Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
Despite the treacherous shenanigans, the day’s business couldn’t be put off.
She and Gray used the time waiting for La Croix to notch half a dozen Reaps—a fatal myocardial infarction, a GSW, two car accidents, an accidental asphyxiation, and a deliberate asphyxiation—and when they got back to the house, La Croix was there.
“I regret to confirm your suspicions,” he told her. He’d stopped long enough to kick off his boots in the entryway before he tracked her to the kitchen. He’d turned on all the kitchen lights, which was painful and irritating . . .
Not now. Do not get a migraine now!
. . . but she let it go, not least because he returned with a crapload of valuable intel.
Grateful for his speed and the news, she rolled a fat lefse bundle loaded with brown sugar and ate it in front of him. “Thnnnggss aagghh ack!” she managed as a few brown sugar crystals went down the wrong pipe.
“Ah, that’s lovely,” he said with the satisfied sigh of an addict getting a fix. “Truly hits the spot. Another? No? Ah, well. I don’t suppose I could talk you into a post-lefse cigarette?”
“Mom would kill me. Odd enough that I’m doing this much for you.”
“It is,” he agreed cheerfully, but sobered almost immediately. “I’ll stand with you, Amara Morrigan.”
“Of course you will.”
He smirked. “But?”
“But it’s more about you being pissed about being tricked, and more pissed about being left out, than it is about backing my play. You’re irked and have scores to settle.”
“. . . True.”
She clapped him on the shoulder. “That wasn’t a criticism. Well, not that big a criticism. I’m in no position to turn down a god’s help. Thank you, truly.”
“And now?”
“Now I have to go fuck my best friend because there’s an excellent chance I’m going to be killed tonight. And I think I’m getting a migraine.”
“. . . Carry on.”
* * *
“Okay, now I want a cigarette.”
Amara snorted, groped for a pillow, thwacked Gray across the face with it.
“Yow! Also, it’s hilarious that La Croix can’t actually indulge his vices unless someone does it for him. No wonder he’s so skinny. Other people chow down the calories for him. What a racket.”
They’d thoroughly trashed the tower guest room and Amara could not recall caring less about a mess. “How about we don’t talk about Baron La Croix right now?”
“Okay. Can we talk about how awesomely hot our first-time sex was?” Gray leaned over her, propped up on an elbow.
If it had been anyone else, she’d have felt crowded.
Since it was Gray, she wished he would wiggle closer.
“You’ve got to admit, that never happens.
It’s usually awkward and you’re both self-conscious and there are lots of accidental elbow pokes and maybe even a fart and/or queef. Or both. A feef! No, wait. Quart.”
“Dodged a bullet,” Amara said dryly. “And farts.”
She’d been on him the second he opened the door, and the kiss was more like a grapple. She came up for air long enough to beg for consent, and his response—yanking his clothes off, then hers—was gratifying.
“Crazy-crazy-crazy,” he muttered, touching and kissing her everywhere.
“We’re ruining this friendship,” she gasped, reaching down for him and gently squeezing his lovely long length.
“Definitely should stop,” he agreed, nuzzling her nipples, then coming up for another deep kiss.
He slid back down her body and rained kisses along her inner thighs, then nuzzled her pubic hair, carefully parted her, and spent a good five minutes licking and kissing while she clutched at his hair and groaned at the ceiling.
“Nuts,” she gasped as she shuddered through another orgasm. “This is deeply nuts. I never come this fast.”
“Yeah, well.” She tasted herself as he came up for another kiss, as she spread her knees and arched to meet him.
“Been a while for both of us.” Before he could elaborate, or she could answer, he stiffened and his eyes rolled back, Amara’s second favorite part of sex.
What can I say? Watching that particular involuntary reflex is scorching.
“Aw, hell. I swear I usually last longer than two strokes.” Then he’d collapsed over her and it was many minutes before either of them felt like talking.
Or moving. When they did finally move, it was for the obligatory bathroom break and grumbling about the wet spot, which Gray gallantly covered with a towel.
