21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
“Is it day or night?” Rook groaned with his face halfway in the pillow next to me.
The room was darkened and he was pressed against my back. I reached out and grabbed the remote control that worked the blinds and opened them. Sunlight doused us and we both cursed and covered our eyes at the same time. I picked up my cell phone.
“Eight twenty-six,” I said, then tossed it back onto the bedside table and rolled over to hide my face from the sun.
“You could just close the blind again,” Rook mumbled against my neck.
“Yes, but then I would go back to sleep and I still have about fifty pages of inventory coming and a dozen phone calls to make.”
“Tell them all to fuck off and stay here.” He tightened his arm around my waist and yanked me closer.
There were a thousand reasons I should get out of bed and put pants on, and I considered placing every one of them on a shelf to deal with later.
My phone buzzed.
I picked it up and realized there were 10 missed text messages and two calls from Gray.
“Gray wants to know where I am.”
Rook yawned and propped himself on one elbow as I scrambled out of bed and began gathering clothes.
“Tell him you’re recovering from having the life sucked out of you through your dick. I’m serious. You might only have eight now.”
I glanced over my shoulder with my underwear halfway up my legs. “Cheeky.”
“Like your ass I’m staring at right now.”
I shook my head, failing to even come up with words to describe how ridiculous and insufferable he was, or to describe how perfect he was with my sheets bunched around his waist while he watched me like I was someone worth observing.
“What’s his deal—Gray?” he asked.
“He beat me in a game of cards,” I said as I donned pants and a button up, “so I gave him a job.”
“Weirdest application process ever.” He watched me get ready for my day, but made no move to stop lounging in my bed. A thrill swam through my stomach when I imagined him still there when I got home, even though I knew he wouldn’t be.
“His wife had just kicked him out and he was wallowing in a gambling den, which made him desperate and exactly the kind of man I needed working for me.” I pulled a jacket off a hanger.
“No jacket,” he said. “You look less intimidating without it. Never show your hand.”
I placed the jacket back on the hanger and straightened it.
“You’re full of shit, by the way. That was pity, not a business decision. You saved Gray because you felt sorry for him.”
“‘Felt sorry’ implies softness, and I have none.”
“That’s not true. You said he’s your friend.”
I fixed my sleeves that didn’t need fixing. “He’s the closest thing I have, and he thinks we are. He knows about…” I gestured between us.
He sat all the way up and the sheets drooped even lower until they laid across his thighs and covered almost nothing. “You shouldn’t have told him.”
I stopped moving; froze entirely. “Is that a problem?”
He bent down to pick up his underwear from where he’d cast them aside on the floor last night and sat at the edge of the bed. “I’m not exactly ‘out’ around here. People think of me a certain way.”
I watched him put on his shirt and wished he’d stay in my bed longer. “He figured it out himself. He saw you leaving the garage early in the morning and put it together.”
Silence.
I sat on the bed next to him and grabbed his arm. His head lifted so his gaze could meet mine. “I swear this is safe with Gray. He would never tell anyone. I trust him.”
“You don’t trust anyone.”
I trust you, I almost said.
“So you know I mean what I say about him.” I squeezed his forearm and he leaned over to kiss me. Lips turned to tongues, then teeth. I brushed my fingers against his hard cock over his underwear. “If we keep this up, I’ll never make it to work.”
“Don’t care,” he said, gripping the back of my neck and jamming his tongue between my teeth.
“Were you ‘out’ before you came here? Was there someone else?” I asked him when I pulled away.
“Kind of,” he replied. “There was a guy a few years ago, but it didn’t work out. When was your last relationship?”
“Around the time I took my GCSEs.” I never blushed, but my cheeks felt suspiciously hot.
He laughed. “I have no idea what that means.”
“High school.”
“Oh shit. You’re twenty-five and you’ve never had a boyfriend? Or girlfriend? Whatever.”
“I was a little busy looking for…that thing.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, as if he were a magnet trying to pull important things out of me. “I left home when I was eighteen and traveled, then came here when I was twenty, and I’ve built everything since then.”
“Is that all your life is?” he asked, rising to finish dressing. I tilted my head to look up at him and squirmed under the frown on his face. “Work?”
“Yours isn’t?”
