by Ruby Dixon
“No, that’s not me.” I can feel myself blushing.
“Sa-cha…” He pauses and makes a strange expression, then gestures a bit more. I squint at him, trying to figure out what he’s asking. When he repeats it and then mimics the man’s hand on the woman’s waist, I realize that the weird facial expression he’s making? It’s the cover model’s O-face.
I don’t know if I find this hilarious or horrifyingly awkward. “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” I say, trying to keep a straight face. “I told you that’s not me.”
He picks up another romance novel and regards the cover. Then he turns it to me and points at the woman on the front. “Sa-cha?” He taps the picture of the man with his mouth on the heroine’s face. “Dakh?”
I gasp. Is he asking if we can make out? Or if I’ve made out with someone in the past and he wants me to show him how? “Whatever you’re asking, the answer is no. Even if it was yes, I wouldn’t answer that anyhow.” I glance down at his naked body to see if I need to be alarmed, but his cock is at half-mast. I breathe a little easier at that. It’s just an innocent question, then. “It’s a book about a relationship,” I tell him. “The people kiss in it, but there’s also a big adventure.” I get to my feet and pull the book from his hands, opening it to the painted stepback. This second book is a reprint of an old classic, and the inside cover is filled with images of pirate ships and swashbuckling duels as the heroine clings to the hero’s leg. “See? It’s excitement and romance, but I guess the sex is what sells it. I’m a fan of the entire story, not just the sex.”
Taking the book from him, I close it again and set it down on the bed. Part of me wonders if I should tear the cover off so he won’t get any ideas about sex—my least favorite hobby ever—but I can’t bring myself to deface books that have been so pristine for years in the After. They’re a treasure, and I plan on enjoying them repeatedly.
As I set the book down, I see my arms and hands look very dirty against the pale, clean sheets. Ew. I grab a handful of my hair and sniff it, and it smells greasy. I bet I stink. I glance over at Dakh. “Do we have more plans for going out today? Because if not, I’d like to take a bath.”
His brows draw together, and he studies me, silent.
“You know what? I’m going to roll with it and say that we’re not going out again.” I give him a bright smile. “And since we’ve got a whole aisle of shampoos, I want to take advantage of them. Come on.”
I get a shopping cart, and I spend some time picking out my soaps and shampoos. There’s bubble bath, too, and I grab some of it, along with some lotion. I’m going to have myself a spa day, I decide. Dakh can find something else to do if he doesn’t want to play along. Once I have all of the bath supplies, there’s the small problem of an actual tub. I head over to the summer supplies and pick out a kiddie pool. There’s a kitchen in the break room of the SuperMart, and it’s got a large sink in there, so I can attach a garden hose and use it to fill up my pool with water. I don’t know if the hot water will work, but I figure I have a dragon and that’s the least of my problems.
After I get the hose, some beach towels, and my pool, I turn my cart back toward the clothing section and pick out a swimsuit. I doubt Dakh is going to leave while I bathe—heck, it’s hard to get him to leave when I have to use the facilities—so better safe than sorry. I should pick a one-piece, maybe, but there’s a frilly pink gingham bikini that’s screaming at the girly side of me, and I can’t resist it. It’s been years since I had frivolous clothing, and who’s going to be here to complain if I wear something a little impractical? I won’t be naked, and that’s the important part.
Dakh watches me with an interested expression, as if he’s trying to figure me out. He follows along at my side, silent, as I steer my cart to the back of the store and push it into the employee area. The break room still has a fleet of chairs and folding tables laid out, so I have Dakh move them aside, since I can’t do much more than shove them around with my bad arm. When there’s enough clear space, I manage to get the pool set up (again with Dakh’s help) and hook the water hose to the sink. Then I retreat to the ladies’ room to change into my bikini.
It takes forever for the pool to fill up, so I get in the moment it gets hip deep and wince at how cold the water is.
“Sa-cha?” Dakh asks, curious. He’s watching me intently.
