Lerin's Bride (Crystal Glass Dragons 3)

“You never answered my question of whether you’d ever want to move,” he reminded me as I offered him a bar stool.

“I guess there’s nothing tying me here, so eventually it could be an option,” I said casually. I didn’t know why he was being so persistent with the issue. Maybe he liked to travel. I grabbed some vegetables and started chopping.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he offered.

“Oh, please chop these. I’ll heat the pan.”

I slid the vegetables and cutting board onto the bar that separated the kitchen and dining room, and he set to work.

Kind of.

Lerin knew how to hold a knife, he was capable and fast, but he swung the knife down like he was chopping a lamb steak.

Oh, right—he was rich.

He’d probably never cooked a thing in his life.

Luckily for me I was just going to do a frittata with some ham. He could chop the vegetables into a crumble, and I could still make it work.

“What do you do for a living?” I asked.

He stopped chopping and slid the cutting board and demolished vegetables back over to me.

“I help with local government, it’s a family tradition,” he explained.

I nodded and smiled.

“Sounds like a place you’d never want to leave.”

“I don’t know,” his voice sounded thoughtful. “Those family ideals can be…suffocating. Sometimes I just want to get away and figure things out for myself.” He closed his mouth quickly like it was a secret he’d been trying to trap between his teeth. “It’s fine, though, I have to respect tradition.”

The guilt in his voice made me want to reach forward and hug him, but I resisted.

He obviously wanted so much more than what he had.

“I can’t say Springfield is perfect, but if you need somewhere to run, it’s not bad.”

“I don’t know, I heard this area isn’t keen on shifters.”

He admitted it.

I wanted to push him for more. What kind of shifter was he? I could see him as a lion or perhaps a regal ram, but I knew better than to ask. Shifter forms were personal for the people who shifted into them; I wasn’t entitled to dig into his life.

He probably flirted with women wherever he went, he seemed skilled enough at it. I wasn’t special just because I somehow got duped into cooking him a free meal or two.

My stomach rolled at the thought, and I hated how it affected me.

He was a stranger.

I needed to be smarter than this.

Him being hot didn’t mean we were compatible in any other way.

“You got quiet.” His voice was suddenly inches from my ear.

I jumped a little, shivers running up and down my spine. Trying to regain my composure, I thought up an excuse. “Sorry, I guess my work was busier than I expected,” I tried to make an excuse. He brushed my hair away from my face and cupped my cheek in his warm palm.

It was intimate in a way I didn’t expect.

I half expected him to kiss me and half expected him to just leave because I was being weird.

Instead, he helped me load the frittata into the oven.

“How do you feel about heights?” he asked.

I felt my eyebrows raise in surprise.

“I’m not going to climb a tree on my own, but I like planes.”

“After lunch I have something to show you,” he said, grinning. I nodded, a little disappointed. He seemed to notice this, shifting his weight on his feet before looking back at the oven. “How long do we have?”