The Dragon's Secret Son Read online

  He seized her wrists and yanked her arms away from where they were keeping distance between them. He moved in to kiss her. Bernie reacted on sheer instinct. Before she even realized what she was doing, she let out a high-pitched scream right into Bill’s face.

  The dragon jumped and drew back. Bernie extradited herself from him and stumbled back. Everybody stared at the two of them. Embarrassment and, for some reason, shame welled up in her. The tears started to pour before she even realized her eyes were burning. Bill backed away from her, jaw hanging slack and eyes wide. Several people put themselves between the two of them.

  A hand touched her shoulder and she jerked before she saw it was Tyler. Then she leaned into his arms as he hurried her away.

  “Bernice!” Bill called over the heads of the crowd.

  Bernie did not respond.

  ***

  Her tears had stilled by the time they got back to the Freeman mansion. Bernie wasn’t entirely certain what to do as Tyler paid the babysitter. Xavier was sleeping, and as much as Bernie wanted to hold him, she wasn’t about to wake him. She quickly changed, leaving the dress on the back of a chair. She should never have agreed to dance with Bill. She had thought he’d be reasonable, she thought she’d be firm. Instead, that old fear of explosive tempers had come back.

  “Thank you,” she said to Tyler when she found him in the kitchen. “I guess I was a real damsel in distress tonight.”

  Tyler shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Bill’s a jerk.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what it is about me that attracts the possessive type. I’d much rather have a guy who lets me do my thing but steps in to save me when I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Like you.”

  Crap. She shouldn’t have said that.

  But Tyler only gave her a small, pained smile. “We were really hot together, weren’t we? And I don’t just mean that we were beautiful. The intensity that was between us… it was hard to handle at times.”

  An echo of that heat pooled in her core just thinking about it. She held her breath for a moment as it washed over her. Memories flooded her mind. In the forest, in the jeep, leaning over the desk in the camper. At times they’d be like animals, going at it for hours and hours in a hotel room. Other times, they ripped off their clothes and then just laid together, naked skin to naked skin, talking softly about unimportant things like books and movies for a couple hours before deciding that they didn’t really feel like sex at that moment.

  Both were hard to handle. The explosive sex and the calm, intimate moments. It was unlike anything Bernie had ever experienced before.

  She sighed and shook her head. “I’m doing a terrible job trying to think of you as just a friend. Maybe it’s impossible.”

  Tyler took her hand and it was like electricity jumped between them. Bernie gasped. How had she forgotten that? Before it was like a shock every time he touched her. Maybe having a baby didn’t lessen her desire after all. If it had, things were coming back in a breathless gasp of passion.

  “What are we going to do about it?” His voice was husky.

  “Well… after that trying encounter with Bill…” She wished she had kept on the dress now, rather than changing into these old sweats. “It would be very nice to reclaim my femininity.”

  “I’ll help you.” Tyler’s grin could have broken his face. “It’s what friends would do.”

  He didn’t waste any more time. His mouth was on hers in an instant. The heat already inside flared up as his hands cupped her buttocks and pulled her tight against him. She had missed the feel of his hard muscles squashing her breasts, his strong fingers probing her backside, his tongue thrusting into her mouth. Her skin tingled all over as she threw her arms around his neck.

  Tyler leaned her into the counter, his hips rolling in time with hers. Fire roared through her veins, as though it was her and not him who was the dragon. As she hurriedly undid the buttons on his dress shirt, her fingers grazed his smooth skin. He was so hot and when he kissed her again she tasted smoke on his tongue. It was always a sign of how excited he was. Almost more of an indicator than the hard bulge in his pants.

  “You must have been thinking dirty thoughts all night to be like that already.” She massaged him through his clothes, her breath hitching. She’d forgotten how big he was. “Dirty, dirty thoughts.”

  “Only about you.”

  “As a friend, of course.”

  Tyler chuckled as he pulled her shirt over her head. Her breasts were a little swollen but not so much. It meant that she didn’t have as much milk for Xavier as she used to, but she wasn’t going to think about that right now. Sexier thoughts were required. Like how excellently Tyler’s chest was carved. She ran her hands down it, moaning in her throat.

  “Wow. You are magnificent. Are you sure you’re not a god?” She arched a brow at him. “All this muscle and sinew.”

  “I am a god.” Tyler stripped her pants off before lifting her out of them. “I’m the god of making you feel good. A god dedicated to you and your body. You’re the only one who will ever see my godhood and—”

  “And your ‘godhood’ is stabbing me in the stomach.” Bernie giggled at her own joke. She was breathless, eager, and her face was overly warm but she didn’t care. “I will have to make a sacrifice to you on your altar. God of making me feel good, I ask for your blessings.”

  Tyler moaned. He delved into her neck, making shivers run all over her body. He moaned into her again, rubbing himself between their bodies. He lifted one of her legs over his hip and found her with his fingers. She gasped as something coiled tight inside of her. She pushed herself to her toes, trusting Tyler to balance her, giving him better access to her.

