Dragon Lust Read online

  Chapter 2

  Staring at my computer screen while my mind wandered wasn’t finishing the manual I was supposed to deliver to the publishing house this afternoon. Sighing heavily, I stretched and rubbed at my lower back. I still had about three more pages to type. I should have finished already, would have finished it if I could stop daydreaming about sex. Sex in the bedroom, on the bed, on the dresser, sex on the floor, in the bathtub, sex on the counter in the kitchen, sheesh - could a person do sex on a refrigerator? Was that comfortable?

  I think what bothered me the most was the men… or lack thereof. Shouldn’t I be picturing men? I mean, I was having these urges to have sex 24x7 and I could see myself having sex just about anywhere and everywhere and yet I wasn’t getting visuals of men… just vague fuzzy images. Was it because I didn’t know many men, or hadn’t met the right one yet? It was like my body was telling me to HAVE sex and it didn’t really care with whom I did it. I didn’t like to dwell on it. Especially since the only time I clearly saw faces was when I was dreaming. And then it was the same handful of faces I’d been seeing for the past six months, and in color. For some reason my men came color coded….red, copper, green, bronze, black, white, brown, silver, grey and blue, in varying shades. Obviously if my mind was trying to tell me something, I just wasn’t sure what it was.

  Worrying, that’s what it was. And if I didn’t do something about it soon, I suspect something was going to explode!

  Not that I had any experience with sex. How could I when I’d spent the majority of my life under my Mother’s keen attention? I’d only been living on my own, if you didn’t count Mi, for just over a year. In fact this past year was the longest I’d ever spent in any one place. It’s hard to meet boys when you are never alone and never in one place for very long. At least it had been for me.

  I wasn’t a prude or anything, far from it. I had no issues with the whole concept of having sex, with nudity, or multiple partners; in fact I had no preconceived ideas about it at all. I’d just never felt the urge before. If I had to describe it, I’d say it was like being five. At five you don’t think about sex, or know about sex, or want to have sex. Well, ah, not unless you’re a pixy and only live to be twenty in which case five is OLD. Six months ago I was mentally five! Lately, it felt as if I’d skipped ahead a generation.

  Did I mention I’d never had sex? And yes that probably made me the oldest living virgin! Mi just claimed it made me a late bloomer, and was encouraging me to “get out, live a little”. Was that good advice from an old cat? After all I’d never seen her with anyone? Best not to repeat that too loud.

  If she really wanted to help she’d just find a man and bring him home for me. But instead of helping, she kept doing things to acerbate the problem. For instance, this afternoon I’d come home from the grocery store to find Mi literally pawing through explicit, all naked, male magazines. I’m not even sure I want to know where she got them! I know the few brief glimpses I had were enough to send me practically screaming from the room.

  That had been about two hours ago. No wonder I couldn’t concentrate.

  Reaching over my computer screen I pushed open the window. The morning fog had burned off, leaving a slightly overcast afternoon sliding toward dusk. In the distance I could hear the ocean waves. The surf was pounding against the sand... slow and steady… crashing… again and again. Dropping my face into my hands I groaned softly.

  “Tsk tsk tsk. You know Iatna the White killed his mate when she refused him, then spent the next 500 years morning her death.”

  “Go away; I don’t have time for your Dragon fairy tails. I have to finish this by tonight and drop it off so I can get paid.”

  A loud hiss split the air and thirty five pounds of angry Merecat landed on top of my antique cherry wood desk, sending papers and file folders airborne in every which direction. “It is not a fairy tale! I was there,” Mi informed me coldly. “Pay attention, fledgling. I’m trying to tell you something important!”

  “Mi! Drats, now look what you did!”

  “Leave it.”

  “I can’t. I told you I have to turn this in tonight. If I’m late I won’t get paid.”

  “You don’t need the money. You’ve got more than enough for the next several hundred years. Besides,” Mi said, lifting her right paw and sending her pale pink tongue over the half extended claws, “it’s already finished.”

