Page 53 of The Dragon’s Good Girl

"I saw her."

Soren goes quiet.

"The woman who left before me. Gray coat, wet hair. I saw you at the door with her, and then I watched her get into the car beside mine looking exactly the way I look when I leave here." My voice is beginning to shake, and I hate that almost as much as I hate everything else. "So I sat there thinking about all the things I've decided mean something. The baths and the way you talk to me and how you remember everything I say, and I realized I have absolutely no idea which parts are actually mine and which parts you're just very good at making feel that way."

"Margot, she—"

"I know I'm just a client." The words come faster now that I've started. "I know what this is. I know I pay you and you have other clients and none of that was hidden from me, so I don't even have the right to be angry about it. But then you stand there telling me I'm different, and I want to believe you so badly that I feel like an idiot."

"You are not an idiot."

"I booked tonight because I missed you."

That silences him.

My eyes burn, and I finally look at him. "Not because I needed a session. I missed you. And then I got here and saw her leaving, and all I could think was that maybe she misses you too. Maybe everyone does. Maybe that's what you're good at."

His face changes, but I can't stop now.

"I don't know how to do this, Soren. I know how to be useful. I know how to take care of people and make myself necessary, but I don't know how to be the person someone chooses when I'm not doing anything for them. I don't know how to believe I could be that person."

My breath catches hard enough that the next one doesn't come properly.

Soren moves, and panic surges through me before I can tell whether he's reaching for me or simply shifting closer.

There's only one word I know will stop everything.

"Red."

Everything stops.

His hands leave me immediately, and he pulls back until there's cold air between us where his body had been a second ago. I brace for some reaction I'll have to manage—the hurt, the disappointment, even the smallest flicker of rejection that will make me feel like I need to explain myself or make this easier for him.

It never comes.

Soren simply gives me space.

He watches me with his full attention, but he doesn't ask what's wrong or reach for me again. There's no wounded silence asking to be soothed, no frustration for me to feel responsible for. He does exactly what he promised me that first day: I say red, and everything ends.

I've never been believed that quickly in my life.

For one dangerous second, it almost makes me want to stay.

Instead, I sit up and reach for my sweater. My hands are shaking badly enough that getting it over my head takes two attempts, and when I realize I've twisted it slightly, I leave it that way.

Soren still hasn't moved toward me.

He's sitting back at the edge of the bed now, giving me more room than I need, though the effort of staying there is written all over him. Smoke curls steadily from his nose, his eyes have gone completely gold, and bronze scales cover his forearms almost to the elbows. His hands rest open against his thighs, every part of him visibly fighting an instinct he refuses to act on.

I said the word, and for Soren, the word is law.

That hurts too.

I grab my bag and make it all the way to the door before I let myself look back.

He's still where I left him, gold-eyed and scaled, smoke drifting around his face while he holds himself exactly where I told him to stay without ever actually saying the words. The pull toward him is so strong that my hand tightens around the strap of my bag. I could put it down. I could cross the room, or maybe I wouldn't even have to make it that far.

I know he'd catch me.