Chapter 9

S tuck in rush hour traffic, Salem let his mind roam. He didn't need many brain cells to switch from gas to brake and back again. It had been almost two weeks since he and Gregori had struck the "roommates with benefits" deal, and honestly? Salem hadn't expected Gregori to last the two weeks. No one ever did. It was actually a little alarming how well things were going. Gregori seemed happy to feed him, and of course they were having sex on the regular because, well, obvious reasons. Gregori had stopped pushing about the mate thing and now they were just hanging out. Salem had been surprised by how much he'd come to genuinely like the dragon. He was a very interesting man who was competent at a lot of things—something of a weakness of Salem's; he adored the competent—and his brand of humor was so akin to Salem's, he'd gotten Salem to laugh quite a few times. When Salem did get snarky, he snarked right back.

It would be far too easy to fall for him.

And that was very much a problem.

Salem gave his cheek a light slap and muttered, "Focus, you. Focus. Do not fall for his charm. You know you don't do relationships."

Sadly, his dating history made Sam's look like textbook perfection. At least before Dimitri, Sam had managed several long-term relationships. Dimitri, of course, being the finisher, as he would let Sam go over Dimitri's own rotting corpse. Salem's longest relationship had lasted three months. And half of the time had been spent in blistering screaming matches. Salem was not easy to love—he knew this about himself—and he would avoid dragging someone into a toxic relationship like he would avoid poison. It was far better to be a serial dater. One date, two, everyone got off and they could part ways amicably. No heartbreak.

The whole pep talk to himself only succeeded in depressing Salem. He dragged more than walked into work, irritated the workday was only beginning. He had several post-op check-ins, one surgery for a routine tonsil removal, plus probably something else he was forgetting off the top of his head.

He used his ID card to open the back door, headed up via elevator, and stepped off at the children's wing, all purely on autopilot. He walked along, messenger bag over his shoulder, thoughts only on getting to his office and checking the schedule.

Then he heard it.

No, surely not, he was just hearing things?—

A bright, deep laugh echoed through the hallway.

Salem turned his head, much like the scary mannequin head in a haunted house, absolutely aghast to hear that laugh in his workplace.

What the hell was Gregori doing here?!

Salem abruptly spun on his toes and jogged along the hallway. He had a suspicion of where the laugh came from. There weren't many places people off the street could go unless patient or staff, so for Gregori to have weaseled his way in, he was likely—bingo.

The children's wing had an absolutely huge outdoor deck that took up most of the courtyard space. It was fully encased in glass to protect against the winter elements, with large sliding glass doors that could be opened in good weather—a protected way to get all the kids some Sunny D and somewhere to go other than their depressing hospital rooms.

Salem had passed by this place thousands of times. On a few rare occasions he'd stepped in to speak with a patient or family, but never had he just stopped and watched. He'd also never realized how big this courtyard was because he'd never expected it to be able to hold a fully transformed dragon.

Salem had seen some of the dragons transformed and flying about, of course, during his visit to Brazil. Even then his heart had kind of leapt into this throat in absolute, childlike awe unlike anything he'd even felt as a child.

Somehow, seeing Gregori left the prior memory of awe right in the dust.

God above, but he was stunning . The weak morning light still filtered through the glass, and it bathed the long length of Gregori's spine and the tops of his wings, painting the pearl white scales with a touch of wild honey. The dense muscles of his body cast a strong shadow—underneath, the scales almost looked blue. Truly, a painting come to life. Salem found himself pulling his phone out of his pocket and taking a picture. Then another. How could you consider yourself a human being and not catch this moment?

Especially when the kids who had any kind of mobility at all were climbing on Gregori as if he were some jungle gym. He had several kids on his spine, his wings, his tail, and he'd gathered together with his arms the ones in beds or wheelchairs so he could nudge them with his nose.

This was unfairly cute. It was like attacking Salem with a whole litter of puppies without warning, and dammit, who let Gregori in here?!

Because he couldn't help himself, he took a full minute video of cuteness, then forced himself to stop and skedaddle before someone—Gregori—could catch him watching. It would be absolutely mortifying because there was no way in hell Gregori would ever let him live it down.

Only when he gained the safety of his office did he dare breathe easy. All right. Let's check the schedule. Let's see, there was a post-op for?—

His office door slammed open. "Salem!"

Salem straightened in his chair, then slumped backward. This morning was doomed, wasn't it? "Alexis. I'm checking my schedule."

"That's him, isn't it? The ice dragon who followed you home."

Fifteen minutes. They were only fifteen fucking minutes into the workday. And somehow, in those minutes, Gregori had beaten him to work—he'd likely flown, which was cheating—and volunteered with the kids. Alexis had heard of this, and now she was confronting Salem.

Giving up, he confirmed on a weary sigh, "Yes, the dragon is Gregori."