  How can you be mad at someone that does your work for you? Frowning slightly I turned back to my computer, and clicked the print button. I didn’t need to look to know she had indeed somehow completed the last three pages. Too bad she only did that when she was annoyed at me or I wouldn’t have to work at all.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Stop reading my mind.”

  “Stop shouting your thoughts at me. Is it my fault you lack control?”

  Grunting, I pushed back my chair and went to pick up the last chapter off the printer. After stacking the additional pages with the rest of the work, I scavenged a large paperclip out of the top drawer and slipped the completed manual into a manila folder.

  “I laid out your clothes on the bed,” purred Mi, a look of censure in her sherry colored eyes. “I need you to drop me off across town. And don’t forget our deal.”

  Giving the cat an irritated look, I left my spare bedroom, which also doubled as my home office. I loved the room, the antique desk and chair matched the pretty trundle bed I’d purchased for my Mom to use when she visited. It was very feminine without managing to be frilly. Mostly I used the room to write technical manuals for a local publishing company. The work wasn’t taxing and paid my bills. But best of all it only took a few hours a week. The rest of my time was spent…in other pursuits.

  On the bed Mi had placed my outfit. Fifteen minutes later after a quick shower, I slipped into my sexy matching chocolate brown panties and bra before pulling on a button up brown blouse over a tan colored ankle length skirt. The skirt was tasteful and swung comfortably around my legs. A pair of chocolate brown thigh high boots with two inch heels lay on the floor at the end of the bed. Smiling, I reached for the boots and pulled them on. Their buttery softness feeling wicked against my naked skin. Where had Mi found these, I wondered. They weren’t my style at all! But I loved them. Running my hand over the leather, I smiled again deciding to wear them. What the heck, the skirt covered them to the ankle and no one but Mi and I would know the difference.

  Grabbing my purse and keys I headed for the door. Mi was already there waiting. All of her body except the tip of her tail faded from sight as I reached for the doorknob. My Mother had allowed me to move here as long as I stayed Plain Jane and Mi kept an eye on me, or as Mom put it, kept me company. The two of them had agreed it would be safe enough. But none of us thought it a good idea to advertise the fact that I lived with a creature few humans knew existed outside the Everlasting.

  My apartment was really the first floor of a two story home. My rent paid for half the basement, the entire first floor and my own private entrance. Upstairs lived the owner, Mrs. Delia Long, who I was pretty sure was a wereleopard as well as a retired nurse, and whom I suspected also knew my Mother and was on her payroll in the “Keep Lexi out of trouble” gang. Mrs. Long kept mostly to herself. We got along famously as we rarely ever had contact.

  Most the houses in the Sunset District didn’t have garages so cars were kept on the street or parked around in back of the house if there was room. I would love to say I owned a little red sporty car, but the truth was my car was just like me, or the me I presented to the world. Sensible and brown, but this isn’t to say it wasn’t capable of 140 on a straightaway. I know, because I like to drive it that fast when I feel the need to fly.

  Using my keys, I opened the door on the passenger side and held it back just long enough for Mi to slip in before placing both my purse and my manila folder on the floor.

  A few minutes later we were driving toward the Market District and Mi was playing with the buttons on
the radio, nearly giving me a headache as she trolled through the various stations at sub-eardrum blasting volume before finally settling on someone crooning something from the early ‘60’s, loudly. My fingers tapped along on the wheel as I steered through early evening traffic.

  Most non-humans were just on their way into the office about now. Meanwhile the human tourists were coming back from places like the zoo and the park, headed back across the bridge and over to Oakland or the East Bay where it was safer for them once the sun set. We may have been living side by side for the past fifty years, but unless you liked to walk on the wild side, some things just didn’t mix. Oh, there were still plenty of housing areas within San Francisco where the humans lived; mostly below Monterey Boulevard down to Daly City was still primarily human. And of course humans worked the Business and Market Districts during the day and the non-humans ran their businesses at night.

