I know. I’m a coward.

So sue me.