“Suddenly you’re an expert on how I live?”
“I know you better than you want to admit.”
That much was true.
“I haven’t had much time.”
“You’ve lived there for a year and a half. You’re a nester, I can tell. You have not nested there. Feel free to nest in my home all you want. Since we’ll be living together I want you to feel at home.”
“You totally are trying to start a fight.” She pulled into her spot and noted the graffiti. “Great.”
He didn’t say anything, but she knew he added it to the reasons to stay with Faine category in his head.
Her place was fine. The building was well lit and her neighbors were an assortment of artists and other types that seemed to love having endless potlucks and building-wide block parties every few weekends. After the revelation—as the media had dubbed the day when the world realized there actually were witches and Vampires—she’d been stopped and hugged more than once by her neighbors.
But Faine was right. She hadn’t really settled into her place. The house she’d shared with Lark had been a home, but this apartment was a place to sleep and eat. She just kept putting finding a house to buy into the after this settles category. Along with getting back to dating and going to the dentist.
She would be setting a good example by moving into an enclave. She would be safer and, damn it, she would be with him and that made her happier than she ever expected to be.
She pulled out a big suitcase and he gave her a look. “What? You win. Happy?”
In two steps he was on her, pulling her close, crushing his mouth against hers. Her spine loosened as she held on. His taste thundered like her pulse. He took over, the scent of his skin, the feel of his muscles as they bunched and shifted like the predator he was, she greedily took him in. Even as she knew somewhere in the back of her head that he was being a bossypants.
When he finished and she struggled to regain her composure, he set her back. “I am happy, but this is not a game where you lose and I win. I want you with me in my den. It’s my nature to want my woman in my home where I can keep her safest. I want to be with you because I like to be with you and it makes having lots of sex with you easier if you’re within reach whenever the mood strikes.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You’re grumpy because your world is falling apart and you’re doing your best to build a new future.”
“I’m grumpy because you are pushy and bossy and you take over when you should back off.”
He grinned for a moment. “Alamah, you knew I was bossy and pushy when you let me get you naked.”
He was so right she should be embarrassed. “You have other attributes that seem to blind me temporarily to your overbearing nature.”
He laughed. “Thank goodness then. Come on. Pack up. Shall I grab the books on your shelves so you can study them at my house?”
“Fine.”
She moved into the bathroom to gather her toiletries. And to get some space. He clouded her judgment with his . . . well, his gorgeousness and his ability to be really good at everything and the way he just let her be bitchy and kissed it out of her when he got a mind to.
Lord, she was in such trouble.
She tried to be annoyed that she’d have to drive so far to get to the office, but when she licked her lips she tasted him again and it fled.
Her clothes went into a garment bag. She only wore a few different pairs of shoes to work, but she brought many others to his place because one never knew when she might want to wear some pretty heels after all.
If he claimed to want to be with her, he needed to understand she had a lot of clothes. And shoes. And bags. And books too.
He’d clearly run some boxes down to the car while she had pulled her stuff together in the other room because her shelves were a lot more bare when she came out.
“I took the liberty of grabbing the teas and your teapot and some of the stuff in your fridge so it won’t spoil. Will you allow me to drive home? I know all the back ways and you can make calls if you need to.”
“See? How hard is it to ask instead of giving an imperious now and frowning at me?”
“We both have to adjust, no?” He kissed her again and took her suitcase and garment bag when she was hormone addled.
“You can drive if you’ll point the car through the In-N-Out drive-through on the way.”
“I can do that.”
He walked out, wearing a smile and when he wasn’t looking, she gave one too.
“THERE are two full closets. I’ll give you the one here in the master and take the one in the other bedroom.” He brought her suitcases into the house.
She shoved a few more fries into her face. “I can take the other closet. There’s no sense in you moving everything.”
“I want you to feel at home here. A safe place.”
He was so sweet she couldn’t resist moving to him and kissing him. “Sorry about the salt.”
He licked his lips. “Somehow you can make salt sexy.”
She moved into the room she’d slept in just a week before. A week. Jeez. So much had happened in that time.
The closet was gigantic with racks for shoes and bags and lots of space to hang things. Even without the utterly beautiful male standing a few feet away looking adorably uncertain, she’d live there for this dream of a closet.
“This is a fabulous closet. I’ll take it.”
He smiled and it warmed her. Man, she was in big trouble.
“Why don’t you look at the one in our bedroom first? Then you can decide.”
“I’m going to eat this Double-Double with cheese and suck down my milkshake first. Then I’ll look.”
He put the box he’d been holding down on the bed and followed her out. “I’ll get plates. Sit.”
“Okay then. Thanks.”
He brought plates and she put all the food out and they sat in companionable silence for some time as they ate.
Once they’d finished and cleaned up—he dried and she washed—they’d brought the rest of her things into the house.
She busied herself getting the layout of the closet and the built-in drawers. It was a weird thing she knew. But organizing stuff made her relax, enabled her to let go of all the insanity of the last months and focus on some problem solving. Not just where her socks would go, but how to organize the new teams going out into the field.
She turned to see him pocket a silver box. One she’d noticed on a side table earlier.
“What’s that?”
“An old silver piece. It doesn’t really go in here.” He looked her over with that face of his and she forgot why she had that little frisson of uncertainty.
“This is your home too. I want you to . . . feel that. Put things where you like them. Tell me what color you want walls to be and I’ll take care of it. Don’t like the bedding? I can change that.”
“You’re such a prince.” She grinned as she watched him as he stalked her way. “I have no doubt you can snap your fingers and make all sorts of things happen.”
“I am what I am, alamah, and you’ll need to get used to that too. I want you to be happy. I’ll do what it takes to make that happen.” He shrugged as if most people were that way when they weren’t. Despite how fast things had jumped from hot chemistry to ohmigod you’re it for me, it moved her that he was so focused on her well-being. No one had ever been that for her. It was overwhelming but in a good way.
“I’m really hard to live with.” She shrugged. And then she remembered the box. Funny thing about having such a sharp memory. There was a stylized L on the lid. Lydia perhaps?