“What?” She pulls back.
“Akh—” I had not planned on saying that aloud. All the emotions I have tried so long to keep secret have pushed their way to the surface, emboldened by her physical reaction to our kiss. “Stay,” I repeat, firming my voice.
“You know I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve got a life back home.” She pushes on my shoulders, releasing me. And I sit back on my heels.
“You could have a life here.”
“If I asked you to come back with me, would you give up all of this? Your house? Your farm?”
“Yes.” My answer surprises us both.
Silence is heavy on my shoulders, and then Lydia rolls her eyes. “Stop being an ass, Killan. I’m not panicking anymore.”
“I have an ass,” I say, confused.
“No. I mean, stop joking around. Stop saying random shit to make me feel better. It worked already, so you can stop now.”
“I would never joke about such things.”
“I saidstop.” She keeps her smile in place by sheer force of will, but there is steel in her voice. It is a warning, and it is a knife to my gut—a self-inflicted wound, for I knew what her answer would be before I asked, yet I insisted on asking anyway, half delusional after a single kiss.
“Thank you for helping me. But that’s as far as this”—she points between us with a quivering finger—“goes.”
“I do not need your thanks,” I say through clenched teeth, as I have reminded her often before. It is my duty and my pleasure to care for her. I do not need her gratitude. Do not want her gratitude.
For another heartbeat, there is a stilted silence. Lydia scrutinizes me as closely as I am scrutinizing her, and I see the exact moment when she makes a conscious decision to take offense to what I have said. She draws herself up, lengthening her spine, clenching her jaw. And I realize in this second that she is using her anger as a shield.
It does not matter if she is directing her anger at me or at Chloe or at herself. It is not true anger.
Her panic was real.
Her desire was real.
Her pain is real.
Her anger is a shield.
“You’re an infuriatingly stubborn man,” she hisses. “I can thank you if I bloody well want to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”
“You can.” I stand, too. Her anger I can deal with. It was her panic that terrified me. So I do something else I have never done before. I turn the corners of my mouth up in a Human smile, flashing her my sharp teeth.
Her glare darkens. “Oh fuck off, Killan! I don’t have time for this. I should be working. I should be researching. There’s no way I’m not leaving.” And she storms downstairs, screaming her false rage.
Chapter Fourteen
Lydia
I’m dreaming of Killan. We’re in the kitchen…or his bedroom? I can’t tell. Everything around me is hazy. Muted. Everything except for Dream Killan, who tugs me onto his lap. I let myself be drawn closer. In fact, it never occurs to me that I should resist, and I straddle his thighs.
He kisses me then, and I canalmostfeel it. His lips against my neck, my bare shoulder. I thought I was dressed…maybe I’m not. His body warms, and I run my hands over his shoulders and down his back, relishing the feeling of his scales.
The scene resets itself. Killan is guiding me onto his lap again. It’s even easier this second time to wrap myself around him, to push into his hold, to rub against his textured scales. I want more. Ineed?—
Another reset. I’m lying on my back, and he’s kneeling over me, one hand tracing circles on my stomach, another hand at my throat. A hand between my legs. Another pushing my knees farther apart.
