“Don’t look at me like that,” he orders in a voice as tight and thin as that high-wire he was just talking about.

“Like what?” I whisper.

“Like I’m a victim. Or a hero. I’m neither of those things.”

He’s both of those things—and so many more besides. But I know he won’t believe me if I try to tell him that. Just like I know he won’t take any more comfort from me right now, not when I’ve just laid him open right here for both of us to see.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I tangle my hands in his hair, pull his mouth down to mine.

And give him the only thing he’ll accept from me.

50

He Who

Lives in Stone Towers

Should Never

Throw Dragons

For a second, right after our mouths meet, everything goes away. What he told me about his brother, what he told me about my being in danger, everything. For these moments, as his lips move over mine—as his tongue explores my mouth and his teeth gently ravage my lower lip—all I can think about is him. All I can want and feel and need is Jaxon.

He must feel the same way, because he makes a noise deep in his throat as his arms come around me. And then he’s picking me up just a little, lifting me until the curves of my body line up perfectly with all the hard, sexy planes of his. And soon the kiss I meant as comfort shifts to something else entirely.

His hands are on my hips, his chest and stomach and thighs pressing against my own, and all I can think of is yes. All I can think of is more.

More and more and more, until my head is fuzzy, my heart is practically pounding out of my chest, and the rest of me feels like one more slide of his hands or shift of his hips will make me shatter.

Just the thought has a low, needy sound pouring out of me, a sound that Jaxon responds to with a hard, sexy squeeze of his hands on my hips. But then he’s pulling away, lifting his mouth from mine, and lowering me slowly to the ground.

“No,” I whisper, trying to hold on to him for as long as I can. “Please.” I’m not even sure what I’m asking for at this point, only that I don’t want this to end. I don’t want Jaxon to go back to that cold, bleak place where he has banished himself for so long.

I don’t want to lose him to that darkness anymore.

But he murmurs softly to me, brushes his lips over my cheek, my hair, the top of my shoulder. Then slowly, slowly eases back a little more.

“We won’t have much longer before Foster gets here, and I want to talk to you before he does.”

“Yeah, okay.” I sigh, then bury my face against his chest as I take a couple of deep breaths.

He runs his hands up and down my back to soothe us both, I think, before finally settling me on the bed—with a little distance between us. “I want to talk to you about your safety.”

Of course he does. “Jaxon—”

“I’m serious, Grace. We need to talk about this, whether you want to or not.”

“It’s not that I’m trying to dodge the conversation. I’m just saying, after what happened earlier, anyone who doesn’t like me is probably going to keep it to themselves from now on. Even if they want to hurt you.”

He gives me a look. “I told you, this isn’t all about me. If it was, Flint wouldn’t have tried to kill you on your second day here. There wasn’t anything between us then, so he couldn’t have been trying to get to me. Which means—”

I finally recover from the shock ricocheting through me enough to interrupt him. “What are you talking about? Flint didn’t try to kill me. He saved me. He’s my friend.”

“He’s not.”

“Yes, he is. I know you don’t like him, but—”

“Who told you to walk under that chandelier, Grace?” Jaxon asks with watchful eyes.

“Flint did. But it wasn’t like that.” Still, uneasiness stirs in my belly. It’s one thing to believe nameless strangers are out to get me. It’s another to think that one of the few people I call a friend here is… “Flint wouldn’t do that. Why would he try to drop a chandelier on me after he saved me when I fell off that branch?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you. He didn’t save you.”

“That’s impossible—he wasn’t even on the branch with me.”

Jaxon narrows his eyes in an are you kidding me kind of way. “He wasn’t underneath the chandelier with you, either.”

“So what? He got one of the shifters to half break the branch before the snowball fight, knowing it was going to be windy?”

“More like he got one of his dragon friends to start the wind that caused all the problems. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Grace. The dragons can’t be trusted, and Flint absolutely can’t.”

“That makes no sense. Why would he dive off that tree branch to keep me from hitting the ground if he was trying to kill me?”

Jaxon doesn’t answer.

My stomach tightens up as something horrible occurs to me. “He did save me from falling, didn’t he?”

