Page 71 of Always Say Yes to a Dragon

I pinched my lips together. Lingering dragon magic. In myneck. From histeeth.Duringsex.

Something else occurred to me, and I almost giggled. “Wait, you want to bite me, but you freak out over a couple of bruises?”

He handed me a towel. “The pinpricks were an accident. You’re so much smaller than me. How can you trust me to take care of you if you can’t trust me with your body? A mating bite would be on purpose, and with your consent.”

I nibbled my lip. He was too sweet. “So if I let you give me a hickey, would that be like a practice mating bite?” I shouldn’t let him do that, right? It seemed grossly unfair when I was still so mixed up about our relationship.

His scales went a deep red. “A bit. I want people to know you’re mine.”

“The whole internet knows.” Sudden cold dripped down my spine. “You saw that, right?” I’d been so confident earlier that he wouldn’t care about all the gossip, but what if I was wrong?

“Yes.” The tips of his wings twitched and flared. “I wish there were more pictures of us and fewer of my siblings making fools of themselves.”

A relieved breath shot out of me when I realized he wasn’t angry at me, then I processed the rest of his words. “I guess that’s the price of being a public figure.” A price I’d have to get used to if I mated him. “You don’t have a social media team, do you?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe you should get one. It might help when stuff like this happens.”

“Arum, are you offering?”

I laughed. “Oh, no. I have no experience with that stuff.” Although, it would be kind of fun, right? I’d get to control what was said about us and our relationship—no more blindsiding. “It might give people a way to get to know you a little better.”

“That’s a wonderful idea.” He dropped a quick kiss on my forehead.

A few hours later, Az woke me up with a start. “I forgot! Your gift!”

“What?” I asked, rolling away from him enough to look at his face. His thin lips twisted, his eyes wide in horror.

“Please forgive me. You can choose whatever you want from my hoard.”

I put a hand on his chest. His heart raced under my palm. “Calm down, Az. I don’t need anything. I thought we went over this.”

“But your time.” He scrambled out of bed.

I groaned. “Can’t we say I’m getting your time in exchange and call it even?”

“Absolutely not. I’m asking you to sacrifice your time for me. SinceImade the request,youget compensated.”

I sat up, resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going back to sleep. “That is the most bonkers thing I’ve ever heard.” I glanced around the opulent bedroom. Midnight shadows cast everything into sharp relief.

In front of me, Az’zael paced.

“YesterdayIasked for your time, and all I gotyouwas a sandwich,” I muttered. “Can I get a sandwich?”

The look Az shot me suggested he thought I was being ridiculous.

I scrubbed a hand over my eyes. “Okay, if I tell you what I want, you’ll give it to me, right?”

He nodded, all of his attention laser-focused on me.

“How about information? Is that a good enough gift?”

His wings snapped closed. “It’s an excellent gift. Unfortunately, my library—”

“I don’t want to know about, like, birds or whatever.” I waved a hand. “Tell me about yourself. We can do, say, a question for every hour I’m here?” We’d skipped a lot of the usual getting-to-know-you stuff because I hadn’t known we were dating. This seemed like the perfect way to make up for that.

His eyes darted around, as if he couldn’t figure out what to tell me.

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