His grin softened, and he bent to cup her face in his hands. ‘Genius. I’m in love with a goddamn genius, and I want to show her to the world. She doesn’t have to prove anything to me.’
It was almost enough to make her melt. She wanted to close her eyes and lean into him and be comforted. She wanted to meet him skin to skin, clothes tossed in a heap, mouths bruised with the force of their kissing. She wanted to be safe and she wanted to be free, and there was only one way that was possible. She lifted her own hands and laid them over his.
‘I do have to prove it, or I can’t trust that you love me.’
‘Why not? It sure feels like it.’ He touched noses, his eyes whimsical. ‘I thought it was gas, but that would have gone away.’
‘Because you don’t know me. Not the real me. You have to meet her before you can decide. Now pick your favorite animal.’
‘Why?’
She struggled against the tears that crowded her throat. ‘Because it’s who I am, Danny. It’s inseparable from the rest of me. If you can’t live with it, then you can’t love me.’
‘Hedgehog.’
She pulled away. ‘Your favorite animal is not a hedgehog.’
‘Of course it is. It reminds me so much of you.’
She glared. ‘Fine.’ Pulling out the rubber band, she let her hair loose, shucked her sweater and kicked off her basic boring white tennis shoes. ‘I’ll be a freakin’ hedgehog.’
She did a couple of stretching exercises. Hedgehog. Hedgehog. She tried to concentrate, but Danny was standing there with his hands on his hips, a silly grin on his face as if he were waiting for a card trick. She closed her eyes. Hedgehog. The image appeared, a quivering, sharp-nosed little thing. Great. Well, at least it wasn’t a shrew.
She eased herself down and curled her legs up under her, which saved time when she had to minimize. Four legs, round body, a quiver of bristles. He couldn’t have likened her to a fawn. Maybe a kestrel. The air around her seemed to congeal. Sound sharpened, light intensified, and she could smell the charge of her power as it gathered. Lime. Lizzie got flowers. Mare got candy. She got a garnish.
Another charge shot along her nerves. Something alien that glittered a dozen colors behind her eyes. Was Lizzie setting something off downstairs? It was distracting her.
She’d find out later. Right now… Hedgehog.
The tingling began in her chest, a disruption that spread and congealed like the air, so that her blood slowed, settled. Her lungs contracted. Her skin shrank.
Hedgehog.
One last push and she should have it. The power coalesced. Her body fizzed and itched, trembling so hard she was sure her cells convulsed. She squeezed her eyes shut, wrapped her arms tightly around her legs, gathered that odd little animal deep until…
Poof!
She coughed. She opened her eyes. She found herself waving away the cloud of green fog that filled the room. With hands.
‘Damn.’
She stared at her fingers as if they’d betrayed her. She hadn’t changed. Something had thrown her off. ‘Dee?’
‘I’m going to try again.’
She tried three more times. All she got was a lot of fog and a couple of lame snapping sounds.
‘The green fog is a nice touch,’ Danny offered, sounding bemused somewhere inside the cloud. ‘It kinda matches the butterfly.’
Dee didn’t move from where she was curled up on the floor, her face in her arms. ‘Green is my color.’
Silence. She’d exhausted herself with the trying. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to eat chocolate and cry. She didn’t have the luxury. She’d wasted too much time already on this party trick.
‘I do love you,’ Danny whispered, and Dee realized he’d crouched down on his haunches right in front of her.
She lifted her head, miserable tears sliding down her cheeks. ‘I love you, too.’
He looked startled. ‘Really?’
She nodded, trying to keep from openly sobbing. I’m so sorry.’
He wiped at her tears. ‘Why?’
She wailed like a little girl. ‘Because now we’re going to have to have sex!’
‘God, no. Not that.’ He was grinning, the bastard. ‘It’s not a laughing matter.’
Gently, he reached over and pulled her to her feet. ‘If we have to have sex, then we’ll just have to take one for the team.’
‘Oh, Danny. You don’t understand. I shift when I have sex.’
‘Well, unless it’s into Jude Law, I don’t see a problem.’
Dee sighed. ‘I think you should. And don’t joke about Jude Law. The way Xan’s been screwing with things, he’s suddenly a candidate.’
He took a second to lift her hair behind her shoulders. ‘God, I love your hair. I’m dying to see you wearing nothing but that.’
Dee fiddled with his silver chain. ‘It can be arranged.’ There was a medal on the end that somehow came free of his shirt. ‘Saint Michael?’ It was still warm from his skin.
‘My mother gave me that,’ he said. ‘She said it would keep me safe.’
Carefully Dee tucked it back inside his shirt and gave it a pat. ‘Well, for your sake I hope Saint Michael stays on alert.’
‘Does that mean we’re having sex now?’
Dee shook her head. ‘I need to eat something,’ she said and sat back down to put on her shoes. ‘Misfires always make me hungry. Since Mare exploded all of Lizzie’s muffins, it’ll have to be something else. Nutritional value is strictly optional.’
Danny grabbed her shoes before she could and crouched before her. ‘I know a place we can get all the Nutter Butter bars you can swallow,’ he said. Lifting her foot, he fitted her shoe.
Dee blinked away new tears. He was putting on her shoes. ‘If you can also score me a giant order of onion rings, you have a deal. Don’t forget to double-knot. I’m tough on my shoes.’
He double-knotted. Then he brought her to her feet and dropped a kiss on her nose.
‘Thank you.’ Her smile was a bit watery.
He helped her slide her sweater back on. ‘We also need to call your aunt.’
She’d been all set to turn off the light. His words stopped her. ‘You really know how to bring a party to a crashing halt.’
‘You said you wanted to talk to her’
‘I don’t want to talk to her.’ Hitting the wall switch, she stalked out the door and down the stairs. ‘I want to find her before she finds me.’
Danny guided her down the stairs. ‘Then can we have sex?’
It was overcast and threatening by the time Lizzie made it home, and darker than it should be at two in the afternoon, and she moved fast, avoiding the neighbors. She didn’t have it in her to make cheery small talk. The tattoo was burning against the inside of her ankle. It wasn’t a painful burn, more of a needful throbbing. She didn’t want her mind to go in that direction, but then, life wasn’t going the way she wanted it to.
The purple satin sheets were still on her bed, and the wallpaper with its splash of flowers had disappeared, leaving the walls a rich, creamy shade, even in the darkness. She reached for the light switch and then stopped, the tattoo burning brighter, the amethyst resting against her heart pulsing with life. She looked down at the plain black Asian-style butterfly on her ankle, and it had turned a rich shade of purple, strong and beautiful, like her amethyst. It was as if the tattoo had claimed her, turning from stark black to the rich violet shade that made her think of endless nights and sex and impossible true love. How could a color mean all that?
It was dark in the workshop, the only light coming from the candle that sat in the middle of the circle he’d drawn on the workbench. The array was a new one, more complex than the one he’d used originally, and in the light of the candle his eyes glowed with a deep, lavender light.
He was wearing white, an open shirt and loose white pants, barefoot, watching her, and his dark blond hair was loose around his beautiful face.
‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ she said. And then could have kicked herself. She wanted him back, no matter what she’d said, no matter what she’d told herself.
The teapot was sitting on the workbench, the porcelain Imari cups beside it. He filled hers without a word and held it out to her. And she knew if she took it there’d be no coming back.