They went to the Alexander Hamilton musical, which turned out to be a lot more fun than Samuel had expected, and then took the jet back, flying through the night. He'd figured they'd sleep on the plane, but somehow they just kept talking instead. The sun was rising by the time they stumbled back into the penthouse, both of them so tired they'd gone right through exhaustion and ended up at giddiness.
Samuel dropped his keys twice trying to unlock the door, and for some reason that seemed hilariously funny to both of them. They were both of them still laughing when they collapsed onto the sofa. And then Theresa turned to him, put a hand on his cheek, and kissed him.
Samuel froze.
Her soft lips pressed against his. Her scent enveloped him. Inside him, the dragon was rousing with a wild, feral desire that almost swept him away.
It almost hurt to pull away. "You know you don't have to—" he started.
The soft smile Theresa gave him warmed him through and through. "I know," she said. "That's why I want to."
She kissed him again. This time, he didn't hold himself back. He let himself drown in the taste of her, the feel of her body pressed against his. Her scent was changing already, turning sweet and heady with arousal. Her kisses were hungry and eager. Samuel had never wanted a woman the way he wanted her now; his entire body felt lit up by her touch. It was almost physically painful to pull back. But he had to. This wasn't fair to her. If they were going to do this, she deserved to know the truth of what he was.
Samuel's chest clenched. If she got scared, if she decided to walk away…
She deserved to know the truth.
He took a few steps back, putting distance between them. Theresa watched him worriedly. "There's something you need to know about me," he said. "Please don't be scared. I won't hurt you."
He closed his eyes, and let the transformation take over.
***
Theresa stared, wide-eyed, as a golden glow enveloped Samuel's body. For a moment she could see nothing but his silhouette, backlit by the warm bright light, and then even that blurred and changed. When the light disappeared she could finally see the full effect of the transformation that had just taken place. Theresa gasped.
Dark wings emerged from Samuel's back, glossy black like the lake at midnight, shading towards red at the edges as if they'd been dipped in molten fire. They were shockingly beautiful. Later, it would strike her that that had been her first thought: the beauty of his wings, instead of the fact that they couldn't possibly be real.
"I'm sorry," Samuel said. His great wings curled in tightly around him, as if he was trying to make himself seem smaller. "I won't hurt you," he repeated. "If you want to leave, I won't stop you."
He was standing by the wall opposite the door, leaving her an easy escape route. But she wasn't scared, Theresa realized, just as it belatedly occurred to her that maybe she should be. Samuel had just changed into… into some sort of mystical creature, right before her eyes.
But it was Samuel! Even with the addition of the wings, his body was familiar. And the first thing he'd been worried about was making sure she knew she didn't have to be scared. Whatever he was, she couldn't imagine that he was going to hurt her.
"Can I look at you?" she asked.
Samuel came a little closer. The wings weren't the only thing that had changed, she saw. His eyes glowed golden in the dim light of the room. Glossy black claws emerged from the tips of his fingers. When he noticed her looking at them, he retracted them neatly, like a cat, until only the very tip of them still showed. He curled his hand in as if to hide even that, as if worried his claws might scare her, or maybe disgust her.
"What are you?" Theresa asked.
"I'm a dragon," Samuel said.
Theresa squinted at him dubiously. He had the wings, of course—and she could see now that they were dragon's wings, like something out of a storybook—but the rest of his body was still very human.
"This isn't my real shape," Samuel said, as if reading the objection from her face. "Unbonded dragons can't transform all the way. I won't gain my full powers until I meet my mate."
That stung; a terrible, unexpected pang. So somewhere out there, he had a mate waiting for him, probably another dragon just like him.
She'd always known this was a temporary arrangement, she reminded herself. And maybe this was the reason he couldn't date like a normal person. He was a good guy; he wouldn't want to lead anyone on when he couldn't commit to a human woman. At least she'd gotten to spend this time with him. At least she'd gotten to see this, his miraculous transformation, living proof that magic was real in the world after all.
"I'm sorry," Samuel said again.