Page 7 of Knotted by the Mountain Man Dragon

Transmission is destroyed. Not damaged. Destroyed. The kind of catastrophic failure that happens when a part that’s been dying for months finally gives up.

I need to order components. From Seattle. Best case, they’ll be here tomorrow. Longer if the mountain roads flood again.

Good.

My dragon settles deeper into satisfaction. Three days. Three days of her in my house, wearing my clothes, sleeping in my bed, smelling like vanilla and blackberry and me.

I roll out from under the car and stand up. She’s sitting on a shop stool now, legs crossed, skirt pulled back down, trying very hard to look like a person who did not just scream my name loud enough to rattle the tool rack.

She’s failing.

She’s also the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen the sun rise over the Cascades from ten thousand feet in the air.

Soft curves everywhere. Hips I can still feel under my palms. Thighs that clamped around my head minutes ago. Dark hair damp from rain, curling against her neck. Brown eyes watching me with a mix of arousal and wariness that makes my dragon want to simultaneously protect her and pin her down.

“Transmission’s gone,” I tell her.

“Gone as in—”

“Gone as in I need parts from Seattle. Tomorrow, maybe the day after.”

Her eyes widen. “The day after? I can’t—I have to get to Seattle, I have work, I—”

“Remote work?”

She pauses. “How did you—”

“You said marketing. I took a guess.”

“I said that? When did I—” She stops. Realizes it was probably during the part where I had my mouth between her legs and she was telling me fragmented facts about herself between gasps. Her cheeks flush dark rose.

I want to lick that blush.

“Motel’s full,” I say instead. “Some hiking festival. Dale can confirm.”

“So what am I supposed to—”

“I told you. You’re staying with me.”

“You can’t just… I don’t even know you.”

My dragon finds this hilarious. I know her scent. I know her taste. I know exactly the pitch her voice hits when she comes. I know she’s my mate, the one I’ve waited decades for, the one my dragon has been screaming about for three weeks. I know everything that matters.

But she’s human. She doesn’t have a dragon telling her what I am. She just has an omega response she’s probably never experienced before and a stranger who went down on her in a garage.

I make myself slow down.

“I have a spare room,” I say. “My place is fifteen minutes up the mountain. You’ll have privacy. I’ll drive you back to town whenever you need.”

She bites her bottom lip.

My dragon notices.

Everything about her, every small gesture, every shift in her scent, every unconscious movement, it registers now. My brain is cataloging her like she’s the most important thing in the world.

Because she is.

“Just until my car’s fixed,” she says.