Darknight(59)

“Watch it,” I said. “You keep up with that kind of talk, and I might have to nominate you for sainthood.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

For a few seconds he didn’t say anything. We’d come up to the turnoff for Clarkdale Parkway, so he made the left as I’d instructed and then slowed down a little, since we were coming into Clarkdale’s tiny downtown area. “Anyway, if I were in their position, I’d probably be feeling the same way. That doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy walking around Jerome tomorrow and having people look at me like I’ve got horns and a tail, but at least I understand it.”

I tried to wrap my wine-muddled brain around his words. On some level, I did get what he was saying. On the other hand, the stubborn part of me kept thinking, But I’m the prima. The clan is supposed to accept my decisions, whatever they might be.

Apparently there was a line, though, and in being with Connor, I had stepped right over it.

We didn’t say much after that, except for me to give him a few terse directions on how to get back to the house. When we pulled up, I halfway expected to see “Wilcox go home” spray-painted on the garage door or something, but the place looked undisturbed. The ancient door was on my list of things to get replaced, but I hadn’t done it yet, so I had to slip out in the freezing darkness and lift the heavy thing so Connor could pull into the garage.

After he parked, he got out and met me outside, then shut the door. Since the property was so old, the house and the garage were separate buildings, and I led him up the path through the small garden at the rear of the house to the back door.

Everything inside was as we had left it, of course. I was being foolish to think that my family would have done anything to disturb the place. They might be disappointed and angry with me, but they would never do anything to damage my house.

Well, to put it more accurately, the prima’s house.

I flicked on the kitchen light, then the lights in the hallway just outside, and went to the closet downstairs and took off my coat. Connor followed me and did the same. After he’d hung up his coat, he looked around the newly decorated interior and nodded, apparently in approval. On our earlier tour of the house, we’d moved quickly, and I hadn’t allowed Connor much time to give me any feedback.

“You’ve done a really good job with this place,” he said. “Updated, but still respecting the lines and the character of the house.”

His approval sent a flush to my cheeks. “Oh, well, I hired a decorator,” I said deprecatingly.

“You hired a good one. And you still had to approve her selections, didn’t you? It’s not as if you just let her do anything she wanted.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because it still feels like you.” He came to me then and took me in his arms, bent down to brush his lips against mine.

That kiss felt so good, warm, strong, tasting sweet and dark from the last glass of wine he’d drunk. I waited until he pulled away, then said, “I guess that’s why I like your apartment so much. Because it feels like you.”

“I know something else I want to feel,” he murmured, his hands running up under my jacket, smoothing over the curve of my hips and up to my waist, then higher….

“Hmm,” I replied, even as the heat flared in me again. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours, and I wanted him, wanted him like nothing else in my life. I reached up and ran my fingers over the bulge straining against his jeans. “Me, too.”

In response, he bent and gathered me in his arms, lifting me as if I weighed nothing at all. I let out a little squeak of surprise and then giggled, burying my face in his neck, feeling him carry me up the stairs, take me to my room, and lay me on the bed. For a second he stepped away, but only to point at the wood piled up in the fireplace, setting it alight. The seasoned oak blazed up at once, banishing the chill of a cold December night.

“I like that,” I said, bending down to unzip my boots and pull them off.

“So do I.” He came back toward the bed and kicked off his own shoes, not bothering to unlace them. “I may even forgive you the claw-foot tub because of that fireplace.”

“I’m glad my house has some redeeming qualities.”

“Some,” he agreed, bending down to undo my belt, and then the button and zipper of my jeans below it.

When I’d changed, I’d also put on some of the underwear from my stash here at the house, a satiny red pair of panties with black lace trim and a matching bra. Connor’s eyes widened when he saw I wasn’t wearing the practical but oh-so-boring cotton bikinis of the past few days. A little growl escaped his throat.