Temptation, Chronicles of the Fallen, Book 3 by Brenda Huber Page B

picked up the chair by the desk and dropped it beside her. She fell onto the chair, dead weight. She frowned. Most anyone else would have taken her by the arm and led her to the chair. Yet he’d avoided contact once more.
    “You’re white as a sheet. You’re not gonna pass out, are you?”
    “Well, if I did, it’d certainly serve you right.”
    “Put your head between your knees or something,” he suggested.
    If looks could kill, she’d be digging a hole in the backyard large enough to accommodate his six-foot-plus frame. And she was angry enough that she didn’t think she’d even need help dragging his dead body.
    “I don’t need to put my head between my knees. What I need is for you to stop…zapping me from one place to another without warning.”
    “Shimmering.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “It’s called shimmering.”
    “I don’t care what it’s called. If you do it to me again without warning me first, I swear I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
    Gideon sat on the corner of his desk and crossed his arms, his expression pensive. “I’m sorry about that. Honestly. I didn’t know…didn’t realize…” He fell silent. His brow puckered. She didn’t have the strength right now to play twenty questions, so she was grateful when he offered explanation without prompting. “The cuff I gave you”—he held his own up, lamplight glinting off the hammered silver on his wrist—“is bonded to the one I wear. I didn’t realize that you’d shimmer every time I do. Even if I don’t want you to,” he added reluctantly. “So I guess from now on where I go, you go.”
    But his expression hadn’t calmed by a long shot. A look of such dread crossed his face, fleeting but there all the same, that it made her decidedly nervous.
    What wasn’t he telling her?
    She’d been accused more than once of being too suspicious. Well, her suspicious nature had served her well all these years, particularly once Michael had so beneficently bestowed his “gifts” upon her. And right now, her little suspicion detector was rattling like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl.
    She thrust her wrist out to him. “Then take it off,” she demanded.
    He shook his head, his sensuous lips set in a mulish line. “I’m sorry, darlin’. I can’t do that.”
    “Okay. First. My name is Maggie. Not darlin’.” Addressing her by some random endearment wouldn’t soften her. Especially not when he used such a snide, patronizing tone. And so help him if he dared call her baby . She wouldn’t be responsible. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her own arms. “And second, why can’t you take the bracelet off?”
    “Would you willingly put it back on when I told you to?”
    “Not on your life,” she answered without thinking. As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to kick herself. She should have lied right through her damned teeth.
    He dipped his head, as if she’d just proven some point for him. “I may need to remove you from a potentially dangerous situation. I won’t always have time to stop and discuss the options with you or get your permission first.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he quickly cut her off. “You’re just going to have to trust me on that. The subject is closed.”
    She glared at him. “Then take off the one on your wrist.”
    He seemed to weigh that option for a moment. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “No. I won’t do that either. First, I’m not going to take it off and just leave it lying around for you to pick up and run off with.” She gritted her teeth, for that was exactly what she’d been hoping would happen. “Second, there’s no saying it won’t work the same if it’s in my pocket rather than on my wrist anyway. And just in case it doesn’t, I won’t always have time to stop and put it on in the middle of fight. So both cuffs stay as they are.”
    “Then you can’t shimmer anymore.”
    He shook his head. “Not an option.”
    Damn frustrating man/demon. “Do you