Page 11 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

He sets me down in the living room and I look around.

Open floor plan. Big. High ceilings with exposed beams. A woodstove against the far wall. Wide plank floors. Leather couch that’s seen better days but looks comfortable enough to sleep on. Kitchen through an archway with cast iron on hooks, a coffee maker, and a butcher block island. Stairs leading up.

It’s masculine. Sparse. Clean in a way that speaks to decades of military-grade habit rather than any interest in interior design.

And then I notice the piles.

Not mess or clutter. Deliberate arrangements.

A stack of blankets on the end of the couch. At least six, all different weights and textures, folded precisely. A shelf near the kitchen with at least a dozen bags of coffee, some still sealed. Cans of food organized by type in quantities that suggest either a doomsday prepper or someone who hasn’t quite figured out how much one person eats. Three flashlights lined up on the mantle. Two more on the shelf by the door. A basket near the couch filled with… are those river stones? Smooth and dark and arranged by size?

I look at Cage.

He’s watching me look at his house, and for the first time, something almost vulnerable crosses his face. It’s so brief I nearly miss it.

“Dragon thing,” he says quietly.

“The rocks?”

“The everything.”

I look again. The blankets. The excessive coffee supply. The flashlights. The careful organization of objects that most people would throw in a drawer.

“You hoard,” I say.

His jaw tightens with something almost like embarrassment, which on this enormous, terrifying man looks deeply out of place.

“It’s instinct,” he says. “Comfort items. Things that might be useful. Things that—” He stops. “It’s manageable.”

I think about the ruined underwear currently in his back pocket.

I decide not to mention it.

“The spare room’s upstairs,” he says, pivoting. “Clean sheets. Towel.”

He leads me upstairs, carrying my suitcase like it weighs nothing, and sets it inside the door of a small, clean, sparse room. A bed with a quilt, a nightstand, a window overlooking the valley.

Then he opens a dresser drawer, pulls out a folded flannel shirt and a pair of wool socks, and sets them on the bed.

I look at the flannel. I look at my suitcase, which contains perfectly functional pajamas.

“In case you want it,” he says. And something in his voice tells me he knows exactly what he’s offering. His scent. On my skin. All night.

The shirt is so large it will hit me mid-thigh.

“Bathroom’s across the hall. Hot water takes about thirty seconds.” He pauses in the doorway. Fills it, actually, his shoulders nearly touch both sides of the frame. “You hungry?”

I realize I’m starving. My body has been operating on adrenaline and orgasms for the last hour and now that I’m standing still, the crash is coming.

“Yes. Very.”

“I’ll cook.”

He turns and heads downstairs. I hear him moving in the kitchen. Cabinet doors. The clank of cast iron. Something sizzling within minutes.

I sit on the bed and look at the flannel shirt he left me.

I press it to my face and inhale, and his scent fills my lungs, and my entire body says mate with a certainty that should terrify me.