Page 29 of The Dragon’s Good Girl

Chapter Six

Soren

The room has been ready for twenty minutes, but I’m still finding things to adjust.

I’ve turned the temperature up for Margot and left the weighted blanket she liked last week folded at the foot of the bed. There’s fruit in the refrigerator, tea for afterward, and a robe in her size hanging in the bathroom. None of it needs my attention, but I check the room again anyway, making sure everything she might want is within easy reach.

The second time has nothing to do with practicality.

I replace the floral candle with vanilla, move the weighted blanket from the foot of the bed to the chair, decide I preferred it on the bed, and put it back. Then I stand in the middle of the room and look around for something else to adjust.

There isn’t anything, because the room has been ready for twenty minutes.

I’m behaving like a hatchling, and I know it.

I’m still considering whether the lamp beside the bed is too bright when she knocks.

She’s right on time.

I open the door and immediately notice the difference a week has made. The shadows beneath her eyes haven’t disappeared, but they’ve faded, and there’s more color in her face. She looks rested rather than held together through determination alone, and when she smiles at me, my dragon gives a deep pulse of satisfaction.

She followed the rules.

“You slept.”

Her smile turns slightly sheepish. “Seven hours every night.”

“And breakfast?”

“Every morning. Sitting down, too, which I feel deserves extra credit.”

“It does.”

That earns me a wider smile.

I step aside to let her in, and when she passes me, I catch the scent of her hair. It takes me a second to place it, but once I do, I’m certain. It’s the same shampoo I used when I washed her hair last week.

I close the door behind her, and Margot catches me looking. “What?”

“Did you change your shampoo?”

Her hand goes automatically to her hair. “Oh. Yeah.” A flush creeps into her cheeks as she glances away. “I saw it at the store and recognized the bottle, so I bought some.”

My dragon responds before I can. A slow warmth spreads through my chest, satisfaction settling somewhere deep beneath my ribs at the thought of her standing in a store, recognizing something from our time together, and choosing to take it home with her.

I’m probably more pleased by that than I have any right to be.

“Do you like it?” I ask.

Margot looks back at me, still slightly pink. “I wouldn’t have spent that much on shampoo if I didn’t.”

I smile. “Fair enough. And the third rule?”

The smile slips.

There it is.

I lean back against the door and wait.