Page 70 of Claimed by the Savage Dragons
The female and I are alone. Her breathing is slow and steady. I kneel in front of her, forcing the dragon back so I don’t scare her. She still startles when I touch her arm though and my jaw clenches. She’s terrified of me and my kind. And for good reason. I still don’t know why I care. But I do, and more peculiarly, so does my dragon, a creature that hasn’t even interacted with a human since I can’t even remember when.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask, cringing internally at my stupid question.
She nods but keeps her eyes on the floor. ‘I need to get to the kitchen, or I won’t get fed.’
‘There’s food in my fridge,’ I say, but she shakes her head.
‘They said not to use your kitchen, or anything here or I’d be punished.’
What the fuck?
‘You understand who I am, what my position is here?’
She inclines her head a little, still not looking at me.
‘Then you know that what I say goes, and I’m telling you to treat my home as if it was yours.’
‘And the overseer won’t find out?’ she whispers with wide eyes.
I frown. What the hell have they done to this girl?
‘No, sweetheart. He won’t find out.’
‘Okay.’
‘How about you go grab a shower and I’ll make us something to eat.’
‘Okay.’
‘Do you…’ I swallow hard, my fingers flexing at the thought of touching her. ‘Need any help?’
When she shakes her head, I feel like I’ve never been more disappointed about anything in my life before. What is wrong with me?
I stand abruptly and take two steps back.
‘Come to the living room when you’re done.’
‘Okay.’
I back out of the room and then go briskly to the kitchen to find something quick to make her. I bypass the joints of meat and settle for some tomato soup from my freezer. I heat it up on the stove and get a couple of fresh baguettes out of the food hamper that gets delivered to me every morning. I smother them in butter and then dish the soup up in a couple of bowls, setting them on my breakfast bar just in time for her to walk into the open-plan living space.
Her movements are slow, but she seems to brighten when she notices the food and sits on one of the high stools.
I stand across from her and hand her a spoon.
She murmurs a quiet thank you and takes it from me, her fingers lightly brushing mine. My heart skips a beat as a zing travels through me. She swallows hard like she feels the same, but before I can ask her if she did, she’s dipping pieces of bread into her soup and shoving them into her mouth with little noises of pleasure that go straight to my dick.
My eyes take in every movement, and I can’t do anything but watch her and hope she doesn’t look up and see me staring likea creep. It’s like the weeks of smelling her, of the tiny glimpses of her, of hearing her light snores in the room next to mine every night have culminated in this moment and all I want to do is jump across the countertop, pick her up, slam her against the wall and bury myself inside her so deep she’ll never not have my scent on her.Inher.
But then I see a dark bruise forming on her jaw where Dominick must have slapped her this morning, and it’s like a gust of snowy wind against my naked human front. I drop my eyes, call myself a heartless bastard, and I eat my fucking soup.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
She looks up, but her gaze only rises as far as my chest.
I stifle a curse. She’ll have been told not to look at her betters.
‘You’re allowed to look me in the eye,’ I say.
