Darkmoon(54)

“It’s on the list,” I snapped. “I just thought the kitchen was more important. Anyway, the heat’s never bothered me before.”

“You’ve never been pregnant before.”

Well, that was true. “I’m barely three months pregnant,” I said. “I thought the heat issues didn’t kick in until you were actually, you know, showing.”

A soft little sound that might have been a chuckle, quickly repressed. “Okay, maybe, but different things affect people differently.” I felt the bed rock slightly as he adjusted his position. Now, as my eyes were adjusting to the darkness, I could see he had turned on his side so he could face me. “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

“Of course that’s not all it is. It’s just the most recent thing.” I took a breath. “I think I may have taken on more than I can handle with this remodel.” And Marie’s disappeared…and it turns out I’m half Wilcox…and every day I have a little less time to unravel this curse thing so I don’t die before I’m twenty-five.

I didn’t say any of that, though. I had a feeling Connor already knew what I was thinking.

“Well, I doubt even your relatives will give you too much crap for not staying here while half the house is getting ripped apart. That’s asking a bit much, don’t you think?”

Under normal circumstances, maybe. But since I was prima, different rules applied to me. Even the short jaunts I’d been making to Flagstaff with Connor had upset them, I could tell. It just drove home that my consort was the last person they’d ever wanted or expected for me. Well, okay, second to last. I had a feeling that, if pressed, they would admit Connor was the lesser evil when compared to his brother.

“So you think we should go back to Flagstaff?”

“Well, considering no one’s tearing up my apartment and it tends to be about ten degrees cooler there most of the time, I’d say yeah, that might be a better place to spend the summer.” He grinned then, his teeth flashing in the near-darkness of the bedroom. “Of course, I’ll admit that I might be a bit biased.”

Maybe he was biased, but he was also making a lot of sense. Sure, there were places here in Jerome I could’ve crashed for the summer, such as my old bedroom back at Rachel’s apartment. However, Connor would be excluded from such an arrangement, and I refused to be separated from him again. We’d already lost almost two months. I wouldn’t give up any more.

“No, you’re right,” I said. “At least, I think you’re right. It all makes so much sense when I’m alone with you, and then I get the elders giving me the hairy eyeball whenever I so much as mention your name, or Flagstaff, and I have to remind myself to stand my ground.”

He didn’t reply at first, only reached out and pulled me against him, held me close so I could hear the reassuring rhythm of his heartbeat. “Well, maybe you don’t need to make any huge decisions right now. Just say the noise and the heat were getting to you, and that you needed to get away for a couple of days. Besides,” he added, “we’re looking at that house on Thursday. Maybe it’ll be perfect, and that’ll be the sign you need to tell you it’s okay to spend part of your time in Flagstaff. I have a feeling they might not protest so much if their prima is shacked up in a million-dollar house rather than a walk-up over an art gallery.”

“You might be surprised,” I said. “The McAllisters aren’t all that into external signs of wealth.”

“That much is obvious. I’ve seen the cars most of you drive.”

That remark left me no alternative but to give him a mock punch in the arm, to which he gave an equally false wince before pulling me even closer to him, his mouth hot on my neck, tracing a line of kisses down to my breast. In short order my tank top had been flung away to land somewhere on the floor in the darkness, and my fingers were pulling at the waistband of his boxer briefs, and soon after that we had joined once again in an embrace that erased all doubt and worry and clan politics.

…if only for a little while.





10





Habitat





“Holy crap, Lucas,” I said. “Is this for real?”

“Of course it is,” he said, pushing a button on the fob he carried. His bright red Porsche beeped once.

Connor stood in front of the FJ Cruiser we’d driven here, craning his neck to take in the property in its entirety. “And he’s only asking nine-fifty?”

“You should’ve seen him salivating when I told him you could pay cash. Apparently the soon-to-be ex has him over a barrel, and he needs to liquidate as soon as he can. Avoiding a lengthy escrow is worth taking a mild hit on the price. The market is sort of stagnant right now anyhow, which doesn’t help. No one else has come to look at it.” Lucas shoved his car key in his pocket. “Anyway, let’s go inside, and see what you think.”