  For the most part, the system worked. We live in harmony with the rare exception now and again. Most non-humans view the humans as sheep. Not because we don’t believe they aren’t intelligent, it’s more that you either fall into the “I’m older than humanity and therefore must guide them” sect or the “I need food” sect. So of course it makes sense that the majority of non-humans have a care for the humans amongst us. Besides, we’ve been policing ourselves for thousands of years. The only difference these days is that non-humans serve and protect right alongside the human police and military forces. And it doesn’t hurt that the current President is a non-human, as are a surprisingly large number of Senate and House members. Mostly we non-humans like to refer to the plague as the great equalizer.

  “I won’t be home until late,” Mi informed me during a break in the music. “Feel free to bring a man home, use him, and keep him there until you’re certain he can’t walk.”

  Swerving slightly, I glared at the empty space beside me as it hissed back at me. “I haven’t forgotten our deal! I told you I’d go, but I didn’t promise I’d bring anyone home unless I feel comfortable.”

  “Fine. Might I suggest you have two or three drinks first? That should do the trick.”

  “Alcohol? You want me to drink alcohol? Isn’t that supposed to be a baaaaad thing? I mean the way you and Mom go on and on about it, you’d think it was the next plague or something.”

  “Your Mother is entirely too restrictive, and this is exactly why you are in the condition you are currently in. If she’d have let me leave you for that week in the mountains outside of Denver like I’d wanted….”

  Five minutes later I gratefully pulled up in front of a small apothecary store, reached across the car and opened the door. Seconds later the front door opened to the sound of a twinkling bell. I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled the door shut again, turned down the stereo into a less deafening range and pulled out into traffic. It was moments like this that I remembered why I’d been so anxious to move out on my own. Mi and my Mother were normally rational individuals; however the two of them tended to disagree on the general state of my education when it came to certain life experiences. And neither of them was averse to saying so, in detail. Lengthy mind numbing detail.

  Ten minutes later I was pulling into the parking structure of the publishing house down in the Business District. It had taken me most of the drive to finally relax my shoulders and neck. Something about being hissed and lectured at that left me decidedly tense, or maybe it was the music.

  My boss was up on the twentieth floor and I wandered to the elevator, purse and envelope in hand, pushed the button and watched the numbered lights count downward as the elevator drew closer to my level. The doors swung open and three gentlemen stepped out in front of me, either not seeing me or simply not finding me important enough to notice. One inadvertently hit me with his briefcase and I snarled slightly under my breath, angry with myself more than the idiot. This is what I wanted, Plain Jane. But sometimes it really irked me. Biting back my sarcastic remark, I stepped in and pushed the correct button.

  By the time I reached my floor I’d rearranged my features into pleasant bland and turned left toward the receptionist’s desk. Margie, a petite black haired werewolf looked up and smiled a greeting at me. “How are you, Lexi?” she asked in a voice I always equated with jazz and what I imagined smoke filled bar room singers must sound like.

  “Fine, just fine,” I replied, smiling back. I’d been coming here for nearly a year and she had always been kind, although the way she looked at me sometimes made me wonder if my shimmer was starting to slip around the edges.

  “Ms. Sullivan is in; just go on down the hall. She’s expecting you.”

  I turned left and stopped suddenly as a moment of indecision hit me and I turned back to Margie asking, “Are there any clubs near here you would recommend?”

  Flashing a smile, Margie looked around the reception area, currently empty except for the two of us and leaned forward with her hands against the counter. “What are you looking for?”

  I’m not sure what my face looked like, some combination of eagerness and uncertainty because she smiled, you know, that “ah ha” woman smile. “We planned to close early as you are our last appointment tonight, so once you see Ms. Sullivan, I was going to meet up with some friends over at the Salty Dog for a little fun. You’re welcome to join us. Are you game?”

  Was I? Ah, I wasn’t sure, what do you do when your body tells you one thing and your mind another? Dive in with both feet, my mind whispered and I smiled. Sounded good to me, so I nodded.

