His lips had done a lot of things when he’d kissed me. None of them had involved quirking.
I needed to stop staring at Nate. My dragon needed to stop his rumbling complaints every time Charlie was close to him. But somehow, no matter how often I reminded myself that Nate was a banker and a Mortimer, I couldn’t stop.
I was like a moth drawn to the warmth that burned so brightly in him. The worst of it was that I didn’t want to turn away to save myself.
NATE
It took me a long time to fall asleep that night. James’s offer that wasn’t an offer kept bouncing around my head.
Had he been sincere or merely sounding me out further about why I was here? If hedidoffer me a job, what would I do? My career, such as it was, wasn’t going anywhere. I indulged myselfbriefly with dreams of dizzying promotions at the Fortescues’ bank, but I knew, deep inside, that I could never betray my family.
The cotton sheets were soft against my skin as I turned over restlessly. I missed my treasure, which always settled me when I was unsure. It was locked away safely in my flat in London. All except for a pair of cufflinks and my watch. I reached to the bedside table for my watch. I couldn’t see them in the faint light from streetlamps filtering through the blind, but it helped to know they were there. Waiting for daylight, when they’d sparkle like Alex’s eyes.
What a strange thought. Then I remembered how he’d gestured so enthusiastically when telling me about his home, and his eyes had definitely been sparkling. His accent had become more pronounced, with something oddly comforting about its musicality. His entire body had expressed his enthusiasm, in fact. The fluidity with which he moved turned me on just as much as the way his faded jeans clung softly to his thighs and lovingly hugged the curve of his arse. The breadth of his shoulders left no doubt of his strength, yet he was graceful.
I wondered, yet again, how it would feel if he was on top of me, holding me down. The thought left me weak and hopelessly turned on.
Regardless of my fantasies regarding Alex, I needed to talk to him. To find out what he’d discovered in James’s desk and to see if his eyes would sparkle like that again. He wasn’t my treasure, of course, but how I felt when I was with him was an echo of how my treasure made me feel.
I was still thinking of Alex when I finally fell asleep.
Chapter Ten
ALEX
The following day, Margaret dragged me along to the Teague and Fortescue meetings, telling me I was supposed to be observing and learning, not slinking off because I didn’t like our hosts. When we finally returned to the house, Nate cut me out of the herd with the effortless charm and ease of someone used to socialising.
“Do you want to go flying tonight?” he asked me. “It’s been almost a week since my last flight, and God knows, being here, I need it.”
“Sounds great,” I said, not quite truthfully. We needed privacy so he could look at my photos, and I was desperate to get out of the city. I’d find a way to deal with the whole flying thing when it came to the crunch.
“We’ll need to find somewhere. Where I used to go with Charlie is too dangerous,” he told me.
Had he and Charlie been flying over an airport or something? I wouldn’t put anything past Charlie Fortescue. I scrolled around my map app and found the perfect place.
“What about this area next to the River Severn?” I asked him. It was ideal—no villages or towns for miles, so he’d be able to fly unseen, and I’d be able to swim.
“Looks good,” he said. “We’d better give our apologies for supper. If we wait until afterwards, we’ll get back later than would be acceptable.”
“So long as we can swing by a burger place.” Food shouldn’t be my priority, but I was a little worried he might not think of it.
His lips twitched. “I won’t let you starve, Alex,” he assured me.
I had to glance away to hide how much I’d liked that. It had felt intimate. A promise to take care of me.
Oh,shit.This was ridiculous. I scarcely knew him, yet I was weaving a narrative around him. He was a Mortimer. A banker. But I couldn’t stop hoping that, away from this house, we could explore the attraction between us. I wasn’t imagining the way he looked at me sometimes, and he’d issued a very clear invitation both in the coffee shop and the old theatre. He’d definitely been up for it. But at other times, he’d started to flirt and then backed off. I desperately hoped that wouldn’t be the case tonight.
*
I relaxed into the heated leather car seat, my legs sprawling in the spacious passenger side. My lip had curled when I’d seen that Nate drove a Porsche, with all the rich-person stereotypes that went along with that. As soon as he started it up, I changed my mind. Though the Porsche was low on the road, there was very little road noise, and the engine sounded like a dragon about to breathe fire.It cornered like it was on rails, accelerated like a dream, andGod,I wanted so badly to drive it to feel how it handled.
Nate was a good driver. Fast and safe, with a sureness that had me watching his fingers curling around the gear stick and steering wheel and thinking about what else I’d like to see them curved around. Hence the sprawling. And it was working, because although he was concentrating on the traffic, now and then he’d glance over at my legs in faded old jeans.
He finally took us along a single-track lane with ruts that even the Porsche’s suspension couldn’t mask entirely and parked at the end. This far from civilisation, the moon was bright, the only sound the tick of the cooling engine.
I could already scent the river, damp and slightly fishy. It wasn’t the fresh salt of the sea, but it was good enough. My dragon was twisting and turning inside me, desperate to get into the water.
“Photos now or afterwards?” Nate asked, though his right leg was jiggling as if his dragon was as impatient as mine.
