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“Huh?” He glanced up. “Oh, uh, like…twice.”

“That’s not a lot of times.” Rowan frowned.

“Yeah, but it’s also twice too many to not actually do anything. I’m not very good at not being good at things. It’s frustrating, and frustration isn’t a feeling I deal with well.”

“Right…” Rowan said.

“So I figured you should fuck me again,” Milo said. “You legit dicked my dragon out of me, so I feel like that’s your superpower, and with great power comes great responsibility and all that…y’know?”

Rowan’s eyes almost bugged out of his head and he turned red again. “W-what?”

Milo paused himself and his master plan. “That is…if you want to? I’m not forcing you! You said you enjoyed last night. And I definitely enjoyed last night. So I put two and two together to make—”

He simulated sex with his hands.

Rowan looked like he was having a malfunction as he watched.

He dropped his pantomime show. Maybe he needed to simplify things?

“Do you find me attractive?” Milo asked.

That was an easy place to start, right? But as he said it, he realized he actually cared about the answer. He usually didn’t worry about how others viewed him, but with Rowan he was opening up a vulnerable spot that hadn’t been there before, and it was now exposed with no way to cover it back up.

Rowan shifted anxiously on his feet. “You’re an attractive person.”

What the hell kind of cop-out answer is that? something in Milo screamed.

He stepped closer to Rowan. “That doesn’t answer my question. Do you find me attractive?”

Rowan reached over while Milo kept him trapped in a prison of relentless eye contact and slid a potted plant off the side table. He hugged it to his chest like a teddy bear, like he needed the emotional support to answer.

“Yes.”

That growling creature in Milo’s chest hummed in contentment. He smiled in relief. It was kind of a weird reaction, but he was new to this dragon thing. Maybe they were vain? Maybe he’d unlocked his inner narcissist along with his scales.

“Do you…” Rowan abandoned his question and Milo focused back in on the conversation.

“Do I?” he prompted, encouraging him as best he could to get it out.

But Rowan was in full turtle mode. He hugged his plant tighter. “Nothing.”

Milo frowned. He could push. He knew how to push. But something in him wanted Rowan to feel comfortable enough to ask or say what he wanted without Milo having to drag it out of him or corner him. He felt like Rowan didn’t often get to say what he was really thinking.

They were left in awkward silence.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” Milo asked.

“No,” Rowan grumbled. Then, softer: “No.”

“Good.” Milo blew out a relieved breath. “Sooo…round two electric boogaloo?”

Rowan pulled a face at his phrasing, which, fair. It wasn’t that sexy. But Milo could still see the hint of desire in Rowan’s eyes. He knew what that looked like now, had seen it up close, had felt it on his skin and tasted it in his mouth.

Rowan pulled back. Again.

“We should try and handle your shift without…that. It’s hardly practical.” Rowan was still blushing.

Milo frowned. He wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean Milo thought he was right either. “But—”