Chapter 9
Kat
After Otto finishes washing my hair, he kisses my temple.
It’s so tender and sweet it makes my teeth ache.
I’m not this girl. People don’t take care of me.
I take care of them. It’s how it’s been for as long as I can remember.
Even as a child, I was always helping around the house, comforting my mom when my dad would lose his temper, trying my hardest to please everyone and make sure they were all okay.
The last time someone drew me a bath and kissed my head, I was probably five. If even then. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes, but I won’t let them fall.
“I’m gonna go set the table,” Otto whispers into my hair. “I’ll let you know when dinner’s here.” He stands up and walks to the door, throwing me one last awed look before he leaves.
As the euphoric endorphins fade and the water grows cold, I try to make sense of everything that’s happened since I got off of work this evening.
Dragons. Mates. Letting a man more than ten years younger than me eat me out on my bathroom counter.
That might be the most shocking part of this whole thing.
I know it should be the dragon mate part, but I’ve never brought a man home before and definitely never fooled around with one in my own space.
Something about that feels so personal, so committed.
I’ve also never been into younger men before.
Maybe because I always assumed I’d have to take care of a younger man, and I didn’t need one more person to take care of.
Or maybe it’s just my puritanical upbringing that consciously or subconsciously made only one type of age gap okay.
I mean, I would barely bat my eye at a man dating a woman ten years his junior—in fact, it happens all the time in New York.
Two of the partners at my firm are dating women twenty years younger than they are!
So why does it feel so weird for me to be mated to a younger man?
Maybe an impulsive and caring younger man with lots of energy is just what I need.
It’s not just the orgasm, which was the best I’ve ever had.
It’s that he cleaned my tub without a single complaint, asked me questions about myself and truly listened, and even washed my hair like it was something he enjoyed.
I could get used to that kind of treatment.
Maybe I should let myself get used to it.
Life is hard. I could use a little pampering.
There’s a knock at the door. “Kat, dinner’s ready. Do you want to come out?” Otto asks. “Or I can bring a plate in for you if you want to stay in the tub longer.”
Lincoln’s laugh carries through the walls from the next room. He’s talking animatedly to someone, getting louder and louder the way he does when he’s excited. He’s probably on the phone with a friend.
But hearing him reminds me how thin these walls are, and a sudden sense of panic rushes through me.
If I can hear him, did he hear me with Otto earlier?
Fuck, now I feel like the worst mom ever.
I just got off with a stranger while my son was just down the hall.
A stranger who’s barely my age. What was I thinking?
“I’ll come out.” I splash water all over the floor in my haste to grab a towel, then hurry into my bedroom to throw on some clothes.
When I reach the kitchen, Otto is wearing sweatpants and a shirt of Lincoln’s. There are containers of my favorite Thai food on the table, steam rising out of them. It smells delicious. But my attention snags on Lincoln showing a man who’s not Otto his sketchbook.
The man has dark hair that curls just a little around his forehead and gives him a boyish look, but there are lines by his eyes that make me think he’s probably a little older than me. He’s wearing a casual outfit—shorts and a t-shirt—and he’s got a neatly trimmed dark beard.
“Who the hell are you?” My tone is rude and abrupt, but I’ve had enough disruption today. I don’t need another stranger in my house.
Lincoln tilts his head, looking confused. The man with him drops his eyes to the ground.
“That’s Damian, remember?” Otto wrinkles his brow and twirls his lip ring with his tongue, glancing nervously at the guy standing next to Lincoln.
“Right.” I nod slowly, remembering Otto said something about a friend named Damian. “The guy with a great bathtub. But what the fuck is he doing in my apartment with my son?”
“Mom, he’s been here since you came home.” Lincoln’s looking at me like he’s worried I’ve completely fallen off the deep end.
Shit, I’m puffing smoke again. I bite my bottom lip between my teeth and close my eyes. I’ve got to calm down. It’s not that big of a deal that Otto invited a friend over.
“You really don’t remember?” Lincoln asks. “He came in with you.”
