“What?” How could he help but make it a joke? It was ludicrous. He lifted his fists in a boxing pose. “Think you can take me?”
The temper that gushed out of her was hot enough to boil the air. “Don't tempt me. You sprang this on me. Out of the blue, then when I don't do a happy dance and fling myself into the program, you walk away. You tell me you love me, and you walk away.”
“Sorry, I guess I needed a little alone time after realizing the woman I'm in love with isn't interested in building a life with me.”
“I didn't sayâI never meant . . . Hell.” Layla covered her face with her hands, took several deep breaths. The anger evaporated as she lowered her hands. “I told you once you scare me. You don't understand that. You're not easily scared.”
“That's not true.”
“Oh, yes, yes, it is. You've lived with this threat too long to be easily scared. You face things. Some of it's circumstance, some of it's just your nature, but you face what comes at you. I haven't had to do a lot of that. Things were pretty ordinary for me, right up until February. No big bumps in my road, no particularly big moments. All in all, I think I'm doing reasonably well. All in all,” she repeated on a sigh as she began to wander the room.
“You're doing fine.”
“I'm scared of what's here, of what's coming, what may happen. I don't have Quinn's energy or Cybil's . . . savoir faire,” she decided. “I do have persistence, once I commit to something I do my best to see it through, and I have a way of putting the big picture into components that I can reason out. So that's something. It's not as overwhelming, not as frightening when you have those smaller pieces to work with. But I can't seem to reason things out with you and me, Fox. And that scares me.”
She turned back to him. “It scares me that I've never felt for anyone what I feel for you. And I told myself it was okay, it was all right to have all these feelings rush in and grab me. Because everything's crazy. But the fact is, it's all crazy, but it's all real. What's happening around us, what's happening inside me, it's all real. I just don't know what to do about it.”
“And I added to the mix with the idea of starting a business here, making it more complicated and scary. Understood. We'll take it off the table. I didn't look into it to put pressure on you. We've all got enough of that as it is.”
“I wanted to be mad, because it's easier to be mad than scared. I don't want to be at odds with you, Fox. Everything that happened today . . . you were there. I woke up from that nightmare, and you were right there. Then you didn't come back.” She closed her eyes. “You didn't come back.”
“I didn't go far.”
Emotion swam into her eyes when she opened them. “I thought you might have. And that scared me more than anything else.”
“I love you,” he said simply. “Where would I go?”
She launched herself into his arms. “Don't go far.” Her mouth found his. “Don't kick me out. Let me be with you.”
“Layla.” He took her face in his hands, easing her back until their eyes met. “All I want at the end of the day is for you to be with me.”
“I'm here. It's the end of the day, and I'm here. That's where I want to be.”
Her lips were so soft, so giving. Her sigh, as her body molded to his, like music. Her hands brushed his face, through his hair as he circled her toward the bedroom. And in the dark, they lowered to the bed. She reached out, their legs tangling as they lay facing each other. As they stirred each other with long, lingering kisses, he could see the gleam of her eyes in the dark, the curve of her cheek, feel the shape of her lips and the beat of her heart against his.
She shifted, kneeling to unbutton his shirt. Then her body bowed down as she pressed her lips to his heart. Lightly, her fingertips grazed down his sides as her mouth brushed, her tongue slicked along his skin. She felt his muscles quiver as she trailed those slow openmouthed kisses over his belly, as she flipped open the button of his jeans.
She wanted him to quiver.
She eased the zipper down, a slick hiss of sound in the dark, and drew denim down those narrow hips where the skin was warm. He groaned as she pleasured him.
She ruled his body. Her mouth and hands guided him slowly, inexorably into the rocking sea of heat until he was drenched in it. And when the blood began to burn under his skin, she shifted again. He heard the soft rustle as she undressed.
“I want to ask you for something.” She came toward him across the bed on her hands and knees and his mouth went dry as dust.
“If you want a favor, this is probably a good time to ask for it.”
