Chapter 14
She pulled him up a flight of stairs, and he couldn’t help gaping at the photos along the wall. There had to be at least thirty different girls smiling with varying degrees of enthusiasm from homemade frames.
“Who are they?”
Cat hesitated for just a step and then pulled him up three more stairs to point at a young girl with a shock of black hair and skin so pale it seemed to glow in the flash of a camera.
She had to be somewhere in elementary school, and her eyes were closed.
She was grinning so wide he could see almost all of her teeth.
“That’s me.”
He looked at the rest of the kids on that wall, but she didn’t introduce anyone else or explain; she just pulled him up the stairs to the second floor, down the hall to the front of the house.
When she opened a door on the right, he mapped the house mentally and realized they were standing right over the sitting room they had just been in.
The room was a decent size with a bed in the corner across from a desk and an armchair below two huge windows.
The wooden floorboards were covered with a thick, fluffy rug of pale blue, and the walls were decked with more hangings, all in dark blues and greens with subtle patterns.
The desk was cluttered with books and broken pieces of crystal.
He stepped further into the room and spun in a circle.
At the end of the bed, there was a large bookshelf.
It was half full of books and half full of glasses, crystal balls, and mirrors.
He stepped closer to the desk to examine the pieces of what used to be a crystal ball, sliced cleanly into quarters.
“Sometimes when I need a 360 view, I have to go for crystal. But then that happens.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe she could see the future. He just hadn’t connected that to real power, like the power to shatter rock with her brain. Something real was happening to her, even if it was just receiving information.
He ran a finger along a broken crystal edge, and it sliced cleanly through the pad. He sucked the blood into his mouth before it woke the wolf. The wound closed in seconds.
“Well?” she said, still standing in the doorway with an edge to her voice that surprised him.
He turned to her. “Well, what?”
“What do you think of the crazy witches?”
He strode quickly toward her and grabbed both her hands to pull her through the door.
“Patchouli, I have never called you crazy, nor thought it. Your room is beautiful.” It was rich in texture and color, but stylish and subtle. “You’re a witch.”
He looked around again, catching bottles of homemade liquids on her bedside table and a book on dreams thrown onto the chair.
He looked at the bed covered in a thick comforter in a vivid teal with heavy embroidery in the same color.
“Is that a full?” he said. It looked miniature.
“I think so? I got it in high school. Does it matter?”
He snickered and lay down until his feet dangled off the bed. He realized it was a metal frame with springs when it squeaked.
“How tall are you?” she asked.
“Taller than a full bed. Come here.”
She stood in the middle of her rug, scratching at one ankle with the toes of her other foot. He could see that grinning child in the woman she had become, and he wanted her. He’d thought he could never have her again.
Visions of crossbows kept flitting across his mind, as did the disturbing book catalogue.
There were a hundred reasons this wasn’t a good idea and only one reason it was.
She smelled superb. Here in her room, he was drowning in it.
There was more than one reason; she was also valiant, caring, risked her life for others, and took care of her family and him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I can’t have you.”
He frowned. “Al contrario, I’m a sure thing.”
She took one step away, and he felt an invisible string between them stretch thin; he pulled on it as hard as he could. She seemed strangely reluctant, or perhaps it was not that strange, given everything truly between them.
He scooted back a little farther, and the springs squeaked again.
He grinned at her, but she wasn’t smiling; she looked even paler as she took another step back.
“Hey, come here. What is it?” He sat up. “Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”
She took a deep breath and finally stepped closer. When she got within reach, he rested his hands on her hips to draw her between his legs but didn’t pull her further than that.
“You’re some huge giant alpha wolf with god knows how many apartments in New York, and I’m here in my childhood bedroom.”
“Buildings,” he said absently and then bit down on his tongue so hard he tasted blood.
“What?”
“Never mind. I also live with my Nonna and my entire family. I mean, not in the same apartment but in the same building.”
She squinted at him. “That you own. Buildings. That’s what you meant.”
She also wasn’t stupid, which he appreciated in a woman 99% of the time.
