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1
Of Dragons & Wishes
The light from the street lamps trickled into the small hotel room in silver threads, impeded by the hastily drawn shades, marking the bed and the figures entwined on it with lines that seemed to separate reality from imagination.
If this was a dream and Sam was to wake at any moment, she hoped she’d remember every sensation. How the skin underneath her lips glimmered eerily with a sheen of perspiration, and how the body under her fingertips moved,graceful even in rapture. Making another memory, she lowered her head again, choosing to keep her eyes open and to watch the havoc her mouth wreaked on her lover.
Her lover, whose spine was arched back, head thrashing on the scattered pillows, body taut as a bowstring. Her lover, who let out a sensuous moan that tore open something inside Sam. Her lover, who was undone by Sam’s lips and Sam’s tongue, and who grasped at the ruined sheets in a futile effort to stave off the sensation and to keep herself from the precipice. All for naught, for when the climax overtook her, like an arrow from that bowstring, Sam set her free. Unable to behold the sheer beauty in front of her, Sam surrendered and closed her eyes, still hoping to remember everything.
* * *
“Thank heavens, I thought this school year would never end! The brats are gone and it’s time to celebrate!” Joanne Dorsea’s excited voice sounded loud right next to Sam’s ear, jolting her out of her reverie. Three months and Sam still got lost in thought, remembering the tiny hotel room and all the things she had no business keeping this close to the forefront of her consciousness. She wanted to roll her eyes at her own foolhardiness—if not outright stupidity—and turned her attention to her colleague.
Here she was in the middle of the end-of-year party held, as usual, by the illustrious Headmistress at her cottage, a stone’s throw from the school itself. And instead of focusing on the things at hand, such as the rather decent whiskey she was clutching, Sam’s mind was miles away.
She tried to subtly shake her head to dispel the treacherous memories and focus on the present. Joanne, her erstwhile friend, mentor, and for all intents and purposes mother figure, was grinning and enjoying herself, sipping on her own drink. Sam willed her brain to function and tried to form coherent words. What was that? Brats?
“Hush, Jo, or they will think you hate the children or dislike being a teacher here at Dragons. Plus didn’t you win the sweepstakes when Sky Blue took all the awards this year? You should be thrilled.”
She recalled the ultra-competitive finals of the lacrosse and soccer championships, where Sky Blue House had claimed glory in the dying seconds of both games. Sure, it devolved into a brawl, as these things usually did, with the girls as animated and excited as they were. Still, it had certainly been much more interesting than their total domination in the Debate Club she herself chaired. But Sam would take that observation to her grave. As far as her public stance was concerned, Debate Club ruled and was the absolute best and most riveting activity in the Academy. If she privately enjoyed cheering for the Sky Blues during their sports competitions, no one needed to be the wiser. And if under duress, she could always tell them she’d been a Sky Blue once upon a time herself, when she had attended Dragons and worn the Dragonette uniform.
“Iamthrilled. For a second there I thought Amber House would beat the Sky Blues in the soccer championship, but your house persevered, little one.”
Sam had to smile at the old nickname that tended to pop up every time she and her friend found themselves alone. Joanne had called her that when she was five, and still did so now that Sam was almost thirty and no longer little by anyone’s stretch of the imagination, standing at a pretty commanding height. In fact, just the right height to have looked directly into those intriguing eyes and to not have to bend her head to kiss those sensual full lips that night three months ago.
“Where do you keep disappearing to, my girl?” Joanne gave her a knowing gaze, and Sam suddenly felt like she was five again and Joanne had caught her with jam smears all over her face, despite claiming that she had not been down at the kitchens stealing blueberry pie filling.
“Ah, Jo…”
“‘Jo’ nothing. You’ve been acting like this ever since you came back from that conference in New York. Three months ago, was it? Spacing out. Daydreaming. What has gotten into you, Sam? Or should I say who?” The older woman’s eyes were twinkling with mischief.
“Oh my god!”
Sam’s scandalized hiss made Joanne laugh out loud.
“Girly, you are forgetting that I listened to you go on and on and on about Abigail Hodges when you were fifteen. It was all you talked about, her hair, her smile, her eyes, her—” Joanne made a demonstrative move with her hands in front of her chest, and Sam all but choked on her whiskey.
“Shhhh, Jo!” Sam looked nervously around to see if anyone paid any attention to them, but with the party in full swing, she could count on relative privacy. Still, her sexuality wasn’t something she wished to discuss around her colleagues. “Someone will hear. And I have never mentioned her attributes.”
“Always a worrier, little one. People are too busy getting drunk to care about us. You were easy to tease then, and you are easy to tease now, Sam.”
Joanne chuckled, obviously tickled pink by having the upper hand over her protégé. Sam pouted at how easily she was still falling into these situations with Joanne. She loved her like the mother she had never known, but damn if it wasn’t just a touch annoying that Joanne could still read her like an open book.
“Jokes aside, I worry about you. You haven’t been yourself lately. You can beat around the bush all you want, but you are broody, you spend way too much time on that cliff of yours where you think nobody can see you, and your head is somewhere else. Or is it your heart? Nether regions?”
Sam groaned and hid her face in her hands as Joanne simply laughed at her again and gave her a brief hug.
“Okay, okay, I will stop teasing you, but we are not done with this conversation, not by a long shot. Something clearly happened in New York.” Sam tried to school her features into the best poker face she could muster, but Joanne just raised her eyebrow and Sam smiled sheepishly. Both of them were well aware that Sam’s aforementioned poker face was so bad, it was rather legendary around the school.
“Now that I’ve given you enough grief and you’ve as good as confessed to having been up to no good down in the Big Apple, I can change the subject. And to answer your previous question about our darling little pupils, I absolutely do not hate them and they did win me pocket money. But they do become extremely tedious as the year progresses, and in spring doubly so. All that teenage angst and the hormones? Bah, spare me!” She shuddered dramatically and emptied her glass in one gulp.
“I hear you. The boys from town have been jumping the fence much more often. I understand that’s inevitable with an all-girls school, the attraction for them is just insurmountable. I separated at least three couples from rather compromising positions just last week.”
“Spoilsport. You were their age once, and the way you keep daydreaming about whoever it is that has you completely ensnared, you’re still prone to flights of fancy. Thank goodness you are just a touch more discreet than our esteemed leader. Cause she’s downright shameless tonight. And at least the Headmistress’ flavor of the week is cute. Very much so. And good for her too.”
Sam followed Joanne’s gaze to the front of the room where the dark-haired, older woman held court. As Sam observed, the Headmistress slid her hand up the aforementioned cute guy’s shoulder and into his hair, playing with the longer curls while he blushed rather endearingly.
“Good for her indeed,” Sam chimed in. “It’s been a long and difficult school year, we’re celebrating, she can let her hair down every once in a while. Nothing wrong with that.”
