And she isn’t. Neither am I.
I take one slow step toward her.
She doesn’t retreat. “You don’t get to decide that for me,” she says, even before I speak.
“I do when my world reaches for you.”
“And if I still choose to stand here?”
My jaw tightens. “You don’t understand that choice yet.”
“Then explain it.”
I almost smile at that. Her stubbornness would be infuriating if it weren’t so compelling.
I move closer, close enough to smell her perfume under the rain and blood and hotel soap. “My father,” I say, “would happily use anyone near me as leverage. Rivals would,f too. Men in my world don’t usually go after what matters first. They go after what’s easiest.”
“You keep saying things like that,” she murmurs. “Like I’m some… liability now.”
“You were almost taken because you were with me.”
“That doesn’t make me yours to manage.”
No.
It doesn’t.
But the fact that she says yours makes my pulse shift anyway.
I look at her, really look at her. Barely dressed, brave for no reason, fingers that still smell faintly of antiseptic and my blood.
“Zatanna,” I say, lower now, “this is the part where a smart woman puts distance between herself and a man like me.”
Her eyes drop to my mouth. Then come back up. “And if I’m not being smart?”
That is not something I should answer. So I don’t. Instead I ask, “Why aren’t you running?”
She lets out a small breath. “Because I’ve spent my whole life being afraid of the wrong men.”
I don’t know exactly who she means. Her father, maybe. The others before me. Men who use power in smaller, meaner ways. But I understand the shape of the sentence too well.
I lift my hand and brush my thumb just under her jaw, giving her time to pull away. “You should still be careful.”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
Her lips part. “That sounds like a warning.”
“It is.”
“And is it also flirting?”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “There’s your answer.”
Her mouth curves, faintly triumphant. “You don’t scare me as much when you smile.”
“That should concern you.”