“No, he didn’t.” I open my eyes and scan Damian. He’s annoyingly gorgeous with a strong jawline and straight, masculine nose. His dark eyes draw me in like a whirlpool, full of swirling emotion I can’t understand. I shake my head. “I’d remember him.”
But Lincoln doesn’t lie. And I’ve forgotten things before. Shit, maybe I should go see that neurologist again. I look to Otto for help.
He’s gaping at me with eyes as big as the dinner plate in his hand. “Ooooh shit.” He shakes his head. “How? When?” He turns to Damian. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Damian steps around Lincoln to take Otto’s hand, an intimate gesture that probably should upset me, considering Otto’s my mate, but something warms low in my gut.
“I didn’t think it was important,” Damian says. “It doesn’t matter. She didn’t choose me. And she’s your mate now.”
“What’s going on?” Lincoln asks. “I feel like you’re having a conversation over my head again.”
“Same.” I put my hands on my hips. “And I don’t care for it.”
It’s clear they’re talking about me, but I’m missing a whole hell of a lot of the subtext.
Damian sighs like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I should go.”
“Oh no, you don’t.” I grab his arm, feeling more familiar with the man than I should. “Sit down and explain why the fuck I don’t remember you.”
Damian looks at where I’m touching his arm—his very muscular arm. I quickly let go, but there’s a tingling sensation that lingers as I pull out a chair at the kitchen table and sit down. Slowly, Damian does the same, Lincoln and Otto following his lead.
“It’s a bit of a story.” Damian spins the empty plate in front of him, adjusting it like it wasn’t facing the right way even though it’s a solid white plate with no top or bottom.
“We’ve got time.” I pass Lincoln the panang curry, since I know it’s his favorite, and let him dish up first.
“I don’t mean it’s long. It’s just…” He sighs. “It might be difficult to believe.”
“Ha! Can’t be stranger than what I’ve already experienced today.”
“It might be,” he mutters under his breath.
“I still can’t believe it.” Otto stares at his friend with the same wide-eyed expression he had before.
Lincoln passes him the rice, and he dishes some onto his plate without looking away from Damian.
He keeps shaking his head as if he’s in shock.
“How did this happen? I thought… why didn’t you tell anyone? ”
Damian ignores the food, gaze locked on his empty plate. “It was the last day of Goddess Week and the first day of law school.”
“You went to law school?” Otto asks.
“For one week.” Damian’s gaze comes up to meet mine. “When you walked into the classroom, you stole my breath away.”
My heart beats erratically in my chest, my skin clammy and hot. “I’ve never met you before,” I whisper, but he just gives me a sad smile.
“I made someone change seats with me so I could sit next to you. Borrowed a pen as an excuse to talk to you. At the end of class, I asked you out to lunch. We spent the rest of the day… and night together. Then, I told you I’m a dragon, showed you my dragon form, explained about Goddess Week, and asked you to make a choice. ”
The tremble in my hands is so bad I drop my fork. It clangs against the plate, the noise disturbingly loud. “That didn’t happen.”
Otto scoots closer and wraps an arm around my shoulders.
Damian swallows thickly. “You were my fated mate before you were Otto’s, Kat. But as we told you, if a mate doesn’t enter the pools during Goddess Week, they forget everything about their mate and dragons.”
“You let me choose, and… I didn’t choose you.” My voice is barely above a whisper.
His head falls, shoulders slumping. “You didn’t really know me.”
I look at Otto. I wouldn’t have chosen him either, if he’d given me a choice. This man, Damian, gave me what Otto didn’t, and he suffered for it. I can see it in his eyes, in his defeated posture. “But you still remember me? How is that?”
“Dragons don’t forget. We only ever have one mate, and once we see them…”
“No one else compares,” Otto finishes for him. There’s something like sadness mixed with understanding on Otto’s face. “Oh, Damian.”
Damian shakes his head. “It’s fine, Otto. It was a long time ago. I’ve made peace with my fate.”
A long time. Law school. The week I…
“Shit, this is weird,” Lincoln says. “So, who are you supposed to be with, Mom?”
My gaze flies to my son, and I gasp. “Oh, fuck.”