Chapter Fourteen
“I like this,” Soyer said as we took the elevator up from the garage.
“Like what?”
He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking at me.
“It’s not even midnight, and I already have you all to myself. That’s what I like, Amory.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Two things. I’ve been thinking that I maybe should’ve tried to work less so we could spend more time together.”
He raised his left eyebrow. “Maybe? I love your ambition, I love that you’ve earned the respect of the people you work with through your work ethic, but seriously, maybe?” He waved his hand at me like a judge dismissing charges. “Go on. You said there were two things.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, since I met you, there have been long stretches when I couldn’t work.”
He stared at me. That was an entirely different sensation from how it felt when he watched me work. The staring was a whole lot less comfortable. His eyes gave the impression of an abyss with many sharp rocks on the way to the invisible yet inevitable bottom.
“My heart. I know today was a disruption to your routine. I’m sorry.
For getting you hurt I can never forgive myself, but it hardly compares to offering such a wonderful opportunity as working at the Moonlight to more capable staff.
Do consider it. If someone else gets to work the late shift a few days a week, they could learn things, make friends. Like you did.”
My eyebrows flew up when the elevator arrived on our floor. “Yes, but—I wasn’t trying to bring up…uh…that time when I first met Lynn and Deacon. And I’d never blame you anyway. You know that. I was thinking more about the fire and when we had to close down for the remodel.”
“Oh, that.” Another dismissive wave. “It was a wonderful opportunity, actually. Made it easier to become a partner.”
I clicked my tongue as he put his arm around me and we walked to our door.
“Someone could’ve gotten hurt. You got hurt! Jenny did! But the fire could’ve hurt someone else. What if Ben had gotten burned?”
“Werewolves heal pretty okay for the most part.”
“Still. I don’t want Ben to get hurt.”
He sighed as he unlocked our door. “Because of that romance you’re so invested in.”
I felt my cheeks heat. “I’m wishing the two of them the best. Aren’t you? Isn’t it nice to know the people you’re working with—the people who are bodyguarding your fiancé—are happy? Oh, that reminds me of something.”
He kicked the door shut and went right for the zipper of my jacket.
“Hey!”
He slapped my hands away when—slightly amused—I tried to take off my own jacket.
“You’re too slow. What does Ben’s dating life remind you of?”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “It’s just an idea.”
Soyer narrowed his eyes at me, and he actually paused pulling the jacket off. “What? Spit it out. The suspense might kill me.”
“Well, I was thinking that Thanksgiving is coming up.”
“Fucking hell.” He took my jacket and put it away in the humongous walk-in by the door, putting his own half coat on a hanger next to it. “Thanks-fucking-giving. Go on.”
“It’s probably a bad idea. Forget I said anything. I won’t mention it again.”
He walked back out into the hallway, stopped right in front of me, and cupped my cheek.
“You, my love, will do no such thing. If you want something or want to talk to me about something, you will tell me, and you will demand whatever it is you desire. And then you shall have it. That’s the breadth of it. ”
“Why do you sound so pissed off, then?”
“You’re about to ask me to help you plan a Thanksgiving party, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. His hand was still warm on my cheek. “I just wanted to ask what you think about maybe asking a few people over. And, I don’t know, maybe Ben and the writer are busy that day. But it doesn’t hurt to ask. Maybe.”
He sighed. “We can do that. Fuck. I’ll have to see about renting a table, depending on how many people fall for your charm.”
“I don’t know about my charm, but I’ll tell them you’ll cook. They’ll fall for that.”
Soyer let his hand drop from my cheek to fiddle with my bow tie instead, undoing it as a sickle-like smile spread on his face.
“Do tell them that. It should scare off some of them.”
“You really aren’t that scary, Soyer.”
He ran his fingers over my chest as if he wanted to check that all of me was present and accounted for. “It’s love that makes you say that. No one else has had that particular kind of poison, and they know I wouldn’t care if I served poison.”
I rolled my eyes. “You do nice things. You just gave Ben and Rae a raise today.”
He pulled the ends of my bow tie, using it like a leash to bring us nose to nose. “Careful, Amory. You’re just tempting me to use the entire arsenal of my imagination on you.”
“Are you going to invite anyone?”
“Fuck no. I don’t like people. Other than you, of course. Everyone else can get fucked.”
