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My heart beat faster and faster. “Bite me?”
He frowned and shook his head. “I wanted to join you. I’m very fond of acrobatics.” His words were so low, so suggestive. For a moment my imagination went wild before I reined it in.
I cleared my throat. “Ah. You probably have a gymnasium down here.”
“I probably do, with all the equipment a back hall doesn’t have.” He ended on a growl that rippled down my spine.
I blinked at him, bewildered and undeniably fascinated. “I think that you’re flirting with me.”
“I’m also propositioning you, but subtly, so that you don’t notice.” He grimaced as if in pain, then dropped to his knees in a smooth movement. The last time he’d lost his balance, he’d been poisoned.
I bent over him, running my hands over his neck as I searched for a killer spider. There was nothing but extremely silky skin that left my hands buzzing. “What’s wrong?” I asked, gripping his shoulder.
“To your way of thinking, probably everything. Miss Morell, Libby, I find myself unable to deny my feelings for you.” He spoke so simply, so sincerely.
I straightened, taking two steps back while I stared at him in horror. “What feelings can a vampire dragon have?” I winced once the words were out, because it was so dismissive and cruel, but I needed to be cruel, to cut myself out of his heart before his feelings took root.
“All of them, apparently. I have a ring. Would you like to see? I understand that you’re probably going to reject me once you’re over the shock, but stranger things have happened, and you’ve been involved in every single one of them.” He pulled a ring out of his pocket, a simple gold band with a dozen gems embedded in the metal.
“Miss Morell, Libby, will you marry me?”
I stared at him for a very long time, then I switched to staring at the band he held out towards me. “So, that’s the kind of engagement ring a dragon would pick out. I suppose you keep all your impressive gems in the cave.”
“My impressive gems would break your hand. You’re welcome to them, but I recommend you doing something with them other than wearing them. You could probably crush them into powder and experiment on rare texts with them. I have so many rare texts that you could experiment on. All of them.” He searched my eyes as he slowly stood, head slightly cocked until he was once more standing taller than me. “I offer you everything I own, possess and am, and you don’t even have to wait until I die, accidentally, of course. Naturally, that includes all the sushi you could possibly eat.” He was using my own words and sushi against me.
I swallowed hard. “I can’t kill you.”
He smiled slightly. “No? Perhaps that’s the beginnings of attachment.”
“No, I mean, I literally can’t kill you. How could I possibly marry someone I don’t know how to kill?”
He stared at me, at a loss for a moment. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“Naturally, why would you? You’ve never been stuck in any kind of cage until you were dregs of yourself. You’re a dragon, the only thing more possessive than a vampire, which you also are, and you have feelings for me? Sure, possessiveness is a feeling.”
“Miss Morell, I have exerted a great deal of effort demonstrating my ability to control my instincts. I left you alone for days, allowing you to have the space you desired even though I wanted nothing more than to?—”
“Take me and keep me and never let me go. I know.”
He scowled. “Take care of you, see to your health and happiness as far as is in my power. I want to make you happy, to give you all the good things and wicked things you desire, not stuff you in a vault until you suffocate.” He gestured around us, reminding me of the location of this overwhelming situation. “To be frank, Miss Morell, you put yourself in a cage stronger and more isolating than anything I could do to you.”
“You underestimate yourself.”
He laughed, flashing fangs at me. “I suppose you don’t know me as well as I know you. I have been studying the topic of Libby Librarian for four years, and you’ve only recently taken interest in the Scholar.”
“Who says I’m interested?”
He leaned close, peering into my eyes. “Are you interested?”
Dragons. You couldn’t lie to a dragon. I scowled at him. “You know that I’m interested, that I’ve been aware of you for four years, as you mentioned so indelicately.”
“Miss Morell, this is probably the part where you hurl a death curse at me or stab me in the heart in an attempt to clearly communicate your rejection of my proposal.”
I took two steps away from him. “Excuse me? What kind of marriage proposal tradition is that?”
“The kind where I don’t kiss you in the next ten seconds.”
I stood there sputtering, lost between bewildered and infuriated.
