Page 11 of Bred By the Dragon

I thought this would be easier, given my history. Besides—it’s just sex. I’ve played the “just sex” game before. So why would this be any different?

The next month drags on as I do more and more pee tests, slowly making my way through the box they gave me. And still, negative.

Negative.

Negative.

At my weekly check-ups, it’s the same thing: not a fetus in sight.

It’s a Friday night and I’m at home alone, drinking orange juice and pretending it’s a screwdriver, when the rain starts. It pelts the house, one of those wild summer thunderstorms, rattling everything with the force of the downpour.

Then some of it starts to stream through my roof.

“Fuck!” I hop off the couch as water dribbles in rivulets from the ceiling, landing on my old carpet. I know I need to replace it, but this is not how I wanted to be forced into it.

Frantically I run outside, grab a bucket, dump it out and carry it back inside to put it under the drizzle—only for another spot to start leaking, too.

By the time the storm is over, I have a mixing bowl, a bucket, and an empty crock pot all catching water and I’m frantically searching the internet for local roofers.

In the morning, I call someone to come take a look.

After he climbs back down the ladder and wipes his hands on his jeans, the roofer lets out a deep sigh. I know what’s coming.

“Your roof’s old,” he says. “You’ll have to replace the whole thing.”

My heart stops cold as he starts drawing me up an estimate. I’m making decent money at DreamTogether, but not enough to cover an expense like this. Politely I pay for his time and wave goodbye as he drives off down the road, all those zeroes flashing in my head.

Just great.

That’s when my phone rings. “This is to confirm your appointment for next Thursday...”

I sigh. At least there’s that. It’s not that I don’t want to see my dragon again—it’s that I’m afraid of how he makes me feel.

I don’t know him at all, not really. I only know that one side of him, the side he shows me in that room, on that table. But now, being face-to-face... this has become dangerous very quickly. I like how filthy he is, and how caring and affectionate he is underneath it. I love his white fangs and reptilian eyes, his long tongue and clawed hands. I adore how his cocks emerge only when he’s horny for me.

But I can’t have him. Not only because of DreamTogether, but because of who we are. I’m human. I’ll live seventy, maybe eighty years. If he’s already been alive for a few centuries, how many more centuries does he have ahead of him? We’re too different.

I could probably back out now. It’s not too late, since I’m not pregnant yet. But I also want him to get his wish. I want him to have his hatchling, to have that future he clearly craves more than anything.

And I need the money, plus some, if I’m going to replace this stupid roof.

So I don’t back out, and on Thursday, I walk into DreamTogether with a new intention not to let myself get attached to the dragon.

six

SAMMY

When he walks in the room, I try to look as bright as I can, the way I used to when I had to go in to work at five in the morning to train an early bird client. It’s my ‘customer service’ face, intended to put some distance between me and my client.

“Hi,” I say, trying to flap one hand, though it’s restrained to the table. “Nice to see you.”

He pauses in the doorway, and tilts his head to one side. “You, too,” he says, like he’s confused by my greeting. He has hunger in his eyes as he takes stock of me, but then he pauses on my face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” I say, perhaps too cheerily. Those ridged brows of his lower as he closes the door behind him. He approaches me, surveying me from head to toe, and slowly his slit begins to part. His black tongue flicks out, licking over his teeth before vanishing back into his mouth.

This time, when he palms one of my breasts, I try not to look too closely at him, because looking at his face does things to me. When he slides his claws down between my legs, testing me out, I try to keep a straight face.

We’re here for a reason, and the deeper this connection gets between us, the harder it will be to part.

---