A Shade of Dragon by Bella Forrest Page B

even save your life… but then they don’t talk about anything, they have secrets, nothing they say makes sense, and I have no idea who you are, to be totally honest. You could be anybody, so if you disappeared tomorrow—”
    “I won’t,” he said softly, taking both my arms in his hands. My pulse quickened.
    “What happened to you tonight?”
    Theon shook his head wordlessly.
    “More secrets,” I muttered.
    One of his hands moved to cup my cheek and he leaned closer. “I’ll show you everything,” he said. “Just give me a little time.”
    “I don’t want this to be like everything else,” I whispered up to him.
    But Theon smiled. “Be careful what you wish for,” he whispered back, snaking his hand into my hair and pulling me into his arms. His fingers clenched and he tilted my face up toward his. I had only a second to catch my breath before his lips descended onto mine, and a wave of fire rocked through my body such as I had never felt before. His mouth seemed to both soften and harden for me at once. My body bowed in his embrace, and my hands found their way into his hair. I was on fire. He’d lifted me clear off the ground.
    Theon’s free hand crept up inside my jacket and raked its nails down my back, inciting a moan to come out of my throat. My body quivered against his. How was I so feverish in these swirling motes of snow?

Chapter 19: Nell
    “ T heon ,” I gasped, sliding my own hands into his sweater and up along his back. His muscles were perfectly sculpted.
    Before I reached his shoulders, Theon gripped my hands and pulled them back out of his sweater. “Wait,” he breathed. “It’s too soon for all this.”
    I coughed out a misty laugh. “What are you trying to do to me?”
    “Let’s—” Theon squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating hard on where, exactly, his train of thought was trying to take him. “Let’s have a formal evening together first.” He cleared his throat and nodded. “I think that would make me feel more comfortable.”
    “Tonight was supposed to be that evening.”
    “I know; it’s complicated. When the stakes are high… it is smart to move slowly, isn’t it?”
    I had to nod. He was right.
    “When will you be free again?”
    I sighed. How could I have found a man even more old-fashioned than I was? “I’m free again on the twenty-seventh.”
    “Perfect,” Theon breathed. “I will show you my home. Things will begin to clarify.”
    I guess that is a step in the right direction. Maybe I can get your phone number? For when I do have a phone again?
    His eyes shifted over my shoulder, toward the sky, and I turned to look with him. I’d forgotten all about the strange bird—and now there were two of them. Might it have been a pair of condors? But then what were they doing in Maine?
    “I must go,” Theon said, snapping me back.
    “But you just got here. Do you really have to go?”
    Theon smiled, but my eye was again drawn to the slash on his cheek. “I do,” he said. “I’ll be back at sunset on the twenty-seventh. If I am not… I give you full permission to never consider me again.”
    The thought was an alien one, but I got what he was saying. He’d be there, or he’d be square. “All right,” I said. Theon turned, and I followed, intending to show him through the house and out the front door. But he leapt easily onto the roof. I gasped as he strode over the slope of shingles. “You can go out the front door, you know!” I called to him.
    “I’m fine, thank you. Good night, Nell.” With that, he disappeared down the other side of the roof, leaving me staring after him with a frown.
    As much as I wanted him, I had to confess that I understood his trepidation. He was just so, so weird—and that was him holding back. How much weirder would it get on our date?
    At the realization that, yes, we did have a date, I whirled back to the railing of the widow’s walk and grinned into the sky like an idiot. He’d asked me! I hadn’t asked him;