Spawned By The Dragon: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance Read online

  I was honestly beginning to feel borderline drunk, incredibly lightheaded and goofy-feeling, though just from Gavin's kiss alone. He also seemed to be experiencing something of a pleasant head rush, if the few soft grunts and groans he was beginning to make were any indication.

  After a while, when our kiss began to intensify a bit further still, I got the idea that maybe we should break it soon, or else quickly veer into public indecency territory. Gavin seemed to get this idea at about the same time, because he did very briefly break our kiss a couple of times, pulling his mouth from mine for periods of time no longer than a second.

  However, as if our mouths were magnets, his lips immediately found mine again, as if he knew it would be wise to break our kiss at this point but just couldn't quite yet force himself to do it.

  It was actually a preteen girl who turned out to be the one who finally caused Gavin and me to stop kissing. From somewhere not too far below the slowly descending gondola we were riding in, I heard the girl's squeaky, excited voice.

  "Look! It's Miss Alyssa! She's making out with that man!"

  Pulling away from Gavin abruptly, I opened my eyes just in time to see the wide-eyed faces of five preteen girls, who were waiting in line for the Ferris wheel. All of the girls were members of the gymnastics team I coached, and I realized that it had been one of them, a girl named Taylor, who'd done the exclaiming. Gavin's and my gondola was now gliding near the line, and as soon as it passed, ascending once again, the girls burst into giggles, and Taylor made another exclamation.

  "They were making out!"

  I wasn't that embarrassed, just more surprised than anything. Nonetheless, I told Gavin I was sorry about all that.

  "Those girls are members of the gymnastics team I coach, and if there's one thing they love, it's loudly discussing people 'making out' and giggling about it. I don't think they understand yet that it can be considered rude, so maybe I'll have a little talk with them about it later. But in the meantime...maybe we shouldn't give them anything else to giggle about."

  With his dark gray eyes twinkling in the bright lights running alongside the "arms" of the Ferris wheel, Gavin said that was probably a good idea, speaking in a husky sort of voice that immediately made me want to kiss him again. Thankfully, though, before I could act on this urge, he asked me to tell him about coaching gymnastics.

  "How did you get into it?"

  For the next five or so minutes of the ride, I gave him a brief recap of my years in the sport, and how I'd come to coach gymnastics and teach various other classes at the gym. Like I had all evening, I found him a very attentive listener and very easy to talk to. He was, in fact, almost too easy to talk to, because it wasn't until the Ferris wheel started slowing to let people off that I realized that I hadn't yet asked him what he did for a living.

  After quickly wrapping up what I'd been saying, I finally did ask, but instead of appearing pleased that I was interested in his life like he was interested in mine, the question only seemed to make Gavin uncomfortable.

  "Well, I...." As if it had suddenly become a struggle to keep his gaze on my face, he looked to the side briefly before meeting my eyes again. "I've done a few different things for a living, but right now I'm sort of in a transition phase. I'm just sort of...." Once again, he briefly let his gaze fall to the side. "Well, right now, I'm in the process of moving on to the next big thing in my life."

  I was suddenly pretty sure I got it. I was pretty sure Gavin was unemployed and embarrassed about it.

  "Oh. So...you're just passing through Sandstone, then?"

  "Yes."

  His answer disappointed me. I realized that I didn't care if he was temporarily unemployed, and that I would've loved to have heard that he was looking for work in town.

  However, I knew that just because he was admittedly only "passing through" Sandstone, that didn't necessarily mean he was passing through far. Maybe he was going to look for work in one of the other towns not too awfully far away. Maybe he already had something tentatively set up, and maybe we could see each other again. I could hardly stand the thought of this being our one and only date.

  Of course, I wanted to ask Gavin a few more questions, but just then, our gondola came to a stop at the bottom of the wheel, and he opened the door and took my hand to help me out, prompting a wave of giggling from my five preteen gymnasts, who were still standing at the front of the line. Near them, the mom of two of the girls stood with her phone to her ear, talking while kind of looking past the girls, seeming oblivious to their amusement and who was causing it.

