I rolled to the far side of the mattress, smiling as I watched him fumble to climb in with me. Linus collapsed with his feet hanging off the end, with his head too far down for more than the ends of his tangled hair to brush his pillow. I scooched lower to make us even, unable to wipe the goofy smile off my face.
“We had sex,” I whispered, like it was a secret in danger of being overheard.
“Yes,” he whispered back. “We did.”
“Do you feel any different?”
Lines wrinkled his forehead as he looked at me. “Yes.”
“Me too,” I confessed, and his expression smoothed again.
He shifted onto his back, hauling me with him, and I sprawled half on top of him. The weight of his arms made him more real than he had ever been. This was the most physical contact we had ever had, and I didn’t mean the sex. I meant him reaching for me, yanking me into his orbit, holding me like I might escape if he loosened his grip. He was initiating for the first time, taking what he needed from me.
And then it hit me. Until this moment, he hadn’t believed I was his. He hadn’t touched me or kissed me or hinted he might want more. He had followed my lead, given me what I craved, and held his needs in check. He had given me all he could bear, what wouldn’t leave too many scars on his heart if I let him go.
Oh, Linus.
“Do you want to shower?” he asked sometime later, his fingers tracing my collarbone.
“No.” I yawned, snuggling closer, breathing him in. “I want to stay just like this.”
And we did, until the beat of his heart beneath my ear lulled me into a dreamless sleep.
Ten
I woke to a heavy thumping noise that was not the steady thud of Linus’s heart beneath my ear, though I heard that too. I waited a full minute in the hopes our visitor would take the hint and leave before I cracked my eyes open.
“Hey,” I murmured, vision blurry, “I’m still in bed.”
Sheets tangled around my ankles, but there was too much give beneath me for hardwood.
Linus kissed my eyelids, which had slid closed again. “Yes, you are.”
“That’s…weird.” I yawned, forcing my lashes to untangle and stay that way. “Nice, but strange.”
“You slept through the day.”
“Solving the dream’s riddle seems to have worked wonders for me.”
“I held you all day,” he pointed out. “Don’t I get any credit?”
“While your arms are very nice—” I looked at Linus, really looked at him. Combed hair, the ends still wet. Brushed teeth, his breath minty. “You showered.”
Mischief twinkled in his eyes. “I held you all day…minus twenty minutes.”
“You’re also dressed.” Sheets whispered beneath my leg when I bent it to test my theory. “I’m not.”
Linus traced a chill finger down the length of my spine. “No, you’re not.”
Smooshing my face against his chest, I groaned. “You stayed awake.”
“I did.”
“You better not have been mentally painting me again.”
He kept his lips zipped while I thunked my forehead against his chest.
“I don’t want to come home and find Woolly plastered in nudes.”
“You entertain too many guests for that,” he said, sounding perfectly reasonable. “However, the basement…”
“You’re not transforming the basement into a seedy love den.”
“Nudes are art.” His fingers tickled over my ribs. “I was thinking more along the lines of a gallery.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
There was no graceful way to climb off Linus, not when he had draped me over him like a living blanket sometime during the day, but the door kept rattling, and he clearly had no intention of answering it while I was warm and naked on top of him. “Who is that?”
“Whoever it is, they can wait.”
Calling out wouldn’t do any good. They wouldn’t be able to hear us. “You don’t sound concerned about our unexpected guest.”
“The wards are sound.” His eyes twinkled. “I borrowed the design from a brilliant necromancer I know.”
“You used Woolly’s design here?” Flushed with pleasure at the compliment, I sent my awareness out into the house, but it met no resistance to indicate the dwelling was becoming aware. “Can you tell who or what entered the building?”
“The wards on the bottom floor are light to allow in customers and future staff. The upper floor will be impossible for anyone to attain who has malicious intent.” Linus frowned at the door. “I left stewardship of the wards unclaimed, for you. I assumed, if my proposal interested you, that you would want the bond since you would spend the most time here. All I can say for certain is our guest wishes us no harm.”
Truthfully, it could only be two or three people. Most likely, it was Lethe or Hood checking in.