Teasing, she lowered her lips to his, brushed, retreated. When he cupped the back of her head to bring her mouth to his again, she took it, brought it to her breast.
“When you touch me, when you make love with me, when you're inside me, can you feel what I feel? Can I feel what you feel? I want that with you. I want to know what it's like to be together that way, when we're like this.”
A gift, he thought, of complete trust, on both sides. He sat up, looked into her eyes. “Open,” he murmured, and rubbed his lips to hers. “Just open.”
He felt her nerves, her needs, and the thoughts that came and went in her head like soft shimmers. To be wanted, to be touched. By him. When her hands ran up his back, he knew both her pleasure and her approval. He knew the press of their bodies, the beats of their hearts.
Then easing her down, he deepened the kiss. And opened himself to her.
At first it was like a sigh, through her body, through her mind. She thought: Lovely. It's lovely. Anticipation built. She turned her head to give him the pulse in her throat when she felt his need to taste there.
Her breath caught, a quick little shock when his mouth took her breast. So much to feel, to know, she trembled with each new sensation that slipped and slid inside her, around her. His hands, her skin, his lips, her taste. Her needs tied, tangled with his on a free-falling leap.
Greedâwas it hers or his that had her rolling over the bed with him, desperate for more, and the more only unleashed new, wild cravings. His hands used her, rougher than before, answering her unspoken demands. Take, take, take. Pleasure swelled, unfurled, then burst with shock after radiant shock.
Her nails bit, his teeth nipped. And when he drove into her she thought she'd go mad from the force of mingled power.
“Stay with me, stay with me.” Desperate, delirious, she wrapped her legs around him like chains when she sensed him start to close off. Pleasure, a two-edged sword, was brutally keen. She gripped it with him.
She held his body, his thoughts, his heart, until neither could hold any longer.
He sprawled facedown on the bed, head swimming, lungs laboring. He didn't have the strength, as yet, to ask her if she was all right, much less to try to link to make sure for himself.
She'd taken him apart, and he wasn't quite capable of putting himself back together. None of his thoughts would coalesce. He wasn't quite sure if there weren't still echoes of hers inside him.
Still, after a few minutes, he realized he might die of thirst if he didn't crawl off for water.
“Water.” He croaked it out.
“God. Please.”
He started to roll, bumped her where she'd flung herself crossways on the bed. “Sorry.”
He only grunted as he got his feet on the floor, then stumbled his way to the kitchen. The light in the refrigerator branded his eyes like the blaze of the sun. With one hand pressed over them, Fox felt his way over the shelves for a bottle of water.
He drank half of it where he stood, naked in front of the open refrigerator, his eyes slammed shut against any source of light. Steadier, he opened his eyes to slits, grabbed a second bottle and took it into the bedroom.
She hadn't moved a muscle.
“Are you all right? Did Iâ”
“Water.” Her hand flayed in the air. “Water.”
He opened the bottle, then slid an arm under her to prop her up. Leaning back against his arm she drank with the same urgent gusto as he had.
“Are your ears ringing?” she asked him. “My ears are ringing. And I think I may be blind.”
He hauled her around so she was propped against the pillows instead of his arm, then he switched on the bedside light.
She screamed and slapped a hand over her eyes. “Okay, I wasn't blind, but now I may be.” Cautiously she peeked out between two spread fingers. “Have you ever . . .”
“No. That was the first.” Because his legs were still a little weak, he sat down beside her. Which was too bad, he mused, because he'd liked the full-length view. “Intense.”
“
Intense
is too mild a word. There isn't a word. They need to invent one. I guess that's not something we could handle every time.”
“Save it for special occasions.”
She smiled and stirred up the energy to sit up, rest her head on his shoulder. “Arbor Day's coming up, I think. That's pretty special.”
He laughed, turned his head to rub his cheek against her hair. I love you, he thought, but kept the words to himself this time.
