Although he was smiling she could see that he meant it. “Yes. If we take a freezing cold shower, and trust me when I tell you that mountain water is fresh. If we shower and are still game, then nothing will happen without thinking it through first. We won’t be able to regret anything.”

“Deal.” She felt a lot better and even picked up her burger and took a small bite.

“Deal.” His gaze locked with hers. There was a lift to his mouth and a strange look in his eyes.

Candy swallowed and took another bite. It was juicy and really delicious, she tried to ignore the way that Torrent was looking at her.

“Just for the record.” He took a sip of his water, that mischievous glint was still out in full force.

She made a humming noise to let him know that she was all ears.

“We don’t have to rut in order to explore each other sexually.”

Bring on the choking. Candy put her hand over her mouth. She coughed and spluttered and then coughed and spluttered some more.

“It’s not something we need to talk about right now, but keep it in the back of your mind. Also, I will wait for you… I’m not making the first move.”

Candy took a long drink of her water and nodded. “Okay.” Her voice was high-pitched.

“Why were you abducted?”

That was an odd question. “What do you mean? You guys took me. You know why. To mate and impregnate me, I guess.” She shivered.

“I keep forgetting that you were never briefed the way you should have been. I will follow up with Blaze. It seems he is reluctant to punish those she-dragons.” Torrent grit his teeth, looking pissed for a moment or two. “We didn’t just take anyone, human females were specially earmarked. There were several criteria that needed to be met, things like age, fertility, a female needed to be unmated and without young. I’ve told you some of this already.” He paused. “There were also other reasons why the five of you were ultimately chosen, we looked for females in need of rescuing. We wanted to try and give you all a second chance. As much as we needed you, we wanted this to be mutually beneficial.”

Their reasoning might be skewed but they weren’t a bad bunch, these dragon shifters. When she didn’t say anything, he leaned back in his chair. “Why did you need saving? What happened to you, Candy?”

Candy picked up her water and held it, she rested the glass on the table in front of her. “I didn’t need saving”—she chewed on her bottom lip for a moment— “not really, I would’ve been fine.”

“You can talk to me. Tell me about your old life.” Torrent picked up his burger. “You wouldn’t be here if everything was fine.”