Another sleepy breath. “Are you chewing on me?”
“Complaining?”
He turned his head until our noses touched and studied me with grave sobriety.
My lips twitched.
Without warning, he rolled on top of me. The blankets tumbled off the bed as his mouth closed over mine. He kissed me slow and deep. I wrapped my arms around him—and, for good measure, I wrapped my legs around him too.
He rumbled against my mouth and pushed me into the bed with his hips. I moaned in answer. I loved sleeping naked. It made mornings so much more fun. And lucky for me, it’d taken exactly one morning together for Ezra to come around to my way of thinking.
Tearing my mouth away from his, I craned my neck to check the alarm clock glowing on my nightstand. Whoops. We’d slept in too long.
I rocked my hips against his. “We don’t have much time.”
His lips nuzzled down my throat. “Do we need that much time?”
I grinned. No, we did not. I could feel how ready he was.
We made it out of the bed not long after, sweaty and breathing hard. I stretched my arms over my head, arching my back. “How is it so hot? I was hoping for a cooler June.”
He kissed my shoulder on his way by, heading for the bedroom door. “We could talk Aaron into installing air conditioning and spend the summer with him.”
I wrinkled my nose. “No thanks.”
Ezra glanced back as he pulled my bedroom door open. “He only teased you a little, Tori.”
“He needs to grow up.”
Which wasn’t an entirely fair assessment, since Aaron had only started teasing me after he’d walked in on Ezra and I making out like horny teenagers in various rooms of his house about six times in two days.
“Speaking of Aaron,” Ezra added, “when is he arriving?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Oh, shit.”
As he hastened for the bathroom, I grabbed my lightweight housecoat and pulled it over my naked body. I didn’t strictly need to cover up in my own apartment, but I never knew where Twiggy might be lurking.
I hopped in the shower first while Ezra shaved. He’d made the switch from a scruffy jaw to clean-shaven shortly after Eterran’s exorcism. I wasn’t sure why he’d decided on the change and I hadn’t pestered him to explain.
Lots of things about Ezra had changed, some small and some big—but at his core, he was the same man I’d fallen in love with.
He wasn’t quite as cool-headed as he used to be—though not because he’d suddenly gotten temperamental. Not even close. He was as steady as ever, but he’d gradually become more opinionated. When he didn’t like something, he let us know. When we annoyed him, we definitely got to hear about it.
And I loved it—because after ten years of suppressing every spike of negative emotion, Ezra was letting himself feel again.
He wasn’t merely indulging in occasional grumpiness, though. His smile was brighter. His laugh was louder. His happiness was bolder. And his protectiveness of his friends was fiercer than before.
He was still soft-spoken. Still perceptive and kind. Still a little shy. But he was also evolving, growing, discovering who he was—and I was with him every step of the way.
We switched places in the shower, and I massaged hair product into my long curls while we discussed my training session tomorrow. Aaron was refusing to start me on a real weapon until I’d mastered my brass knuckles, which was completely unfair. I wanted a giant-ass sword like his because hell yes.
I opened the bathroom door, letting a wave of cold air inside. Wrapped in a towel, I hurried across the hall.
“Tori?”
I came up short. Twiggy had appeared near my legs, his prickly head tilted back as he peered intently at my face. See? This was why I didn’t walk around naked.
“Yes?” I inquired cautiously, knowing that the spinning-gears expression on his green face meant nothing good.
“Are you having a baby?”
I almost dropped my towel. Clutching it against my chest, I squeaked, “What? No!”
His waxy skin crinkled with his frown. “Then who’s your baby daddy?”
“What?”
“Is Ezra your—”
“No! I don’t have a baby or a baby daddy, Twiggy! What the hell?”
He continued to frown, then walked over to the bathroom, pushed the door open, and asked loudly, “Ezra, are you Tori’s baby daddy?”
“What?”
“Or is Aaron Tori’s baby daddy?”
“WHAT.”
As the shower abruptly shut off, a loud knock sounded at the other end of the house. Saved from trying to explain the idiot faery’s latest brainwave, I rushed down the hall and up the stairs to the back entryway.
Aaron’s eyebrows shot halfway to his hairline when I flung the door open. He gave my towel-clad self a swift once over, then sighed. “I even waited an extra five minutes in my car to be sure you weren’t naked when I got here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, Tori likes to bone her hot boyfriend, so funny.”
“Maybe I should get me one of those.”
“A hot boyfriend?”
“Or the girl variety.”
“Well, what’s stopping you?”
“Good ones are all taken.”
I snorted. “The problem is you’re too good, Aaron. The average girl can’t keep up with a guy like you.”
“I think that was a compliment?”
I waved a hand dismissively. “You know the drill?”
“Yep. I’ll keep him hostage while I try on every piece of combat gear available.”
I snickered. Poor Ezra. “He should be just about ready. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
“And I’ll wait in my car, just in case you lose your towel between now and him making it up the stairs.”
“Har har.”
He pushed through the screen door, and I hastened back down the stairs, already cringing over explaining Twiggy’s baby questions.
Ezra stood in the hall with a towel wrapped around his waist, but he didn’t seem to be waiting for
