A Boy and His Dragon (6 page)

“You are going to be a steadying influence, Arthur. I can tell.

You’re just what I’ve been waiting for.”

“Okay.” Arthur got the word out, that’s what mattered to his dignity. He shifted to one side. “Do you… want coffee or something?” Maybe he just was supposed to start going through books now, but Bertie continued to stare at him, even wrinkling his brow in a frown.

“Why?” He seemed confused. “Do you? Well, help yourself if I have any. You do seem tired, pet. And hungry. Did you even get time to eat breakfast before I sent you running around? If there’s no food, we’ll have to see about getting some before setting to work. I had a housekeeper once who bought my food for me, but she got tired of walking in and finding me naked after I shifted. You’ll notice I have donned clothes just for your human sensibilities.” He cracked his neck and lifted his arms for a stretch, or to display the clothes he’d put on for Arthur.

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“If it’s as bad as you say, I should get started,” Arthur said quickly while watching that body move and
not
thinking about it without any clothes. That was for later, when he was far away and less likely to embarrass himself. “Earn my keep.” He almost bit his tongue at his phrasing. This house, this man, seemed to bring it out in him. He’d never been so tempted to put inappropriate slants on all his words before. It was probably because Bertie seemed to find them so amusing. Of course he planned on earning his keep. He wasn’t being kept, that was ridiculous. It was just that the pay was already generous. He didn’t need to be fed too.

“Work?” The very word seemed to make Bertie tired. Arthur abruptly realized why Bertie’s publisher wanted him to have an assistant. They’d probably even tried to hire one for him, some drill sergeant to keep on him task. The thought made him straighten and put his shoulders back, because he had his work cut out for him.

Bertie took one look at Arthur’s posture and sighed again. “If you must, Arthur. If you must.” He tasted the air once more before sliding closer, his footsteps silent on the thick rug. “Unless….” The same part of Arthur that knew approaching unknown snakes was a bad idea knew that hanging onto Bertie’s every word was only going to get him in trouble. It didn’t keep him from listening, even if he frowned. “You want to talk some more, or have a bite? Just a nibble?”

Arthur’s hunger must have been in the air. Bertie’s stare said he could tell that Arthur’s stomach was growling and that Arthur hadn’t had any breakfast at all. It also hinted he knew what talk of bites and nibbles was doing to Arthur’s brain.

Arthur hadn’t done anything like that with his one real boyfr—

with Clematis. There was a lot he hadn’t done with Clematis that he’d wanted to do, but during all those light kisses and sweet blowjobs, when he wanted more, he hadn’t realized “more” might include love bites. He pictured teeth against his skin and couldn’t stop his breath from coming faster.

Arthur closed his eyes briefly but kept his frown in place.

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“I’m fine, thank you,” he got out before opening his eyes again and watching Bertie tap one dark fingernail against his mouth. It was just as distracting, if not more so, than watching him smoke.

Arthur might have a thing he hadn’t previously been aware of for painted nails on men, in addition to his new interest in cigarettes and biting.

“If you
insist
.” A tiny puff of smoke escaped Bertie’s lips, like an exclamation of annoyance. “Then find a place to work. I will be in my study if you need me for anything.” His raised eyebrow wasn’t very subtle. If Arthur hadn’t still been red, it might have made him blush. He didn’t want to imagine what the air might smell like, but luckily Bertie’s tongue did not make an appearance, just another grin. “And I do mean anything.” To save himself, Arthur turned on his heel to look at one wall of books and didn’t look back until the heat had minutely lessened, the scent of herbs was gone, and he felt that he was alone.

He pulled in several lungfuls of air and tugged at his sweatshirt. Anything to feel cooler. He looked around before yanking it up over his head and felt marginally better in just his Tshirt.

For a second or two, he stared at himself: at his arms with their faded freckles and light hair, at his legs in jeans that were looser than they’d been when he bought them. Then he frowned harder.

Fairies, or at least
one
fairy he knew from personal experience, weren’t really interested in a human’s physical appearance as much as people thought. Despite being gorgeous and spending a lot of time kissing him, Clematis had seemed more interested in Arthur’s reactions to his attentions than in Arthur himself; in what he could get out of Arthur instead of what Arthur wanted.

Dragons were Beings too, just like fairies. All this attention had to be simply how dragons were. It was at odds with the myths of them kidnapping people and keeping them in their lairs or eating them, but Arthur was suddenly sure the people writing those stories hadn’t wanted to admit to getting tongue-tied and flustered when a giant lizard winked at them.

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At least he was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to be roasted alive now, and he had a job with a boss who wasn’t going to push him hard or treat him unfairly. In fact, Arthur had a feeling that being frequently red-faced and suffering through various stages of arousal was going to be the most difficult thing about this job… that and resisting the urge to respond.

He wondered if Bertie was that languid about everything, if his soft pet names meant he wouldn’t take charge in bed, if Bertie saw Arthur as someone to top him the way other people seemed to, or if Bertie would fuck Arthur the way Arthur had wanted Clematis to.

He was a strong and powerful dragon, but did that mean he would hold Arthur down and push him open the way Arthur had only ever done with his fingers? Would he, if Arthur asked him to and promised to be his?

His breath hitched at that last errant thought. It was too strange to be his. It had to be the house or something he’d read about dragons giving him that idea—maybe one of those old stories about dragons keeping maidens in their lairs.

Just in case dragons
could
read minds, he shoved the thought away and locked it up tight. The books were in front of him.