I put my hands around his. “I sometimes think you’re the boy who cried misanthropy.”
He snorted. “Oh, Amory. I see now. It’s too early in the night, and you still have all your energy.” He looked at me, his dark lashes perfectly framing his black eyes. “What’s there to be done about that?”
As certain as the sun would rise tomorrow, I knew that if I told him there was nothing to be done, he’d relent, put away his bedroom eyes—I assumed that was what you’d call them, but my experience was limited to Soyer looking at me—and go back to making dinner and conversation.
I loved him for that. I loved him for so many things.
It was a realization that had spread through me slowly but surely, that this was love, and nothing else.
I wanted to be loved by him in all the ways that mattered.
I wanted the sex, for myself, but also for him.
He’d taken care of me diligently, and I didn’t want him to see me as just someone who’d never be able to get past that witch, not when I knew what pain he’d endured from one of them.
I held his gaze. “I’m not sure, but I feel like I should be running away from you.”
“You want that? Not very smart. I can see most of the apartment from here, so it’d be easy to chase you down.” He let go of me and stepped back. “You better move fast. I’m not inclined to give you much of a head start, Amory.”
As soon as he moved away from me, I knew for sure that I wanted him back, wanted to be close to him again.
I sucked on my bottom lip and pulled my bow tie off, letting it drop to the floor as I walked slowly backward toward the living room, never breaking eye contact with him.
Then, I pulled my shirt out of my pants and undid the topmost button.
Soyer’s nostrils flared. “What are you doing, Amory? That’s not how running works, did no one tell you?”
“Oh. I thought I was doing it right.” I undid another button, and another.
“Amory.” Soyer took a small step toward me, which made me take two steps back. “Oh, Amory.”
He came at me. I should’ve been able to react, to do something when I saw him move as if lightning had struck him, but the way he went from barely moving to falling on me made me totally freeze up. The adrenaline rush when he grabbed me and lifted me off my feet was intense.
I hadn’t thought he’d lift me. But that wasn’t really what he was doing, it was more like some kind of martial arts move.
What, a tackle? I gasped, a high noise of throttled surprise escaping me.
I thought he’d put me on the ground, that the next thing I’d feel would be me hitting the floor hard, but it was Soyer tackling me. He’d never do that.
I hit the couch instead, landing on my back.
Soyer was on top of me, his eyes like hungry black holes, his body more coordinated than my own, his muscles working in that controlled way I was pretty sure was some Kungfu badassery.
Whereas I was just…well, I was just lying there on my back and staring up at him, my mouth open.
“You’re really bad at running.”
“I…I wanted you to catch me.”
He smiled. “Done, my heart. What now? What do you want now, hmm?”
I let out a shuddering breath. “You know.”
“I’ll still hear it from your own lips, my heart. Tell me. Tell me what now.”
I looked away, embarrassed over nothing, but the reaction was so ingrained that it took conscious effort to push away from it.
“Now you make love to me.”
Some of the harshness went out of his gaze, and he bent down to kiss me. “So I will.”
He tasted of cherry pie and desire. With every moment, every shared breath, the distance between our bodies shrank until all I could think about was Soyer above me, strong and demanding and yet fully mine.
“Yeah, like that,” he said when breath rushed out of me, when every last bit of resistance left me. When I was ready to be his entirely.
“Soyer.”
His name was a plea on my lips. I wanted to touch him, feel him, but I didn’t have the range of motion left to do it.
He’d stretched one of my arms out over my head, his fingers pressed against the pulse there, and the other one dangled off the couch from where I couldn’t bring it up because the way he was cradling my neck meant my shoulder was pinned on that side.
“I’m here. Open your eyes and see me. I’m here.”
I did that. I looked at him. It was probably nothing more than my own racing heart that pushed me into a memory of when all of this had been new. I thought I could hear huge wings just behind him, just where I couldn’t see because he filled my entire field of vision.
That soothed me. Wings, whether real or imagined, would always remind me of Soyer’s firebird, of the phoenix mark he bore, the one I loved because it had brought him to me and tied us together.
“Can I hold you?”
It was a plea, a need. Soyer smiled down at me.
“You can. But no moving around. I think I like you on your back.”
I sucked on my bottom lip and looked up to where the windows were. “Here?”
“No one can look inside. No one else gets to see you like this. This is mine.”