Page 35 of The Troll’s Summer Flame

“Boom,” I whisper, and smile.

Chapter Eight: Gordon and Andrea

This is the greatest and most beautiful disaster. Andrea kissed me. And she liked it. She ended one embrace long enough to smile up at me, and then pulled me back for more.

I’ve never kissed anyone before, let alone someone I’m rapidly losing my heart to.

It’s wonderful.

And terrible. Frightening. I feel like I can’t stop now that I’ve started. Raw desire that makes me wary of old troll ways is surging in me, and I want to grab Andrea and devour her. Not with teeth, but with mouth and tongue, kissing every inch, stripping her to behold every beautiful inch, caressing her to find every soft spot—especially one soft, warm, yielding spot that wouldn’t fit me at all.

I don’t care. I just want to hold her and feel that warmth against me.

She is mine.

And that’s wrong.

“My Andrea,” the words escape between desperate kisses. I wish she’d give me her hands back. Letting my hands roam is dangerous. I’m trying to behave, which is hard when you can’t think straight.

“Oh, Gordon. See? You’re wonderful. And I want this. I want to be with you. We don’t have to do more, but you see? You are beautiful to me. I wouldn’t care about old scars, inside or out. I like the man you are now.”

“You do?”

She nods, swallows, and clings to me. I stroke her hair back and sneak another kiss, a string of them, passing from eyelids to cheek to the hollow of her throat, even though I have to bend in half to reach her.

“Gordon?”

“My Andrea?”

She beams when I call her that.

Strange. Maybe she... Maybe she could like belonging to me?

“Would you like to go back to my place after the fireworks? I know it’ll be late. We can just listen to one of my playlists and drink tea. I just... I don’t want tonight to end.”

I don’t want tonight to end, either. I want to ask if she can sit in my lap while we listen to Liszt and Debussy. If it will be off-putting if I kiss her hair, or run my hands along her hips, to feel where her little waist gets all soft on the sides.

If maybe someday she’ll camp with me, and she can fall asleep in the sleeping bag next to mine, and I can kiss her awake, and the monster will get the princess, not some prince who has everything he could ever want anyway.

“I would love to.” I swallow, and remember that she thinks I’m brave, and that the real bravery isn’t the ability to rush into fire that I know won’t hurt me, but rather the risk of getting my heart burned to a cinder. “We could make plans over the tea. Hiking. Fishing. Even camping.”

“I don’t want to camp in a tent. I want to camp in a cabin. I-is that okay?” Andrea asks.

“I happen to live in a cabin.”

“You do not.” There’s a laugh with the denial, a ripple of amusement and accusation that’s absolutely... I’m not even sure of the word. Charming? Enchanting?

It makes me smile.

“I do indeed. Way out past the cemetery and other little houses on Haven Way,” I explain. “It was falling apart when I got here. A lot of houses out that way aren’t in the best shape, and Silverman at the bank let me have it for practically nothing down. It looks better now.” I swallow, and it’s time to be brave again. “I could show it to you soon?”

“I would love that.” Andrea sighs and kisses me again before curling up against my chest so we can watch the finale.

“I need to take the truck back to the station and do a final check for any burning embers. There shouldn’t be any. We hosed the place down before and after.” And the Pine Ridge coven and the Wymark Warlocks are always out in force with protective charms and spells. I don’t tell her that part.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, you should get into your car,” I say sternly. It’s nearly eleven, and hers is the last car to leave. I don’t like to see it sitting there, alone. I don’t like to think of Andrea out here, alone, unguarded.