Chapter Three
Margot
I've been sitting outside Dom Dot Com for eleven minutes, trying to come up with a believable reason to leave.
Work emergency is the obvious choice. Tess would know I was lying, but she'd let me do it anyway, which makes using it as an excuse feel particularly shitty.
She already knows I'm here because I sent her the address, my appointment time, and strict instructions to call the police if she doesn't hear from me by four.
Not because I genuinely expect to be kidnapped, but because if I'm going to meet a seven-foot dragon I found on the internet, basic precautions seem reasonable.
I delete the half-written text, drop my phone into my bag, and finally get out of the car before I can change my mind again.
The screening process took two weeks. There were forms, follow-up questions, and a phone call with a woman named Gael who somehow managed to ask about my sex life with the same calm efficiency I use to confirm a lunch reservation for Richard.
Somewhere along the way, this stopped feeling like a ridiculous thing Tess talked me into at a wine bar and became something I was actually going to do.
The confirmation arrived a few days ago.
Saturday, 2 p.m. Wear whatever makes you comfortable.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time on that last part. My wardrobe is divided into things I wear to work and things I would never wear to work, most of which have elastic waistbands. Neither category seemed appropriate for meeting a professional dragon dom.
Jeans and a sweater were the best I could do.
I lock the car and turn toward the house.
It looks nothing like I expected. I'd prepared myself for something obvious on the drive over.
A converted warehouse, maybe, or an old nightclub with blacked-out windows and enough red lighting to make me reconsider every decision I'd made since college.
Instead, the gravel drive curves beneath enormous old trees toward a sprawling stone house with ivy climbing one wall and warm light glowing through the downstairs windows.
Even the front door is beautiful, painted a deep burgundy with greenery arranged around it.
It looks like someone's home.
For some reason, that makes me even more nervous.
A sketchy dungeon would have been easy. One look, one absolutely fucking not, and I could have gone home with a clear conscience. This place gives me nothing obvious to object to, which means I keep walking.
The front door opens before I reach it.
I'm still a few steps away, trying to decide whether I'm supposed to knock or ring the bell, when a woman appears in the doorway. Her charcoal suit fits perfectly, her dark hair is immaculate, and the pointed tips of her ears show clearly beneath it.
"Margot." She glances at the tablet. "Seven minutes early. I appreciate punctuality."
I recognize her voice immediately.
Gael.
She was intimidating enough over the phone.
In person, there's something about her that makes me straighten without meaning to.
Her eyes seem to shift color when she moves, catching shades I've never seen before.
Even stranger, the air around her feels noticeably cooler than the afternoon at my back.
Fae, I remember from the website.
Right.
Because the dragon isn't going to be the only supernatural creature I meet today.
"Come in," she says, stepping aside. "It's okay to be nervous. Most people are the first time."
That is considerably more reassuring than being told not to be nervous, so I follow her inside.
The entry hall is all dark wood, old floors, and warm lamplight. Gael leads me farther inside, then stops beside a narrow table near the stairs and pulls up the contract on her tablet.
"We'll do the contract first. You read the information I sent you?"
"Twice."
"Good." There's something in her expression that suggests she learned more about me during that screening call than I realized.
"The important part is simple. The contract is bound by my magic.
Once you state a limit, no one in this house can cross it.
If you use a safeword, whatever is happening stops.
Immediately. There are no exceptions because someone misunderstood you, got carried away, or thought you didn't really mean it. "
I look down at the contract on the screen. I've signed enough of them in my life—my lease, employment paperwork, an NDA Richard insisted was urgent and then forgot existed—but none of those came with supernatural enforcement.
"And if something comes up that I didn't put down as a limit?"
"Then Soren discusses it with you before anything happens. If you don't agree, it doesn't happen." Gael offers me the tablet and stylus. "Nothing about signing this removes your ability to say no later."
That helps more than I expect it to.
I sign.
A faint warmth spreads beneath my fingertips as I finish my name. I pull my hand back and stare at the screen.
