Page 96 of Elven Crown

Or, worst-case scenario, Maxwell was piling it on thick to catch her off guard, lower her defenses, and later manipulate her into a corner and watch her fall apart afterwards. Because he still didn’t trust her.

Any of it was possible. All of it was possible.

With that tingling warmth swirling around them and between them, draping over her shoulders and down her back, the heat of his body so close to her and his scent of dewy grass, moonlight,and sandalwood beckoning her even closer, there was no way to think clearly about any of it.

And because she’d never felt this with anyone, the only thing Rebecca knew how to do was to draw back.

“Don’t sweat it,” she said with an airy chuckle. “Everybody gets it wrong sometimes. Happens to the best of us. I was just doing my job.”

“You were.” He still wouldn’t cut it out with the intensity of his stare, or looming over her like he meant to pounce at any second. “And it’smyjob to detect and eliminate potential threats.”

“To Shade, right?” It shouldn’t have mattered, but she needed to know what this was, what the shifter was trying to pull, or if this was all in her head and she was losing it. “Or to me?”

His gaze roamed across her face again, then trailed along the side of her neck, up along her jaw, and finally settled on her lips when he leaned in and answered, his voice barely above a whisper. “Both.”

This was too much. All of it was too much.

His strange possessiveness and need to protect her. His complete lack of personal boundaries throughout what few serious conversations they’d had to date. His inability to clearly state whether he acted like this because she was Shade’s commander or because he felt something else for her specifically…

And now he’d done it again, lumping it all together.

She couldn’t figure out where his duties to this task force ended and any interest inhermight have begun. Or if it even existed.

If there was no differentiating line, then what the hell were theydoing?

Had she misread everything?

They stood like that for a long time, the tension crackling between them, Rebecca’s face flushed hot with his closeness andthe tingling warmth in his presence that now felt on the verge of boiling.

She had to go. She had to get away from him, so she could think again. She had to…

All thoughts stopped when Maxwell lifted a hand toward her face.

She couldn’t let herself believe he was reaching forher. That kind of misconception only led to humiliation. Ancestors knew she’d already faced enough of that as it was.

Then she thought he was about to play with her hair before a gentle pressure settled on her head.

What?

Maxwell lowered his hand again and opened it between them to show the small, glittering shards of obliterated metal shipping container that had gotten tangled in her hair at the docks.

The second she realized what he’d done, she puffed out a sigh. “Right. Thanks.”

“You’ve got something else on your mind,” he said, cool as a cucumber while Rebecca thought she might catch fire any second. “What is it?”

“Nothing. But…sometimes you say things that don’t make much sense. I’m just letting it sink in. You know, that you’re keeping both Shade and me safe from threats, I guess. That’s…good to know.”

How easy it was to make herself sound like a complete moron.

Maxwell dusted the metal shards off his palm but still didn’t look away from her. “For someone in your position, they’re one and the same. Shade and its commander. In case you haven’t figured that out yet.”

That might have been meant as a compliment, knowing Maxwell’s fondness for rules and protocol and order, but it felt much more like a major letdown. The intensity of her new disappointment surprised her.

At least she had her answer.

Her Head of Security was not, in fact, flirting with her. He was looking after his commander, because the Thon-Da’al and Shade, according to him, were the same thing.

This was just Maxwell Hannigan’s own special brand of being a good shifter soldier, and that was it.

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