  While I soon sauntered past them holding Gavin's hand, I waved with my free hand, saying hi and asking if they were having a good time. They all nodded, saying yes or yeah, and then Taylor turned the question back on me.

  "Are you having a good time, Miss Alyssa?"

  This comment prompted the most raucous group giggling frenzy yet. Now past the group, I looked at Taylor over my shoulder, fighting a little eye roll but smiling. "Yes, Taylor. I'm having a good time."

  While the girls erupted in laughter yet again, I gave Gavin's hand a light squeeze, thinking that I was maybe having the best time I'd ever had on a date.

  The fair was beginning to wind down, with a few ride operators shouting "last call" for the night, but Gavin and I weren't quite ready to head back to his truck just yet. Earlier, he'd promised me that when we were done riding the Ferris wheel, he'd try to win me a stuffed animal from one of the baseball-throwing games.

  While we waited in line at one of the booths, Gavin put an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close, and I kind of melted into the long, hard length of the side of his body, reveling in the feel of being wrapped in his safety and strength. In fact, I guessed that being held to the front of his body might feel even better, and I regretted that there were so many people around, preventing a more intimate embrace, one that would be face-to-face, than the one we were already sharing. I didn’t want to prompt any more near-hysterical giggling from any pre-teen girls in the vicinity.

  With so many people ahead of us, we were in line quite a while, though I didn’t mind at all, and I got the feeling Gavin didn’t, either. While we joked with each other about different things, I was starting to feel like I’d known him a lot longer than I actually had. And I was also starting to feel like I definitely wanted to know him for a lot longer than just one night.

  When only one other couple remained ahead of us, I teased Gavin by telling him not to worry if he couldn’t topple a glass milk jug and win me a stuffed animal. “If you can’t, you can’t, and then I’ll try to win one, because I actually have a pretty decent throwing arm. I’ll try not to embarrass you, though.”

  Gavin looked at me with his dark gray eyes twinkling. “Ladies first, then…but whether you win a stuffed animal or not, I’ll still win you one, because I promised you I would, and I keep my promises. I’ll try not to embarrass you, though…even though that might be difficult considering I’ve got a pretty decent throwing arm myself.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Pulling me even a bit closer to him still, Gavin fought a grin. “Yeah. Decent enough that I was an all-state varsity baseball pitcher all four years of high school, anyway.”

  “Oh, well now I don’t want to pitch in front of you. Now I know I’ll probably just embarrass myself.”

  Eyes still twinkling, Gavin shook his head. “No, you won’t.”

  Right then, as we both shifted closer to the booth while the couple in front of us began to depart without having won anything, Gavin’s eyes caught the light of numerous bright, clear bulbs lining the booth, and I noticed something. Gavin’s eyes weren’t really gray, at least not just gray.

  Within the dark charcoal color, vividly-colored flecks danced, flecks that could only be described as gold. I’d never seen anything like it in my life, had never seen eyes even remotely like Gavin’s. They weren’t just unique; they were breathtaking. I’d seen hazel eyes, of course, green mixed with golden brown, but I h
adn’t even known that honey-gold within coal was a thing.

  Unable to take my eyes from his own, I told Gavin that his eyes were beautiful, almost immediately feeling a little heat rise to my cheeks. “I mean…you probably already know that. You’ve probably already heard that a thousand times.”

  With the corners of his mouth twitching, Gavin dipped his head and brushed his lips against mine. “I really liked hearing you say it.”

  To my disappointment, the carnival barker in the booth announced it was our turn, preventing another kiss.

  Whether because my mind had been a little scrambled from the feel of Gavin’s mouth on mine, or whether because my pitching arm wasn’t quite as strong as I’d thought, or whether because the game was horribly rigged, I didn’t end up knocking over any glass milk jugs. In fact, despite the fact that I was throwing hard, I didn’t even make any of them budge an inch.