  Twenty minutes later I was back in the elevator, this time with Margie, who was busy changing clothes, werewolves having no issues with public nudity. I tried not to stare as her button up blouse was exchanged for something that left the lacy parts of her bra exposed, and she stepped out of her skirt to reveal a skin tight micro mini made out of some type of stretchy material. Out of her bag came a pair of four inch spike heels to replace the tasteful flats she’d been wearing in the office. We were nearly to the seventh floor when she turned to me expectantly and I had a sudden feeling I was most inappropriately dressed for our upcoming adventure. Mi should have warned me!

  “Was that what you were planning to wear?” Margie asked with a smile.

  I don’t believe I’ve ever felt shy in my life, but at that moment I was damn close. “Not going to work?” I asked tongue in cheek. Her sharp laugh had me smiling back at her. “Would you believe me if I told you I’d never seen the inside of a club before in my life?” I asked nervously. Worried she would think I was a total loser.

  “Oh goodie,” she didn’t exactly squeal, but she did laugh, clap her hands and a wicked look crossed her delicate features. “This is going to be such fun!”

  “Are these appropriate?” I asked, lifting my skirt to mid thigh to expose my sexy boots.

  “Wow,” she replied her eyebrows wiggling up and down. “Not bad. How much are you in love with this skirt?”

  “Not that much.”

  Nodding, she turned to the display panel as we reached the first floor and pressed the twentieth floor button and back up the building we went. At her desk, she used her scissors and whacked off about ninety five percent of my skirt. Part of the bottom became a micro wrap top which tied between my breasts, replacing my now unnecessary bra. My button up shirt I got to keep, but she tied it tightly below the other knot leaving a vast expanse of stomach uncovered. Lucky for me I worked out in my basement. Although I suppose I could have improved my abs with shimmer, I didn’t really need to. Stepping back she gave a slow nod. “Take out the rubber band in your hair and flip your head over” she advised. When I had done as she asked she fluffed it around my face, then pulled out some face goop, proceeded to doll me up, then proclaimed us all set.

  Back into the elevator we went and down to the first floor. We made a quick stop at the ATM just down the block where I deposited my check and pulled out cash, and then we set out for the Salty Dog. I must admit, I was feeling quite excited.

  Chapter 3

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nbsp; The fast throbbing beat slipped into my blood, quickening my pulse a block before we turned a corner and could actually hear the music flowing out the front door and onto the sidewalk in front of what I hoped would be the Salty Dog. I could feel my pulse rate speed up and beside me I felt, rather than heard, Margie’s near whine of excitement.

  People lined the sidewalk, held back from entering by a neon green velvet rope stretched across the sidewalk barring the door’s entrance. Behind the rope stood a huge muscular man with a shaved head and bare chest. He was in what I called the G-Man pose, overly muscular legs spread slightly, one wrist held loosely in the other hand. I suppose when your arms were big as tree trunks crossing them wasn’t an option. My inner me sized him up and I actually licked my lips as I watched him scan the crowd, his eyes constantly moving as the folks waiting to get in stood semi-patiently under his cool stare.

  Thinking we’d need to stand in line too, I was surprised when Margie marched us right up to the rope, earning us some rude remarks along the way. “Evening Margie,” the giant of a man replied politely, “who’s your friend?” His eyes zeroed in on me and his nostrils flared. A frown lowered his bushy eyebrows into a solid line and he suddenly didn’t look as ‘cool’ as he had a moment ago. My insides went from Mmmmm to Yiiiieeee and down deep inside I felt golden hackles stand up at attention. Margie jerked as if hit, as did those closest in line to us. All chatter at the front went quiet for a heartbeat as I looked back at Mr. I’m-bigger-than-you-little-girlie, looking back at me.

  “Calm down,” Margie hissed, her hand wrapping around my upper arm and giving it a painful squeeze.

  Giving myself a mental shake, I forced a smile and tried to look harmless. Hmm … I was fairly harmless, normally. In fact I wasn’t sure what had just happened.