  Her fingers dug into his shoulders, and he had her body trembling within a few moments. Tyler lifted her onto the counter so she was balanced there as her toes curled. With one deep, hard kiss on her mouth, he entered. Only a couple of inches at first. Then a few more. It was an agonizingly slow process but it allowed her to be fully lubricated by the time he was fully seated in her.

  Perhaps it was a year of desire crashing down on her. Perhaps it was the leftover pregnancy hormones. But while there was that tightness, that heat inside of her, she didn’t experience the same explosive pleasure that she had before she had given birth. She held Tyler, watching as his face turned red as he controlled himself. She cried out with his thrusts but she saw in his eyes frustration.

  He pulled back, using his thumb to build her higher. That helped and she leaned back on her elbows. Her eyes shut as everything tightened to a point of pain. When it broke, the orgasm washed over her like ripples in a bathtub. Not the ocean she was used to.

  Tyler finished moments later. He dropped over her, kissing her bare skin, before letting out a moan. “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tyler

  “Sorry?”

  Tyler pressed his face into Bernie’s skin, ashamed to look at her. He’d never… failed that way before. Sure, she had orgasmed, but it was so tame. He’d never been unable to control himself long enough to give his partner something explosive. Not since he was an inexperienced young pup, at least. Now, when it mattered most…

  Bernie ran her fingers through his hair. “Tyler, that was really nice.”

  “Only nice.”

  With a sigh, she pulled his head back. “Nice. Gentle for a first time back in the saddle. I’m not sure I could have handled anything more intense right now. I had a baby. Things are all healed up down there, but it’s not… quite all the way back to normal. Not to mention my hormones are all messed up. A lot of women don’t even want to have sex at this point. So, don’t blame yourself for something that my body did. And don’t act as though that wasn’t good enough.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I know you have your ego and all that, but I happened to have like it.”

  The knot in his chest eased. “I guess I might have been putting too much pressure on myself.”

  “You were exactly.” Be
rnie grinned. “You’ve heard of multiple orgasms, right?”

  With a grin, he seized her in his arms like he was carrying a bride and raced to his room. There, they had sex for another couple hours before both of them collapsed, exhausted. Each time was better than the last, although they still didn’t reach the explosive levels that had conceived Xavier.

  Bernie rested her head on his arm and traced the tattoos over his chest. “Dragons heal really fast, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, was getting these more or less painful than if you had been human?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been human.”

  Bernie laughed. It made his chest warm, and not because of the endorphins that were no doubt buzzing around his brain. The tension of these past couple weeks had weighed heavy on both of them. It wasn’t until now that he realized just how heavy they were, and he was grateful to finally be free of it. He yawned as he rubbed his nose into her cheek.

  “They have to take twice as long putting a tattoo on a dragon than a human. And yeah, it hurts. But I like tattoos. I like the way they look on my skin.”

  She hummed. “I like them, too. Not on me, I’m not a fan of doing anything permanent to my body, but on other people. I love this one. It’s new.”

  Her fingers brushed against a small blue dragon near his heart. Tyler clasped her hand in his. “That was one that a bunch of the guys in my club got together. I would have picked something less on-the-nose, but it was the general consensus so I got it.”

  “Your biking club. You’ll have to take me to your clubhouse and introduce me to your friends—as a friend, of course.”

  “As a friend,” he repeated. He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “Yeah, I’ll do that. You know, for a dragon without a clan, life can be… lonely. That’s why I joined in the first place. Shane and my mom are great, don’t get me wrong, but I needed friends. Friends like me. And sure, there are jerks like Bill but it’s… It’s good.”

  Bernie made a humming noise in her throat. “I guess you could say that the dig is a transient club. We’ve got the ones who always return, but we get to know new people. And we all have something in common. I sometimes think of them as a replacement family, though. Is that weird?”

  “I don’t know…” Tyler frowned. “I don’t really know anything about your family. Other than what I learned about your dad when he… We never really talked family.”

  She flinched and he wished he hadn’t said anything. Her hand flattened on his chest. Tyler held his breath, thinking that she was going to leave. But she let out a sigh, relaxing into him again and shook her head.

  “We didn’t ever talk about it.”

  “Do you want to talk now?”

  Bernie looked up at him. Her nose wrinkled in that way it did when she thought really hard. Her lips pursed and for a moment he was tempted to kiss her and stop this conversation altogether. She rolled over and propped herself up with a pillow under her chest. She rested her chin in her hands and nodded. There was a steely glint in her eyes.

  “We’re connected and, eventually, you’ll probably meet my family. So better tell you about them. My dad was… awful growing up. He had a terrible temper. Things were better after he left, but he always came back to wreck things again. My mom… my mom could never say goodbye to him. She’d give him anything he wanted to beg him to stay with her. It was pathetic. Now, I rarely have anything to do with her or my siblings. I guess we’re all too interested in our own problems. When we do get together, there’s just all this negativity. They all think I’m stupid for keeping Xavier.”

  Tyler had to fight the urge to bare his teeth. “Which is why you were having such a hard time with deciding where to work.”

  Bernie nodded. “They made it clear that they wouldn’t help me. Not in so many words, but it was obvious.”

  “And your dad?”

  “I’ve tried to cut him from my life, but he always muscles back in. I hate him. The only time he ever shows up is when he needs something. Like to sell off my body so that he can be out of debt.”

