Page 20 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

For most of my life I have slept alone in this house. I built the bed frame myself. Cut the timber, planed the boards, joined everything by hand. King-sized because I’m too big for anything else. And every night I’ve lain in it alone and not once thought of it as empty.

It was empty.

I just didn’t know it until she filled it.

My dragon is doing something I’ve never felt before. He’s curled around something internally, the way dragons curl around the most precious thing in their hoard. Wrapped tight. Utterly still. Guarding.

Mate. Ours. Safe.

I run my fingers through her hair. She murmurs something in her sleep and presses closer. Her scent has changed. It’s deeper now, layered. Vanilla and blackberry still, but mine is woven through it. Cedar and smoke tangled with sweetness. The scent of a mated pair, not yet permanent, not yet sealed with a mark, but unmistakable to any dragon who gets close enough.

Good.

Let them smell it.

Let every alpha in Blackridge know that this woman is taken.

She wakes up just before dawn.

The room is dark. Rain is still falling, lighter now, the soft steady kind that can last for days in the mountains. Gray light is just beginning to creep around the curtains.

She stretches against me, then freezes. I can feel the exact moment she remembers where she is and what happened. Her body goes stiff. Her breathing changes. Her scent spikes with surprise, then embarrassment, then something warmer.

“Morning,” I say.

She tilts her head up. Blinks at me.

“You’re awake.”

“I’ve been awake.”

“For how long?”

“A while.”

“Cage. How long?”

I’ve been watching her breathe for four hours. I’m not going to tell her that.

“Long enough,” I say instead.

She laughs against my skin and the vibration travels through my chest and settles somewhere deep and permanent, and I think: I will do anything to hear that sound every morning for the rest of my life.

My hand slides down her back. Over the curve of her hip. She’s still naked, still warm from sleep, still smelling like us. My fingers trace the dip of her waist, the flare of her hip, the soft fullness of her thigh.

“Cage.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s five in the morning.”

“I know.”

“We just… we did… last night was…”

“Last night was the beginning.”

My hand slides between her thighs from behind. She gasps. Still slick. Still swollen. Still responding to my touch like her body can’t help itself.