Beauty and the Billionaire Dragon Shifter: BBW Paranormal Romance (Gray's Hollow Dragon Shifters Book 2) Read online

  Beauty and the Billionaire Dragon Shifter

  By Zoe Chant

  Copyright Zoe Chant 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  Becca parked her car in the little grassy lot at the top of the winding drive. She gave herself one last look in the mirror.

  Her makeup looked all right, her blue eyes nicely accentuated without being inappropriate for an afternoon meeting. Her unruly blonde curls were still mostly caught in their tidy knot, only a few wisps escaping.

  She told herself it looked artful and not untidy. Never mind that she had come to Gray’s Hollow to teach science and not anything remotely artistic. She was wearing a bright print dress that hugged her generous curves in a mostly flattering way. She couldn’t bear to wear much more in the August heat, although it was a little cooler up on the mountain than it had been in the valley below.

  She wasn’t going to magically lose weight and have straight, shiny hair in the next five minutes, so she might as well get on with the next hurdle her new job had presented her. She had come up the mountain to have tea with the mayor’s wife.

  Becca turned her attention to the mayor’s house as she got out of her car, and she was unwillingly distracted by it. It was huge, a mansion that was nearly a castle, with a tower on the front corner. It also had a wide wraparound porch that she thought must be a late addition, as it didn’t exactly match the stone-pile aesthetic of the rest of the house.

  As she walked up she saw the word Dragomir carved above the front doors. Maybe that was the name of the family who first built the place. The mayor, she remembered, was named Gray, just like the town.

  Everyone in town seemed to find that more amusing than a coincidence warranted, but Becca wasn’t going to try to explain basic statistical probability on her first day in a small town. At least not until after she’d gotten through tea with the mayor’s wife. It seemed to be some sort of secret second job interview, even though she’d already signed her contract.

  Becca knocked at the huge door, and it swung open almost immediately to reveal a dark-haired woman. She was a little taller but built on the same curvy model as Becca herself. She wore dark jeans and a tunic shirt with gold threads glinting out of the brightly colored pattern. Her wrists bore two heavy gold bracelets, and dangling earrings glittered against her hair.

  “Hi,” she said brightly. “You must be Ms. Stafford? I’m Cara Gray. Come on in.”

  “Hello,” Becca said.

  She hastily adjusted her mental image of the mayor’s wife. She had been expecting a tweed skirt suit, pearls, and a woman old enough to be her mother.

  As she followed Cara into the coolness of the cavernous foyer, with paintings and little art objects all around, she added, “Please, call me Becca.”

  Cara shot her a bright smile over her shoulder. “And I’m Cara. Let’s just go into the kitchen, shall we? I know it’s tea with the mayor’s wife, but we don’t need to be too formal about this, do we? I just wanted a chance to chat with you before you make up your mind about Gray’s Hollow.”

  Becca had only moved into her new apartment—a flat over a flower shop in the handful of blocks that comprised downtown Gray’s Hollow—the day before. She hadn’t had a chance to make up her mind about anything other than the diner on the corner, which served surprisingly good coffee, and her landlady.

  Mrs. McCullough, who owned the flower shop, had given her an oddly assessing look when Becca picked up her keys and then said, “Well, you might just do.”

  “It seems like a nice town,” Becca offered as Cara led her into an enormous kitchen.

  At one end of a long work table, two chairs were pulled up near a pitcher of iced tea, and another of lemonade. There were glasses set out and a tray heaped with a variety of cookies and little sweets. Cara took the chair closer to the pitchers and waved Becca into the seat just around the table’s corner.

  “I’m pretty new to Gray’s Hollow myself,” Cara said. “It’s lovely, but it’s a small town, and it has a few quirks. What would you like to drink? I can do hot tea or coffee if you’d like, but…”

  “Iced tea is fine,” Becca assured her.

