“You never get lonely?”
That was an entirely different subject, one that had nothing to do with location, and everything to do with…other things. “Do you?”
He touched the side of her face, brushed his knuckles over her cheek. A variety of expressions crossed his face, things that twisted low in her stomach. “Not today,” he said.
“Mikhael—”
“Funny running into you two kids.”
SNAPPING OUT OF HER REACTION TO HIS RAW HONESTY, Raina turned to see Derek Stormwind and Ruby, her best friend in the whole world, approaching the table. Obviously, Mikhael had seen them coming, because he showed no reaction to Derek’s sardonic intrusion. It was obvious, and expected, that Derek could see through the spellwork, which meant he’d enabled Ruby to do the same, or she was proficient enough to do it herself.
“Ramona,” she muttered. That was the last time she’d take her other best friend’s casual reaction to a not-so-casual situation at face value. She’d likely contacted Ruby the second she went into the shop. Raina should have stayed and spent more time reassuring her, but Ramona never paid attention to words—she read other things, and whatever she’d read off Mikhael and Raina had unsettled her enough to call in the cavalry.
Awkward was a descriptive understatement, since Raina sat on the lap of the guy who’d fucked Ruby twelve ways to Sunday, a male who Derek considered a borderline adversary on a lot of different levels. But Raina wasn’t one to get twisted up in knots over social faux pas.
“Care to join us?” She nodded at the unused chairs in front of them. When she squirmed to indicate she wanted to resume her seat next to Mikhael, she discovered a certain part of him was enjoying her exactly where she was. If she moved, she’d be making that public knowledge. A wicked thought, just the kind of thing that appealed to her.
He gave her a wry look but let her slide off. Fortunately, the fit of the jeans and his seated position helped cover it, though it would be noticeable if a woman took the lingering look she would. Ruby, no matter how tempted she might be, would likely refrain in deference to her husband. Raina was happy to look at both men, the privilege of being single. Though Derek could be a pain in the ass, he was a sexy one. There was nothing fattening about a two-man visual feast.
Derek held Ruby’s chair but declined to sit. “We need to talk,” he said to Mikhael.
“I’m not done with my ice cream. Why don’t you sit, unless that stick you carry in your ass isn’t bendy enough?”
“Mikhael,” Ruby said. “Please don’t goad him.” The woman who traveled with Derek to aid his magical work also ran the gun shop in town, Arcane Shot, so she wore the store T-shirt, snug black and red. Ruby was beautiful, but wiry and strong, with eyes that reflected the sharp intelligence that made her capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with Derek in his dangerous line of work. A year ago, she’d been into some messed-up shit, and Mikhael had been in the center of that. That history was reflected in her obvious trepidation over the two males who’d locked gazes like bulls about to charge.
“How about both of you stop goading each other?” Raina interjected. “Yes, yes, I get it. You’re both brimming with testosterone. He fucked Ruby, he fucked me, awkward, awkward, awkward, but now she’s married to Derek. Monogamous fucking until death do you part, and past is past.” She glanced at Ruby. “Unless you want me to fuck Derek so we can make it all neat and balanced.”
Ruby narrowed her eyes. “Over my dead body.”
“Good. So that’s resolved. Try this; it’s awesome.” Raina spooned up some more fudge, nuts and ice cream and fed them into Ruby’s mouth before expletives could spill out. Then watched her expression glaze.
“Oh, wow. That is awesome.”
“I told you. Go get yourself one. I have enough nuts left for it.” She nodded to the bag folded at her elbow.
“They don’t…?”
“Pansy-assed peanut-allergy generation,” Mikhael commented. “The whole lot of them, fodder for Darwin’s cannon.”
“His looks are only surpassed by his compassion,” Raina noted. “Here, my treat.” Since Mikhael hadn’t let her use any money, she pushed bills into Ruby’s hand, pointed to the storefront with the meaningful glance that said, Go get ice cream with Derek to defuse this. Guys don’t fight while eating ice cream.