Now they were cuddled together in his bed, lovers who wouldn’t share the summer.
“Thanks for acceding to my demand for sex.”
“Thanks for demanding sex.” He leaned down, grabbed the blankets in his fist, pulled them up and over them. “Why’d we wait so long?”
“The friendship,” she yawned. “You’ve long made it clear you had no interest in taking it further.”
Gray sat up. “What?”
“I’m not complaining,” she assured him. “Truly. I wanted you, but I was fine with respecting your boundaries. Sexual and otherwise.” Gah, I sound like a dirty after-school special. “It was worth it to me. Worth it to you, too, I think.”
“I wanted you.”
“Gray. Stop. Our default is friends. The status quo has always been friends, and not the kind with benefits. Which you made clear again after our disastrous cave kiss.”
“First, not disastrous. Second, my ass!”
“You said!” Now they were both sitting up and tenderly glaring into each other’s eyes. “You said you would never want to have sex with me.”
“No. You didn’t let me finish. I said ‘I would never’ and you cut me off. So I tried again. I even pointed out that you didn’t let me finish. But—”
“I don’t—”
“See? You’re doing it again. And when I tried again, I only got as far as ‘I would never’ before you insisted we move on. You made it clear you wanted nothing past friendship.”
“Oh, fuck me.”
“What I meant, what I kept trying to say, is that I figured you’d kissed me in the cave as a reaction to being stressed beyond belief. So I wanted to assure you that I wouldn’t take advantage of you in that state. No matter how much I wanted to feel you from the inside.”
“Is that a Nine Inch Nails reference?”
“I wanted you. From. Day. One.” Each word was accentuated with a poke in the ribs. “I. Have. Loved. You. From. D—ow!”
“Let’s just say, going forward, that we were both utter idiots.”
“Agreed. You more than me, though.”
“Shut up, I hate you.”
“No. You don’t. Not even a little.”
“I have no comeback for that.”
“Thank God.”
They snuggled back together and Amara was beginning to wonder if Round Two was feasible given the time constraints, when there was a sudden thud at the door, which then opened so fast it rebounded and nearly slammed shut in Hilly’s face.
“Alas,” Amara sighed. “Round Two is not feasible given time constraints.”
“La Croix told me you expect to be murdered tonight!” Hilly was a flour-dusted vision of maternal wrath as she stomped into the room. “I insist you get up immediately so we can deal with this mortal threat.”
“Jesus Christ, Hilly. What’s the rolling pin for? You know what? Maybe don’t answer that.”
Amara squashed the urge to clap her hands. “Hooray, La Croix came through.” To Gray: “He really is a shameless gossip.”
“Amara Morrigan!”
“I’m up, I’m up. Also, you could be a bit more scandalized.”
Hilly blinked. “You’re an adult who finally had sex with someone you love.”
“Awww.” Gray looked up from trying to cover his unmentionables and grinned. “You lurrrrrv me!”
“Shut up, you knew that.”
“And I’m happy for you,” Hilly continued, exasperated as only Amara could make her, “but we have much more pressing business.”
“Fair. I assume everyone’s here, or you wouldn’t be.”
“In your father’s room, as La Croix requested. On your behalf, I now realize.”
“Good. Thank you. Uh, Gray, after you find your sock, could you find my sunglasses?”
“On it.”
“I apologize for the intrusion, darlings,” Hilly continued as Gray rolled out of bed, then crawled halfway beneath it to rescue one of his socks. Which he waved at her, then fled to the bathroom. “Necessary though it was. Time is not on our side.”
“Which is ironically hilarious. Time is always on Death’s side. One way or the other, everyone goes down.”
“Yes, well.” Hilly stepped to the bed and began making it, then stopped herself. “Perhaps you and Gray will have the chance to couple again later.”
“Perhaps,” Amara agreed. By midnight, she would either be dead, or straddling Gray, so. Textbook win-win.