CHAPTER 20
DAKOTA
My heart is fluttering hard as I finish off the lesson and decide to find other things to do. I’m flustered, thoughts racing, as I get up with a burning need to suddenly rake the ash out of our firepit. “So busy,” I say to no one at all. “So very busy.”
I can’t stop thinking about kissing.
Specifically, about kissing Murr. Like, that shouldn’t even be on the list of things in my mind, and yet my brain keeps circling back to it, over and over again, like an itch that just can’t be scratched.
I should not want to kiss a dragon. Ten years of a world-ending apocalypse has taught me that dragons are the enemy.
Dragons are bad. I’ve seen people burned alive by dragonfire.
I’ve seen dragons snap up people and eat them like they’re chicken nuggets.
Dragons have been terrifying creatures ever since they came through the Rift, and they’ve destroyed everything in their path.
Doesn’t matter that things have been quiet for the last six months. Doesn’t mean things won’t go back to shit again very soon.
Just because Murr has been nice and kind to us doesn’t mean he deserves to be kissed. Him being curious about kisses doesn’t mean he deserves to be kissed. The fact that his features in his human form are strikingly attractive doesn’t mean I need to put my lips on them.
I need to remember how bad things have been in the past. They’re good now, but that can change all too quickly. I need to somehow communicate to him that kisses are things that only happen between two consenting adult partners. If I kiss him, is he going to think it’s okay to kiss Rabbit next?
Because absolutely fucking not. I will put a crossbow bolt in his big dangly dick if he even tries something like that, red meat or no red meat.
It’s just best that kisses don’t happen at all, I tell myself. It’s safest for all parties.
I’m not going to think about how hard he stared at my mouth, his lips parted, as if he wanted to see what I felt like.
I’m not going to think about how it’s been over seven years since I’ve had sex.
I have a toy hidden in the depths of my bag if I get lonely enough, and surviving takes precedence over horniness more often than not.
The apocalypse has taught me that I don’t need a man. That they just complicate things.
I sure don’t need a dragon.