"I about swallowed my tongue when I saw him. Nurses at the station told me he'd come in before you, asked if he could play with the kids, and apparently had already done all the paperwork for it. Even the kids who've been struggling with depression got out of their rooms as fast as they could. He's been coming for two weeks, supposedly. How am I just learning about this?"

He knew which kids she meant and just about bowled over in relief. "Tyler and Jessica?"

"Them and Hillary."

Wow. Gregori had more charm than Salem had realized. Hillary was sixteen, had been struggling with heart issues her whole life, and it took something serious to get her out of a funk. She'd seen all the usual tricks doctors and staff had up their sleeves to get a child's attention. Although Alexis was right, it was anyone's guess how he'd not known about this for two weeks. He wasn't that locked into the surgical room, was he?

Don't answer that.

"I don't blame them, mind you, I went in there too. How many times does a person come in close contact with a dragon? Except you." Alexis waggled her eyebrows. "You get all up close and personal."

"Alexis, stop. You're truly disturbing when you do that."

"I do it to disturb you."

Of course she did. He was resigned at this point.

"Now, let's recap, as I haven't seen Gregori in human form at this point aside from the single picture you showed me. He is incredibly built as a dragon, not an inch of fat anywhere to be seen. Is this true in human form too?"

"If you think about it, it would take extreme upper body strength to fly, wouldn't it? Not to mention, the ability to launch yourself into the air, so naturally your thighs and calves would also be very strong."

"I'll take that as a yes. So a handsome, very strong dragon is courting you, is smoking hot in bed, somehow finds your personality cute?—"

"That's because it is cute."

Salem buried his head in his hand. And now Gregori had joined them. Why, universe, why?

"You forgot lunch again this morning," Gregori scolded. "I came to bring it, thought I'd play with the kids while I'm here."

"I can feed myself—" Salem protested.

"But you don't. You skip lunch unless it's already in your office. It's a bad habit." Gregori fully opened the door and stepped inside. In one hand he held a multitiered lunchbox. One of those fancy lacquered ones like you saw in Asian dramas, even tied up in a cloth like one would be.

Where and when had Gregori even bought it? Because Salem sure as hell didn't have one!

"I don't know all your favorites yet," Gregori said almost apologetically. "So I made a variety. Share whatever you don't want to eat. Hello, who's this?"

Alexis wasted no time introducing herself. "Alexis. This idiot's best friend. Nice to meet you."

"Charmed, Alexis. Please help him eat all this, I know I made too much."

"I'd be delighted ," she assured him brightly.

"Good, good. I'll go back to playing with the kids, I promised them I'd only be gone five minutes." Gregori set the lunchbox—could it really be called such a simple thing?—down on the only clear spot the desk had to offer.

Then he caught the arm of Salem's chair and yanked him in close.

Startled, Salem instinctively braced with his hands up, which meant they landed on Gregori's shoulders. He had no time to do more than open his mouth on a protest when Gregori put his mouth right next to Salem's ear.

"So how many pictures did you take?" he breathed.

Heat shot to his face as the full impact of his sentence hit home. This rat bastard; he had noticed Salem! He just hadn't let on so Salem could dig himself right into a grave!

Gregori chuckled softly, pulling back just enough to catch Salem's mouth in a firm kiss. Tongue was definitely involved. Salem may have been sucked into the kiss before he realized what Gregori was doing, and could the dragon stop being so damn smooth?

Gregori broke the kiss, winked at him, and straightened. "I'll see you later."

Then he left. Like he hadn't managed to upend Salem's morning in a minute flat.

Dammit!

Alexis watched the door close behind Gregori, and she blew out a breath.

"Salem."

"Don't say it." He groaned, this time dropping his head into both hands.

"I love you like a brother, but goddamn, man. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Aleeeeeexis, please, you know I'm bad at relationships! Gregori is too good. I'd run roughshod over him and break him without even meaning to. Would you inflict me on him? Knowing how badly I sabotage relationships without even trying? Be honest."

"It's really a pleasant reminder of your emotional growth, you now being self-aware enough to know when you're being an ass." Alexis shook her head and for some reason reached for the landline phone on his desk. "But yes, in this case, I would."

Salem stared at her over the tips of his fingers. "He's not done anything to offend you, has he?"

"Look, any man who can take your personality in stride and then manage to tease you? Clearly isn't looking at you with rose tinted glasses. I have never in my life seen you blush until today. And you still let him kiss you, which tells me volumes."

Oh. Oh shit. He rather had given too much away by not breaking the kiss. "I was taken by surprise!"

"Honey, I've seen you dead drunk and still able to punch a man out for trying to kiss you."

Shit, she would remember that incident.

Alexis bent down enough to look at the directory taped to the wall, then punched in three numbers.

"What are you even doing, anyway?"

"Calling the Psych department. You need an examination." She shot him a deadpan look that screamed try me, motherfucka. "You're normally a smart man, but this? This is stupid. I'm getting you checked out."

Salem just sighed. At least the lunch was guaranteed to be good. The rest of the day looked like it was going to suck, though.