Page 11 of Cold Foot Sentry (Wreck’s Mountains #6)

Tawk was an enormous creature.

He took up half the dang kitchen! For the twentieth time at least, Tammy glanced over at Tawk’s cupcake frosting station, where his gold eyes were trained on the vanilla cupcake he was frosting.

He was careful and wanted the frosting to be perfectly smooth.

She recalled his judgement on slobby women and smiled to herself. “Do you keep a clean house?”

“Perfectly clean. I have to.”

“Why?”

“It’s the only way the animal doesn’t drag me to the mountains to find a cave,” he muttered as he gently dipped the cupcake into the bowl of sprinkles beside him.

“Do all Sentry dragons like caves?” she asked curiously.

He shrugged. “I used to do a lot of research on dragons, just trying to figure myself out, and as far as I can tell, all dragons are attracted to dark, cold, open dens.

“Tell me about your home,” she said.

Tawk glanced over at her, and she was struck once again at the glow in his yellow-gold eyes. “You want to know about my hotel room?”

“Is that where you consider home?” she asked.

“Home is wherever I am.” He returned his attention to the next cupcake to frost. They only had a few more to do apiece. It was late, midnight already, and she needed to deliver these to the bake sale at eight in the morning.

“So right now, in my house, you would consider yourself home?”

Tawk looked around thoughtfully and then returned to scooping a glob of buttercream frosting onto his plastic knife to spread onto the naked cupcake. “Only if I was sleeping here. Honestly, I don’t give a lot of thought to home. It’s not important to me. Not like it is to humans.”

“You don’t get attached to places?”

“No,” he answered, and she believed him because of the conviction in his tone. “I don’t get attached to anything. Except the damn coaster you gave me tonight.”

Huh. “I can get you more coasters. I read that treasure is important to dragons. Maybe your dragon sees coasters as treasure. Or something about the logo attracts him, maybe?”

“Maybe,” he rumbled noncommittally.

“So, you don’t have fond memories of your home when you were growing up?” she asked, so interested in his way of thinking. What made Tawk tick? She was so curious.

“I spent the first half of my childhood in a mansion.”

“A mansion? Were you rich?”

“Yes. My father knew how to make money. He was a landowner. Businessman. Home when I was a kid was a twenty-bedroom ridiculous house at the edge of a hundred acres for me to play on.”

“Whoa,” she said softly. “What was it like?”

“Huge wraparound porches with rocking chairs. Perfectly manicured lawns with the lines mowed into them. A full-time crew of gardeners for my mother’s rose gardens. I used to ask my mom to have a brother or sister for me so I would have someone to play with.”

“You’re an only child?”

He nodded. “Later I found out she had wanted a big family, but that my father had gotten fixed right after I was born. He did it without my mother knowing. She thought something was wrong with her until my father told her he’d had a vasectomy the second he’d figured out she’d trapped him.”

“Trapped him,” Tammy murmured, setting her frosted cupcake down.

“I wasn’t planned by either of them. He took it out on my mother in the end.

When he was leaving, I was sitting on the stairs, staring down at them through the railing, and I heard what he told her.

I’ll never forget it. He said she’d trapped him into a life he could never accept.

That his unhappiness was because of me. He wasn’t meant to be an Alpha.

She’d said he wasn’t an Alpha, he was just her mate, but he’d thrown it in her face that she was human.

He said she was beneath him. He was drinking again and just said all the things to destroy her.

Said he’d never loved her. That he’d just tried to stay because it had felt like the right thing to do, but that he had no feelings for her, or for me. ”

“Jesus,” she whispered, unable to look up at him. What a horrible thing to hear as a child.

“It’s not all his fault. He’s a Sentry dragon.

He’d bought a home in the territory of a powerful coven of witches, looked over them, was fed by them.

Probably fucked half of them. He’d build the life he’d wanted, and that made sense to a shifter like him.

We don’t feel deeply for people, Tammy,” he said sternly as he cast her a quick glance and picked up another cupcake to frost. “My father had no business pretending to be a family like that. My mother just got chewed up in the process. I’ll never do that to anyone. ”

Tammy frowned and busied herself with setting cupcakes into the containers she’d lined up on the kitchen island. “It seems lonely to never have feelings for anyone.”

“Lonely to you. For me, it feels safe and comfortable.”

