Page 22 of The Dragon’s Good Girl

Responded well to praise and clear direction. Tendency to minimize her own needs and insist on doing things herself even when care is offered. Significant emotional release during first session. May need encouragement to identify and ask for what she wants rather than defaulting to what she thinks is expected. Between-session rules: eat breakfast daily, minimum seven hours' sleep, and say no to one thing she would normally agree to each day. Review next session.

I read it over once before saving it.

Professional. Accurate. Exactly the sort of note I've written hundreds of times.

It feels more personal than it should.

I close the laptop.

That should be the end of it, except my dragon has been suspiciously quiet since she left, and the moment I notice, I'm thinking about the purr again.

It started during aftercare with Margot tucked against my chest, warm beneath the blankets while we talked about books. She relaxed against me a little more with every question, and somewhere in the middle of telling me about rereading Rebecca every autumn, the sound started.

I haven't purred during a session in decades.

Margot probably has no idea what that means. She seemed more amused than anything when she realized what the sound was, but I know exactly what caused it. Purring isn't something I can summon at will. It comes from my dragon, entirely involuntary, when I'm content enough to let my guard down.

Today, with her tucked against my chest, I forgot myself.

And when she noticed, I didn't want her to move.

I've been doing this long enough to know how to keep a session where it belongs. My attention stays on the person in front of me, I give her what we agreed upon, and when she leaves, I reset the room and move on. That distance matters.

Whatever distance I've learned to keep over the years, my dragon clearly has other ideas. I reach into my pocket and feel the hair tie still tucked inside.

Apparently, we're keeping that too.

I have a six o'clock session to prepare for, so I leave Margot's file closed and get on with my evening.

She has been coming to me for nearly a year. She arrives wound tight from a week of twelve-hour shifts and spends the first ten minutes talking fast enough that I barely need to contribute. By the time we finish, the tension has left her shoulders and she's laughing again, which is usually all I need to know I've done my job well.

Afterward, I settle her with a drink and something to eat before seeing her out. It's a good session, familiar and easy in the way established clients often are. Nothing goes wrong. Nothing feels lacking.

And not once does my dragon stir.

By the time I make it downstairs, the common room is loud, which is where most Saturdays end when no one has an evening booking. Evan has bread in the oven, and the warm smell of it has drifted through most of the ground floor. Ronan sits on the rug with his back against the couch, Grath takes up most of the couch behind him with a bowl balanced on his stomach, and Mikael has draped himself across the armchair nearest the fire despite the room already being warm enough for everyone else.

I'm halfway to the kitchen when Mikael speaks. "You smell like someone else's shampoo."

"I had a session."

"You've had thousands of sessions." He turns a page, apparently far more interested in his book than in me. "You've never come down here smelling like you bathed with one."

Grath looks over, still chewing. "New girl?"

"Is she nice?" Ronan asks from the floor, tipping his head back until he's looking at me upside down.

"She's a client."

Ronan holds my gaze for a moment, his ears twitching slightly. "That wasn't what I asked."

I have an answer. I'm simply not stupid enough to give it to this room, so I turn toward the refrigerator and open it as though I came over here with a specific purpose.

"He's hoarding."

Godric's voice comes from somewhere above and behind Mikael. I look up and find the gargoyle perched on top of the bookshelf, stone wings folded neatly against his back. I could have sworn he wasn't there when I walked in.

The fire still cracks behind Mikael, something simmers on the stove, and Evan's timer ticks steadily on the counter. But every other bastard in the room has stopped what he's doing and turned his attention to me.