21. THALIA

“What were you doing?” I demanded. We’d closed up shop, done the dishes, and it was time to have it out with Prince Red there about how we don’t kill the customers. Sure, it was every back-of-house fantasy to launch obnoxious customers on the lightless walk, but some fantasies should remain fantasies because consequences.

“Setting boundaries.” He plunged his thick arms up to the elbow joint into the hot dish vat.

“By killing him?”

“He was not going to die.”

“Sure as fuck looked to me like he was going to suffocate if the Site Master”s goons hadn’t gone and dragged him in.”

Ahane scrubbed the slop-with-bits pot.

I tried again. “This place isn’t the lawless hellhole you think it is.”

“He was rude to you.”

“I’m sure whatever he called me, I’ve been called worse.”

“He assaulted you.”

“You can’t breathe out there either.”

“Show me your belly.”

“No.”

“Show me your belly,” he bit out.

“You dolt, I don’t have on anything under my sack! I’m not flashing you the goods. At least not intentionally.”

His gaze narrowed and his pupils became more hourglass than oval. “You’re bruised. I can see it in how you move.”

I had a dark bruise across my midsection but a bruise was a whole lot of so what in the grand scheme of things. “And?”

“He assaulted you. End of discussion.”

“No, it’s not the end of the discussion.” I smacked him with my drying towel.

He, pointedly, did not respond and kept washing pots.

I gave him another swat with the towel. “Did you not hear what the Site Master said? About not killing his customers? It’s a pretty good policy, you know. If they’re dead, they’re not paying customers.”

“That one is not a paying customer at all, it seems.”

“You want to pay for him?”

“I wasn’t going to because he wasn’t going to die.”

“He sure believed he was.”

The scales on the outer corner of one of his eyes twitched. “Good. No one assaults you. No one. It is up to them if they die at my claws or not.”

“You want to get slapped with some asshole’s debts? What a stupid fucking way to end up in debt in a place like this.”

His scales suddenly rushed a shade of orange-rose.

“You’re already in debt here,” I added softly. “Because of me.”

How many other bad things had happened to people because of me?

Ahane dropped the pot into the basin. He dried off his hands on his apron and then brushed his fingertip-claws down my temples to cradle my jaw. He bent. He said something in High Dialect.

Don’t know what it was. Maybe the grocery list.

He added some other details, shaping the words with care and intention that swirled around me. Through me.

I pulled away. “Stop.”

He captured me again. I shook off his hands with a snarl and snapped. “It happened because of me. I was slacking off, and they got angry! He got rude, but I started it.”

“He hit you. He hit you hard enough to send you to the floor.” Ahane’s rage built into his scales and the thick muscle of his shoulders and forearms. “He hurt you.”

“So ‘worth it’?” I retorted.

He bent to my height, the tip of his nose brushing mine. “Worth it.”

“You are such an asshole,” I whispered.

“I know.” He raised the scales that passed for eyebrows, his sunset-eyes darting between mine and my lips. His tail brushed my ankle. He bent even closer, his fingertips barely touching me.

“You may,” I whispered.

He closed the final fraction and kissed me. I shuddered as if he had brushed a rose petal over my lips, offered it to me to taste. Another gentle brush and this time I accepted, truly tasting him for the first time.

His tail moved up the back of my knee. He moved slowly, inch by inch, deftly avoiding my healing injuries while making me weak. One big hand cradled my back, the other still held my face, his fingertips splayed across parts of my face I had never realized I needed to be touched. And his tiny, delicate scales were soft and warm and a textured contrast to my own skin. Like caresses within caresses.

Spirals within spirals.

His tongue pushed deeper.

Somehow, I managed to push on his chest and not grab his pants. He instantly broke the kiss, but barely moved back and didn’t move his hands. Sparks flew off my brain while it tried to catch up to what was happening.

“I’m not rewarding you for bad behavior.” Did I sound breathless? I felt breathless.

He did not reply. He didn’t need to, standing there, looking like that, feeling like that. All rubies and cranberries and holiday spices and I’m still going to stab the next asshole who looks at you.

“I got what I wanted,” I added. “I have a diner to sweep.”

He still didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.

“Let go.”

A twitch of his scales and he dropped his hands to his sides and removed his tail from its place halfway up the inside of my left thigh. His eyes traced my every movement and breath as I backed away from him and fetched my broom to go get some of that recycled air in the diner.