Page 42 of Dragonfly

No.

Orion’s shit.

Damien drops it by my feet. “I brought everything I could find. The water fountain with the plug. The glass bowls. These two ratty toys that I’m assuming are supposed to be mice… and the food. I brought it all back.”

He also has an oversized brown bag hanging off his wrist. Reaching inside of it, he shows me a large, fuzzy cat bed before adding it to the top of Orion’s supplies.

“He didn’t have a bed that I could see so I stopped at the pet store and bought one. I didn’t know what to get so the girl at the shop helped me. I hope it’s right.”

It looks right to me. And there’s a pretty good reason why Damien didn’t see a bed: because I couldn’t afford to get him one when he could sleep with me. All of my extra money went to food, treats, and litter. It seemed kinda pointless to buy him a bed.

But Damien… the lead Dragonfly himself… did.

“That’s because he slept in my bed.”

“I hope he was the only male who did.”

I ignore that as I rub my chin against the space between Orion’s triangle-shaped ears. My cat purrs for the first time since I got him back. It sounds like music to me.

“Ah, well. It doesn’t matter.” Oh. It doesn’t, Damien? I’m not so sure I believe that… “He’ll sleep in the bed I provided. I won’t let some animal sleep in mine.”

Is that so? “Don’t you listen to the scary man, Orion. If you don’t want to sleep in that bed, you can curl up with me.”

“Scary man?” Damien almost sounds offended. “After I got on my hands and knees to persuade this creature to come out from under your bed?”

Wait—what?

“You did it? I… I guess I thought you got one of your cronies to do it.”

He’s offended that I called him scary. A man who rules half of Springfield with an iron fist and a sharp stiletto… he doesn’t want to be scary. And yet, when I point out he has cronies, he doesn’t react at all other than to say, “I told you. I rarely do what anyone expects of me.”

I’m beginning to notice that.

He forced me into marriage. He insisted that I pleasure him one way or the other, accepting my offer of a blow job before making one of his men act like my jailer.

But then he brought me a bed of my own. I pointed out that I didn’t have any clothes. He got me them. I admitted my cat was abandoned in my apartment…

And I have him purring in my arms, everything he needs in that basket, with a pet bed he bought specifically for Orion.

I’d brush it off that he was just secretly a cat guy, but then he says, “Just remember that, when you’re in my bed, wife, he can’t come with you,” and I have to admit it’s not that.

He wasn’t trying to save my cat. He was retrieving Orion for me.

Because he doesn’t want me to have a reason to leave. That’s all it is. And with Orion here, I just gave him another way to control me…

…and, right now, I can’t find it in me to give a fuck. I have Orion. That’s all that matters.

And if Damien wants to make an effort so that we don’t murder each other outright, I guess I can, too.

For now.

“You’ve never had a cat before, have you?” I tease. “They’re not like dogs. You can’t tell Orion to stay out of your bed and think he’ll actually listen.” Especially not this cat. “Besides, who says I’m sleeping in your bed?”

“I said you could have a choice, Savannah. My bed or yours. Don’t you think I get to choose, too?”

He’s kidding, right? I can’t tell with this man, who can be hot or cold, teasing or stoic, sometimes all in the same conversation. But he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of bringing a twin-size cot up here for me if he planned on joining me on it. I don’t even think we’ll both fit!

Spoiler alert: we do.

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