“How could you tell?”
“I don’t know. Must have been the sudden outburst of unfettered emotion,” I said, sarcasm dripping from every word.
He didn’t take the bait, even though I’d left it right out there for him.
“So about those flare guns,” he said instead of something, well, I don’t know, romantic. Only Morrows thought guns were romantic.
“We’re still talking about the flare gun?”
“You set a snap dragon’s ass on fire with a magic flare, Leda. Of course we’re still talking about this.”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious or amused. Probably both. I seemed to bring out conflicted emotions in people.
“Did my unorthodox battle strategy upset your prim and proper angel sensibilities?” I asked him.
“There was a strategy to that madness?”
“Sure, you just said it: to set a snap dragon’s ass on fire with a magic flare.” I smiled with satisfaction. “I bet the fiend never saw it coming.”
“Yes, that’s typically what happens when you shoot someone from behind.” He even managed to say it with a straight face.
We stared at each other for a few seconds, his hard eyes against my smiling ones. It was a real struggle not to look away from the swirling storm of gold and silver magic in his eyes.
“So, I take it from your stony silence that you want to analyze my actions in the snap dragon fight,” I finally said.
“You fought well.”
I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t expected that. “You always deconstruct my fights.”
“Not this time?”
“Oh?”
A slight smile touched his lips. “Disappointed?”
“Of course. I love analyzing my inadequacies one-by-one after the fact.”
“Go to dinner with me,” he said suddenly.
I stared at him.
“You aren’t inadequate, not even a bit,” he added.
“You’re just saying that so I’ll go out with you.”
“You already agreed to go out with me.”
“I guess you’ve got me there.”
“Yes, I do,” he replied, his voice seductive, possessive.
“Go easy on the compulsion there, angel,” I said against the heat rising under my skin.
He shrugged. “You’re immune.” He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against mine as he said, “As your continued resistance to following orders proves.”
Not completely immune. “Hey, I’ll have you know that I haven’t disobeyed an order in at least a week.”
“Somehow, I seriously doubt that, Pandora.”
“Ok, so maybe I did disobey Lieutenant Ripley last week when he told me to use Saintly Suds to wash the truck, but in my defense, that was a really stupid idea. Everyone knows that Blessed Bubbles are the superior product. Anyway, I didn’t see it as an order so much as a suggestion.”
“How many times do you tell yourself that before you get ready to disobey something I’ve ordered you to do?”
“Hardly ever. I typically only think about that afterwards.”
“Stop.” His hands slid down my cheeks in a gentle caress. “Don’t confess your sins to me, or I’ll be forced to discipline you.”
“Are you really sure you want me to stop? I know how much you love assigning me pushups.”
“And how much you enjoy doing them, especially when I’m on top of you.”
Of course, he’d meant sitting on me as he sometimes did to make the pushups harder, but he’d chosen the words purposefully. He always chose his words carefully, every one placed exactly as he wanted. The innuendo was as thick as heavy whipping cream—and just as deliciously unhealthy. That’s one of the benefits of leveling up your magic in the Legion. You could survive all kinds of deliciously unhealthy things. Like angels.
I took a moment to collect myself so that when I did speak, I didn’t stutter like a fool. “I’m surprised that you want to have our date now of all times.”
“It will never be the right time, so it might as well be now.”
I liked that argument. I liked it a lot.
As Nero and I walked through the town, I listened to the night. The Black Plains were wailing tonight. The moon was nearly full, and magic was in full bloom. Dark, sinister magic that made me want to curl up in my bed until morning.
“It isn’t safe out there,” I said quietly.
“The monsters are hungry tonight. Restless.”
“So are the thugs,” I commented, glancing at the two men in trench coats who’d been following us from the other side of the street for the last two blocks.
Nero turned to face them. “Leave,” he said, that single word chilling the humid evening air.
The thugs spun around and ran the other way.
“Now, I am hungry.”
“You used a lot of magic today,” I said.
“As did you.”
“Nah, I mostly just shot off my flare gun and stole other people’s fire swords off the ground.” I stopped in front of the restaurant. “We’re here.”
“The Jolly Joint?” Nero read the sign with a dubious slant to his mouth. “Is that Frontier humor?”
“Trust me. It’s awesome.” I reached for the door, but he got there first.
“Allow me.” He held the door for me.
“Oh, so this is like a real date?” I grinned at him as I entered the restaurant.