“I’ll grab a shower.” The only thing stopping me from wrapping myself in the wrinkled sheet to make my grand exit was the look in his eyes. “You can deal with whoever is out there.”
That was the point when I remembered the bathroom was across the hall here, past our early visitor.
“New plan.” I snatched the sheet and made myself a toga. “You distract our guest while I slip past them into the bathroom.”
“All right.” He straightened his clothes as he stood then followed me to the door. Instead of opening it, he pinned me against it with his hips while he ducked his head to claim my mouth. “I didn’t know it was possible to love you more than I already did.”
“That’s the sex talking.” I patted his cheek. “Your hormones will behave after I get on clothes, and you’ll return to regular levels of loving me.”
Loving me.
Linus Andreas Lawson II loved me.
That, to me, was more of a revelation than the sex. And the sex had been…perfect.
“After last night,” he murmured, “that’s not possible.”
A blush warmed every inch of my exposed skin, and I had plenty. “Are you going to get that?”
Whoever was out there wasn’t taking silence for an answer. They wanted in, or for us to come out.
Linus tucked me behind the door, erased the sigil ensuring our privacy, and pulled it open. The light in his eyes extinguished, and the mask of Scion Lawson clicked into place. “Can I help you?”
“Where is she?”
The blood warming my complexion a second ago drained from my face. “Boaz?”
“Step aside, Lawson.”
“No,” Linus said, his voice gone cold. “I don’t think I will.”
Before they came to blows, I stuck my head around Linus. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t come home. Amelie called this morning, frantic. Woolly had been ringing the phone at the carriage house off the hook, but she couldn’t go to the main house to see what was wrong, so I went to talk to Woolly.” His gaze roved over me, and I saw the moment understanding dawned. “You spent the day here.” Boaz gritted his teeth. “With him.”
Bumping Linus aside with my hip, I got between them before it got ugly. Uglier. “I appreciate you coming to check on me. I feel like a dirt sandwich for not checking in with Woolly, and I’m sorry I worried Amelie, but I’m fine.” The fact he was standing on the doorstep of a purchase I had just learned about made me ask, “How did you know to look for us here?”
“I was assigned to you, remember?” Boaz raked his fingers through his hair. “I keep tabs on your movements.”
The violation stung anew, and that surprised me even more. I ought to be used to his strings of tiny betrayals. “I need to shower, and we need to get home to reassure Woolly.”
The plan was to inch past him and shut the door behind me, putting a slab of wood between them, but I hadn’t noticed the sheet was stained crimson on the edge until Boaz fisted the material, staggering like someone had punched him. He dropped the cloth, his eyes glinting with cold fury.
“Did he bother taking off his fancy clothes before he fucked you?” His hands balled at his sides, knuckles popping as he faced Linus. “Did he take your virginity, or did you have to do it yourself? He’s fantasized about this for so long, he probably creamed his pants before he touched you.”
Using what Midas had drummed into me about being a woman taking on a male opponent, I drew back my arm and launched a right hook that snapped his head to one side. Something cracked. I think it was my hand, but I didn’t care. I threw my shoulder into the next punch before he shook off the first hit, and his utter shock was comical.
“Get out.” Knuckles throbbing, I massaged my hand. “Now.”
“Grier—”
“Do you hear yourself?” I cradled my arm against my chest. “You’ve lost your ever-lovin’ mind, Boaz.”
“This is not how it was supposed to happen.” He swept out his hand, indicating the sheet. “You let him take it. Him. Goddessdamn it.” He wiped a hand over his mouth. “Are you getting back at me? Is that it?”
“Linus didn’t take anything from me,” I said, sad and tired and over this. “And this has nothing to do with you.”
Eyes tight, he shook his head. “You don’t mean that.”
“Lethe.” I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t have to. “Come here, please.”
There was only one reason why Woolly would have fretted enough to reach out to Amelie, and that was if the gwyllgi had stayed to protect me. Hood and Lethe must have slept, among other things, in the van. And they wouldn’t have let Boaz or anyone else in without escorting them, whether our guest knew he had been tailed or not.
I spotted her blue hair first and her furious scowl next. “Escort him out of the building.”
“Sure thing.” She moseyed over to us. “Just one thing I have to do first.”