Page 12 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

I have known this man for approximately ninety minutes. In that time, he has: diagnosed my car, made me come twice, referred to me as his, carried me into his house, and started cooking me dinner.

And apparently my omega thinks this constitutes a perfectly reasonable timeline.

I press my thighs together. I’m still swollen and sensitive and I can feel him everywhere he touched me. My skin smells like cedar and smoke and I should shower but I don’t want to wash him off me and that thought is what finally makes me put the shirt down and stare at the ceiling.

“Mara Ellis,” I whisper to myself. “Get a grip.”

But my pajamas stay in my suitcase.

I shower. I put on his shirt. It smells so intensely like him that wearing it feels almost as intimate as what happened in the garage. I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I’m flushed, wide-eyed, and I have a bite mark on my lower lip that I gave myself. Who are you?

I have never been this person. I am the omega who doesn’t respond. The one who sits through alpha-omega mixers feeling absolutely nothing while her friends swoon. The one whose doctor gently suggested that some omegas simply have a lower biological threshold and that’s okay, it doesn’t mean anything is wrong.

Except something was wrong.

I just hadn’t met him yet.

That thought is either the most romantic thing I’ve ever felt or the most terrifying, and right now I can’t tell the difference.

I go downstairs.

Cage is standing at the stove with a dish towel over his shoulder, flipping something in a cast iron skillet. He’s changed into a clean henley—dark green, sleeves pushed up, because apparently that’s his signature look and apparently it’s going to kill me. The kitchen smells like garlic and butter and herbs.

He turns when I hit the bottom stair.

His eyes drop to his shirt on my body.

They flash gold.

He looks at me the way a man looks at something he has waited his entire life to see, and I feel it in my chest like a hand reaching in and squeezing.

“Sit down,” he says, and his voice is rougher than it was five minutes ago.

I sit at the butcher block island. He puts a plate in front of me with chicken, roasted potatoes, and something green. It’s simple and hot and good. He pours me a glass of water without being asked, then stands on the other side of the island with his arms crossed and watches me eat.

“You’re not eating?”

“I ate.”

“When?”

“Before.”

“Before when?”

He doesn’t answer, which means he doesn’t remember, which means he’s been running on coffee and dragon instinct for God knows how long.

“Cage.”

“Eat.”

I eat because I’m hungry and because arguing with this man feels like arguing with a mountain. Technically possible but ultimately pointless.

He watches every bite. Not in a creepy way. In the way you watch when feeding someone has suddenly become the most important task you can imagine. His dragon is in his eyes. Not fully gold, but flickering at the edges, warm amber bleeding into dark brown.

I set my fork down.

“So,” I say. “Mates.”