I stared at it, frowning. “It’s warm, Caz.”
He cocked his head sideways, looking at me like I was an idiot. “Tea usually is,” he suggested, as if I might never have known that.
“Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot just because I’m a clippy,” I ground out, anger drowning the flip-flopping of my stomach as I stared into his far-too-handsome face.
Green eyes danced with laughter. “You were the one looking at it like it was weird.”
“Because it’s warmright now. You had it warmed up.” I frowned. “You were only silent for, like, five seconds. Long enough,maybe, to pour it. Which means you had to have it ready.”
Caz shrugged. “There’s water, juice, and coffeeif you’d prefer those instead. I’m not good enough to predict which one you would need for a morning like this. Yet.”
The subtle reminder that our dragons were mates hung in the air between us as he leaned back against the counter, dropping his arms so his palms rested on the surface. The pressure of supporting himself did certain, somewhat noticeable things to his arms, his triceps in particular. I couldn’t help but notice the way they bulged under the sleeve of his shirt.
My eyes dropped lower, accidentally, and I realized his arms weren’t the only thing bulging.
“Your ass looked really good,” Caz said with an air of defiance as he followed my gaze to his hard cock. “Really good.”
“I wasdry-heaving,” I pointed out.
He shrugged. “You were bent over. My dragon is, shall we say, less than concerned with any other details at that point. It knows what it wants, and it wants you.”
It. Not I. The distinction was small, but it was there.
Still, his dragon wanted me—that monster I had sensed with the insane alpha power levels. That beast apparently wantedme. Somehow. A weak as shit clippy. It didn’t make any sense.
“No,” I said, setting the tea down.
“No what?” He glanced at the mug on the fragile little saucer, dancing figures of dragonsenameled along the rim of it. “No more tea? Do you want the coffee then?”
“Not that, Caz,” I said firmly enough he stopped short. “No to this. No to us. We can’t be mated.”
“Well, we are.”
“No,” I said more forcefully, “we’re not. It’s a mistake. Your dragon is confused.”
The greens of his eyes hardened into emeralds, glittering and cold. The growl coming from his chest was no longer pleasant. “My dragon is many things, Anna, but it is not confused. Not about this.”
I shook my head, trying not to let the sounds of his dragon get to me, to provoke a reaction from my own dragon, who was constantly spreading its wings and resettling them, impatient and eager to move ahead. With him.
“You don’t get it,” I said. “I’m a clippy. You are on the opposite end of the power spectrum. Quite literally. I’m zero. You’re one hundred.”
“Anna—”
“Caz, there isnomiddle ground. None. It doesn’t exist. I can’t live in your world. I’m not a part of it.”
His jaw stiffened and thrust forward slightly, further emphasizing the hard lines of it. “I know. You’re all of it.”
That line. That damn line.
It took everything within me not to fall for it. Not to swoon and lick my lips, to drop the invisible wall between us, and go back to bed. Not alone, this time. He delivered it so smoothly, so confidently, that I almost believed it.
Almost.
Instead of caving, of throwing myself at him and that rather large bulge in his pants the way half of me wanted to, I forced myself to look away. To create a space, a break, something,anythingbetween us.
Because I knew that line wasn’t the truth.
“Casimir.” I said his full name. Another tactic to create distance. I was scrambling, pulling at every little thing I could, but it was all I had. Because I wanted to dive in. To let go and swim in the pool of woodsmoke and steely muscle that was Casimir Dvorak IV, Ice Tyrant of the Ice Kingdom.
