Matched with the Dragon: A Shifter Dating Agency Romance Page 4
“Well, no one has been around, I was curious what the situation was. I know you said that it was going to be a set of brothers that were talented, but they must be very talented because I haven’t noticed them at all,” Briana explained.
“It actually ended up just being the oldest of the brothers that decided to keep watch over you.”
“He…he wouldn’t happen to have…um, have um—“
“Spit it out Briana! You act like you are trying to ask me if I hired some weird creature to follow you around,” Lila laughed.
“There kind of has been a ‘creature’ following me around,” Briana sighed.
“What do you mean?” Lila shouted, immediately concerned.
“This is going to sound ridiculous, but a man with silver hair has been following me, and he is easily the most beautiful person I have ever seen.”
“Sounds like you need to look in the mirror,” Lila chuckled, trying to laugh off Briana’s concerns.
“Seriously Lila, he had these intense blue eyes and a tattoo that wraps around his neck!”
“I guess I should be glad to hear that you are observant,” Lila joked.
“What do you mean,” Briana asked, not sure what she meant. “Are you saying you know this man?”
“Briana, he is the eldest brother. He’s your security detail,” Lila laughed.
“You are telling me you know a man that looks like that, but you sent me up with a Russian gangster instead?” Briana said, only partially teasing.
“He’s kind of reclusive, Briana,” Lila said flatly, warning her.
“What do you mean? Is that a nice way of saying that he has a girlfriend?”
“No, no. Darian? No,” Lila scoffed hurriedly.
“What is that supposed to mean? Is he…gay?” For some reason, that made Briana sad. She was only too familiar with the dilemma that posed in the modeling world. It took so many good man to play on the wrong team.
“Ha! No, he is not. I guess the best way to put it would be that he is all business. I mean, take for example the fact that he is performing security detail on you but tried to do so without even interacting with you or disturbing your privacy,” Lila answered.
“I appreciate it, but I think I would like him to disturb my privacy very much,” Briana said, now with a mischievous tone.
“Oh Briana, you would want the most unavailable man that I know,” sighed Lila.
“I guess you don’t have to give me him, just give me someone that makes me feel the way that he does,” she said.
“‘Feel the way he does’?” Lila repeated with curiosity highlighting her voice.
“I’m not sure what I mean by that Lila, to be honest,” Briana tried to explain.
“Well, what does he make you feel that you are so eager about finding elsewhere?” Lila asked.
“He makes me feel safe, and he makes me feel…normal in a way—as though I am just another someone or another walking down the street.”
“Okay well, I am not sure how I can bring you what you are looking for,” said Lila seriously. “I think, Briana, that you are just going to be forced to change your goals a little bit.”
“What makes you say that?” Briana shot back.
“Sometimes in love, we are forced to accept that what we would like to have in another person is unattainable. Often when looking for a partner, people forget that the person that they will eventually fall for is human in all the same ways that you are, meaning they have flaws and flawed tendencies.”
“I still don’t see how what you are telling me relates to my situation or desires in a relationship.”
“What I am trying to say, “Lila said, pausing momentarily, “Is that I do not think you are going to find a man that does not value your former career, position as an icon in society, or appearance as your most attractive feature.”
“I guess you are right,” admitted Briana.
“The fact of the matter is that what you have accomplished in life is exactly that—an accomplishment. People are going to admire it, and regardless of how hard you try, it would probably take someone close to non-human to be as magnificent of a match as you are yourself.”
“Well that is all very flattering, Lila, but do you have someone in mind that may be worthwhile after I adjust my expectations?”
“Actually, I just so happen to have someone in mind and I have been waiting for you to be ready to present him as an option!” Lila responded excitedly.
“I’m listening…”
“Okay so his name is Brad James, and he is a former manager of big-name celebrities.”
“Sounds promising, he’s familiar with the lifestyle I have led this far.”
“Exactly! He sees beautiful people all day every day, knows what the industry is about, probably is familiar with some of the same faces as yourself, and would be far less likely to be concerned with your celebrity status or appearance.”
“If this is as good of a match as it sounds, he probably is just as desperate for a genuine relationship as I am!”
“He really is, Briana. He wants a good woman to settle down in life with.”
“Okay, I am very excited. I would love to meet him!”
After saying their goodbyes, Briana hung up the phone and took a moment to pause. For the first time since she had retired from modeling, she was finally feeling like her life was going the way she had always intended. It had been almost by mistake that she had been thrown into the world of flawless faces and picturesque bodies in the first place. It was beginning to seem comical that she was struggling to gain control of her life the way that she was presently, but the reality of the situation was that in a way Briana had never been in control of the direction her life took.
She had been a young girl, barely 15, when a famous New York photographer saw her while he was on vacation in her small hometown in California. He had been enamored with her beauty, he had said. It felt like in a matter of seconds she had been picked up by a manager, had her hair blown out and was handed a new pair of heels. At 15 years old, she was the key feature of this artist’s landmark art show.
