She raised a hand as though she was going to grab his arm, and at the last moment grabbed his sleeve, instead. He followeddocile as a lamb as she tugged him away up the street, away from the chaos.
“Ensuring I’m fed, clothed, and housed is acting like an ass?”
“No, but you—this…”
Her thumb beat against her finger like a drumstick.
Corin narrowed his eyes. “You’re worried that if I stalk around like I own the place, it will reflect badly onyou?”
“No—yes. Yes, that’s what I’m worried about.” Her mouth set in an unhappy line. “Everyone has been so nice. Even though I’m not a shifter, and I … and everything else. It still doesn’t feel … real.”
Corin’s conscience itched. “You don’t have anything to fear.”
“I have so much to fear, Corin. You have no idea.”
“I might.”
She didn’t look at him. The angle of her shoulders told him maybe it was that shecouldn’tlook at him.
He gentled his tone as much as he was capable of. “I promise that if I do anything to make your position here at all precarious, I will take all the blame myself. None of it will fall on you.”
“How can you promise that?”
The strain in her voice made his heart ache. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“WellnowI’m worried. The last dragon ‘visitor’ to Hideaway took out half the waterfront. Does ‘whatever it takes’ include property damage?”
There was no way she could know what the duskfire was capable of, but her words still cut deep.
“Not if you don’t want it to,” he said, as though they were discussing the weather, or what to wear to dinner, and not the dangerous power that had kept him from claiming her as his own.
“I donotwant it to. Please consider property damage among the things I least want to happen as a result of you being here.”
“And what do you want to happen?”
She stopped walking. He stopped a moment too late, and had to turn around to face her again.
Her cheeks were glowing. Her lips were parted a bare fraction of an inch, and she stared up at him with wide eyes filled with too many emotions for him to untangle.
“When did you buy that house?” she demanded.
“Years ago.”
“So you’ve been in Hideaway Cove before?”
“I hadn’t set foot in the town until yesterday.”
“Then you weren’t—” She grimaced and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t?”
“My friend’s kids have been telling stories about seeing dragons sneaking around underwater.”
“Two children saw me flying yesterday—”
“Before then.” She pressed her lips together. “If they’re right—if another dragonhasbeen here…”
Her eyes narrowed, focused on the distant horizon. Some hidden emotion warred behind them. “This is something I’d prefer to discuss more privately,” she said, suddenly all cagey professionalism. “Would you mind coming back to my place?”