I rub my arms, indicating cold. It also helps hide the fact that my nipples are completely pebbled and obvious in my tiny, frilly bikini. Guess I didn’t think that one through. But Dakh doesn’t say anything about it. He leans over the plastic side of the pool, and before I can say anything, sticks his face in the water. Bubbles froth up, and I giggle at the sight, but then give a sigh of pleasure when I realize what he’s doing. He’s heating the water for me.
It gets unspeakably warm within moments, and I move closer to the water hose, where the cool water is pouring in. “Thank you.” I pull the bandages off my broken arm and set them on the counter nearby. I add bubble bath and use the hose to make it foam, then turn off the water and sink into the pool. The bubbles are a thick froth, and I’m waist deep in a hot bath for the first time in forever. God, it feels amazing. A sigh escapes me, and I close my eyes, relaxing.
A splash and a nudge against my foot make me open my eyes again. I sit up to see Dakh climbing into the pool on the opposite side of me. It’s not quite big enough for the two of us to stretch out, and the water slops over the edge onto the floor. Almost immediately, the water feels even warmer. That might be me blushing, though, considering I’m now sharing a pool with a big, naked dragon-man.
“I didn’t realize you were into bubble baths,” I say, and fling a handful of the foam at him to take away some of the awkwardness of the situation. For some reason, I had pictured me taking this bath solo. I hadn’t imagined that he’d join in with me. Guess that’s a mistake on my part, because of course he would. The man never leaves me alone for a second. “At least I don’t have to worry about the water getting cold.”
He plucks at the bubbles, trying to figure them out. I chuckle at that, amused, and lather up my hair and skin to get clean. It feels so wonderful I do it a second time, just because all this soap is a luxury that I plan on thoroughly enjoying. Dakh takes one of my bottles and sniffs it as I rinse my hair, and with a few mimes and gestures, I show him how it’s supposed to be used. He cleans his hair, dunks himself, and then looks thoroughly disgusted when the water streams into his eyes.
I can’t help but giggle. “Come on, do dragons not bathe where you come from? You don’t smell that bad, so you must.” I splash at him with my good arm.
Dakh makes a playful growling noise, and then he pulls me across the water and against his chest. I squeal, protecting my bad arm against my chest as he tugs me close, but he’s only settling me in against him. His arms go around me once more, and he touches my bad arm, a question in his gaze.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him softly. “At least, nothing I feel like talking about. And you can’t understand, anyhow.” It feels like Fort Dallas is a different part of my life now, an ugly past that I don’t have to think about. Right now, I’m living in the moment, and I plan on doing that and enjoying myself. I’ll worry about Fort Dallas and Tate and Claudia, Amy, and the future some other time.
With gentle hands, Dakh wipes a wet strand of hair off my forehead. Funny how he can be so very gentle given that his hands are the size of baseball mitts and tipped with claws, but I feel safe here with him. At some point in the last few days, I’ve realized that Dakh isn’t going to hurt me. More than anything, he wants to keep me safe. I think it’s because he views me as something that belongs to him, but whatever the reason, at least I’m safe right now.
He takes a handful of the bubbles and smooths them down my bad arm. He’s achingly gentle as he does so, his brows going down in a frown as he encounters my bruises. One claw skims my skin, and then he pauses. “Dakh?”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand?”
Oh. He’s asking about my injuries. Asking if he was the one that hurt me. “No, it wasn’t you. It was someone else. Not Dakh.”
A look of relief crosses his face, and he strokes my temple again. I feel a twinge of pity for the dragon-man. Did he think he was the one that hurt me? No wonder he looks so sad when he stares at my wounds. “Dakh has been pretty good to me,” I tell him softly. Other than stealing me away and getting me almost killed by a red dragon, of course.
His eyes flick to a darker amber, and the look on his face turns sensual. He studies me and then cups my cheek with one big hand.
I shiver, uncertain where this is going.
12
SASHA
With careful movements, Dakh traces the pad of his thumb over my lower lip.
