Page 30 of Tempt the Dragon
“You slept later. As I recall you were never a morning person, but the first two mornings you were here I woke alone. Last night was a late night for you.” More sarcasm on his part.The familiar behavior whenever he was pissed about something she did was half parts comforting and irritating. She didn’t want to remember anything else about their past together. Not when they’d been doing so well these last couple of days, staying within the parameters of business only.
“Reese and I’ve been playing pool.” The excuse sounded flimsy and redundant since she’d just had a similarexchange with Theo. “I did sleep later and when I woke you were gone, so I couldn’t tell you.”
“You could’ve stopped playing your little game and came to the room to tell me last night, before either of us were asleep. I mean, that’s what I would’ve done since, you know, we are trying to catch a target.”
Just like they used to, and he was right, just as he often was when they were workingtogether. Didn’t mean she had to like it.
“Well, I didn’t. But now you know, so we can move forward. How long will it take Magnum to get other agents to her house?”
“They’re probably already en route.” He made a right turn, his tone clipped, while he kept his gaze averted.
“Will they be Drakon too?” After being at the Office for three days now, she was seeing more of the closenessbetween Reese, Aiken and the others. They had meals together. At least Bleu prepared meals at set times, though which ones showed up to eat in the main dining room was up to chance. Sometimes Shola and Theo took meals in their room. Steele and Ravyn lived at a place called Safeside that Ravyn had created for the outcasts of Burgess, and Steele helped her with it now that they were a mated couple.Aiken had been taking his meals in his room, an act that seemed to surprise Reese and Magnum, since—as they told her—Aiken normally spent his nights with random women.
That’s really why she’d begun playing pool with Reese. If Aiken was going to be creeping around with other women while she was here, she didn’t want to see it. Rather, she couldn’t see it, or those other women might succumbto all the working out she’d been doing.
“No. Magnum supervises the personal security division of the company. So he mainly deals with the human employees. Steele manages the home and business security clients and the rest of us fill in as needed. Since Steele has been splitting his time between the Office and monitoring the aboveground portion of Safeside, Reese and I’ve been pitching into help with the business a little more.”
“So there are humans at the company too. Is that just to keep the façade going?”
“The façade is important. I know you think it’s best for everyone to know we’re all walking the streets with them, but keeping humans safe is a lot easier when you don’t have to fight off their ignorance.”
She continued staring out the window as he drove. “Youknow I understand the dangers of ignorance, Aiken.”
She hated that he was aware of that and so much more about her, especially since now, it gave him the advantage to think he knew what was best for her. But Aiken really didn’t know. How could he? His parents hadn’t lied to him, or purposely kept him in the dark about who and what he was. And they certainly hadn’t sent him to the Human Realm,to live with strangers that may have done all sorts of cruel things to her had Rosilda not taken her in and decided to keep her.
“I’m sure your parents had a reason for doing what they did. They were eventually killed by demonics, so they were obviously trying to protect you.”
“There’s no excuse. How do you have a child and then keep everything that makes them who they are a secret fromthem? Then you send that child away before you’re mysteriously killed? It makes no sense. And if they’d just told me, taught me how to be this...to live with this thing inside me, then maybe none of this other crap would’ve happened.” The added sting was that there were no Drakon friends of her parents, or just any concerned Drakon at all, who could’ve taken her in, so she wouldn’t have had to comelive with the humans. It had been as if none of the Drakon wanted her and that was something that no amount of time had healed for her.
He was quiet for a few seconds and she knew he probably presumed the “other crap” was what happened between them. It wasn’t a wrong assumption. And it wasn’t the only bad thing that had happened to her either, but Aiken didn’t need to know all that. He didn’tneed to know anything else about her.
“I don’t care. It’s in the past and I can’t change it. The present and the future are all I can concern myself with.” She sighed. “Speaking of which, I’m presently starving. Sleeping in meant I missed my opportunity to join Bleu in the kitchen while he prepared breakfast.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing? Eating in the kitchen like you have to hideout?” Of course, the scenario sounded pathetic and ridiculous coming from him in that tone, but spending time with Bleu had been sort of cathartic for her. He never said a word when she accepted the daily morning call from Rosilda while she was sitting at the massive marble island watching him work.
“I’ve been making the best of an unplanned situation. What would you suggest I do?” His moodwas starting to piss her off.
“We could have breakfast together. Either in the dining room, the kitchen or my suite. You don’t have to act like you can’t be in the same room with me just because you don’t want to rekindle what we once had.”
Yes. She absolutely did need to do exactly that. Unfortunately, right now she was thinking that fainting from starvation while they were meeting withthe Chief of all vampires might not work too well to gather the information they needed. “If you hurry up and find someplace to stop we can share a meal right now.”
Her tone was snippy, laced with the growing irritation she felt. It was no longer comfortable being around Aiken. No longer something she thought she could handle and not just because she still wanted to have sex with him. Thatwas the easy part. What bothered her now was the feeling that she no longer occupied her body alone had resurfaced and she either had to acquiesce or find some semblance of relief until this job was over.
Ten minutes later Aiken parked the truck and she jumped out, slamming the door as she walked quickly across the parking lot to the doors of what was aptly titled “The Diner.”
They wereseated immediately. A woman with a jovial smile and tight shiny black curls gave them menus and introduced Trudy as their server. Trudy had been walking by their table holding a tray balanced on one hand above her shoulder, two bottles of syrup in the other.
“Order whatever you want.” He opened his menu and held it so that his face was no longer visible. She resisted the urge to smack it downand call him a juvenile ass because doing so would sort of make her the same.
Opening her menu, she absolutely planned to order any and everything she wanted for breakfast and Mr. Aiken the Perfect Noble Drakon, could pay for it.
Trudy arrived just as she decided on the last item she wanted and before the younger woman with bright pink cornrows could get her pen and pad ready, Mel beganrattling off all that she wanted.
When she was done, Aiken simply added, “I’ll have a grilled cheese and bottled water.”
If Trudy thought Mel was a greedy freeloader, she didn’t show it. While the smile she offered Aiken was brilliant, she didn’t really look at Mel again before walking away.
“Hungry?” he asked when they were once again alone.
