How to Date a Dragon

covering the bare mattress and rolled to the middle of it still wearing their clothes.

“Yup. Seems plenty comfortable—”

He didn’t even get to say “to me,” because she had him in a desperate clutch and was delivering another hot kiss. Wow.

She popped open the button on her jeans. “We have way too many layers between us.”

Drake rolled up to a sitting position and unlaced his boots. Kicking them off, he grabbed the hem of his T- shirt. Before he could yank it up, he noticed Bliss had already stripped down to her underwear… and stopped.

“Do you have a condom?”

“No, but I’m clean and I can’t get you pregnant.” She hesitated. He figured he’d lighten the moment. “If we were playing strip poker, you’d lose.”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “I’m a pretty good poker player.” Her wink seemed to say she’d enjoy a game of strip poker at some point.

He unzipped and whipped off his jeans. “We’ll have to try it sometime.”

She grinned and whispered, “Oh, yeah.”

I love it when Bliss smiles. I hope I can make her smile a lot more.

He suddenly realized what she was smiling at—his big, rock-hard erection, and her expression was turning into a leer.

“Wow. I thought you’d be well endowed, but, well…”

“Well what?”

“Well, dayum!”

Drake couldn’t help it. He let out a hearty laugh.

Suddenly she lost her grin. “I’m afraid I’ll have to stop you before…”

“Before?”

“You know. The good part. No condom, no penetration.”

“I understand completely. I have other tricks up my sleeve, though.”

Bliss shoved against his chest and Drake flopped onto his back.

At that moment, a door opened and closed. It sounded as if someone had just entered the apartment.

“Shit,” Bliss muttered.

“Hello?” a female voice called out. “Is anyone here?”

Drake and Bliss jumped off the bed and pulled on their jeans and T-shirts as fast as they could.

“Just a minute,” Bliss yelled.

“That must be your roommate. I thought you said she was working,” he said in a loud whisper.

“Maybe she’s on her break and came up to introduce herself. Who knows?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

* * *

Bliss checked to be sure Drake was decent and then opened the door. She strode out to the living room and saw an attractive young woman with blond highlighted hair puttering in the open kitchen.

She came out to the living area, drying her hands on a towel. “Hi. I’m Angie, and you must be Bliss. Claudia told me you’d be moving in today.” Then she turned toward Drake and sent him a jaunty smile. “Hey, Drake. What are you doing here?”

Bliss glanced from one to the other. “You know each other?”

Drake shuffled his feet and focused on the floor. “I’m what you’d call a semi-regular at the bar downstairs.”

“And I’m one of the bartenders,” Angie said. “He usually occupies a stool right at the bar, so we chitchat during lulls.”

Bliss wondered if a “semi-regular” was anything to be worried about. Was he semi-regularly drunk? Did they call out his name when he walked in the door? But it was too soon for such a personal question. She’d find out eventually, especially since she’d be working there starting tomorrow.

“So, Angie, I’m glad you came upstairs and introduced yourself,” Bliss said. “Are you on your break?”

“No, my shift is done for the day. Full-timers work six-hour shifts. Today, I worked eleven to five. Most of the time, I work five to eleven.”

“The bar is only open until eleven o’clock at night?”

“Yeah. Didn’t Claudia tell you? I don’t know why Anthony insists that everyone be out before midnight, but I’m not about to question my good luck.”

“Hmmm…” Bliss wondered about that too. “Is that unusual? I thought most bars were open until at least one or two o’clock in the morning.”

Angie shrugged. “We’re just a neighborhood bar. Most late-nighters go to the trendy clubs. Anthony might have tried the later hours and found it wasn’t worth it, but I really don’t know.”

Bliss could always ask Claudia, if she cared enough. For now she’d adopt Angie’s attitude and just call it good luck.

“The only downside,” Angie was saying, “is that we don’t get breaks. There are labor laws on the books that say employees who work more than six hours must have a meal break. Personally, I’d rather go home than go on a useless break.”

“I won’t be working full time.”

“Really?” Angie tipped her head. “Huh. Claudia doesn’t usually hire part-timers and let them live here. And even though all of us are technically working part-time at six hours a day, five days a week, she doesn’t insult us by calling us part-timers. Oh! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I didn’t mean…”

“No offense taken.” Bliss figured Claudia was doing her a favor, but the others didn’t need to know that. It might be a good idea to keep her friendship with the boss on the down-low, unless Claudia hadn’t already mentioned it. “So does Claudia do all the hiring?”

“Yeah, as far as I know. Anthony seems to trust her completely. I’ve never seen him show up during the day, and that’s when Claudia is in charge. Most interviews happen during the afternoon. She’s the only one who works eight hours at a stretch, as far as I know. She spends a lot of time in the office, so maybe she considers that her meal break. Must be nice, having a two- or three-hour meal break every day.”

Nope. Looks like Claudia didn’t mention we’re friends. That might be handy in case her friend needed to know what went on behind the scenes. Nah. Stay out of bar politics, Bliss. You have more important things to focus on. She probably wouldn’t be working there long enough to care.

As long as she could redo most of her designs before the producers and camera crew showed up to film the segment where they checked in on all the finalists, she’d be okay. She did not want that happening at her parents’ house. Other shows did that, and she’d always seen happy families who were supportive of their son’s or daughter’s ambitions. The last thing she needed was her mother calling the competition foolish.

Chapter 5

Claudia had taken Bliss into the office and given her a uniform. Black skirt, black apron, and white blouse. Bliss changed behind a folding screen. The uniform fit well enough, although she would have liked it tapered a bit to show a more feminine hourglass figure. Maybe she could find a tailor. Then she remembered she needed her money to rebuild her real job. If she didn’t win the competition and the fifty-thousand dollars that came with it, she’d be screwed.

When she strolled around the partition, she asked, “Aren’t uniforms sort of old school?”

Claudia smiled indulgently. “Wait until you meet Anthony. Talk about old school…”

“The owner? Why? Is he like a million years old?”

Claudia laughed and tied Bliss’s apron tighter. “Not at all. He’s young and ridiculously good looking, but he has this old-world charm. Very formal manners, a slight European accent, but he won’t tell you exactly where he