I fiddle with screwing the bottle cap back on. “What if I give you my name and you…do nefarious things with it?”
He leans forward, forearms on the table. “The only nefarious thing I’d do with your name is shout it as I’m cum—”
“Enough, enough! I get the bloody point. God, you’re a terrible flirt.”
Ketill winks. It shouldn’t work…
I hate that it makes heat rise in my cheeks. “Tell me why you were being chased. I deserve to know since I’ve been dragged along this ride.”
The corner of his lip twitches at the word ‘ride’, and I level him with a withering stare.
He laughs and sprawls into the chair, his legs wide. “The shifters stole something, and I stole it back.”
“Oh, so…you’re doing something good then?”
Ketill thinks about it, then tilts his hand from side to side in a ‘50/50’ gesture.
My shoulders drop. “That isn’t very reassuring.”
“I’m multifaceted,” comes his smooth reply.
“I’m surprised you know such a big word,” I respond, biting back a smile.
His voice drops an octave as he says, “I know a lot about big things.”
I regard him coolly. Ketill stares back.
“Should I be embarrassed for both of us for that little line?” I ask. “I might actually have to walk away, it was terrible.” I pretend to stand.
Pearls of Ketill’s easy laughter scatter across the cabin. “Stay, stay!” He lunges forward to grab my arm, tugging me back gently.
The corner of my mouth quirks up, and I stay seated. “I guess I can be nice this one time since you saved me.”
“Ah, so I’m no longer a kidnapper, then?” Ketill teases, his hand still on my forearm.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“Tell me why the shifters were after you.”
I expect Ketill to hesitate, and the moment he releases my arm to grab the leather satchel at his side, I wish he had. The loss of his warmth is immediate.
He reaches inside and pulls out what looks like an egg. But the size of my head.
“A dragon egg,” he declares as if presenting something he won at a carnival.
“You’re making fun of me,” I huff.
His grin widens, his teeth startlingly white in the dim light. The rain beats against the window, causing patterns to dance across his smooth, pale skin, and for a breath, it isn’t a turquoise egg decorated with opalescent scales that’s beautiful, but…Ketill.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” he asks, boyish charm sparkling in his grey eyes, like even though we’d just met, he’s been dying to show me since the moment he stole the egg.
I’m surprised he thinks what I’m captivated by is this impossible thing, that’s expelling a gentle wave of warmth, when Ketill seems to read me so well. And really, it should be. But for an unashamed flirt who entered my life in a way I’ll never forget, in this moment he’s almost…pure—innocent—in his excitement.
A small ping pulses next to my heart. I can’t explain why I reach for Ketill like I’ve known him all my life, like touching him is my right, as I carefully run my fingers over the curve of his lip where that now-dried raindrop was.
But when I breathe out, “Amazing,” and his gaze whips from the egg to my face, the unexplained doesn’t matter.