However, while playing peacemaker, she was noticing other things. Like how Ruby and Mikhael were studiously avoiding eye contact. She’d expected it of Ruby, what with Derek here and all, but Mikhael’s reaction surprised her. A man looked away only if the woman had meant something to him. If he had regrets. Which made her recall how he’d reacted to her poking at him about Ruby on the night he’d arrived.
She understood the dynamics between lovers quite well. Regrets didn’t mean a desire to hook back up. However, there were plenty of women who’d become sloppy seconds when a male’s first interest became unavailable. Being married to Derek Stormwind, Ruby was as unavailable as a pile of gold at the back of a dragon’s lair—guarded by a dragon who never slept.
When Derek and Ruby went into the shop to get a sundae for Ruby and probably a twenty-four-scoop banana split for Derek’s enormous magic-induced appetite, she took another bite of her own treat, found it wasn’t as good as it had been. She put the spoon down. “Okay, what exactly is it you want to say to her? I can get Derek to take a stroll if you need some alone time.”
Mikhael snorted. “Your powers of persuasion are considerable, but if you could get him to leave her alone with me, you’d probably surpass the angels.”
She nodded. He was leaning on the chair’s two back legs, his boot braced on the table. Putting her foot against the chair’s axis, she gave it a vicious shove.
His battle reflexes showed, because he didn’t try to grab the table. He was out of the chair, letting it hit the sill of the ice cream shop window and leaving him balanced on the balls of his feet, facing her. For one weighted moment, she glared at him; then he bent, righted the chair and sat back down, this time with a foot more space between them.
“I was wondering how long you were going to pretend it didn’t bother you that she was sitting close enough I could recognize her scent.”
This time she went for electrical current, pulled from the air and targeted on the metal chair, dissembling spells be damned. He was back on his feet again. Even though he could take a wealth of pain, she expected it was hard to look suave when vibrating like a coke junkie. She was smart enough to be on her own feet this time, fists clenched, the chairs between them.
“As ironic as it may sound, I’m not a whore, Mikhael. Don’t treat me like one.”
“Then don’t act like one. If it matters, say it matters. Be honest.”
“Oh, yes. Because you’re in the honesty business.”
“When have I lied to you, Raina?”
She hoped he’d lied about a great many things, specifically the things that made her feel…wanted. Special to him. Because if he meant those things, she really didn’t know what to think. And, of course, that made no sense at all.
“A diversion to avoid the truth is still a lie. Tell me how you feel about her.”
“If you sit down.”
She kept standing, lifted her chin. She thought he’d try to make her, but he changed tactics. Sitting down himself, he slid out her seat and waited.
She perched stiffly on the edge. She was glad the ice cream store’s business had picked up, because she really didn’t want Derek and Ruby to come back out in the middle of this.
“I have regrets for how I had to treat her,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it any differently, given the dangerous magic she was using. However, I saw the core of her. I knew the shape of her soul, as I said.” He held her gaze. “If I’d been a man like Derek, I wouldn’t have let him have her back so easily. But I’m not a man like Derek.”
Though it hadn’t been easy at all for Derek to get her back, she let that go, because that had more to do with Ruby than Mikhael. “But for a few moments, you wanted to be a man like Derek. Because of her.”
She got it; she did. She saw the same thing in Ruby. She had no claim on Mikhael, which was why she couldn’t understand why it hurt.
Oh, hell, yes, she did. The vagaries of female nature. This had been her moment, all about her and him, and now there was this other thing, this other woman who was part of it. Maybe she was a lot like him. She might not have a claim on him before or after, but during? She wanted 120 percent of his fucking attention, no other woman in his head, regretted or no.
“I imagined it,” he admitted. “The way you imagine being an astronaut or a postman or a ditchdigger. In the end, I am who I am. With no desire to be anything different. It was the regret that I had to be so cruel to her that goaded it, not a true desire to be with her, to possess her utterly, the way Derek has.”
“Possession? That’s what love is in your mind?”
“Yes. A possession of mind, body, heart and soul, two beings becoming one in their intent to be together through eternity. Who won’t let one another go, no matter what.”