city of dragons 03 - fire magic by val st crowe Page A

knew we would get arrested, and you looked that up.”
    He nodded. He was right next to me now.
    I let my gaze flit over his chest, his broad shoulders, up to his beautiful, haunted face. Then I picked up another jalapeno and started hollowing it out. “It’s a lot to ask you to be in a relationship with a woman who’s pregnant with… with another man’s…”
    “Hey.” He grabbed my chin and made me look at him. “You can’t think that I would feel threatened by that. Besides, he’s dead.”
    “Well, we only just found that out.” I moved out of his grasp. “I’m only saying that if you wanted to back out of this, I would understand.”
    “Back out of…?” He gestured back and forth between us. “You mean break up.”
    I nodded.
    “You want to break up?” he said.
    “No,” I said.
    “Because you haven’t seemed to want me around much lately.”
    “But we talk,” I said. “We talk on the phone.”
    “Then one day you show up in tears and then you jump me,” he said. “So, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not that you think I might want out, but that you maybe want out?”
    “No,” I said again. “I’m just…” I shrugged at him. “It’s hormones.”
    He rubbed his forehead. “Okay.”
    I had finished hollowing out the jalapenos. I went over to the stove, where I had some sausage browning. I stirred it. It looked pretty good, mostly ready. I’d give it another minute. “How long have you known?” I opened the refrigerator and got out a tub of whipped cream cheese.
    “Not long,” he said. “I guess I put it together after we made love.”
    “Because of my boobs.” I set the cream cheese down.
    He laughed, actually blushing a little bit. “And because of how you reacted to the information from the PERK, and the fact that you never seemed to be drinking wine anymore. Or coffee. I just… put it together.”
    “And you didn’t say anything.” I stirred the sausage again.
    “I figured you’d tell me eventually.” He let out a breath. “You were obviously far enough along that you weren’t planning on terminating, so it was going to become apparent at some point anyway.”
    “You’re pissed at me.”
    “I was,” he said. “Kind of. Because it seems like you’re always running from things, pushing things away, and that I seem to be one of those things. But… I don’t know, after that Roxbone experience, I’m just glad to be free of that place.”
    I turned off the burner, and gave the sausage one last stir. Then I turned to look at him. “So, you’re saying that you don’t want out?”
    “No, I don’t want out,” he said. “I’m not saying I can be…” His jaw twitched and he looked at his hands. “I want you, and I want to be part of your life and if there’s a kid involved, that’s okay with me, but…” He raised his gaze to mine. “The last time I tried to be a stepfather, it went badly.”
    “Lachlan, you can’t think—”
    “Just don’t call me…” He moved back into the living room and got his drink. “Call me an uncle or a friend or a… whatever you want. But I don’t think I can be…”
    I swallowed. “Okay,” I said quietly.
    And there was silence between us.
    I got out a bowl. I dumped in the sausage and I dumped in the cream cheese. I began mixing the two together. “I don’t think I can handle it if there’s lots of drama with us, though. We can’t be back and forth and on and off and fighting and insecure and all of that. I need stability here.”
    “Then you have to trust me,” he said. “You have to let me in.”
    I turned back to him, frustrated. “I do let you in.”
    “Really?”
    I sighed. “Okay. Okay, fine. I get what you’re saying.” I turned back to the cream cheese and sausage. “And I think we need to keep our magic charged.”
    “What?”
    “The blood bond,” I said. The cheese and sausage looked well mixed. I took the bowl over to the jalapenos. Time to get stuffing. “I think you should bite