SINCE FOX HAD OUTSIDE MEETINGS, LAYLA TOOK advantage of a slow afternoon to read over portions of Ann Hawkins's third journal. There was not, as they'd hoped, a spell, a formula, step-by-step directions on how to kill a centuries-old demon. It led Layla to believe Giles Dent hadn't told his lover the answers. Cybil's take was more mystical, Layla supposed. If Ann knew, she also knew that whatever needed to be done to end Twisse would be diluted, even invalidated if the answers were simply handed over.
That seemed too cryptic and irritating to Layla, so she spent considerable time trying to read between the lines. And came away from it frustrated and headachy. Why couldn't people just be straightforward. She
liked
step-by-step directions. And she was sure as hell going to record them, if they ever found them, used them, and were successful, on the off-chance some future generation had a similar problem.
“Why don't you come back here?” Layla muttered. “Come on back and talk to me, Ann. Just spell it out. Then we'll all go about our normal lives.”
Even as she said it, Layla heard the front door creak open. She bulleted to her feet. Brian O'Dell sauntered in.
“Hey, Layla. Sorry, did I startle you?”
“No. A little. I wasn't expecting anyone. Fox is out of the office this afternoon.”
“Oh. Well.” Brian dipped his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels. “I was in town, thought I'd drop in.”
“He probably won't be back until after six. If you want to leave a messageâ”
“No. No big. You know, since I'm here, maybe I'll just go back.” He pulled a hand free to gesture with his thumb. “Fox is talking about new flooring in the kitchen, and a couple of things. I'll just go measure. Want any coffee or anything?”
Layla tilted her head. “How are you going to measure without a measuring tape?”
“Right. Right. I'll get one out of the truck.”
"Mr. O'Dell, did Fox ask you to come in this afternoon?”
“Ah. He's not here.”
“Exactly.” Like the son, Layla thought, the father was a poor liar. “So he asked if you'd come in, check on me. Which I might not have copped to except that your wife dropped in about an hour ago, with a dozen eggs. Putting that together with this, I smell babysitters.”
Brian grinned, scratched his head. “Busted. He doesn't like you being here alone. I can't say I blame him.” He strolled over, dropped into one of the visitors' chairs. “I hope you're not going to give him a hard time about it.”
“No.” She sighed, sat herself. “I guess, one way or another, we all worry about each other. But I've got my cell in my pocket, and everyone I know on speed dial. Mr. O'Dellâ”
“Brian.”
“Brian. How do you handle it? Knowing what's happening, what may happen to Fox?”
“You know, I was nineteen when Sage was born.” In the language of a man settling in for a spell, he propped one work-booted foot on his knee. “Jo was eighteen. Couple of kids who thought we knew it all, had it all covered. Then, you have a kid of your own, and the whole world shifts. There's a part of me that's been worried for thirty-three years now.” He smiled as he said it. “I guess there's just more parts of me worried when it comes to Fox. And truth? It pisses me off that he had his childhood, his innocence stolen from him. He came home that day, his tenth birthday, and he was never a little boy, not in the same way, again.”
“Did he tell you what happened? The morning he came back from the Pagan Stone?”
“I like to think we got a lot right with our kids, but one thing I know we got right. They know they can tell us anything. He'd spun that one about camping out in Cal's backyard, but Jo and I saw through that.”
“You knew he was going to spend the night in the woods?”
“We knew he was taking an adventure, and we gave him the room. If we hadn't, he'd've found a way around it. Birds have to fledge. You can't stop it, no matter how much you want to keep them safe in the nest.”
He paused a moment, and Layla could see him looking back, wondered what it was like to look back over the course of another's lifetime. Someone you loved.
“He had Gage with him when he came home,” Brian continued. “You could see, in both of them, something had changed. Then they told us, and everything changed. We talked about leaving. Jo and I talked about selling the farm and moving on. But he needed to be here. After the week was up, we all thought it was over. But more than that, we knew Fox needed to be here, with Cal and Gage.”