  Cara poured her a glass and pushed over a plate of lemon slices and a sugar bowl without being asked. Becca took another look at Cara and figured that here, at least, was a woman who wouldn’t judge her for a spoonful of sugar in her tea.

  Cara poured herself lemonade and picked up a cookie, taking a decisive and reassuring bite before she spoke.

  “It’s the quirks I wanted to talk to you about. We don’t get a lot of newcomers in town, and it can be a bit… surprising. And what with you teaching science, especially, I want you to be prepared for the way things work around here and the things the kids might say.”

  “Oh,” Becca said. Here it came, the sugar-sweet advice not to rock the boat by teaching this or that topic. An orientation to the way things worked in this little town.

  “You see,” Cara said, taking another sip of lemonade. “Dragons are real, and we have a couple of them living in Gray’s Hollow.”

  Becca stared for a moment.

  Then she looked around for a camera, for any kind of explanation for this otherwise sane-seeming woman saying…

  Cara laughed, loud and hard and wildly unladylike. “I know! I know. But trust me, this is better than the way I found out. Come on outside—I know you’re thinking about science. You’re not going to believe it until you see it, right? So come on, time to meet the mayor.”

  “The… mayor,” Becca said.

  She followed Cara out the back door from the kitchen to a wide grassy lawn that stretched up the slope before the trees started again. Cara waved to no one, to nothing.

  Becca thought, Wow, she’s really—

  And then Becca saw the shape flying in over the trees. It was big. Wings, tail, long neck. She’d seen dinosaur skeletons in museums that looked a little like this, but…

  But this was a dragon. It landed lightly on the grass and stood there while she stared. It was alive in front of her, and there was nothing to call it but a dragon. It was gray and scaly and enormous, and wearing a few bits of dragon-sized gold jewelry.

  “Becca,” Cara said. “Meet my husband, Mayor Gus Gray. He’s usually human-shaped, but all the kids you’re going to be teaching have also met him this way—as well as his brother, Ilie.”

  “H-hello,” Becca said, raising one hand in an awkward wave.

  The dragon waved a foreleg but came no closer.

  “He’d shift and say hello like a regular person,” Cara said briskly. “But they’re always naked when they shift back, so they don’t usually change in front of strangers. Thanks, Gus, I think that’s enough!”

  Gus—the mayor—the dragon—spread his wings and bounded away into the air.

  “And you said there’s another one?” Becca asked.

  She looked in the direction Gus had disappeared, already wishing she hadn’t just stood there frozen. She’d seen a real dragon and she hadn’t tried to touch it. She hadn’t even taken a proper look to see how everything worked.

  “Gus’s brother Ilie, yes,” Cara said.

  “Ilie is usually the dragon the kids will be talking about if they’re talking about a dragon. Gus spends most of his time in his human shape, but Ilie is always a dragon. We had our wedding in the park by the river last month so Ilie could attend too, and all the kids had a blast seeing him right in town. You’ll be hearing about it, I’m sure.”

&nbs
p; “Of course,” Becca said. What else could she say? She’d just seen it with her own eyes. “Well. Thanks for warning me.”

  Cara smiled. “Come inside and have some more cookies, Becca. You look a little pale.”

  As they went back into the house, Becca said, “Wait, how did you find out about dragons?”

  Cara just laughed.

  ***

  Cara had given Becca an envelope from the middle school’s previous science teacher, Mrs. Schenk, who had retired down to Florida with her husband and left the job open for Becca. It contained a list of all the most frequently asked questions about dragons along with Mrs. Schenk’s usual answers to them. Becca was heartened to see that while most of them included we don’t know why they also tended toward maybe you’ll be the person who figures it out instead of just because of magic.

  “Never mind the twelve-year-olds,” Becca said to herself, looking around her little apartment, still mostly full of cardboard boxes. “Maybe you’ll be the one to figure it out, Rebecca Stafford.”

  It was worth a try. She changed into jeans and hiking boots, gathered up her phone and camera, and prepared to go looking for a dragon.

