“What brought you here?”
Ash huffed, “Why do I feel like I’m being interrogated?”
“Why did you kiss me?” she blurted out.
That brought him around to face her again. “It didn’t seem like you minded.”
“That’s not the point. You can’t sit still around me. You’re like a cornered animal every time we talk for longer than five minutes. I go talk to a group of guys and you pull me into an alley and kiss me. That’s an odd reaction.”
“How should I react when a horde of assholes are hitting on you and willing to try and take off my…the bracelet?”
“I wasn’t going to go home with one of those morons.”
“I don’t give a fuck. You shouldn’t have been talking to those morons. They circled you like a pack of hyenas.”
Finley rolled her eyes. “I’m a big girl, Ash.”
“You were trying to get a rise out of me, Sawyer. Stop acting innocent. It’s beneath you.”
She rolled her shoulders back and shifted her weight from foot to foot. She was nervous. He made her nervous.
“I wasn’t expecting them to be so crude,” she mumbled.
Ash moved to lean against the wall next to her. “I wouldn’t have let them touch you.”
She glanced over at him. “Men don’t usually respond to me like that. I’m a tomboy. I’m one of the guys.”
Ash huffed out loud. “I find that hard to be true.”
Before she could answer, Ash’s phone beeped. “Our ride is here.”
They climbed into the BMW’s backseat. The driver’s music floated around their silence as they headed to her place. Ash’s thigh was pressed against hers. It didn’t need to be, but he wanted to touch her somehow.
They arrived at her apartment building. Ash had checked out the place as soon as he knew it was where she lived, making sure his mate would be safe. He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if it hadn’t been, but the security desk and the doorman gave him some piece of mind.
Even if they weren’t enough to keep out a rival dragon or any other determined supernatural creature with a vendetta against his mate.
Finley gave him an odd look when he got out of the car and it drove away without him.
“Are you not going home?”
“I’ll get home. Don’t worry about me.”
“My building has security and the elevator drops me into my apartment.”
I know.Instead of revealing the fact that he’d researched it, he said, “Swanky.”
She chuckled. “I would not have pictured that word coming out of your mouth.”
“You’re saying you don’t need me to walk you to your door.”
“I am, but…”
Ash took a step back. “Don’t invite me in.”
Finley smirked. “You afraid to be alone with me?”
“Afraid? No. I just know that if I’m alone with you around your bed, I’m going to end up spreading you out on it, and neither one of us need that.”