It had been a huge gallery opening, and the artist had stated that the focus of his piece was revealing the beauty of the female form. In reality, he had simply taken a dozen portrait photos of her and hung them on massive canvas boards. The phrase that really caught the attention of eyes everywhere was his claim that he had indeed found the most beautiful girl alive. Most seemed to agree.
Following the gallery opening, Briana felt like a fish in an aquarium. Everywhere she went there were pictures being snapped of her and people calling her name, and managers and promoters contacted her constantly. She had become a spectacle, and at such a young age. She often felt like some mythical creature that had been captured and studied. Sometimes she wondered if being locked in a lab to be poked and prodded would have been easier than being thrust into the public eye and scrutinized by millions all at once.
Her desire to find love was more than a basic want that many people had. For Briana, finding love would be the first time since she was 15 years old where she thought she would be able to feel like she was able to take control over her life direction. Finding a man that she spent her days with would mean that she had been the dictator of her emotions and energy, and what they were put into.
A talent manager was an excellent choice too, and Briana felt foolish realizing that she herself had never considered dating someone that was involved in her industry and was familiar with the way her life had been and would most likely continue to be, but was never actually the focal point of the industry themselves.
Deciding to do some investigative work into the man that Lila was setting her up with, Briana went to her office and sat down in front of her computer. Aside from schoolwork, Briana quietly laughed to herself about the fact that this was probably the first person she had ever done an internet search on. Typing “Brad James” into the search bar, she got
a surprisingly larger number of results than she had expected.
There were various photos of the man, some of him taking photos with celebrities at various charity events, some of him with rock stars at clubs, and even a few of him out at lunch with different models that Briana herself knew. For a second she thought about calling one of the women to ask about the man, but she decided it was wiser to not after a second thought.
Models could be very possessive, even if they had only been out with a man a single time. Briana also knew that, given the chance, most models could talk about themselves for hours if they felt they had been prompted. With that in mind, Briana returned to her search, switching over to the photos feed in order to get a better look at the man’s face.
In many of the photos, he seemed to be very attractive. He appeared to be in his 40’s or 50’s but he had a very nice frame. He was tall and muscular with broad shoulders and a thin waist. He looked very normal in that his appearance was exactly what one would expect from a manager of high profile clients. He was dressed very well in all of his photographs and his hair was combed and cut nicely. If anything, the man dressed and cleaned himself up the way you would expect from someone in his 20’s. To Briana, it left her with the impression that the man put time and effort into himself, and she liked that.
He had a darker skin tone, tan in a Mediterranean way, with black hair that looked relatively thick and showed no signs of aging. His eyes were dark and thickly lashed and his smile was straight and white. Physically speaking, Briana saw absolutely no reason why she would not be deeply attracted to the man. He even was her usual type, as Briana tended to go for men with his physicality and age.
For whatever reason, though, Briana couldn’t seem to look at the picture of the man and take it seriously. He seemed thin and immaterial, as though the face she saw was not the man that would appear in front of her. She couldn’t quite understand why she was feeling this way, seeing as she had been so hopeful when she sat down to look into who she would be dating.
She didn’t think that she could stand another wave of swiftly changing emotions. Briana stood up from her desk dramatically, sliding herself away from her computer and causing the rolling chair she had been sitting in to go flying across the room and crashing into the wall behind her.
Wincing, she admitted that the sudden movement had been slightly dramatic, and she had never been one for aggressive outbursts. She didn’t understand what her problem was! It was as though she was a completely different person the past few days. It had a reasonable explanation; Briana figured most people would have a hard time stabilizing themselves after receiving threats of being kidnapped and dragged back to a foreign country. But it was more than that, and she knew it, despite how much she hated admitting it to herself. The silver haired man had managed to drop her into deeper disarray that she thought possible.
Trying to lie to herself as she looked at the photographs of Brad James had been futile. She knew exactly why he seemed to lack the glamour that the idea of him held. The entire time she had been looking at his pictures, she had been systematically comparing him to the man that lurked in the shadows around her.
When trying to appreciate the sex appeal of Mr. James, his undeniably handsome figure paled and seemed boyish compared to that of Darian Hardy.
“Darian Hardy,” Briana spoke softly to herself.
Speaking his name sent shivers down her spine, and the feel of his name rolling off her lips made her salivate as though looking at a feast of rare and fine foods. When she had looked at James’ hips, she had thought how narrow and unsubstantial they seemed compared to the fully muscled and masculine gate of Hardy’s hips. She also knew that lately she woke in the mornings thinking about her palms rolling over the soft arches of Hardy’s strong shoulders. Looking at James, she was underwhelmed by the seeming average build of his chest and arms. Most of all, despite the well-aged and handsome features to James’ face, she caught her mind clouded with the image of Darian’s burning stare and gleaming silver curls. She especially pictured Darian’s tattoo, her mind’s eye thinking about where else on his body it lead and what it would be like to uncover its hidden path down his body.
Stomping from her office, she walked into her living room and flung herself onto her couch. Her apartment was at the top of a large building and the outer walls were nearly entirely glass. At the time that she purchased the space, she had been wallowing in quite a bit of self-piety, and was emotional in a poetic way. She had begrudgingly taken the keys to the place, purchasing another property alone, thinking that it looked like the very fishbowl she had felt trapped in her whole life.
