Page 27 of Blazing Reactions

“That sounds...” She leaned into his touch. “Terrifying, actually. To feel something that strongly, that suddenly.”

His thumb brushed her cheek. “Are you terrified now?”

“No.” The answer came instantly, surprising her. “I’m... overwhelmed sometimes. By how much I feel. How natural this is. How right.” She gestured between them. “But not scared. Not of you. Not of us.”

“Good.” He pulled her closer, letting her feel his own certainty. “Because from the moment I met you, arguing about security protocols and making my dragon wake up for the first time in centuries, there was no going back.”

“Even when I kept challenging your projections in budget meetings?”

“Especially then.” His smile held a hint of mischief. “Do you know how attractive you are when you’re proving me wrong?”

She laughed but sobered quickly. “I used to watch my parents, you know. The way they just... understood each other. Moved in sync. Anticipated each other’s needs. I wanted that so badly, but I could never figure out how it worked.”

“And now?”

TWENTY-FIVE

“Now...” Asher took a deep breath. “Now I think maybe I was approaching it wrong. Trying to understand love like an equation instead of just... feeling it.”

His eyes softened. “And what do you feel?”

“Everything.” The word came out barely above a whisper. “When you’re near me, when you touch me, when I feel you through our bond... it’s like everything I thought I was missing just clicks into place. Like my whole life I was trying to solve a puzzle without knowing I was missing the most important piece.”

Talon’s eyes blazed gold as he drew her into his lap, wrapping her in his warmth. “Tell me more.”

“About how you make my dragon purr just by existing?” She settled against his chest, feeling his heart beat strong and steady. “Or about how watching you with those kids tonight made something in me melt? Or maybe about how eight hundred years of history somehow makes you more fascinating instead of intimidating?”

“All of it.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I want to know everything you’re feeling. Everything you’re discovering.”

She traced the scales that had emerged along his jaw. “I spent so much time analyzing love, trying to break it down into comprehensible parts. But this... us... it defies analysis. And for the first time in my life, I don’t want to understand it. I just want to feel it.”

Her stomach took that moment to growl louder than his dragon.

“I know a place that makes amazing Korean BBQ,” Talon said, helping her up from the bench. “Unless you’d prefer...”

“You know my favorite food?” She raised an eyebrow.

“I know everything about you.” At her look, he smiled. “Security briefings are very thorough.”

“That should probably be creepy.” She let him pull her close. “But somehow it’s just sweet. In a stalker-dragon-CEO kind of way.”

His penthouse took up the top three floors of the building, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. But what caught Asher’s attention was the spread of Korean dishes already laid out on the balcony.

“You planned this,” she accused, though she couldn’t stop smiling.

“Guilty.” He led her to the intimate table setting. “Though I didn’t plan on fighting my brother first.”

“Nothing says romance like aerial combat.” She settled into the chair he held out. “Though the glitter in your hair really adds something special.”

His mock growl made her laugh as they dug into the food. The conversation flowed naturally, moving from his memories of ancient Korea (“Their dragons were considerably more dramatic”) to her childhood science experiments (“The fire department only had to come twice”).

“Okay, but seriously,” she said between bites of bulgogi, “you must have seen some amazing scientific discoveries firsthand. What was your favorite?”

“Meeting Marie Curie.” He smiled at her excited gasp. “Brilliant woman. Terrible lab safety protocols.”

“Says the man who literally breathes fire.”

“Fair point.” He topped off her wine. “Though I wasn’t the one who accidentally discovered radioactivity while trying to prove dragons were real.”

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