“I’m sorry you picked me,” I tell him in a low voice. “Because I think you’re a really nice guy for a dragon, but I hate sex. And I bet you won’t like it with me, either.” Ever since the After, when I’ve had to do questionable things to survive, I’ve learned to hate the touch of another. I don’t mind when Dakh hugs me or strokes my back, because it’s meant to comfort. Sex itself is a power struggle, and one I always lose. I’m going to forever associate it with distaste, all thanks to Tate.
And the ironic thing is that he’s never really wanted sex from me. When we did have sex, it was just because it was another way he could make me miserable. He liked my misery more than anything.
Dakh doesn’t seem like that. He seems different. He seems happiest when I’m happy, but I’m afraid the damage is already done. If he wants a human girlfriend who’s going to look forward to his touch, he grabbed the wrong girl.
Maybe my wariness shows on my face, because all he does is stroke my cheek. He doesn’t grab me and force me down or rip my top off. He seems content to touch my face. After a few minutes of no grabbing, I relax against him and tuck my body against his side, relaxing a bit. Maybe he just likes touching.
The dragon-man strokes my arm, sliding suds up and down the length of it. It’s…oddly relaxing, almost like a massage. His hand is incredibly warm, and combine that with the deliciously warm bath? I find my eyelids growing heavy, and I start to get sleepy.
“Maybe we should get out,” I tell him softly.
He just pulls me a little closer to his wet body and continues to stroke my soapy arm.
All right, well, if he wants to keep massaging a girl, I’ll let him. I close my eyes and relax against him. The gentle, stroking touches move over my shoulder, and I deliberately lean in against his chest so he can rub my back. He’s making that low, rumbling noise in his chest again and sounds like a contented cat. Heck, if humans could purr, I’d probably be doing so right now. If all he wants is gentle touching, I’m happy to oblige. I start to wonder if maybe I’ve read him all wrong. If he’s not wanting to have sex after all.
Then I remember him pulling me against him, ready to come into me from behind.
Yeah, I didn’t imagine that.
Suddenly it doesn’t feel quite so safe to lie here in his arms. I’m almost naked. He’s still my captor.
Still a dragon.
A little spooked, I push away from him and get up, wobbling in the slippery pool. “That’s enough bathing for me.”
He gets to his feet and immediately puts a hand to my waist, steadying me. I can’t help but notice that his bronzed body has water sluicing down his muscles—oh God, so many dang muscles—and that his cock is completely erect again. Time to put some distance between us again, I think. I get out of the pool, stepping onto the bath mat I’ve placed nearby for such a reason, and wrap a beach towel around me. It’s fluffy and delicious, and I snuggle it close.
Dakh comes up behind me and begins to rub the towel up and down my wet body, and it’s…well, damn, it’s really nice. I stand still for his ministrations, even though I know I should push him away. Part of me is worried that I’m going to push him away too much and make him angry, and part of me doesn’t want to push him away at all.
Part of me likes all this attention, even though I know what he’s going to want in the end.
“You’ve sold yourself for less, Sasha,” I mutter to myself as I slip on a pair of flip-flops. “Only this time, instead of selling yourself for some squirrel stew, you’d be selling yourself for an entire store full of stuff and a dragon that wants to protect you from everyone else. Might not be such a bad offer.”
And yet.
I don’t know what it entails if I give in to what Dakh wants. Does he want a quick fuck and nothing else? Or does he want to keep me hidden away forever? I don’t know anything about dragons, other than my really brief conversation with Claudia when she returned to Fort Dallas after escaping hers. I rack my brain, trying to remember what she told me.
Just that she touched his dick. That’s all I remember. Oh, and that he bit her. I’m suddenly filled with fear. I don’t want to be bitten. She looked really upset that he’d hurt her, and the memory of that makes my stomach clench.
I do my best to ignore Dakh at my side as I pad back to my nest of blankets. I can’t stop thinking about Claudia and her dragon. I’m a little panicked, but I have to be reasonable. When Claudia first told me she’d met a dragon, she was a little freaked out. She’d said he’d bit her and they’d had sex, and she didn’t look pleased. The next time I saw her, she wanted me to go with her and the dragon, and promised he wouldn’t hurt me. He must have regained her trust in some sort of manner, then.