Now, she lay on her couch looking out at the city skyline that assumed her view. A hazy fog swirled and laced through the open sky outside her windows, and she began to feel lethargic after the sudden rush of so many different emotions and musings were finally coming to an end.
Tucking her arm under her head for support as she rested on her couch, Briana dozed off. The skyline became blurry, quickly replaced with fantasies about Darian building behind Briana’s eyes. She dreamed she was walking down a beach. It was empty and secluded and the white sand stretched endlessly in front of her. To her right was a thick jungle of palm trees and tropical bushes, their sweet scent filling her nose. To her left, crystal-clear waves gently washed back and forth against an immaculately clean shore.
In her dream, as she walked, she felt completely relaxed. The blue sky ballooned above her as she took in the deeply salty scent of the breeze and let her body sway in the wind. It wasn’t until she noticed a hint of something different in the air that she felt the all too familiar sense of disturbance creeping up on her. What was it? Perhaps a sooty smell? Turning her eyes towards the dense jungle, she scanned the horizon for whatever could be causing the odd smell to interrupt her pleasant dream.
She suddenly found herself paralyzed when she noticed the palm trees ahead of her shaking as though some large beast was going to erupt from the dense cover. Even in her dream state, Briana couldn’t help but think to herself that it was much like the sway of trees that she had noticed at the park just the day before. Her mind, dulled from the haze of her dream, drew a connection between the heaving trees and the presence of Darian Hardy. Suddenly feeling a powerful urge to race to the tree line where there had been a disturbance, Briana broke out into a sprint, rushing towards the spot she had seen the leaves shake.
When she had managed to make it about one hundred yards shy of the position she had been pursuing, she found herself stopped dead in her tracks. Before her was Darian Hardy, emerging from the brush exactly where the trees had been shaking. Briana felt the oxygen leave her lungs as her legs buckled out from under her. Dropping to the ground, her knees hit the warm, white sand as she sat slack jawed looking at the man in front of her.
It was Darian, but his appearance had been augmented in Briana’s dream state. Slowly approaching her was not Darian with silver curls and heavy grey eyes, but rather a man with Darian’s features and physicality, but with burning orange eyes, skin completely covered in thick black soot, and hair pitch black. As he walked towards her, Briana felt as though her soul had partially been pulled from her body and was yanking at her physical form to meet the mysterious man up the beach.
It was like waiting for her reckoning, Briana thought. As Darian approached, she could see the fire swirling in his eyes, the iris around his pupils brilliant and churning like molten precious metal. The expression in his eyes was both alarming, but also calming. He looked afraid, but his gaze called to her, as though he was expressing that he couldn’t wait to reach her in the same way she desired to reach him.
It wasn’t until he neared Briana that she realized he was completely naked, his bare figure obscured by the thick coating of soot. She also could suddenly see that the large puffs of black smoke that had been cascading over his shoulders were not a product of soot blowing away from his skin in the wind, but instead were the product of each o
ne of his heavy breaths releasing clouds of thick black smoke from his nose and mouth.
For whatever reason, this didn’t alarm Briana. She simply remained motionless in the sand waiting for him to make his way to her. Finally coming to stand in front of her, Briana looked up at Darian from her seat in the sand. Looking down the straight ridge of his nose at her, the orange glow of his eyes seemed to pulse and flicker. Briana couldn’t help but examine every inch of his sooty skin. His thighs were just as she imaged, thick and muscled, leading into a firm stomach that seemed clenched in its dense wall of muscles. His arms were long and lean to match his figure, and drawing her eyes from his, she allowed her gaze to trail slowly down across each shoulder all the way to the ends of his fingertips.
Drawing in a shaky breath, she allowed her eyes to cross the part of his body that she had secretly desired to see the most. Again meeting his gaze, now somehow softer, almost begging for her to allow their energy to settle into intimacy, she drew in a sharp breath before slowly and overtly carrying her gaze down his broad chest and towards the large extremity resting between his legs.
It was with immediate surprise that she found her body react to the sight of his most intimate feature. His shaft was long and held certain girth. Briana thought that it was beautiful, with a well-proportioned head that mushroomed out and reached for her eagerly. Admiring his picturesque sex, Briana imagined how it would fill her, and involuntarily her back arched at the thought of it penetrating her deeply and fully. She let out a soft moan at the thought, and watched the fire in his eyes flare upon hearing her small noise.
She could sense her unabashed gaze disturbed him as she watched the weight at which his breaths began to heave and shake his large frame. The plumes of smoke grew larger as they evacuated his nose and mouth causing Briana panic. Worried she had made a mistake, Briana frantically thought for a way to calm Darian. Reaching for him, she wrapped a single hand around his hip, her eyes closing at the pleasure of his touch. She felt overwhelmed, her whole body reacting to his warmth. She felt his body ease under her touch, but when she opened her eyes to him once again, she noticed that where her hand had touched his ash-laden skin, she had wiped away the black coating to reveal a patch of glowing silver scales.