blood and bad magic.
Snake man.
Hold still, the older, smarter part of him said. Don’t do anything. Cody. Don’t move.
Cody pulled the covers over his head, hiding Kitten under the blankets too. He held still. He held his breath. He wanted the tears to stop falling down his face, but they fell anyway. The older, smarter part of him was gone, so far away, and Cody felt all alone again. But he held still just like the older, smarter part of him had told him to.
The buzzing got stronger, and spread under his skin. The bees were angry. They buzzed all the way up to his throat because the Snake man told them to. They buzzed around her heart because the Snake man told them to. They wanted to buzz inside his head, but the older, smarter part of him had done something so they couldn’t get in.
Cody held still. He tried not to scream, but a tiny, scared sound came out of him.
The Snake man looked and looked. The bees buzzed and buzzed.
It felt like it took a long time. A really long time before the bees flew back down away from his head. Away from his throat. Away from his heart.
Finally the bees stopped being mad. They all went back inside his scar and didn’t buzz around anymore and didn’t move around anymore.
The Snake man stopped looking.
Cody was alone again.
He was glad the bees were gone. He was glad the Snake man was gone too. But he was afraid they would come back. Come back and hurt him.
It’s okay, the older, smarter part of him said. He sounded far away and tired. Go to sleep. We’re safe for now.
Cody didn’t feel safe, but he did feel tired. He made an opening in the blanket so Kitten could breathe cool air better. Then he went to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Someone was staring at me. I could feel it even before I opened my eyes. I breathed in, trying to orient myself by the smells around me. I got a noseful of flower, soap, and dog.
Nola’s place. The house was quiet, and no light came through my eyelids. It was night. Everyone else sounded asleep too.
So who was staring at me?
I opened my eyes just enough to see. Darkness and nothing else.
No, someone was watching me. I glanced at the doorway, and in the uncertain light from a night-light by the hallway floorboards, I could see the dark shape of Zayvion sitting on the couch.
Staring at me. He looked like he’d been awake for a while. Alert. Wary. I wondered if I’d missed something.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a hushed voice.
A fleeting memory of a nightmare, bones and pain and blood, slipped from my thoughts. The sides of my cheeks were wet. I’d been crying.
“I’m fine,” I said. Except I was alone. Except I wanted someone to hold me, wanted someone to comfort me, even if for only one night. The memory of the kiss in the car made me ache for the taste of him. It would just be one night. One night before I had to pick up my real life and deal with it again. I wondered if he’d say yes.
I sat. “Zayvion?” I whispered.
Light licked amber across the muscles of his arms, bare chest, stomach, and thighs as he stood and silently made his way across the living room. He paused at the doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. Shadows moved across his face, hiding his lips, but I could see his eyes, burning bright.
“Yes?”
“Would you hold me?” I asked.
“Just hold you?”
I answered him by pulling off my T-shirt. He grunted like I’d just hit him in the stomach. I sat there, half- naked, cold. I wanted his warmth, wanted the safety of his arms around me.
“More than that,” I said.
He still stood in the doorway, dark, motionless, and silent, except for the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed more quickly.
After a long pause, I realized I had made a mistake. He was going to say no. Maybe the kiss in the car and the kiss outside the deli had all been one-sided—had all been me assuming there was an attraction between us that was not there.
“I’m sorry,” I said reaching for the T-shirt next to me. “I thought you wanted—”
“No,” he said, cutting me off. “I do want.”
Those words seemed to decide something for him. He finally moved. He let go of the doorjamb he’d been holding onto and snapped his fingers. Jupe lifted his big head and thumped his tail on the hardwood floor.
“Out,” Zay said. He snapped again and pointed to the living room. Jupe yawned and dutifully walked out of the room, like he and Zay had been buddies for years instead of hours.
Nola had left Jupe here to guard me, to keep me from sleeping with Zay. Probably because she thought getting serious with a man I barely knew wasn’t a good idea. But Nola hadn’t had everything in her life go to hell. She hadn’t been chased, hurt, accused. She hadn’t gotten sick from watching a little boy almost die, hadn’t had her father lie through shared blood, hadn’t overdosed on magic to try to fix a stranger’s stab wound.
She hadn’t told her father for the last and final time that she hated him, then had him die on her before she could say she was sorry.
Zay quietly shut the door and padded across the room. He paused and stood in front of me.
Electricity trembled through me. I reached up and placed my palm against his chest, my hand a ghost of ivory against the darkness and heat of his skin. I drew my palm slowly down the tight muscles of his stomach and paused at his waistband.
“I want you,” I whispered.
He leaned toward me and I leaned back, lifting the covers so he could come with me to this soft and sacred place. He waited as I tugged off my sweatpants and panties. I waited as he pulled off his boxers. In all the time since he had come into the room, and it felt like hours, days, he had not yet touched me, had not yet kissed me.
And I so desperately wanted him to.
Zayvion lay beneath the covers beside me and finally, finally, drew his hand up my hip, my ribs, and over the curve of my breast. I shuddered in pleasure. He brushed his thumb over my nipple, paused to circle it gently. I moaned and met his lips with my own.
Desire echoed through me and I trembled with need. I tangled my legs with his and leaned back, bringing Zay on top of me, the weight of his strong, wide body pressing me into the soft embrace of the bed. He lowered his head and gently bit the hollow of my neck. Electricity flickered through me, wicked and warm, pooling between my thighs.
I was hot, needful, hungry.
I dragged my nails up his wide, lean back. I pushed my fingers into the thick curls of his hair, savoring the texture of him, and coaxed his lips down to mine. He breathed gently against my cheek, then finally, finally, his lips cradled mine, soft, hot. His tongue slipped sweetly into my mouth, seeking, stoking my passion. With every stroke of his strong, masculine heat, need rose in me. High. Higher.
The scent of pine, of musk, the salty-sweet taste of him, wrapped me, filled me.
I wanted more. More of him. All of him. I wanted this to never end.
Heat and pleasure stretched me, filled me so full, too full.
More.
I arched up, pressed against him, wrapped around him. The sliding heat of fire licked through me, growing,
