Page 20 of Dragon’s Rebel

He was afraid, she realized. Like a mother whose child had run out into traffic and nearly been killed, who snatched them up in her arms and hugged them tight, all the while yelling at them about what the hell they were thinking.

Did he really care about her?

With Thorne, it was so hard to tell. Especially because she wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted him to.

She kept falling for bad boys in bad situations. And she kept getting burned, but somehow she couldn’t stop herself from trying to rescue them and take care of them. Like helping Thorne. Not just with computer searches, but everything else. Like those times when they finished work for the day, and he was all by himself down in the control room, too big to go upstairs to the mansion.

He’d seemed lonely and depressed, so she’d made Tyr and Zane move couches into the Batcave and hook up a TV, and she’d started spending her downtime there so he wouldn’t be alone. She’d cruised Netflix, catching him watching some of her shows out of the corner of his soccer-ball-sized eye while he was working on his computers.

She’d learned that he and his dragon had separate personalities.

Thorne liked action movies. His dragon liked fantasy, with knights and castles and—no surprise here—dragons. They both liked to watch things go up in flames.

And, surprisingly, they were both suckers for happy endings.

The happy endings always bugged Rebel. They were so fake—life never worked out like that for real.

Take her and Thorne, for instance. Him all dutiful and rule-following, and her a thief, following no rules except her own. The ‘rules’ had screwed her and Tempest, put them in the system and kept them in hellholes that no kid should be in. She hadn’t followed a rule since she was fourteen and ditched her last foster home for the streets.

In a movie, everything would magically work out and their differences would be adorable. In real life, they’d just make each other miserable, even if Thorne turned human.

Especially if he turned human.

Not that man-Thorne wasn’t hot as fuck. She’d only seen him once, for about five minutes, but she’d never been able to get the image out of her head.

The muscles. And the abs. The midnight-blue eyes and the broody scowl and the dark brown hair that tumbled over his forehead, making her want to reach up and push it back, running her fingers through the silky strands. She wanted to smooth that scowl from his face and see him smile.

Okay, the real truth was, she wanted to shove him down on the bed and ride him until the only word he could think of was her name, until she was so high on his touch and his kisses and his hot shaft she’d do anything to have more.

Hell, she actually had sex dreams about him. Hot, wild dreams that made her sorry to wake up.

Not that she’d admit that to anyone. Man-Thorne was also arrogant as hell.

Finally, she couldn’t stand the silence. “Hey, Lizard,” she said. “You going to sulk all the way back to Portland?”

I’m seriously considering it.

Okay, still pissed off. Although to be fair, he probably had a right to be. He had taken a bunch of bullets for her. “I really didn’t know you were there until you landed. I was already off the roof.”

You nearly died.

“You aren’t going to let that go, are you?” She was perfectly well aware how close she’d come to buying it on this one. She didn’t need him to keep reminding her of it until she got traumatized. She shoved that shit out of her mind into oblivion again, where it belonged.

Otherwise she’d never be able to do another wire job again.

You nearly died.

“Please stop saying that. I’m not dead, and I’m not going to be, unless you annoy me so much I jump off this ride and fall screaming into the night.”

He gave a low rumble. You just can’t stop yourself from being flippant and sarcastic, can you?

Probably not. The more scared she was, the more sarcastic she got. She’d learned that on the streets. Never show fear. Never let them see you sweat.

Out loud she said, “I don’t think so. It’s how I roll.”

Someone should teach you better manners.

Hah. Better men than him had tried and failed. She laughed. “So now you think it’s your ‘duty’ to teach me manners, too? What are you going to do? Spank me until I promise to be good?”