Dragon Bond: A Curvy Dragon Romance (The Rama Dragons Book 5) Read online

  * * *

  Annabelle felt a sincere pang of regret snap into her being, she wanted to apologize profusely but didn’t want to seem weak in front of this man. “I didn’t know you were homeless, I apologize for what I said.”

  * * *

  Eman sighed, and turned his attention towards the pastries in front of him. “Black coffee and a danish, and she’ll have a chai-tea latte.” Eman said to the cashier in front of him, ignoring Annabelle’s apology. As Eman reached into his pocket to retrieve his wallet, Annabelle stopped him and pulled out a 10$ bill from her purse.

  * * *

  “It’s fine, I mean you gave that guy five bucks I’m not letting you pay for this.” She said, handing over the bill and receiving her change.

  * * *

  Eman agreed, and the two sat down in an awkward silence at the table nearest the dining room window.

  * * *

  “I don’t know, I just hate seeing people go through a tough time and still get treated like shit. People were like that when I was on the street.” Eman began.

  * * *

  “But you’re doing well now, right?” Annabelle asked.

  * * *

  Eman responded “It depends. I’ve got a place and a car and a job, but I was happier on the streets. You really see the generosity of people and feel that warm hug of humanity — there’s nothing like it.”

  * * *

  “I bet it was rough.” Annabelle began. “How did you get out of it, it’s remarkable!” She questioned.

  * * *

  “Yeah, it was rough. I was depressed so all I wanted to do was sit around all day and once you become comfortable doing that it’s difficult to see any point or purpose to any of this. I got lucky though, found a dishwashing job, worked my way up.” Eman remarked.

  * * *

  Annabelle sipped her chai tea latte.

  * * *

  “I’m sure you must feel proud.” She asked.

  * * *

  “Not really. I wish life was actually easy enough for me to be able to do nothing but sit and exist all day. I honestly feel so put upon and burdened by even basic shit like eating and drinking, walking around, being friendly. It feels so insincere, when I was on the streets everything was black and white. If I had food, somewhere to sleep, I was happy. I only focused on those things, and it made for a simpler life. It was fulfilling because my goals were so minute, a bite to eat and a bed were easy to come by back then and I felt genuinely happy with myself when I was able to get either. It was like this constant stream of me relaxing, finding food, feeling happy, finding a bed, feeling happy. You know? You just get used to it. Now I just wake up and it’s whatever. I’d rather be asleep.” He said.

  * * *

  He sipped his coffee and Annabelle responded.

  * * *

  “Do you think maybe you’ve overcomplicated your life? There has to be way for you to return to that life of simplicity without having to live on the streets.” She asked with a tone of concern.

  * * *

  “Sure, but that’s how life has to be. It’s necessarily complicated to distract you from the fact that you’re unhappy and unsatisfied. The farther and farther I go into this world of illusion the more I realize how much I’d given up by relinquishing my freedom to the workforce.” He said.

  * * *

  “Isn’t that a bit pessimistic? There are plenty of people that find happiness within their work, and it’s a little hard to believe you don’t find happiness in anything but the basics of life.” Annabelle responded.

  * * *

  “It’s not that I only find happiness in the basics of life, I don’t find happiness in the basics, I find happiness in life itself. It just so happens that my job, my apartment, my work — these things aren’t sincerely life, they’re distractions. Surviving on the streets on your own, making real connections with people, laughing big genuine laughs. That’s life. That’s what I want to get back to.” Eman said, sipping his coffee and unwrapping his danish.

  * * *

  “I think that’s sad, depressing that you feel like that. I don’t feel that burdened by life, I see it as more of a gift than anything. I don’t categorize things as sincere or insincere, things just are and they happen by me in a beautiful complex way I could never begin to understand, but I accept it. I accept it because there isn’t anything else to place my faith into except what’s around me, and it’s worked so far. If you feel so strongly that you’d prefer life destitute and on the streets, why don’t you just leave everything and go back?” She asked.

  * * *

  “I suppose I crawled out of the street for the chance to have something better, and once I realized how wrong I was sitting at my desk I was already trapped. It’s a wicked, wicked system.” He replied.

  * * *

  “Well, do something about it!” Annabelle added, exasperated.

  * * *

  “I did, I don’t have that job anymore. I quit this morning as a matter of fact.”

  * * *

  “You quit your job? Is that okay?” Annabelle asked, worried. Eman saw the concern in her face and quickly assuaged it by giving her a grin.

