Page 30 of Cold Foot Komodo

He nodded and pulled his hand off her thigh to grip the steering wheel better. That would change things. “That reaction is why I didn’t want to tell you. It’s okay.” He didn’t know if he was telling her that, or himself.

She pulled his hand off the steering wheel and back to her lap, where she slipped her petite hand into his and intertwined their fingers. “I used to read Zoobooks. I know all about you.”

A laugh escaped him. God, he would never be able to guess what this woman would say next. He freaking loved it.

“Oh yeah? What do you know?”

“You can get to like ten feet long from your head to the tip of your tail—”

“Seventeen feet long.”

“Geez! Are you sure you’re not just a dragon?”

“No wings, but I’ve got the armored skin.”

“Wow.” Her delicate dark eyebrows were arched up with surprise. “And you are poisonous if you bite another animal.”

“Mmm, kind of. You could say it’s like a slow-killing venom. My prey does suffer if I allow it.”

“When would you allow it?” she asked, curiosity tingeing her tone.

“If someone ever messed with someone I cared about, they would be left to suffer.”

“Oh my gosh. Have you ever…have you ever done that before?”

“Yes.”

Her hand tensed in his. “Let’s wait on touch until you know what kind of man I am,” he said softly, pulling his hand from hers to dedicate it to driving.

“Did they deserve it?”

“Yes. They deserved worse.”

“Is that why you went to Cold Foot?”

“Yes.”

He hated this conversation.Hatedit. He liked her, and he didn’t want her to see him differently, but he was what he was. It wasn’t fair to pretend to be good when to his core, he was just Reed.

“As a nurse, could I cure a bite like that? Could I fix it if you ever lost control?”

Chills rippled up his spine. He checked if she was being serious. Checked again. She stared directly at him, no smile in sight. “I won’t hurt you.”

“Could I cure your bite?” she asked again.

“Yes. If you clean it fast enough with the strong stuff, and start a massive dose of antibiotics, maybe. With shifters, you won’t have to work so hard to save them. If it’s one bite, they will probably survive. They heal fast. If it’s a battle and I get themgood, clean the wounds, antibiotics, and pray. For a human?” He shook his head. “You better have those antibiotics on hand.”

“So the man you killed…he was human?”

“No. I would’ve gotten life for killing a human. He was a shifter.”

“So it was more than one bite?”

The vision of the Komodo dragon’s mangled body flashed across his mind. He winced and shoved the memory out, shaking his head hard. “Can we…can we not?”

“Sure.” Sasha got quiet after that, but it wasn’t a heavy silence. She was mulling the information over.

Reed had had many moments in his life where he’d wished he was a normal man, and this was another of those. He got it. Sasha was normal, and full of life, and human. He was a lot. His life was a lot. His reality was a lot. A shifter like him could be a burden to a happy woman like her.

---