"That was the magic?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
Gael takes the tablet from me as though contracts warming beneath people's hands are entirely ordinary. I suppose around here they are.
She shows me through the ground floor, pointing out the hallway that leads to the session rooms, the powder room, and the main exit. She makes sure I know where that is before we move on, then indicates another corridor farther down.
"The Nest is through there. It's our aftercare room. You may use it after your session if you want somewhere quiet before you leave. No one will bother you unless you want them to."
I nod, automatically committing the layout to memory. I know where the bathroom is, how many turns we've taken from the front door, and which hallway will get me back outside fastest. I don't expect to need any of that, but knowing where things are makes it easier to breathe.
Gael retrieves a cup of tea from the side table as we pass it, balancing the cup easily in one hand while checking something on her tablet with the other.
"Can I carry that?"
She looks up.
"The tea," I clarify. "Or the tablet. Whichever."
Her attention settles on me for long enough that I immediately wonder whether offering to carry a fae's beverage violates some obscure supernatural law.
"Margot, do you work here?"
"No."
"Are you being paid to make my life easier?"
I almost smile. "Umm, not that I'm aware of."
"Then you can leave my tea exactly where it is." She tucks the tablet against her side. Her voice softens. "You're here to receive today, not to make yourself useful. You can start practicing now."
My first instinct is to tell her I was only trying to help.
But I manage not to. Instead, I let my hands fall to my sides and resist the urge to find something else to make myself useful.
"Okay."
Something in Gael's expression shifts. "He's going to like you."
Before I can decide what the hell that means, she leads me farther down the hall and stops outside a closed door. "You have two hours. What happens during them is entirely up to you. There is no pressure today."
She opens the door and steps aside.
Soren is waiting inside.
I saw his photograph on the website. I knew he was a dragon. Neither of those things do much to prepare me for seeing him in person.
He stands beside a couch on the other side of the room, and the first thing I register is his size.
He's tall enough that I have to tilt my head slightly when he looks at me, broad through the shoulders and chest. His skin is bronze, but when he moves, something beneath it catches the lamplight with the faint shimmer of scales.
Dark hair, neatly kept. Golden eyes with narrow vertical pupils that make it impossible to forget he isn't human.
Then there are his hands.
They're large enough that one could probably cover my whole face, which immediately reminds me of that thing people say about men with big hands.
Great. Five seconds in, and apparently we're wondering about his dick.
I drag my attention back to his face.
"Margot."
His voice is lower than I expected, warm and steady. Hearing my actual name after years of Richard butchering it does something embarrassingly pleasant to my mood.
"Come in. You can sit wherever you're comfortable."
I step farther into the room and immediately notice the heat.
Not the general warmth of the house, but something stronger as I get closer to him.
It rolls off his skin like he's been standing in the sun, and by the time I sit on the couch, the last of the cold from outside has already started leaving my body.
Soren takes the chair across from me rather than sitting beside me. There's enough space between us that I don't feel crowded, which I appreciate considering he could probably pick up both me and the couch without much effort.
"Before we do anything else, I want to go over your limits with you.
" He settles back in the chair, relaxed but focused entirely on me.
"Nothing you wrote on the intake is set in stone.
If something has changed since then, you tell me.
If you change your mind ten minutes from now, you tell me then. Understand?"
"Yes."
"Good. Tell me your hard limits."
I open my mouth, prepared to tell him they're already on the form, then realize I can't remember exactly what I wrote. I filled the thing out close to midnight after two glasses of wine and a minor existential crisis over admitting I wanted someone to take care of me.
"The ones on the intake?"
"I read them." There's no impatience in his voice. "I want to hear them from you now."
Of course he does.
I take a breath. "Nothing that leaves marks or bruises, and nothing around my throat.
" I hesitate before adding, "No blindfolds, no cameras, and I don't want to be locked into anything I can't get out of myself.
No watersports, or anything like that. There might be more as we go, but that's it for the moment. "
It feels different saying the words to an actual person. More exposed somehow, but Soren doesn't react beyond listening. By the time I finish, some of the tightness in my chest has eased.