And then Tammy lost her mind. She lost her mind and made the offer she’d been thinking about since he’d told her there was value in a woman moving forward.

“Do you want to fuck?”

Tawk’s eyes flashed a deep bronze as he looked over at her. “What?”

“Do you want to fuck me?”

He dragged his attention up and down her curves, and then squared up to her and leaned his hip on the counter. “This is a trap.”

“Nope. It’s an honest question.”

“You got angry with me earlier for mentioning this very thing.”

“Well, that was before I was comfortable with you.”

He narrowed his eyes to slits. “So, I tell you I don’t have feelings, and will never connect with a woman, and you take that as the cue to grow comfortable with me? I’m just making sure I have this right.”

“Yep. I just learned there will really be no strings attached. Plus, I’ve never had a one-night stand. Have you?”

“Yes.”

Okay, well ouch. She had mixed feelings about that. Part of her didn’t like the thought of him with other women, and part of her really appreciated his blatant honestly. That was a rare thing nowadays.

She inhaled deep, held her breath for three seconds, and then peeled her shirt over her head, and waited. “You could be my first one-night stand. I am spinning out. I would like a ho-night.”

“You aren’t a ho,” he gritted out. “Is this because of Aaron?”

“It’s because of a lot of things.”

“You feel dangerous right now.”

Tammy lifted her chin higher into the air. “Big bad Sentry dragon, scared of a little human?”

His eyes sparked with intensity as he held her gaze, unblinking. “You’re going to piss me off,” he growled out in a gritty voice.

“Do you have a mate?”

“No.”

“A girlfriend?”

“No.”

“And you can’t grow feelings for me, right?”

He didn’t answer, but that was answer enough. He couldn’t. He didn’t have them.

Tammy unfastened her jeans, and moved to push them down her thighs, but his hand was there, gripping her wrist, halting the movement.

“You’re not a ho,” he said again softly. “If you’re spiraling, okay. If you need to lose your mind for a little while, okay. I can do that.” He shook his head. “But don’t go into this calling yourself a name.”

She let off a soft sigh and got lost in his inhuman gaze. “Tomorrow, you never have to talk to me again. You never have to worry about being trapped by me. I’m on birth control. You don’t have to worry about my feelings. I don’t like you in that way.”

His eyebrows dragged down, and he dipped his gaze to her lips. “You just lied to me.”

“What? I really am on birth control.”

“Not that part. You said you don’t like me in that way, but I can hear a lie. You lied.”

“I want to lose my mind,” she said sternly. Tammy reached for him and cupped his cock. It was hard and pushing against the zipper of his jeans. She smiled. “Want to lose your mind with me? Just one night, and then you never have to see or talk to me again.”

He released her wrist and slipped his hand to her waist. “If I lose myself in you, how do I know I won’t want to feel it again?”

She admitted to a fear. “Maybe I’ll be bad at this.”

He chuckled darkly and shook his head. “Not possible. You’re very, very good at this.”

Heat crept into her cheeks with pleasure. She liked that. “It’s been a while since I—”

“Shhh,” he whispered, dragging her waist closer to him. “Thinking stops now.”

And oh God, this was so hot being close to such a powerful man. A powerful man with no strings attached. A forbidden coupling. He wasn’t even human, and his kind didn’t mix well with her people. It felt rebellious to be sliding her hands up under his T-shirt.

A one-night stand.

No feelings.

No attachment.

No worrying about him not calling tomorrow.

No worrying about anything.

She could do this. She wanted to do this. Her body was tingling with desire for him already.

Up, up, her touch traveled, up over the chiseled six pack to his stone-hard pecs.

Tawk pulled his shirt over his head and let it drop to the kitchen floor, then gripped her wrists and pulled her hands back to his chest. His breath came faster, and his eyes were such a bright gold, it was hard to look away from them.

He dragged the palm of her hand to his mouth and bit down gently, and oh the sensation inside of her stomach.

He slid his hand to the back of her neck and dragged her to him, pressed his lips against hers and drank her in.

The first few laps of his tongue against hers was shocking to her system, but she closed her eyes and melted into it.

No thinking.

She could do that.

Without breaking their kiss, he smoothly pulled her hands over his shoulders, where she hugged him closer. Oh, this man could kiss. He was kissing the devil right out of her. Oh, he was good. She’d made the right choice in him.