Free Hollywood Dragon: BBW Dragon Shifter Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant

courteously. But he saw the reluctance in the glance she cast back at him.
    “Thank you,” he said. He wanted to add more— I could talk to you forever heading the list—but a second child added its wail to the first, and Shelley sighed. “We better leave before they kick us out.”
    JP confined himself to, “See you tomorrow.”
    And got Jan’s answering smile. “Hope so!”
     
    * * *
    Jan walked out behind Shelley wishing she and JP could have gone somewhere quiet and kept talking. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a chance to talk music. Or been around a guy whose mere glance could heat her up so deeply. The combination nearly made her dizzy.
    They reached the motel. Through her closed door Jan heard the muffled noise of the Willises watching TV, so took her ear buds and iPod to listen to soothing music while she took a bath.
    When she came out, the place was quiet again. It was almost midnight. And once again she was not tired enough to sleep.
    Restless, her mind ranged over the entire conversation, lingering on little details: the lock of fine black hair that had fallen on his forehead. The swell of his forearm and bicep hinted at by his jacket sleeve when he leaned over to hear her better, and how was it that she found those hints of the body beneath the expensive fabric ten times sexier than those shirtless kilted men at Shelley’s bridal shower?
    She thought about JP’s sunny music room. Would she feel his presence there if he was absent himself? She knew she was going first thing in the morning.
    She turned out the lights, lay down . . . and her eyes stayed open.
    She got up and moved to the window. The motel had turned off the exterior lights so she could see pale shapes in the blue-white moonlight. She adjusted the blinds a fraction, so she could look out to see if there were any fireflies.
    She glimpsed movement in the darkness. Alarm spiked through her as the huge shadow pacing by not fifteen yards away resolved into the biggest dog she had ever seen—more like a wolf.
    It paused, sniffed the air, then its head began to turn. She ducked back instinctively, then remembered that the room around her was totally dark, and there were the slitted blinds. It couldn’t possibly see her.
    The muzzle lifted, and her heart stuttered when red eyes glimmered briefly, the way dogs’ eyes sometimes did at night. The animal didn’t growl, or look like it was ready to attack.
    Instead it paced around the corner. Curious, Jan moved to the adjacent window and cracked the blinds just enough so she could peer out.
    The wolf-dog had walked away from the parking area to the empty lot. It was barely visible against the background. Its edges blurred. She blinked, and next thing she knew, the silhouette was not a canine shape, but that of a man. Two legs, human shoulders.
    The man approached an even bigger masculine silhouette. They stood close together, and one gestured outward. Then they parted. Within five steps one blurred into a dog, and the other shortened and broadened into a—
    Bear?
    What?
    She looked down at herself, barely visible in the dark. She pinched her thigh hard. Still awake. When she looked out again, the two were gone.
    She flung herself on the bed and lay there stiffly as her heartbeat thundered.
    She struggled mentally, feeling that it was her duty as an adult to talk herself out of believing what she had seen. There had to be some mundane explanation, because modern life scoffed at anything out of the ordinary. What it didn’t see it didn’t believe, but she had always believed in  . . . go ahead and call it the paranormal, even if only in the privacy of her own head.
    Because she thought the world far more interesting if it was full of Japanese spirits like the y ōka i. And the fae. And shapeshifters. And djinn and even demons, as long as there were vigilant angels to guard against them. Opera was full of the supernatural world, as music had been from ancient times.
    You could