Page 22 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

My dragon disagrees with this plan but my dragon can kiss my ass.

I open the fridge and start pulling things out. Eggs. Bacon. Bread for toast. I find the carton of blueberries I bought on instinct a few days ago, not knowing why, and set them on the counter.

For her. I bought them for her. Before I even knew she existed.

My dragon knew.

The coffee maker goes on first. I grind beans, fill the filter, start the pot. Then I crack eight eggs into a bowl. Whisk them. Lay bacon in the cast iron. Start slicing bread.

It occurs to me, somewhere between the bacon and the toast, that I am making breakfast for another person for the first time.

It should feel strange.

It feels like the most natural thing I’ve ever done.

The bacon is crisping when I hear her come down the stairs. I turn. She’s wearing her own clothes this time. Jeans and a soft sweater. Her hair is still damp. She looks rested and a little sore and absurdly pretty and she’s holding my flannel shirt from last night, folded neatly, pressed against her chest.

She sees me looking at it.

“I’m keeping this,” she says. Not a question.

Something happens to my chest. A cracking sensation, like ice breaking up on a river in spring.

“I have more,” I say.

She sits at the island and I put a plate in front of her. Eggs, bacon, toast, blueberries. A cup of coffee, black, because I don’t know how she takes it yet. This is a gap in my knowledge that I find unacceptable.

“How do you take your coffee?”

She blinks at the mug, then at me. “Little bit of cream. Two sugars.”

I don’t have cream. I don’t have sugar.

My dragon categorizes this as an emergency.

“I’ll get some today,” I say. This is something that will happen because she needs it and I am the one who will provide it.

She must see something on my face because she laughs. “Cage. It’s just coffee.”

It is not just coffee.

It is the first item on a list that my dragon has already started compiling. Things Mara needs. Things Mara likes. Things Mara mentioned once in passing that I will track down and place in her hands because that is what a dragon does for his mate.

She doesn’t know about the list yet.

She’ll find out.

She eats and I watch and it feels like a ritual already. Something we’ve done a thousand times. Something we’ll do a thousand more.

Between bites she tells me things. That she’s twenty-six. That she does freelance marketing from her laptop. That she was helping her sister move to Portland and was on her way to crash with a friend in Seattle when her car died. That she doesn’t have a lease anywhere right now because she gave hers up before the trip.

No lease. No apartment waiting for her. No home she has to get back to.

I file this information carefully and do not react. My dragon is doing something that might be the internal equivalent of victory laps, but I keep my face neutral.

“What about you?” she asks. “What’s your story? Other than being a ninety-three-year-old dragon mechanic who lives alone on a mountain.”

“That’s most of it.”