“Forget I said anything. I’m not sitting here secretly wondering why you failed to launch. You’re taking care of your family. Most wolves never leave their pack, either. I figured it was the same for you. You’re here because you choose to stay, and I think that’s nothing but noble.”
This whole situation worked for him. He rarely ever went home with a girl, considering most women he slept with were shifters who left their own packs and were on the prowl for an alpha werewolf.
They had no interest in sharing their lives with him.
They just wanted to slot into his life and spend as much money as possible.
She seemed to hate that he was rich. She did not need werewolf babies; in fact, she actively wanted to prevent that from happening, he was sure.
None of the status games mattered to her at all.
He glanced at the four even pieces of crystal on her desk.
She had totally different sources of status in this world, ones that he jeopardized, not enhanced.
“This is a terrible idea,” she said as if she were on the same train of thought.
“We can stop. I can walk away.” He didn’t move.
She didn’t pull away either. She took a deep breath and put her hands on his shoulders. “We’re like a snake and a fish. There’s nowhere we can both breathe.”
With him seated on the bed, he was at the perfect height and brought his lips to hers. “I will help you breathe.”
She tasted even better than before. How was it possible? Everywhere her hands touched lit his skin on fire, even innocently on his shoulders through a shirt. Carefully, he brought his legs together against her thighs and wrapped his arms around her until he could tip her closer.
She kissed him, and one arm snaked around to massage the base of his neck as he lay back and pulled her with him.
Finally, she lost her footing and fell against him.
He tried to make her fall as gently as possible, but the bed shrieked like they were hurting it, and he bumped his head against the wall. She tried to pull away, laughing.
“Don’t you dare,” he said and chased after her until their heads were on a pillow, and she was fully tangled in his arms.
“Okay, the only thing I don’t like in this room is this bed,” he said.
“I’m sorry! I wish I could go back in time to freshman year of high school when we went down to Denver with Gary’s truck to buy a bed. I mean, I know I see the future, but I didn’t see you when I was 14.”
He blinked. “That would have been something.”
She laughed. “Oh, by the way, Siobhan? I need a queen bed instead of a full with silent springs because one day I’m going to bring a werewolf into your home, and he would just fit better.”
He couldn’t stop laughing at the image as he pulled her closer and realized he was just hugging her. It was nothing sexy; he wanted every possible part of her to touch him. They didn’t move for a long minute as he buried his nose in her black hair and breathed.
“We don’t have a ton of time,” she said hesitantly. “Unless you’re not interested.”
He snorted and adjusted so the last part of him touched her. “All of me is interested in you. Every single cell. Don’t for a second think otherwise.”
She looked around. “I also don’t exactly have supplies on hand. I don’t think we should roll the dice twice, as it were?”
She was fiery red, and he caught her meaning. He dug in his pocket and shook the foil.
She blushed even harder but frowned severely at him. “You’re telling me you came prepared and that has been in your back pocket the entire time? When we were talking to the twins? The entire time!”
“I briefly considered whipping it out to see if I could hurry them along…”
She shut him up with a kiss. “You’re terrible.”
“You’re wonderful.”
She kissed him deeper, and now that they were front to front, he wanted her weight on him. He risked the springs’ wrath rolling to his back until she was sprawled on top. It helped him know she was real.
“You’re like a giant Italian mountain,” she said. Her legs spread wide around his hips, and it satisfied something deep within him.
“Sono una montagna italiana,” he said with a grin.
Her gaze intensified. “Oh my god, you actually speak Italian.”
“Terribly, according to my Nonna, but enough to understand her when she calls my Italian terrible.”
“Say something else.”
“Il tuo italiano fa schifo.”
“What does it mean?”
“Your Italian is terrible,” he said.
She laughed and dropped her head to his chest. “I’ve sought out Romanian TV before, and sometimes I can understand it. Kind of. Basic words.”
He blinked. “Romanian?”
“Oh yeah, didn’t I tell you? The twins found me in an orphanage. Most of the kids they adopted were from down the hill in Denver, but a friend of a friend forwarded my case, and they came and got me.”
“How did they know you were a witch?”