Chapter Twelve #3
Anxiety rippled through her belly. Josie shook her head, lifting her hand as though to ward off his words.
“Pax, that doesn’t matter, I—”
“Is it because I kissed you without asking first?”
Josie froze, one hand still in the air, palm outward.
Reaching over, Pax grasped her wrist, gently, running his thumb along the faint blue streak of a vein. Like a magnet the pull of attraction drew Josie closer to him, unable to look away from his stare.
“No, it’s not because we kissed.” The words crackled as they spilled from her dry lips, Pax’s thumb still sliding along her sensitive skin. His touch made her dizzy and glad there wasn’t a bed in this apartment because—
A huge thump behind her made Josie jump, then squeeze her eyes shut.
No way.
No freaking way.
“Are you…” Pax drew out the last vowel, whether in amusement or horror, she couldn’t tell because she wasn’t going to open her eyes—or her mouth—until the universe finally did her a favor and opened a hole beneath her feet.
“…tired?” he finished.
Goddammit.
Bowing to inevitability, Josie pulled her wrist from his grasp, turned, then opened her eyes.
Sure enough, there sat a huge four-poster bed looking like one out of her favorite historical romances.
A red velvet canopy covered the top and mounds of snow-white pillows sprawled against the headboard in stark contrast to a crimson silk coverlet.
“That…” Josie couldn’t finish her sentence because Pax had stepped up behind her so close that if she leaned back, his chest would press against her, and what even were words when the rest of the world has disappeared, and you’ve gone from mourning your lost childhood to standing at the foot of a magical bed with a sexy ex-soldier.
She cleared her throat. “That’s a little over the top.”
The ornate bed disappeared, and in its place stood a black-metal-framed bed, tightly made up with cream-colored sheets and a plain blue comforter. Next to it was a small nightstand holding a pile of books and a glass vase filled with peach-colored cabbage roses.
Pax’s gasp of surprise turned into a hum of desire vibrating up Josie’s spine and woke a pulse at the center of her core.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself, or to him, or to whoever was responsible for the parade of magical beds. “Okay. This is the last straw.”
Josie swiveled, keeping both Pax and the bed in sight, and walked backward until her shoulder blades hit the light switch next to the door.
“Don’t come any closer and don’t touch me,” she warned when Pax took a step toward her. “Neither of us is moving until you tell me what the hell is going on.”
· · ·
Pax had served in the Army of Light as a paladin for nearly one hundred of his world’s years.
He’d gone into service when still an adolescent and had—as had his fellow soldiers—remained celibate the entire time.
Pretty sure one hundred years of celibacy was a valid reason to be distracted by the tidal wave of lust battering his body while he tried to figure out how to answer Josie’s demand in a way that wouldn’t cause the destruction of the known universe.
He took his time picking out the right words.
“I…”
He rubbed his hand over his mouth as though he could pull the perfect explanation from his lips.
“You see…”
Pax glanced over at the bed—his bed—then at Josie.
“There’s this…”
Shit.
“Tell you what,” Josie said as she crossed her arms. “I’ll start.
The girls on the seventh floor are part of an all-woman Mafia drug cartel developing a designer hallucinogenic, and it got into the building’s water supply by accident and all of us are tripping right now, and when it wears off, we’ll wake up and the seventh floor will be abandoned except for a scattering of rhinestones. ”
He blinked. Then blinked again.
What?
“What?” he spluttered. “No. This is nothing to do with drugs.”
“No?” Josie didn’t appear to believe him.
“Okay, how about this? You are all retired circus workers whose circus has shut down, leaving you without money, so you’re planning a huge jewelry heist, calling upon everyone’s special talents, and you’re using Amos and me to throw the FBI off your tracks. ”
If he weren’t so nervous, and horny, Pax would be impressed by the breadth of Josie’s imagination.
“No,” he said.
“Everyone here is under witness protection and—” Josie tried.
“No.”
She rolled her bottom lip under her front teeth, her eyes darting from the crib to the bed.
“You’re all dead,” she posited, “and Amos and I can see ghosts.”
“We’re not all dead.”
“An eccentric billionaire’s last wish—”
“Josie,” he interrupted her. “I’m going to tell you the truth. Just don’t…” He looked up at the ceiling. “This would go easier if my bed weren’t here.”
The bed disappeared and Pax sighed in relief.
“That was your bed?” she asked.
“Look, before I make a mess out of this all, let’s go downstairs to find Maddy and Raphe,” Pax said quickly. “The three of us can explain everything.”
Josie didn’t move while she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. No doubt deciding whether to run screaming from the building never to return or to run screaming from the building and returning with the police in tow.
Pax waited.
Whatever this woman decided to do, he wasn’t going to lift a finger to stop her.