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Ash immediately noticed. “Max?”

“I'm okay.”

“You don't look okay.”

I turned toward him.

We'd reached the edge of the clearing, where the morning sun had begun burning away the last traces of mist. Ash stood a few feet away wearing my sweatshirt and looking at me with an expression that was equal parts concern and suspicion.

I loved him.

The thought arrived with absolute clarity, along with the knowledge that within the next few minutes I was going to place one of the biggest reasons I'd spent years keeping people at a distance directly into his hands.

“I promised you everything.”

Recognition flickered across his face. He didn't understand what I was about to show him, but he knew we'd finally reached the conversation I'd been postponing.

“You did.”

“I need you to let me do this my way.”

Ash frowned. “Okay.”

“I'm not asking you not to react.”

That earned me the faintest smile. “Good, because I'm not sure I can promise that when I don't know what the hell you're about to do.”

Fair.

I looked across the clearing and felt my dragon stir, no longer content to remain hidden now that I'd finally brought Ash here for this purpose. For once, I didn't force him back.

I pulled off my sweatshirt.

Ash's gaze immediately dropped to my chest, something I would've enjoyed considerably more under any other circumstances.

“Max?”

“Clothes don't survive this.”

His gaze snapped back to my face. “What?”

I almost smiled as I sat to remove my shoes.

Ash watched me with increasing confusion while I stripped, and by the time I pushed my jeans aside, his expression suggested he'd abandoned every theory he'd previously formed about what was happening.

“You brought me into the woods to get naked?”

“No.”

“You are definitely naked.”

“I noticed.”

His gaze dropped again before he apparently remembered this was supposed to be serious. “Should I be naked?”

A laugh escaped before I could stop it, loosening the knot in my chest by a fraction.

“No.”