  Mrs. McCullough was outside when she got downstairs, and she gave Becca another thoughtful look. “Had your tea with Mrs. Gray, did you?”

  Becca nodded. “So, dragons.”

  “Dragons,” Mrs. McCullough agreed. “Maybe you will do, then. Go on, dear, have a nice walk.”

  “Thanks,” Becca said.

  “The camera had better be for wildflowers, mind,” Mrs. McCullough called after her. “If you could take pictures of them, they wouldn’t be much of a secret.”

  ***

  Ilie’s mother had told him, not long after he took to his dragon shape for good, that someday he would meet someone who made him want to be human-shaped. He’d believed her, in an abstract way.

  He couldn’t picture it, but he knew that was how life worked. Somewhere ahead of him in adulthood was a mate. More than likely his mate would be human, so he would want to wear his human shape with her.

  He just hadn’t thought it would be quite so sudden.

  Ilie knew that there was a new person in town—not just someone passing through, but staying. Gus and Cara had told him all about hiring the new teacher, and all the questions the school board had devised to make sure that she was both open-minded and trustworthy.

  Cara had come up with the plan to introduce Ms. Stafford to Gus. That way she would know for sure about dragons and wouldn’t be taken by surprise in the way that Ilie had taken Cara by surprise.

  Still, when Ilie saw and heard Ms. Stafford walking through the woods, looking around for something, he remembered that day he met Cara, not far from this spot. Cara had called his name, and told him Gus wanted them to meet. Ilie had believed her and shown himself and made Gus angrier than Ilie had ever seen him, because Cara was Gus’s mate.

  This time Ilie had every intention of keeping himself hidden. His eyesight was keen enough to track Mouse’s movements from a mile up. It was no trouble to watch Ms. Stafford from a few hundred yards away, upslope and upwind, concealed under the trees.

  She just happened to look exactly in his direction. Ilie barely noticed her frown of concentration before he saw the blue of her eyes. They were the exact color of a clear, sunlit sky. He felt as though he could fall into them, as though they would give him room to soar. In those eyes he could be free.

  Oh, he thought. There you are. My mate.

  And without even trying, he did something he hadn’t done for fourteen years. He took his human shape.

  He was running toward her before he’d quite remembered how his legs worked. He bounced off trees, stumbled and pushed himself up again and again, and then hesitated.

  Everything seemed the same from this six-foot vantage, and he couldn’t get any altitude by flying. Downslope was obvious, but he couldn’t tell if Ms. Stafford—his mate—had moved down the path while he was running.

  He looked around for his dog, Mouse. Mouse was used to getting around the woods in a shape that had to walk on the ground. He would know which way to go.

  Ilie had only ever spoken to Mouse with his mind. His dragon shape wasn’t much good for forming words out loud, but it made it a thousand times easier to speak mind-to-mind. In his human shape it was a struggle to reach out.

  Mouse? Mouse, come here.

  He heard Mouse barking and turned toward the sound. But when the dog came into view he stopped short and planted his legs. He barked an entirely different bark than Ilie had ever heard from him.

  It was the bark for a stranger. Mouse didn’t recognize him in his human shape.

  Ilie took a few unsteady strides toward the dog, only to stop short himself.

  Ms. Stafford had stepped into view, probably attracted by the sound of Mouse’s barking. She was just as beautiful from this angle, seen with human eyes—all lush round curves and golden blonde hair escaping in unruly curls. Her eyes were still as blue as the open sky.

  Ilie opened his mouth and realized several things all at once. He hadn’t said a word out loud in fourteen years; he was naked and mud-splattered in front of the woman destined to be his mate; and Mouse was running away.

  ***

  For just a second, peering through the trees, Becca had been sure she saw the dragon. There had been a big black shape among the trees, a silver glint that could have been eyes. But before she was sure of what she was seeing, it disappeared.