Mountains of them. Hordes waiting to be cleaned and alphabetized and put in their proper place, which did
not
mean near a fireplace.

With a grim smile of determination, Arthur pushed his shoulders back and set forth to bring order to chaos.

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IF THE dust didn’t kill him, the lack of organization would, Arthur thought fiercely and not for the first time. Just piling the books into some kind of order without stopping to read or glance through them had taken up most of his first two workdays.

While many of the books were obviously loved and well-read, they were also so thick with dust that whenever he moved one he had to pull his head back to avoid the shower of dust motes that followed. To make it worse, Bertie must have been eating or drinking while reading a few of them, somehow getting a few thick leather covers wet; and combined with the heat of the room, there were now spots of mildew on them.

It was completely unacceptable. How Bertie had ever found what he was looking for was a mystery to Arthur, because although there was evidence that Bertie’s books had once held some sort of order, or attempt at order, it was clear that Bertie put books wherever there was space for them regardless of title, subject, or author.

Arthur fully intended to correct that problem, as soon as he’d been through every book in the house. So far, he hadn’t even made a dent in the main room. It didn’t help that in addition to trying to create stacks to help separate the books and wiping them down and setting aside the ones in need of repair or replacement, he had to flip through them all page by page to find any scraps of paper with notes on them.

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There was a pretty sizable pile of notes so far, actually. Arthur was kind of proud of it, though not nearly as happy as he was to see his hard work starting to pay off. The room might someday look almost like a real library.

He glanced at the evidence of his hard work again. Not all of the notes seemed to be about dragons. An edition of
Psychopathia
Sexualis
had had two notes in it, one reading simply “move 7 to 2” and the other quoting an entire passage from Ovid. Arthur found the Ovid later and checked it; Bertie must have been quoting it from memory because he only got one word wrong. They were probably lost notes from a previous book, and so far there was no obvious rhyme or reason to which books they might be in, or why.

“Poetry quotations in a copy of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
printed around 1930 lying on its side underneath three volumes of a travel series,” Arthur muttered to himself because the house was quiet.

Bertie didn’t keep the fire going when he was out or not spending his time in the living room. Right now he was in his study writing, or pretending to, or just staying out of Arthur’s way.

Bertie had tried, halfway through the first day and early on the second, to distract Arthur, probably so he wouldn’t feel bad about not working while Arthur was working. Arthur’s face and hands were streaked with dust, his arms were full of heavy tomes, and he’d once again skipped breakfast. He usually did, but it still didn’t put him in a good mood, and dragon or not, Bertie took one look at him on both occasions and disappeared into his study with a chastened look on his face.

“He
should
feel bad,” Arthur huffed as he straightened and stretched. He’d found a sliding ladder for the bookshelves that had been being used as a kind of coat rack, and going up and down on it all day was making his tired muscles shaky. “Nobody should treat books this way, I don’t care how brilliant they are.”

“You’re quite right, Arthur.” The cheery note in Bertie’s voice and the fact that he’d heard Arthur complaining made Arthur stop where he was and wet his lips before turning around. It got him a mouthful of dust that made him gag.

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It was hot in the room even without a fire. Arthur was very conscious that he was red-faced, sweaty, and dirty. His fingers looked like he’d been fingerprinted with black ink. He knew without looking in the mirror in the downstairs bathroom that his hair was sticking to his forehead in a vague wave. He’d stopped being too concerned with wearing just a T-shirt and jeans the moment Bertie had made it clear he planned on leaving Arthur alone while he worked.

It was a completely appropriate thing for an employer to do, and Arthur liked working alone; he got more done. He didn’t know why it had made him frown to see Bertie disappear into his study without commenting on Arthur’s bare arms or remarking on how his body looked with fewer clothes on or giving him any kind of flirty wink, but it had.

Okay, Arthur
did
know why it bothered him. Even not wanting to risk anything, even knowing that it was just flirting and didn’t mean anything, he wanted Bertie to say something nice about him again in his heated, seductive voice with that cultured accent. He wanted Bertie to stare at him and call him a pearl.

Arthur really, really needed to get out more, because his crush could no longer be denied, and he was only going to embarrass himself if he kept on like this. He scowled at the thought, and because he was itchy, tired, and hungry, and he’d made a lot of progress and Bertie hadn’t said anything. Arthur realized he was starting to whine internally just as Bertie darted out his tongue to wet the corner of his mouth.

Bertie had on jeans and a large, floppy sweatshirt with the university’s logo on it. It looked comfortable and soft and like it had cost more than Arthur’s jeans. Knowing that the sweatshirt, that
all
of Bertie’s clothing, was for his benefit only made Arthur scowl harder.

“It’s a mess now, but when I’m through with it you should be able to find things without too much trouble,” he insisted as the silence went on. Bertie blinked but followed the direction of Arthur’s hand as he pointed at the stacks. Arthur’s heart was beating hard. “Some of these are expensive. All of them are valuable. You A Boy and His Dragon

41

shouldn’t let them get dirty,” he explained slowly, hearing the irritation creeping into his voice but unable to completely suppress it.

“Of course, I—” Bertie began. Arthur thinned his lips and Bertie shut up.

“
This
stack has mold. I might not be able to save them.” Maybe it was because he’d never seen books in this condition, but Arthur flung one hand out accusingly at the books under discussion.

“The other stacks are either volumes that belong together in a collection or pieces I have yet to classify.” He wasn’t even going to go into the dried leather bindings on the older books.

He would swear his snappish words echoed through the room.

He wiped at his face, probably smearing sweat and dust all over it.