“Yes, which is why I know it sucks.” His scowl broke after a moment. “When can I see you again?”
“I’ll be busy the next few days. I have another shipment coming in from the Czech Republic soon. I’ll call you though—I promise—and text you in the meantime.”
His goodbye kiss was softer, briefer, and as I watched his back disappear through my front door without guard or a glance back at me, I thought he might trust me too.
***
While Gray worked on the items from Russia, the Prague collection was entirely mine to sift through.
Unlike the crates from the first shipment, they were neatly packed with matching inventories and explanations of the items inside.
Going through them was less a matter of energy and organization and more a matter of taking my time to understand it all.
Today I’d made it through a quarter of a crate of statues and stone carvings. Bartos’s collection was enormous.
I turned to the laptop on the makeshift desk and typed out a message for veilknight.
j-aust13
I think I’m close to finding the grimoire. What else do I need?
A reply came through five minutes later.
veilknight
I hope you’re keeping it somewhere safe. That book is dangerous.
j-aust13
It’s safe in my warehouse. What else do I need?
veilknight
Once you summon her, you have to trap her energy to keep her corporeal long enough to kill her. The instructions should be in the grimoire. And the knife, of course. How long do you think it will take you to do the ritual?
j-aust13
It’s in a lot of items I received. I’m still parsing through them.
veilknight
Be careful.
I had to find the perfect knife, something dramatic for the occasion. Blood would be easy, but I hadn’t cried since my mum died. I’d find a way to squeeze out tears. I would not fail.
Gray showed up to check on me around lunchtime, interrupting my sad attempts at translating garbled lore in Ancient Greek.
Part of me wondered why I was going to all this trouble if the grimoire was nearby, but the past hours had turned to obsession as I absorbed everything I could about the monster who took my mother.
“You should take a break,” he said, shoving a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of water in front of me.
I nodded and closed my laptop. Reaching for the sandwich, I asked, “What did you do last night?”
Gray stared at me for a long beat.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve never asked me that before.”
“Yes, I have.”
“No, you haven’t.”
I stopped unwrapping the sandwich and took a sip of water instead. “You said we’re friends. Friends ask each other what they did last night.”
Gray chuckled and sat down in a spare chair. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and said, “I hooked up with a girl I met at the last gala. Christina. This was the second time. She’s not clingy, and I hate clingy, so she’s perfect for me.”
“So a steady fuck buddy then?”
“It’s a situation that works for us.”
“Have you ever considered a relationship with any of these women?”
He barked out a laugh. “After my wife? Fuck no. What did you do last night?”
“I worked—”
“Go figure.”
“And then I hooked up with Rook.”
He smirked. “Yeah, what do you call that? You’re not friends with benefits.”
“‘Allies with benefits’ is his preference. He’s got a loud fucking opinion about everything.”
“That’s good for you. No one pushes back at you anymore. You need someone to keep you on your toes.”
Rook certainly did.
“Have you ever considered a relationship?” he asked.
“With Rook?”
“Unless there’s someone else…”
Two thoughts crossed my mind. The first was that I couldn’t imagine giving my attention to anyone other than Rook. The second was that, if I caught someone touching him, I might reconsider my aversion to blood. Cutting off any hand that touched him the way I had was appealing.
When had I become so possessive over him?
“He killed me.”
Gray stared.
“I mean, he tried to kill me. And I tried to kill him. That’s not a healthy basis for a relationship.”
“Eh, you do weird things all the time. I’m not judging you.”
“Weird things. Like what?”
“Like all of this.” He gestured widely to the warehouse stacked with crates. “You’re obsessed with this. It’s more than just the money, so what is it?”
I bit my tongue. A friend would tell him, wouldn’t they? I trusted him enough to confide about whatever Rook and I were doing, which seemed to grow more complicated by the day, so why did the words get caught in my throat?
“An old grudge,” I answered. I endured his long, prying stare.
“If you say so. I just wanted to bring you lunch. I have to get back to the other warehouse now.”
When the door closed behind him, I fidgeted at the desk, staring at the Greek letters that were as confusing as my relationships. A friend would have told him, but I didn’t have friends—or a boyfriend. I had two people close enough to make me squirm, and yet I was alone.