Page 20 of Edge of Darkness

“Ah, I see! In that case, he probably will enjoy this. Maybe tell him to dress very casually too. Jeans and a T-shirt are fine.”

“I will certainly do that. If you need anything, anything at all, please feel free to contact me. This is my personal cell I called on, so you will get me if you call.”

“Thank you, again, and I appreciate that.” Although Kit couldn’t see a reason why he’d need to call the dragon king.

God Almighty, he was talking to a friggingdragonking.

“Alright then, I’ll text you the picture as soon as Connie sends it to me. Expect Beckett this afternoon. Have a good day, Kit. It was nice talking to you,” Hudson said.

“Same to you. And thanks again,” Kit said and disconnected the call.

He placed his hand on his chest in an effort to calm his heart. He had just spoken to an honest-to-goodness dragon. A dragon! And not just any dragon, either. Oh no. A dragonking. A dragon king who seriously had the sexiest voice in creation. Was that a thing? Could their voice mesmerize humans?

Actually, that was kinda scary.

Questions. Sooooo many questions. Which, unfortunately, he’d probably never get to ask. Would it be rude to ask the dragon coming to babysit him things? Like, all the things? Yeah, it probably would be.

Holy shit, a dragon.

Kit was pretty sure that he’d read every book, ever, about dragons. And movies. Couldn’t forget the movies. He hadn’t really cared about the human actors; all he’d wanted to see were the big ass dragons.

The sudden loud knock on his office door jerked Kit out of his musings. One of his employees stood there grinning.

“Hey, it’s coming up on lunchtime. We’re going to place an order from that sandwich shop down the street. Do you want anything?”

“Yeah. I do. Wow, I hadn’t realized it was lunch already. Thanks.”

Kit gave her his order. As he watched her leave, a thought hit him. Shit, how was he going to explain Beckett to the staff? They didn’t know about Nox and the attack. Shit. Shit. Shit. And Beckett was going to be there that afternoon.

The only thing Kit could come up with was that he hired a new employee. The folks who worked there wouldn’t believe Beckett was anything but that.

Kit couldn’t even say Beckett was a boyfriend because everybody at the bookstore knew Kit had recently been in a relationship that had ended abruptly and rather nastily.

Of course, Kit hadn’t explained to his employees why his ex-boyfriend was now an ex. All he’d said was that Don had done something horrible, and Kit had dumped him.

Which, basically, was true. Thanks to that, Kit had decided he was going to be terminally single.

“Right. But are they going to believe I suddenly hired a new employee with no warning?” Kit rubbed his forehead as he stared into space.

Finding out about paranormals was a huge pain in his ass. How did people deal with this stuff? Just lie all the time? He was a horrible liar. Ask anyone who knew him.

“There’s no way around it. I’m going to have to act like he’s an employee. That’s the only thing that would make sense.” Kit sincerely hoped Beckett was willing to play along.

After she placed the order, she stopped back by to tell Kit what he owed and get the money. While Kit waited on his food, he tried to get as much painted as he could. A picture of Beckett also came in. No doubt about it, the guy was good-looking, and in the picture at least, he looked friendly.

Shrugging, Kit slid his phone back into his pocket. Frankly, after the disastrous ending of his last relationship, he was kind of off men at the moment.

About twenty minutes later, he scrubbed the paint off his hands so he could eat. Sitting at his desk, he dug in. He was so hungry he inhaled his sandwich. He’d really worked up an appetite painting, which was nice since that too had been off lately.

Kit had just eaten the last chip when another one of his employees popped her head into his office to tell him he had a visitor. Figuring it was Beckett, he cleaned up the remains of his lunch, tossed his trash, and made a quick trip to the employees’ bathroom to wash his hands.

Butterflies took flight in his stomach as he made his way up front. He was about to meet a real live dragon. That was excitingly terrifying.

He spotted Beckett almost immediately, and he had to say, the picture really didn’t do the guy justice. He was simply gorgeous. As luck would have it, he was standing in a beam of sunlight that made his reddish-gold hair blaze.

“Hey!” Kit came to a stop in front of Beckett and held out his hand. “I’m Kit Meadows.”

Beckett shook Kit’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Kit. I’m Beckett Newhouse. I believe you’re expecting me?”

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