Unless she had a deal with him like I did with Tate, where she agreed to do what he wanted in the bedroom as long as he kept her safe.
I…guess I could have a deal like that with Dakh, if I was being practical. Though it scares me to think about, it would also make sense. His protection would offer me a lot more than Tate’s would. And haven’t I been trading myself for such things already? It fills me with a little bit of despair to realize I’m back in the same situation, but I’ll do what I have to do to survive.
I’m just a little afraid of all the biting and what comes with having sex with a dragon. Then again, Tate broke my arm just to teach me a lesson, so I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be as bad as that.
I shudder at the memory. I hope it wouldn’t be as bad as that. Right now I’m just assuming. But Dakh hasn’t been happy with my wounds, so I would think he would be a bit more careful with his playthings than Tate was.
All right then. By the time I make it back to the area I’ve set up as “home,” I’ve decided. If the dragon initiates sex with me again, I won’t pull away. I’ll let whatever happens, happen. And I’ll just deal with the fallout, like I always do. I squelch the feeling of self-loathing that threatens to rise up.
This is no time for me to be prudish. This is about my survival, and I’m just going to have to suck it up. Women have been trading their bodies for safety ever since the Rift. I’m no different from any of them at the end of the day.
When I return to my blankets, I convince Dakh to turn around so I can finish changing out of my wet clothes and into some dry ones. I know it shouldn’t matter considering he’s naked all the time, but it’s important to me that I not give up, even if it means being overly modest. I change into a pair of crisp pajamas, loving the way the cotton feels against my skin. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a real bath—the dunk back during the dragon fight doesn’t count—and I feel fresh and clean…and itchy. My skin is dry, and it doesn’t take long for me to start scratching. Annoyed, I dig through my new toiletries until I find lotion and begin to slather it on my legs and then my arms.
Dakh watches with interest, crouching across from me. I do my best to pretend he’s not there, but when he grabs the bottle and sniffs it, I patiently wait for him to return it.
Except he doesn’t. He squirts a bit on his hand and then mov
es closer to me, then rubs it on my bared arm. His hand has heated the lotion, and it’s not an unpleasant touch. I remain still while he smooths it over my skin. He just likes touching, it seems. Lots and lots of touching. If all he wants is that, I’m game. He rubs my arm all the way to my elbow-length sleeve, then slides his fingers under the sleeve itself, continuing to stroke my skin. Despite his claws, he’s very careful, and his touch is gentle. I close my eyes and relax because I have to admit, it feels pretty good.
But then Dakh growls, and I feel him jerk at my sleeve. I open my eyes to see he’s frowning at my clothing, and there’s more lotion on his hand. It’s clear he wants to continue the massage, even though every exposed inch of me is already lotioned up.
I swallow hard. This is the moment I was waiting for…and dreading. But there’s no sense in fighting the inevitable.
“Just a moment,” I whisper, and reach up to undo the buttons on my pajama top. My fingers are trembling a little, but I manage to keep myself calm and composed. I slide the top off and let it fall to the ground. My breasts are exposed, I’m completely naked from the waist up, and I wonder if he’s going to react in any particular way. Unease makes my skin prickle, and I can feel my nipples getting tight.
Dakh makes a grunt of approval and moves behind me, pressing one lotion-covered hand onto my shoulder, and continues his rubbing.
Okay, that’s not so bad then. Despite my initial anxiety, I relax as he continues his massage, kneading and lotioning every inch of my back. It actually feels really good. I can feel my body growing loose and the tension easing from my muscles as he continues to stroke me. His hands slide over my shoulders in a caress, and the longer he does it, the more languid I feel.
“Sa-cha,” he murmurs, his hand gliding down the back of my neck.
I feel a little shiver move through me at that soft way he says my name. Part of me wonders if he’s going to ask me to take off my pants next. And it’s weird how breathless and strange that makes me feel.
