Page 17 of Bitten By the Basilisk

“I was. Very much.” She would have apologized again for crashing his private time, but even she wasn’t so polite—nor so oblivious—as to dismiss how pleased he was to be talking to her. Given his looks, his flirtation was insanely flattering.

The sound of sifting sand drew her eye downward, past the exposed V of his chest, to where he had a tail the width of a tree trunk instead of legs, his golden scales coated with a thin layer of black granules.

What did he look like beneath the robe? she wondered. Did he have a slit, like normal snakes?

“Would you like to touch it?”

“Excuse me?” she blurted, scandalized.

He made another of those low, sexy laughs. “The sand. Or are you already familiar with sand-bathing?”

“Oh!” She hid a wince in her free hand and groaned at how ridiculously she was acting. Send me straight to horny jail. “I’ve never had a sand bath, no,” she said, dropping her hand to meet his twinkling eyes. “But I’ll pass.”

“What did you think I meant?”

His teasing tone implied he knew, but she was clever enough to parry, if not convincingly. “Uh, your tail, of course.”

“Ah, of course.”

“The color is gorgeous,” she rushed to add.

He smiled as though the compliment was welcome but unexpected. “I’m glad you think so. You should see it when it’s all cleaned up.” He tugged gently on her hand, drawing her a step closer and sending her heart into a sprint. “I’m free after this. Let me take you somewhere.”

“Now?” She looked around for a clock but didn’t see one. “Isn’t it pretty late?”

Most normies, especially women, would be rightly leery of an impromptu date with a near-total stranger in the middle of the night, but Alice’s intuition told her Silas had nothing nefarious in mind. Something amorous, she sincerely hoped, but not nefarious. And how long had it been since she’d done something more spontaneous than buying a drink with dinner?

“I understand if you’re tired from traveling,” he said, giving her an out, “but I’m wide awake.”

She was, too. More awake than she’d been all day. And she had nowhere to be for the next twelve or so hours. “Where did you have in mind?”

“Hmm. Do you like street art?”

Alice couldn’t nod vigorously enough. Her commute always took her past a row of warehouses that allowed new murals every six months, and she’d formed a habit of stopping to admire them whenever a new one had been painted. The scale of the art always took her breath away.

“Oh, but wouldn’t it be better in the daytime?”

“Let me worry about that. All you have to do is meet me in the parking lot in, say, half an hour?”

Initiative was so sexy. “Let’s do that.” She hoped he was planning to drive her around on his motorcycle.

Looking pleased, he drew her hand toward his lips for another kiss. “Don’t forget your slippers, Cinderella,” he quipped, sending her a heated glance over her knuckles.

“Right.” As delighted as she was abashed by the pet name, she took her hand back and quickly retrieved her spa slippers. “See you in thirty minutes, then?” she asked, putting them on while using the partition for support.

At Silas’s nod, she headed toward the hall.

“Oh, and Alice?” he called.

She turned back, leaning to peer past the wall.

“Dress warmly.”

She nodded, fighting a smile and failing. “Will do.”

Feeling as light as a hitodama, she hurried from the room, through the split curtain, and straight into a warm, hard slab. “Oof!”

Good grief, how many times was she going to crash into things?