  * * *

  “Of course. I quit my job, decided to stop by the bookstore, met a lovely woman and now here I am enjoying coffee and a danish at my favorite coffee shop. It’s only been a few hours and I already feel like I should’ve done this years ago.”

  * * *

  “My god you’re serious aren’t you?” Annabelle asked, and began to laugh out loud.

  * * *

  “No bullshit!” Eman said with a laugh. “It was such a calm quit too, no hard feelings, no two weeks notice. ‘Hi, I’m leaving, bye!’ “

  * * *

  “Well, what are your plans?” Annabelle asked.

  * * *

  “After enjoying this danish and this coffee I thought about shooting some pool. Get a few games in, head back to my place, and start writing.”

  * * *

  Intrigued, Annabelle asked curiously “Writing? What are you writing?”

  * * *

  “It’s a story, a romance actually. It’s about these two people that met at a bookstore actually.” Eman said. He punctuated this by fixing his eyes onto Annabelle’s as if he were physically grabbing them and only let her leave his grasp once she looked down towards her tea.

  * * *

  “A bookstore? And what happens next?” Annabelle asked, her face becoming warm once more.

  * * *

  “They go to this coffee shop and have this fantastic conversation, but I’m afraid at the end they both go their separate ways and never see each other again. It’s quite a sad story, really.” He added with a shrug.

  * * *

  “You can say that again, absolutely pitiful. Maybe you should write that they don’t separate, maybe they continue their ‘fantastic’ conversation over a drink?” Annabelle added, her heart beginning to patter inside of her chest.

  * * *

  “Yeah, I think that might be a better plot-point! They have drinks and talk throughout the afternoon then make savage love until the morning. Do you think that’s a believable story?” Eman asked.

  * * *

  “I feel like the fantastic conversation ending because the protagonist had a terribly dirty mind is more believable.” Annabelle said, staring at Eman.

  * * *

  “Well, my main character’s ‘dirty mind’ happens to really enjoy his female company, in fact he thinks she’s brilliant and insightful and would hate to ruin, but he can’t help himself. He’s completely taken by her. It’s a tragedy.” Eman said.

  * * *

  “A real tragedy. It’s good for your story that your main character is so handsome or else I think your love interest might just walk out.” She responded.

  * * *

  “I wouldn’t say ‘handsome’, but — “ Eman interrupted himself, and bit his bottom lip when he saw how Annabelle looked his body up and down
as he talked.

  * * *

  “I know what I want. And right now that’s you. I know it might come off as forward but today is one of those days where I just can’t be bothered to give a fuck. Do you ever have those days?” He asked.

  * * *

  “I’m having a day right now where I don’t give a fuck if you’re forward.” She responded.

  * * *

  “Then what are we doing sitting here? You said drinks, right?”

  * * *

  Annabelle smiled and nodded.

  * * *

  He took Annabelle by the arm and walked her outside, holding his arm firmly around her waist.

  * * *

  They turned onto Jefferson street, and Annabelle began to speak.

  * * *

  “I’m glad I met you, you’re a breath of fresh air. It’s lucky to have come across you at such a turning point in your life, huh?” She said.

  * * *

  “You have no idea.” Eman responded.

  3

  Part II

  “Usually on a first date I’d take a girl to a bar but I don’t know any nice ones around here. Do you?” Eman asked. Annabelle chuckled.

  * * *

  “Your choice for a first date is a bar? I can see why you’re having so much success.” She added playfully.

  * * *

  “Oh come on, it’s a fine first date. It’s a first date that says ‘Hey, this guy isn’t messing around. He’s serious.” Eman said.

  * * *

  “Serious about sex, maybe. But that isn’t the goal of dating for you, is it?”

  * * *

  Eman shrugged as they continued to walk.

  * * *

  “I’ve never been in a relationship that left me with more than I put into it, I always end up missing chunks out of myself. Isn’t sex a good goal if you don’t want to commit?” He asked.

  * * *

  “I don’t think so. It’s diminutive, it makes me feel like an achievement and not a person. No one wants to be an object.” She replied.

  * * *

  “I’ve never done it in a way that makes people feel objectified. I’m very personal, you know. You’ll find out soon enough.” Eman added with a knowing chuckle.

  * * *

  Annabelle tossed her head back and said “Ohhh damn you just can’t stop, can you? Maybe I’m not a conquest, maybe I’m a human that just wants to make a connection.”

  * * *

  “Why do people act like sex is so impersonal and sterile? For me it’s incredibly emotional. Every time I have a woman I’m infatuated, in fact it’s the sex that usually hooks me in. It’s not the ending of a relationship, it’s the beginning of one. Trust me, I’m different.”

