“Feelings have no reason, no logic. They just are,” I said.
“My behavior was unbefitting of a soldier of the Legion.”
Amusement tickled my lips. “Maybe you’ll have to punish yourself too.”
“Yes,” he agreed seriously.
“Pushups?” I struggled to keep a straight face.
“Not harsh enough.”
“How about if I sit on you while you do them?”
Laughter burst from his mouth, beautiful, unchecked. I loved to hear him laugh. Something about it filled me with silly, sappy happiness.
“I feel the same, Nero. About you,” I told him.
He watched me, saying nothing.
“I’m not rational when you’re hurt either,” I continued.
“Even so, I cannot excuse your disobedience, no matter how good your intentions were. I can’t let you off the hook.”
“I know,” I sighed.
“The angel in me cannot allow it, even though your words make the man in me dare to hope.”
“Hope about what?”
His voice dipped lower. “Hope that you will be amenable to my proposition.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for any propositions, Nero. I’m too deep in this already.”
“Deep in what?”
“In you,” I told him.
A smile twisted his lips. “I wasn’t talking about that kind of proposition.”
“What other kind could you mean?”
“I just want to ask you to dinner.”
There was no such thing as ‘just dinner’ for us. Warning sirens blared inside of my head. If anything, his proposition was more dangerous than the other—because it came with feelings attached. His eyes burned with intentions unspoken but not unfathomable. I knew his endgame. He didn’t just want to seduce me; he wanted to make me fall for him through and through, heart and soul. That didn’t scare me nearly as much as my eagerness to jump into the fire after him.
“I accept,” I said. Wasn’t facing your fears the best way to get rid of them? “But we have to go somewhere public, not to your apartment.”
“You don’t like my apartment?”
“It’s lovely, but I think we both know what will happen if we have dinner there.” In fact, I was having lurid memories of this office right now. It was making it hard to focus.
“As you wish.” He kissed my hand. “I will take you someplace nice.”
“And will this date happen before or after my punishment?
“I’ll let you pick.”
I laughed. That angel sure had a crazy sense of humor. And the crazier thing was I couldn’t wait for our date. Or was it really so crazy? We worked together, fought together, had been through life and death together. What was a little dinner and dessert compared to that?