Sassy Ever After: Dragon Sass (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read Online Free

blood off his hands and arms. One of the kittens was playing with his shoelace, while another was investigating his pant leg, his whole head stuck up inside.
    “They seem to like you.” Jules put the first aid kit on the kitchen table and opened it. “Sure you don’t want to keep them?”
    “Contrary creatures. Worse than women,” he muttered, patting his wounds dry with a paper towel and tossing it into the garbage before making his way over to the kitchen table. This wasn’t an easy task with kittens swarming around his feet. “Cats love me. And I’m not a cat person.”
    “Even kittens?” Jules inspected his wounds. Most of them were surface scratches, but there were a few on the backs of his hands that were deep, and one on his arm that looked like puncture marks. Tiny little kitten teeth had made those, she was sure of it.
    “Okay, they’re cute, I guess,” Kai conceded, watching as she cleaned his scratches with hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball.
    “Millions of YouTube watchers can’t be wrong.” Jules turned one of his hands over on the table. His fingernails were clean, finely manicured. He wore no rings, and there was no tan line, in spite of the bronze color of his skin. Of course, Barb wouldn’t have tried to set her up with a married man. But it was always better to be safe than sorry.
    And why was she even thinking about this? Barb’s silly matchmaking plan was just that. Last night’s set-up had failed, but not to be deterred, Barb had sent Kai over just a few hours later. With a box of kittens, no less!
    “This place—your ranch,” Kai started, making a face when she used her finger to rub antibiotic ointment into his wound. “What’s it worth?”
    “With the second mortgage, and oh, wait, the third, too—probably somewhere below zero.” Jules snorted, peeling open a Band-Aid. She glanced up to see him watching her, those flecks of green in his hazel eyes fascinating her. The warmth of his hand against hers, even during such an innocuous task, flooded her with an uncomfortable heat. “I’m kidding. Sort of. It’s probably worth half a million on the market. There’s a lot of land. But I don’t want to sell.”
    “And what is it  you do here, exactly?” He flexed his fist when she was finished smoothing the Band-Aid over the back of his hand. “Barb says you’re like some sort of horse whisperer? Do you do therapy on horses?”
    She laughed, reaching down to lift the orange kitten onto her lap. He was trying to scale her leg, digging his tiny claws in.
    “I’m not a horse psychiatrist.” She scratched the kitten briefly behind his ears, feeling him purr, wondering if they had fleas. She’d have to take them to the vet. “I do equine therapy. It’s using horses as therapy for people.”
    “That’s a thing?” Kai raised his eyebrows as she went to work on the back of his other hand. He shrugged when Jules gave him a quelling look. “Sorry. I don’t know anything about therapy. With or without horses.”
    “Yes, it’s a thing.”
    The orange kitten, clearly the leader and most adventurous of the bunch, bridged the gap between their knees and ended up on Kai’s lap.
    “This is the little monster that did most of the damage.” He looked down at it, frowning.
    “I think you’ll live.” Jules held his hand in hers as she rubbed ointment into the deepest scratch on his hand. “Pretty sure you’re not gonna bleed out in my kitchen.”
    “So, uh...” Kai cleared his throat, using his other hand to scoop up the kitten on his lap and place it on the floor. “Would you mind showing me around?”
    “I told you—ranch isn’t for sale.” She smoothed the final Band-Aid over his hand and began cleaning up. “And it’s mortgaged to the hilt. So whatever financial advice you’ve got for me, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be useless.”
    Kai cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t underestimate me.”
    “Why, do you have a magic wand?” Jules closed the first aid kit