  After my sixth and final try, I spoke to Gavin in a low voice while the barker collected the baseballs. “It’s definitely rigged, I think. Some of the jugs are probably glued down.”

  Right away, Gavin began disproving this theory. A lower shelf held five large jugs in a row, and with his first five balls, he knocked them over, one by one, to the sounds of clapping and cheering from people in a long line behind us. With his sixth and final ball, he toppled a pyramid of glass jugs on the taller shelf, although toppled wasn’t even the exact right word.

  He more like exploded the pyramid, sending all the jugs flying into a sheet of plywood behind them with a loud, collective bang. Many people in the crowd behind us gasped; many others cheered; and the barker looked from the fallen jugs to Gavin repeatedly, eyes wide, as if unable to believe what he’d just seen.

  When he finally began picking up the jugs, shaking his head, his eyes went wide again, and he held up one of the jugs, telling everyone to look. Down the middle of the thick glass was a large crack, probably where Gavin’s final ball had made contact with it.

  We ended up leaving the booth with one gargantuan stuffed teddy bear, which Gavin carried, and five smaller teddy bears, which I held in my arms.

  On our way to the truck, I thanked Gavin for the bears for the second time, but then said that if we saw any kids, maybe we could lighten our load a bit. “I definitely want to keep one bear for myself, though…maybe one of these small ones. I really like the teddy with the little blue bow tie.”

  Gavin said he thought that giving some of the bears to kids was a really nice idea, and not a moment later, a group of kids, the perfect number of kids, in fact, came into view. It was the five gymnastics girls, though they weren’t giggling now, and one of them, a girl named Kaylie, who at nine was the youngest in the group by about two years, was crying.

  With her arm around Kaylie’s shoulder, her mom explained that she’d stumbled getting off the Ferris wheel and had bonked her forehead. “I think she’ll be okay once we get some ice on that bump, though. Right now, I think she’s just more tired than anything. It’s way past her bedtime.”

  Kaylie’s eleven-year-old sister Tori nodded with something of a smug look on her face. “Yup. It’s past her bedtime. Not mine, though. That’s because I’m not a complete baby about everything.”

  This comment made Kaylie cry harder, and she and Tori began sniping about who was a “complete baby” and who wasn’t.

  Before things could get too heated, Gavin extended the massive, five-foot-tall teddy bear to Kaylie, asking if having a giant teddy to hold might make her head feel better. “If your mom says it’s okay, he’s yours if you want him.”

  Her mom smiled and thanked Gavin, said thank you, and after wiping her eyes, sniffling. Kaylie did the same, taking the bear from Gavin. Soon he and I had distributed all but one of the smaller teddies, the one with the blue bow tie, to the other girls, who hugged their bears, giggling, all in good spirits again.

  Before leading the group in the direction of the parking lot, Kaylie and Tori’s mom thanked Gavin and me, though I noticed that she was really looking at Gavin alone while she did so, and she was also twirling her hair a little, as if she were more than a bit enamored of him. I couldn’t blame her. He’d definitely been giving me the urge to twirl my hair all night.

  While we continued on to the truck, I glanced over at Gavin in the dim light. “You know, earlier, you told me that I’m going to make a great mom someday, and I think I can say the same about you now, about being a dad.

  The way you were making all the girls laugh and smile, I think you’re going to make a great dad someday.” After realizing something, I immediately spoke again. “Or you’re possibly already a great dad. I shouldn’t have presumed that you don’t already have a child or children.”

  Gavin grinned, squeezing my hand. “I don’t have any kids yet…and thank you for what you said. I really, really look forward to being a dad someday…really look forward to things like playing baseball with a son or daughter of my own. But…like you, I want that strong, loving marriage first. So, I guess maybe I have a while to wait before the pitter-patter of tiny feet.”

  When we got in the truck, Gavin started it up, then looked over at me. “Where to now? Back to your car at the-“

  “No. I mean…no, thank you.”

  I’d made a sudden decision, a decision to ask Gavin something.

