Page 3 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

Nothing. Not a flicker.

“Keys.”

I pull them out of my pocket and hold them up.

He reaches for the keys.

His fingers brush mine.

And every atom of oxygen evacuates the building.

The heat that’s been crawling through me detonates. My vision whites out for a half second. My knees nearly buckle. I smell him. Not grease, not motor oil, him: cedar and smoke and hot metal and rain. It hits the back of my brain like a key turning in a lock.

This. This is what it’s supposed to feel like.

Every alpha I have ever stood near was background noise. Elevator music. Static. And this man is a five-alarm fire in every nerve I own and I have known him for eleven seconds.

I suck in a breath.

He goes completely still.

His hand is frozen around the keys, my fingers still caught under his. His nostrils flare once, twice. The muscles in his forearm go rigid. His jaw clenches so hard I can see the tendon jump.

Then his eyes change.

The dark irises flood gold. I don’t mean it figuratively, like “they caught the light at a warm angle.” They turn molten. Slit pupils. Just like my daydream. Just like the eyes I’ve been seeing for an hour on the highway, burning in my brain.

I know what a scent response looks like in an alpha. I’ve seen it in health class videos and in a few awkward encounters at bars. A double take, a lingering inhale, a slightly too-intense stare. Normal biological interest. Manageable.

This is not that.

This is a man who just got struck by lightning and is somehow still standing.

“What’s your name?” His voice sounds like he’s chewing gravel.

“Mara.”

His nostrils flare again. His grip tightens around my fingers. His eyes drop to my throat, my collarbone, lower, then snap back up like he’s physically forcing them.

“You smell—” He stops. Swallows. The gold in his eyes pulses brighter.

“I smell what?”

His jaw works.

“Like mine.”

The word hits me between the legs.

Something is happening to me that is completely outside my experience as a low-responsive omega who has never reacted to an alpha, because right now my body is responding to this stranger in a way I’ve never experienced. I’m flushed. I’m trembling. I am so wet it’s humiliating.

And from the way his pupils are blown and his chest is heaving, he knows it.

“Everyone out.” His voice carries without him raising it. Pure authority. “NOW.”

I hadn’t even registered the other people around us. A younger guy near the far bay. Someone in the parts room. They both look up, look at Cage, look at me, and then move for the door like people who understand exactly what’s happening and have no interest in being present for it.

The side door shuts.