Jaxon doesn’t answer. Instead, he looks away, his jaw working for several seconds before he finally says, “It was Cole who was responsible for dropping that chandelier, but it’s a hell of a coincidence that Flint made sure you were walking in that direction instead of sitting with the witches. And I don’t believe in coincidences. As soon as I prove it, I’m taking care of him, too.”

The uneasiness becomes a full-fledged sickness as I remember the look on Flint’s face after I thanked him for not letting me splat all over the snow. And how fast Jaxon got there after I fell. “You’re still not answering the question I asked you, Jaxon. Did Flint jump out of that tree to save me or did you somehow knock him out of that tree?”

Jaxon avoids my eyes for the second time in as many minutes. Then says, “I wasn’t near the tree.”

It’s my turn to grind my teeth together. “Like that would stop you…”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” he demands, throwing his arms up in the air with as much emotion as I’ve ever seen from him. “Let you fall? I figured if I stopped you in midair and brought you gently to the ground, it would freak you out even worse—not to mention leave you with a bunch of questions no one was prepared to answer.”

“So you made Flint dive after me instead?”

“I threw him under you, yes. And I’d do it again. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe, even if that means taking on every shifter in this place. Especially any of the dragons who might have the power to kick up a wind like the one that broke that branch.”

Oh my God. Flint didn’t save me. For a second, I think I’m going to throw up. I thought he was on my side. I thought we were friends.

“I’m sorry,” Jaxon tells me after several seconds. “I don’t want to hurt you. But I can’t have you trusting him or any of the other shifters when they’re trying to hurt you. Especially when I don’t know why yet.”

“All the shifters,” I say, thinking again about what went down in the study lounge. “Including the alpha.”

“Including the alpha.”

I don’t know what to say to him right now, especially considering everything he’s done to keep me safe from that very first night. Even before he knew that we were going to matter to each other. It’s that thought that drives me to rest my head in the crook of his neck. And whisper, “Thank you.”

“You’re thanking me?” he demands, stiffening beneath the kisses I keep pressing into the sharp line of his jaw—and the scar he works so hard to keep hidden. “For what?”

“For saving me, of course.” I pull him closer, skim my lips over his cheek and along the scar that started this whole discussion, dropping a kiss every couple of centimeters or so. “For not caring about the credit and only caring about making sure I’m okay.”

He’s sitting rigidly now, his spine ramrod straight with discomfort over what I’m doing. What I’m saying. But I don’t care. Not now, when he’s in my arms. Not now, when I’m overwhelmed by the feelings I have inside me for him.

It’s those feelings that have me climbing onto his lap. Those feelings that have me straddling his hips with my knees on either side of his thighs and my arms wrapped tight around his neck.

And those feelings that bring us right back to where we were before Jaxon called a halt—with me kissing him and kissing him and kissing him. Long, slow, lingering touches of my lips to his brow, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. Over and over, I kiss him. Taste him. Touch him. Over and over, I whisper all the things I like and admire about him.

Slowly—so slowly that I almost don’t notice it at first—he relaxes against me. The rigidness leaves his spine. His shoulders curve forward just a little. The hands that were fisted on the bed loosen up and wrap themselves around my waist.

And then he’s kissing me, too, really kissing me, with open mouth and searching tongue and hungry, desperate hands. He pushes closer, and I arch against him, pressing my mouth into his until his breath becomes my breath, his need becomes my need.

I slide my hands under his shirt, stroking my fingers along his smooth skin and the lean muscles of his back. Jaxon groans a little as I do, arching into my touch. And then my phone goes off at the exact same time there’s a heavy pounding on Jaxon’s door…

The sounds break the spell between us, and he pulls away with a laugh. I hold tight to him, not ready to let him go. Not ready for this to end. He must feel the same way, though, because his hands tighten on my waist even as he presses his forehead to mine.

“You should get your phone,” he says as it continues to ring. “Foster’s probably freaking out because he doesn’t know where you are.”

The pounding on the door grows harder, more commanding. “Or he’s freaking out because he knows exactly where I am.”