“You wound me, honey.”
Holly propped her head up with her hand and planted her elbow on the bed. Fraser’s glance darted to her breasts and then back to her face. Yet he didn’t try to flip her onto her back and kiss her. “Tell me what’s going on, Fraser MacKenzie. I’m exhausted and in no mood for games.”
“But games are the best part of life.”
She sighed. “You try having a cock pounded into you day after day for who the hell knows how long and you see how you feel.”
Fraser’s eyes turned concerned. “Are you okay? Do I need to call the doctor?”
The sudden change in behavior eased her irritation. “I’m a bit peckish, but otherwise, I’m fine.”
Fraser sat up. “Then how about we shower and go get something to eat?”
Holly frowned. “Since when will your dragon allow us to do more than retrieve food left outside the front door?”
Her dragonman traced her cheek and tickled the soft spot under her chin. “He’s calmed down because we’re going to have a baby, Holly.”
It took a second for his words to penetrate her fog of exhaustion.
Placing a hand over her lower abdomen, she blinked. “I guess I fulfilled my contract.”
Fraser growled and took her face between his hands. His pupils were flashing to slits and back. “You are much more than a vessel for a child, Holly Anderson. You’re my true mate. We’ll raise the child together.” He leaned down until his breath tickled her cheek. “And maybe if I’m lucky, you’ll agree to stay with me.”
Before the frenzy and the pregnancy, Holly had kept the truth from Fraser. But no longer. She couldn’t allow for his hopes to build up. “I can’t stay, Fraser. My father needs me. Not only that, my whole life is back in Aberdeen. I’m not sure I can just give it all up.”
Fraser placed a possessive hand on her hip. “Don’t say that.” She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “At least give me a chance to try and make everything work out. There has to be a way for you to stay with me and to also take care of your father.”
“And what about my work? Or my friends? If you think I’m going to keep house and cook food all day, then you don’t know anything about me. I would go mad in a week.”
Fraser squeezed her hip. “Arabella and the other pregnant females could use your help here. You wouldn’t have to give up your nursing.”
Running her fingers across the whiskers of Fraser’s cheek, she tried to think of another excuse.
But after spending at least a week with her dragonman, she wanted a chance to know him better. If for nothing else, for the sake of their unborn child.
Holly knew what it was like to lose a parent. She didn’t want that for her own baby.
Searching Fraser’s eyes, she finally answered, “If we can find a way for my father to live on Lochguard and for me to help with midwifery here, then I might consider it.”
Happiness flas
hed in Fraser’s eyes. “I will find a way, Holly. Once I set my mind on something, I don’t give up until it’s either seen through or I run into a five-foot-thick steel wall.”
Her heart skipped a beat. The thought of not only living with Fraser, but also with her child and the possibilities of helping with dragon-shifter research gave her the most dangerous feeling of all—hope.
No, Holly. She’d never been a woman to hope and wish for something to happen. She’d take it one step at a time. Only when she was physically helping her father move into a cottage at Lochguard would she accept it.
She moved her hand from his cheek to his neck and played with the edges of his hair. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
He growled. “No thinking, Holly. We’re doing it.”
Smiling at his stubbornness, she couldn’t help but say, “But we’ve been doing it for days. Can’t we take a break?”
Fraser barked in laughter. “You may be tired, but your sense of humor is intact.”
“I sure hope so. If sex with a dragon doesn’t bang it out of me, I’m not sure what would.”
Fraser gave Holly a gentle kiss and added, “A mini-version of me just might. Ask my mum what terrors my brother and I were as children.”