  His fires roared. His hands clenched. Smoke curled from his nostrils. When Bernie rose a brow at him, he turned his face away and swallowed it down.

  “Sorry,” he grunted at her. “I didn’t mean to get angry. It’s just… I can’t understand how anybody could be so… so… parasitic and selfish and psychopathic. I promise you, I will never act that way. Xavier can always count on me. And so can you. Everything you need. I will be there to help you. And I know this job thing is freaking you out, but—”

  “Wait.” Bernie frowned. “How do you know about that? I never told you.”

  “Oh… well, I mean, my brother is your boss.” Tyler shrugged apologetically. He had meant to give her time to tell him herself. Or, if she decided never to tell him, to just silently offer his support until she knew what she was doing. “Kayla’s been worried that you aren’t going to come back to the dig because of financial issues and stuff. So… yeah. It was my understanding that you were having difficulties.”

  Bernie shook her head, though she smiled. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I don’t want you to feel obligated to support me at all.”

  “Xavier is my son. I’m obligated to support him. And part of that is going to support you, Bernie. You’re his mom. I don’t want you to be stressed out about how you’re going to care for him. I’m here, I’ll help out in any way I can.”

  She turned away in the way that he knew meant she was hiding her tears. He stroked her hair. It hurt to see her cry but he understood that it wasn’t always a bad thing. Like right now. At least, he hoped that right now was one of those times. After a long moment, he kissed her bare shoulder and began talking again.

  “Do you want to go back to the dig?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  Bernie sniffed. “I won’t be able to do everything when I have a baby to look after. I’ll be stuck with just paperwork. And I can’t afford to do the dig and have someone watch him… and with another job, I’d be able to start putting money away for his college fund and… and it’s money.”

  “Would it help if there was someone who could watch Xavier during the day while you worked? Someone you didn’t have to pay?”

  Bernie peeked at him, eyes bright.

  Tyler grinned at her. “We could work that for our custody arrangement. I have him during the days while you work, you have him on the weekends. We alternate who he stays with at night, or we get a duplex or something, so that we’re not too far away from him, even when we don’t have him.”

  “You’d… you’d do that?”

  “Of course.”

  Bernie grinned. She threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly. As she climbed over him, pressing him into the mattress, he couldn’t help but think–there was a better solution to this problem. Unfortunately, he couldn’t assume that sex meant that they were going to get back together. And if they did, they had no idea if they would be any good together.

  No. Just friends. It was for the best. Starting in the morning.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bernie

  “Did you have fun last night?”

  Bernie jumped at the sound of Polly’s voice. She was in the living room, trying to get Xavier to nurse with little effect. He just wanted the bottle these days. It was a bit frustrating, but as long as she could still pump, he’d get the nutrients that breastfeeding offered.

  She quickly covered up as Polly came into the room. Her cheeks heated. “Fun?”

  “At the fundraiser. I wasn’t able to go, family emergency. I hope Gilbert wasn’t too disappointed.”

  “Uh…” Xavier bit her, causing her to yelp. Even if he didn’t have teeth yet, that hurt! She pulled him away and readjusted her clothing. Xavier immediately started to fuss, kicking his legs, until Bernie grabbed the bottle she’d set nearby to cool. She shook her head as he settled down and began to drink. “What did you ask?”
>
  Polly sat down near her. “If Gilbert missed me.”

  “We left pretty soon after arriving.” Bernie almost told her what had happened but didn’t. Instead, she grinned at Polly. “So… you and Gilbert, huh? When’s the wedding?”

  Polly ducked her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “As soon as we arrived he asked about you, and the first thing you did was ask about him. Come on, Polly. It’s obvious that you two are swooning over each other.”

  “Nobody’s swooning!” Polly’s voice had risen to a squeal. “He and I are friends. And the first thing I did was ask if you had fun, so… besides, with you and Tyler making pining eyes at each other constantly and yet denying yourselves anything—”

  Bernie’s face turned beet red and she ducked her head.

  Polly gasped. “No!”

  “No what?”

  “No!” Another squeal, this time excited. “You two slept together last night, didn’t you?”

  Bernie found herself grinning despite herself. “Like pots and pans.”

  “What—never mind. Oooh!” Polly clapped her hands. “So, are you two back together? Will there be wedding bells soon? No, you’re going to want to take it slow. Be cautious. Make sure that you’ll work long-term before getting into the really complicated stuff. Right?”

  Bernie chewed on her lip at that.

  “Oh… You’re not getting back together.”

  “I don’t know what we’re doing. It’s complicated. I’ve been sitting around pining for who knows how long because he left me. But I’m just as much to blame as he is for the silence. More than him, really. He gave me his number and I never phoned him. I never told him he was a father until he asked me. Really, he’s been far better to me than I deserve…” Bernie sighed unhappily. Her brow was knit and she shook her head, trying to get her thoughts to tumble into some semblance of order. “I guess I—”

  “Need to talk to him. Go to him and talk to him. Take the baby, too. He adores little Xavier. Just talk to him. Lay it out all on the line. He’s in the same boat as you, you know.”