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 moves 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.