Chapter 22
Cillian
I’m starting to think Electra’s not coming back.
Perhaps cooking her a meal was too much, and I’ve scared her off for good.
As I spin every burner dial to its lowest setting, I glance toward the doorway for the umpteenth time. Still empty.
For every step closer I take, she takes two steps back. It feels like a dance—and not the flirtatious sort I’m accustomed to.
Frustration makes me mix my revisited pesto with too much vigor, and a dollop splashes onto the navy stone backguard. I ball a few sheets of towel paper and swipe the spot. As I turn to toss it, I catch sight of Electra, and my mind blanks.
I must forget to breathe because my lungs cramp, requesting oxygen.
Fuck me…
The girl who always keeps her legs cloaked in pants and leggings has them on full display. And when I say full display, I mean that if she, at any moment, leans over, I’ll become familiar with her underwear preferences.
She strolls over to me, making the sequined slip she wears ride up her sun-kissed thighs.
Jesus. I wasn’t prepared for this. Neither her return nor her choice of outfit. What does it mean that she wore a dress? And not just any dress, but one clearly designed to entice.
My gaze draws back up to her face, then to the wadded towel paper I’m white-knuckling before journeying back to her legs. It’s a game we’re playing. One that isn’t real, even though I’ve got her convinced I’m gone for her.
I finally make it to the bin. After tossing the soiled paper, I clear my throat. “Wear that dress for me?”
“No, I wore it for me; I’d never dress for a man.” Her tone is so flat that if I hadn’t done my research on her, I’d believe her. But this girl never dresses provocatively.
Electra peeks under the steel lids of the pans. “What do you think of my kitchen?”
“It’s a wet dream. A lot like its owner.” I take in the sharp glint of steel and the smoky hue of the glass cabinetry.
“Its owner is technically my father. I’ll be sure to convey your message.”
I shake my head, smirking.
“I think it’s cold.” Her gaze moves across the room, its size rivaling the apartment the organization assigned my family and in which I lived until I left.
“Cold can still be beautiful.” I don’t add: Like you. I don’t think she’d take it as a compliment even though it would be meant as one.
She reaches for a glass in one of the cupboards, her dress rising so high I catch the undercurve of her ass. The shadowed glimpse sets off my pulse and hardens my cock until I’m certain it punches through my ridiculous apron.
I roll my shoulders back and push my glasses up. “Half the pans were still in their packaging.”
“Because I don’t cook. I either order in or head over to the Blooms, who love to feed me.” She carries the etched glass to the sink and fills it with purified tap water, halting beside the open cookbook I brought from my camper.
The one she’s visited, even though I’m not supposed to remember she broke in. Like my high-tops, the book was a dangerous oversight. I might’ve found a convincing excuse, but it’s done little to completely settle my nerves.
“My father tried to teach me,” she says, flipping through the pages of one of Quinn’s birthday presents to me, “but it wasn’t for me.”
She finally flips back to the pesto sauce recipe I’ve scribbled over to make the recipe mine, then turns and leans a hip against the counter, ankles crossed, her golden legs disappearing into a pair of motorcycle boots.
I never gave much thought to the sexiest outfit a woman could wear, but seeing how my sweats are feeling like compression tights, I’m inclined to think that what Electra has on is it.
Even if another part of me demands relief, I take it out on my nape, before remembering one of the things I bought to set the mood. I dig the six-pack of Pops out of the crowded fridge. Quinn insists that one can never go wrong giving a girl champagne.
“Trying to get me drunk, Lowry?” Electra’s velvet voice rolls right down my abdomen.
“Relaxed.” I hand it over. “Not drunk.”
“I’m plenty relaxed. Don’t I look relaxed to you?”
“You look…” I lose my train of thought as I—again—devour all of her that’s on display.
“Thanks for the champagne, but you know my policy about drinking around strangers.”
I roll my neck, which cracks. “You ordered alcohol last night.”
“Jeneva with a J was there.”
“You know me better than you know her.” Before I can think better of caging in this unpredictable girl, I cross the narrow divide and plant my palms on either side of her body. “But by all means, ask me more questions.”
I brace myself for a curt: Not interested; and a hard shove. Or a flash of pupils. Instead, I encounter no resistance and actual intrigue—not infused with magic.
“What did your mother die of again?”
“Cancer.”
“And you were living on the street?”
“No.”
“You had a home.”
“She had one.”
“You didn’t?”
As though some unseen force wants me to feel my mother’s presence, her engagement ring slips free from my hoodie collar and swings against my apron bib. “After my dad died, she remarried.”
An image of Dominic and my mother exchanging vows scores my lids. There was love there, but it wasn’t as pure or all-consuming as the one that existed between her and my father.
My lashes drag low. “Even though my stepfather welcomed me into his family, his home never became mine.”
She draws her head back an inch, as if reassessing me. “You have stepsiblings?”
I lock eyes with her when I say, “Two stepbrothers. Twins.” What if she wore the dress to throw me off my game and get me to confess that I’m not who I say I am?
My phone vibrates hard enough to taser my thigh. I’m guessing it’s Carlos, calling—again—to talk through whether his pot habit might be affecting his memory after locking his keys in his car earlier.
Although I advised him to cut down, I suspect his memory lapse has more to do with running into Electra when she visited my camper than with any recreational drug use.
The second time my phone vibrates, Electra drops her gaze to my pocket. “Sounds urgent.”
“It’s not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the only thing that’d make me drop everything is a message from you.”
Suspicion flickers across her pretty eyes. When my phone vibrates a third time, she asks, “Want me to check who’s so desperate to get your attention?”
“No. Whoever it is, they can wait.”
Another message drops. What if it’s Hudson? What if Sullivan hurt Quinn? What if—
“Clearly, they can’t wait.” Electra’s whisper caresses my neck like a blade, causing my turbulent pulse to spike some more.
“Fine. Check.”
Without breaking my stare, she reaches into my pocket. The feel of her fingers has my dick springing toward them. I’m a second away from breaking out into cold sweats yet still hard?
If an Atlantean doesn’t blow off my head for destroying their precious mine, I’ll have to have it examined.
“Your code?” Electra asks.
I glance at the frying pan drying next to the sink. Would it repel magic if she launched some at me?
“0-0-0-0.”
“Impressive security system, Mr. Lowry.”
I move to grab the pan and feign drying it with the navy-checkered kitchen towel. “I’ve got nothing to hide, Miss Serran.”
When Quinn’s torn cheek scorches my vision, my resolve to employ brute force wavers. Do I have the stomach to make Electra bleed?
I remind myself that Electra isn’t innocent. That she’s from Atlantis. Besides, her little runes would suture any wound. Not to mention, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill me.
She’s murdered before. Singed bodies beyond recognition. I’ve seen the pictures. The girl before me is capable of true evil.
Adrenaline bloats my tongue and slickens my palms. I tighten my grip on the pan’s handle before it can topple.
Smashing it against Electra’s lovely face makes my skin crawl, but what choice do I have if she unmasks me?