  * * *

  Annabelle scoffed.

  * * *

  “Sure, different, I’ve never heard a guy tell me he was different than the other guys before.”

  * * *

  “I’m serious. Sex to me isn’t about conquering, it’s about sharing. Feeling your body with all its problems and concerns melt into another persons until all that quiet suffering stops, and there’s only pleasure. It’s a bonding experience.” Eman said.

  * * *

  “You know, I once had a boyfriend like you. Super poetic like that, but he was all talk. He would talk about lust and love and say we’re going to be so connected afterwards, bullshit. After a week it was just another activity like taking out the trash or putting in the laundry.” She responded.

  * * *

  Eman allowed a harsh severity to take over his face and he looked callously at Annabelle. “It could never be bullshit to me, every time I go in I’m going in to die. I’m leaving everything on the table every time. It could never become ordinary or routine because it’s the one thing in my life that isn’t ordinary or routine.” He said.

  * * *

  “What makes it so different?” She asked.

  * * *

  Eman stopped, placed Annabelle’s back against the wall and stared at her. She looked into his hungry eyes and felt as if she’d be devoured right there on the spot.

  * * *

  “I don’t hold my punches, and I stopped caring when I was young if my partner got hurt.” He said, and lifted up his shirt, revealing a muscular abdomen. He slowly lifted Annabelle’s shirt over her stomach, causing her to wince initially, until Eman placed his shirtless stomach against hers. Pedestrians walked by and some looked, while Eman maintained his steely gaze in Annabelle’s eyes, daring her to react.

  * * *

  “You know, this is how you bond with children. Skin on skin. Works the same with adults, you feel that? I can feel your heartbeat through my body, I can feel your anxiety.” He said, pressing himself further. “But don’t be anxious, I’m intense but I reward good behavior.” He continued as Annabelle’s breath began to quicken and she became more aware of the scene he was making.

  * * *

  Suddenly, Eman’s arm shot out and he wrapped his grizzled hand across Annabelle’s neck, squeezing it tightly before letting go. She gasped, and looked up at Eman, panting and sweating heavily.

  * * *

  “You see? I take it and I give it back, I don’t want to keep you, I just want to show you.” Eman said.

  * * *

  Annabelle writhed off the wall, dusted herself off as best as she could and cleared her throat. “That was intense, but did you have to do that shit in front of all these people?”

  * * *

  Eman nodded, and pointed his hand towards her shaking legs. “You gotta be surprising to get results sometimes. It’s a normal mixture, perfectly healthy — sex and pain. You don’t like it rough?” He asked.

  * * *

  Annabelle blushed and continued to walk, saying

  * * *

  “Of course I do but I don’t want to be strangled by some job skipping maniac in the middle of the damn street.”

  * * *

  “Calm down, Annabelle. You’re panting harder than when I had you against the wall.” He replied

  * * *

  “Well shit of course it turned me on that’s not the point! This really isn’t the time or the place.” She said, looking around to make sure no one but Eman was in ear-shot.

  * * *

  “This isn’t the time? Or the place?” He asked mockingly. Eman motioned down the side-street, a collection of row-homes and apartments that led towards the Concord River. “The ferrys coming in a few minutes, we can take it to my place and grab a drink.”

  * * *

  Hesitantly, Annabelle nodded. “Alright.” He breathing slowed and she regained her composure as they walked and boarded the ferry. Moving past a dozen or so passengers they made their way towards the back where they had a decent amount of privacy and sat on the benches together.

  * * *

  “You said you go in there to die when you make love, right? What do you mean by that?” She asked.

  * * *

  “Well, I go in with the intention of losing my life. That way I don’t have to have any regrets about how I perform or what I do, I’m always moving perfectly because it’s always my last performance.” He responded.

  * * *

  Looking a bit confused Annabelle remarked “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want my lover dying on top of me to prove a point that he’s a badass.”

  * * *

  Eman laughed quietly, and placed his hand on Annabelle’s jeans, resting on top of her thigh. “I don’t mean literally, it’s the mind state I have to have. Nothing to look forward to except the present moment is what I mean, focusing on one singular thing and doing it as hard as I can.” With a hard squeeze Eman drew his hand up farther, and felt Annabelle began to slightly quiver.

  * * *

  “Do that thing again, wrap your hands around me.” She asked, not caring if anyone saw. Eman was taken aback, removing his hand from her thigh.