  A moment later she heard the sound of someone in the woods, in the direction she had been looking. It sounded like they were running.

  Becca immediately started second guessing what that dark shape had really been, because the noise she heard now was perfectly ordinary. She moved along the path, trying to find an angle that would let her see the person crashing through the woods.

  Something burst out from an unexpected direction, big and dark enough to make Becca jump.

  It was only a dog, though. He stopped when he saw her and whined. He turned and looked back the way he’d come—toward the sound of pounding feet—and whined again. Becca had just started to approach the dog when he took off running.

  Becca touched the phone in her pocket and followed him at a jog, and a moment later she heard the dog bark. It was a sharp, unhappy sound. Becca slowed to a cautious walk, and then she spotted the other person in the woods.

  There was a naked man standing among the trees, staring at the dog, and at her.

  He was tall, fair-skinned and clean-shaven, with unruly dark hair that curled around his ears and at the back of his neck. Becca couldn’t help noticing that he also had dark hair curling between his legs. Becca jerked her gaze away from the fact of his naked cock without letting herself think anything of it at all. He was covered in dirt and scratches, and he looked bewildered.

  No one had mentioned whether Gray’s Hollow had a deranged nudist living in the woods. Maybe that had been a secondary concern after briefing her about the dragons.

  The man took a step toward her, opening his mouth to speak.

  The dog, which had been standing with all four legs braced and its head down, bolted abruptly, leaving nothing between Becca and the naked man. The man let out a choked, wordless yelp and waved frantically in the direction the dog had gone.

  Becca actually took her eyes off him to look in the dog’s direction, just because the man seemed so emphatically concerned. She quickly returned her gaze to him when she heard him coming closer.

  He stopped again when she looked at him, and this time he was close enough for her to properly meet his eyes. They were pale gray—the color of the mayor’s stone mansion. Nearly the color of the mayor, in his dragon form, a shining silvery color that arrested her attention. He looked right back for several long seconds, and then Becca remembered that she was alone in the woods with a deeply confused naked man.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, looking him up and down again and trying to notice only the mud and scrat
ches, and not the gorgeous, muscular, naked body under them. Now was not the time.

  The man gave a short, wild laugh that made her meet his eyes.

  “I’m…” he said, and then he folded down unsteadily to sit, drawing his knees up to his chest. Becca took a few steps closer and knelt down so that she wasn’t towering over him.

  “I’m naked,” the man said after a moment. “Sorry, that’s—you know that. It’s just that usually I’m a dragon.”

  Becca’s eyes went wider, and she reached out to brace her hand against a tree trunk. Cara had warned her about that. They’re always naked when they shift back.

  She had also said, Ilie is always a dragon.

  “You did meet Gus, right?” he asked anxiously. “You know about us? Cara said she would tell you.”

  “I did meet Gus,” she said slowly. “So you’re…”

  “Ilie,” he said, nodding. “Usually… always a dragon. Until just now. This is… very strange. Talking like this. Being like this.”

  “Just now,” Becca repeated. “I thought I saw you—I thought I saw a dragon, I mean. I was looking for you.”

  Ilie nodded. “I saw you. I saw your eyes. And then…”

  Becca couldn’t look away from his eyes, and Ilie didn’t seem able to look away from hers. Her heart was beating fast, and she felt the tug between them like a compass needle swinging to north.

  “I thought…” she said, and just holding on to a tree wasn’t enough. She sat down too. Their eyes had met, and he had changed from a dragon to a human. “I thought that sort of thing required a kiss, or true love.”

  Ilie smiled a little, stiffly, like he wasn’t quite sure how smiling worked. “You have very persuasive eyes.”

  “Oh.” Becca couldn’t tell what she was feeling at all, too stunned by the last few minutes to process anything. “Um. So do you.”

  Ilie’s smile widened at that, looking much more at home on his face. Becca’s heart beat harder, and she could feel her pulse pounding all over her body.