  “Would you like to just drive me to my apartment and come up for a cup of coffee? I just figure that if you’re still going to drive out of town later tonight, maybe you could use some caffeine.”

  With his expression unreadable in the dim light, Gavin hesitated just a second or two before responding. “Sure. I’d love a cup of coffee.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Gavin and I never had our coffee. I had really been intending on making some, just not wanting our evening to be over yet. Just not wanting to face our inevitable parting, knowing that I may never see him again.

  However, my apartment door had been closed behind us for all of about two seconds when I asked Gavin to kiss me. Then, once he did, I made my second sudden decision of the evening. I was going to sleep with him if things started heading in that direction, which they soon did. Freely-roaming hands and exploring tongues caused me to break our kiss just long enough to ask Gavin to carry me down the hallway to my bedroom.

  “If you want to, that is.”

  Judging by how fast he scooped me up in his strong arms, bringing his mouth to mine again, he definitely did want to carry me down the hallway to my bedroom.

  Once there, he set me down and switched on a lamp, but I switched it right back off, asking him if he wouldn’t mind some candles for lighting. He said candles would be just fine, so I told him to have a seat on the bed and I’d be right there.

  “Just give me one second to find my lighter and light a few of the candles on my dresser.”

  While I went about doing just that, I realized that somehow, some kind of a spell had been broken. Some kind of a spell that had been making me feel uncharacteristically bold. Now I just felt slightly nervous for some reason, even though at the same time, I still definitely wanted to sleep with Gavin.

  Maybe I felt a little self-conscious about I didn’t even know what, or anxious about whether or not we were going to be compatible in bed. Being that this had been how I’d felt before sleeping with each of my two ex-boyfriends, the only two men I’d ever slept with, I wasn’t really surprised by how I was feeling, just a little irritated with myself that I’d pulled myself out of the moment by pausing things to light the candles.

  Now I wished I’d just been content with the lamp and hadn’t bothered with any romantic candlelight. Because now, standing in the glow of three maroon pillar candles of various heights and moving on to a fourth, I just felt somehow awkward about the thought of turning my attention from them back to Gavin.

  However, there were only four candles to light, and once the fourth was burning brightly, making the maroon wax glow, I didn’t really know what else to do, which only increased my feeling of awkwardness.
For some damned reason, I just couldn’t turn and stroll right over to Gavin on the bed right then. My recent boldness had officially turned into full bashfulness.

  Wondering just how sexually experienced he was, and wondering if he was going to mind a bedmate that certainly wasn’t extremely experienced, I opened a dresser drawer and began rifling around. “I’m just going to find one more candle, and then I’ll be right over.”

  “Okay.”

  Despite the fact that I’d had two serious, long-term boyfriends, I’d actually only made love maybe a couple dozen times in total. With my high school boyfriend, we hadn’t started sleeping together until nearly the tail-end of our relationship, and with Eric, our lovemaking had just been kind of infrequent. This hadn’t been because he hadn’t frequently tried to initiate bedroom activities, because he definitely had, in the beginning anyway.

  It also hadn’t been due to anything like me having a naturally low libido or anything, because I definitely didn’t. In fact, with as frequently as I’d always fantasized about lovemaking, sometimes I even suspected that I might actually have a higher-than-average libido.

  I’d never quite figured out exactly why I’d often begged off from sleeping with Eric. It had just boiled down to something indefinable missing from our lovemaking and somehow always leaving me underwhelmed. And then I’d started wondering if I ever left him underwhelmed, but I’d always been too embarrassed to bring up the subject, so the whole thing had kind of fed into itself.

  Eventually, Eric had seemed okay with our infrequent lovemaking, and I’d been okay with it, too. Okay, but sometimes wondering if sex could ever be more, or if more was just kind of a myth perpetuated by the media and romantic movies.

  Maybe lovemaking within a committed relationship often wasn’t that spectacular in real life, I thought. Maybe a woman only rarely being able to reach orgasm with her partner, even when “helping” herself by touching the right spot, was perfectly normal.