CHAPTER TWELVE
ALEXANDRA
They hand Bram back his wallet and his phone at the front desk, and that's it, we're free to go.
I walk to my car. He doesn't follow.
Stopping, I whirl around to see what the hold-up is.
Bran’s standing on the sidewalk outside the station, hands thrust in his jacket pockets, gazing out in the distance.
The afternoon sun catches the lighter streaks in his hair, and for a second he looks so ordinary standing there that I almost forget what he is. Almost.
There are pigeons on the railing beside him and a large black crow on top of the nearest parking meter. He flicks two fingers toward them without looking, and they scatter with fast flaps of their wings and a loud caw from the crow.
His attention shifts to me. “Shouldn't you be at work?”
Planting my hands on my hips, I shoot him a dirty look. Of all the things to lead with! No thanks for coming and getting me. Or I’m sorry for worrying you to death. Nope. Shouldn’t you be at work is what he goes with.
Gritting my teeth, I force a smile. “I should, but I’m not because I had to go get a crazy guy that broke into a cabin out from the police station. But hey, that certainly livened up my afternoon.”
Bran tilts his head, making me think he doesn’t understand sarcasm. Too bad, he’ll be getting a lot of that from me.
I stomp over to him and glare. “Bran, stop messing around. Let’s go.”
“There's no point,” he says in a low voice devoid of emotion. “I have nowhere to go. The cabin is not an option.”
“Yeah, you definitely can’t go back to the cabin you broke into,” I huff, still unable to believe he broke into a stranger’s cabin and treated like it was his own. He’s lucky the poor guy didn’t blow his head off and merely called the cops instead. “What in the world were you thinking?”
“I liked it. It felt familiar, and the woods were close.”
My throat tightens. Of course it felt familiar, he’s the Lord of the Woods. He wouldn’t be happy in the concrete jungle of the city or probably even my condo.
Looking at him, I see him for what he is: an ancient, powerful, impossible man with nowhere to go.
I think about seeing him in that cell, the slump of his shoulders and the way his proud head was bowed as if he had given up.
I had never seen him like that before- utterly broken- and I never wanted to again.
And that’s what hurts too. I did that. Not the cell, not the arrest. Me and my fears.
I dig my keys out of my bag and force myself not to cry.
“Just get in the car, Bran.”
His expression is tight, but he crosses the pavement without another word and folds himself carefully into the passenger seat of my sports car.
I get in, start the engine, and pull out of the lot.
Why couldn't I have fallen for a plumber? Or an accountant. Someone with a job and zero outstanding warrants. Someone who buys a house instead of breaking into one.
He sits in the passenger seat with his hands on his knees and his gaze trained out the window, watching the city go by. I keep my eyes on the road and my mouth shut because I'm still pissed and scared, and I haven't figured out yet which one is winning.
The drive is silent, which is okay because I need the silence right now to think.
When I turn into my neighborhood, his head lifts and his entire big body startles. As I pull the car into my parking space he glances around like a man in a daze, his eyes wide and disbelieving.
Putting the car in park I cut the engine.
Neither of us moves.
The car’s engine ticks softly as it cools. Somewhere down the block a dog barks twice and stops.
“Alexandra.” His voice is low and hoarse.
I shrug my shoulders and unbuckle my safety belt. “What? You needed somewhere to go,” I mumble.
He looks at me for a long moment, his green eyes intense and so bright that they’re almost painful to look into. But I don’t look away and neither does he.
Bran reaches over and cups my face in one big hand, his palm warm against my jaw, and I lean into his touch, needing it probably as badly as he does.
“Do you love me?” he asks.
I shouldn’t for so many reasons. Hello- squirrel on his shoulder, completely weird. Immortal with hair to die for. But of course I do love him.
Sighing, I close my eyes and enjoy the warmth of his touch, and mutter, “You're such a flake, Bran.”
Even with my eyes closed, I can feel the intensity of his smile. Peeking through my eyelashes, sure enough, he’s grinning widely at me.
“Only for you.”
I pull away from his hand and look out through the windshield at the familiar building that’s been my home for the past ten years. I had to look away because seeing his face makes it hard to think straight, and I need to think straight for this next part.
“So how do we actually make this work?” I ask turning my attention back to him. “Seriously. I need a real answer.”
His smile becomes wistful. “We try,” he says. “And then we keep trying.”
My jaw sags. “That's it?! That's your whole plan?”
“Yes.”
I drop my head back against the seat and laugh. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it is.” His fingers move across my cheekbone until he’s stroking the wispy little flyaway hairs back from my face. “Finding you was the hard part. I've waited forever for you, Alexandra.”
I shudder as that washes over me. “You really have a way with words,” I whisper.
“Because they’re true.”
Rolling my head, I face him and he's right there, closer than I realized. I close the last of the distance myself because I'm done waiting for things to make sense before I reach for them. If Bran is a bit crazy, so am I, and I’m crazy in love with him.
He kisses me back with a desperate kind of hunger, his lips moving over mine as his tongue thrusts into my mouth.
With a groan, his hand slides over my hair to the long length of my ponytail, which he grips in his fist. I grin against his mouth. He loves ponytails for some reason. Yet he never wears his hair back in one.
My mind lights up with possibilities even as my hands grasp his jacket and bring him even closer. Oh yes, I plan to have lots of fun with that amazing mane of hair of his.
His lips slide from mine as he presses small kisses along my cheek and jaw. “I love you,” he whispers against my skin. “My Alexandra, my love.”
I pull back and stare into his bright and ancient eyes. “I love you, too.”
Bran’s mouth crashes into mine, claiming my lips in a kiss that has me moaning and wanting to climb over the gear shift to get into his lap. But I drive a cute little sports car and I’m forty years old, I don’t want to throw out my hip doing that when I have a perfectly good bed upstairs.
“Let’s go inside,” I say.
Flashing me a smile that steals my breath, Bran gets out of the car, comes around to my door and helps me out. Then, together, hand in hand, we walk up the path to my front door.