Nine-Tenths

Thirty

We fall asleep like that.

The slow, wet slide, the soft push-pull lures us into dreamland. I wake up with a crick in my neck and a dragon asleep on my chest when the pizza guy rings the doorbell. I poke him up, and before he can muzzily apologize, I chivvy him toward my bed. He's face-down in the pillow by the time I get back inside with dinner, so I stow it in the fridge and move the wine glasses to the sink.

I'm tempted to strip him down for his own comfort, but that's one intimacy-step too far for tonight. I wake him a little, make myself not have a heart attack over how cute he is when his face is all scrunched up in half-sleep, and leave him alone to wrestle into a spare pair of pajama pants. When I come back from pulling on my own sleep pants in the bathroom, he's dead asleep on his back, one arm thrown up over his head. He's also shirtless, and the pants are so tight around his hips that he didn't do up the string.

I am exhausted, but that doesn't stop my mouth from absolutely watering at the sight of his everything so casually on display. He's got a soldier's body, lithe and conditioned power with a sweet, concave tummy, and no belly button. I guess that's normal, dragons coming from eggs. He still has a treasure trail though, spare and brilliantly orange, arrowing down from the sparse spread across his chest to a thin line that disappears into his waistband.

That's nice nice.

Stop being a perv, I tell myself and crawl in beside him.

Sure, I could sleep on the sofa. Or even in my roommate's bed.

But there's a snuggly dragon sleeping in mine, and to paraphrase the girl with the golden locks, he looks just right.

***

The alarm startles Dav so bad he shreds the pillow. Good thing I was jetpacking, curled up against his back with my arms around his middle, or it might have meant another trip to the emerg. We have enough time before we have to be at the café to mutter apologies and tumble around one another in the bathroom. Dav washes quickly, then I jump in the shower as he rifles my barren fridge for breakfast.

We end up munching on cold pizza. I was planning to seduce him, why don't I have something that isn't mustard and half-finished margarine to feed my conquest in the morning? Ugh, fail. At least I have a stash of spare toothbrushes from dentist visits.

We don't talk about last night, and though it might actually make a blood vessel burst, I refrain from any jokes about having Dav in my bed. He's already sheepish about showing up to Beanevolence in yesterday's clothing. I'm not about to scare him off by being obnoxious.

As we're pulling on our shoes, I say, as casual as possible: "I'd like to see your place sometime." I don't want to push, but Dav's walked me home or been in my apartment nearly every night for the last three weeks, and I've never even seen his car. Dav's face makes me add: "Sorry, is ... is that something I shouldn't have asked for?"

"It's fine." His expression is doing a complicated dance between confused, and scared, and delighted. "You realize how serious a request that is. It's not common for us to allow humans who are not, ah..." he scratches the back of his neck. "Not collected to be allowed into a dragon's keep."

I snort as I usher him out and lock up. "I'm not asking to marry you, bro. I just wanna see your place. You've seen mine."

Dav smirks, and there's something gorgeously lecherous about the way he raises just one of his sculpted eyebrows at me. "Indeed I have."

"Hey, if it's not cool, it's not cool," I back-pedal. "I don't mind us going to mine all the time. Though I'm gonna have to get bread and eggs or something."

"Maybe one day," Dav allows, wrapping his pinkie around mine. "But it's a very big step for the present."

"I won't push. Rules Two and Three."

"Yes, what are these Rules?" Dav asks. He reaches up and flicks what turns out to be dried toothpaste out of my scruff by the corner of my mouth, and I think, suddenly, without any warning: I love you.

Oh.

Shit.

If you're enjoying this story, please remember to vote and comment!