They were too much.
He pulled back and pressed his forehead to hers, needing a moment to get his unruly emotions back under control, before he did something that made him look like a fool.
Like tearing up.
Cass stroked his cheeks, her eyes fixed on his, the soft look in them saying it was too late and she already knew he was fighting emotions that were too powerful for him to handle.
He stared at her.
This had to last more than today, more than tomorrow. It had to last forever. He didn’t want to give her up, never wanted to be apart from her.
He had to convince her that duty wasn’t everything. Sometimes, it didn’t make you happy. Sometimes, it was a torment, one that it was better to turn your back on. He was testament to that. He had hated every moment he had been in this world, trapped here within his ice, separated from everyone he loved by fear of hurting them.
He stared deeper into her eyes, trying to see her true feelings about what her coven wanted her to do, hoping to catch a glimpse of them. She had ignored their summons on repeated occasions if the letter was to be believed. That had to mean she had her reservations about going through with this tradition, fulfilling her duty to the coven.
It had to.
He needed to get her to admit the real reason she had been avoiding returning to the coven.
Something vibrated.
His phone.
He frowned as he drew back from Cass, torn between saying what was on his mind, trying to get that confession from her, and answering it.
It could only be one of his brothers, and the last thing he needed was whoever was on the other end of the line stepping to his house and finding him tangled in the sheets with Cass.
Maybe he could wait for the call to end and then fire off a message to them.
He rolled and leaned over the edge of the bed, fished his jeans from the floor and pulled his phone from the pocket. He grimaced as a glowering picture of Ares filled the screen and he saw the notification at the top telling him he had nine missed calls and a lot of text messages.
Daimon twisted onto his back and sighed as his head hit the pillows.
“Ares,” he said as Cass gave him a curious look.
“Answer it.” She nudged his shoulder and he reached for her, but she evaded him, scooting to the edge of the bed to stand and tease him with her nakedness. “I’ll shower while you speak to him.”
Daimon groaned. “That’s not helping.”
He wanted to be in the shower with her, washing her, worshipping her.
She cast a pointed look at his hips beneath the covers. “It isn’t?”
He ignored the hard-on he was sporting and thoughts of forgetting his brother’s call and showering with Cass instead, and answered his phone.
“What’s up?” He gunned for casual and instantly regretted it when Ares’s voice boomed down the line.
“What’s up? What’s up! I’ll tell you what’s up, little brother,” Ares barked and Daimon flinched. “You go AWOL, Cass goes AWOL too, and then Cal tells me she went off to Antarctica, so I’m guessing she went after you, and then we don’t hear from either of you for hours. Hours.”
Daimon knew better than to take the pause as an invitation to speak. Ares was probably just wrestling his temper back under control, trying not to set his phone on fire.
Megan’s voice broke the tense silence, too distant for him to make out what she said.
A noisy scratching sound hit him and then Ares responded, muffled by his hand. “I’m dealing with it.”
A pause.
“No, I won’t play nice,” Ares grumbled. “Daimon knows better than to disappear like that.”
His brother huffed, whatever Megan said to him cooling some of his fire, because when he next spoke, he sounded around three hundred percent calmer.
“Fine.”
The scratching sound came again and then Ares’s voice, louder and clearer now.
“Cal told me something else too. Apparently, Cass can touch you. So, do we need to mount a rescue or is this a do not disturb situation like Cal thinks it is?”
Daimon wasn’t going to answer that question.
Apparently, his silence was answer enough for Ares.
“I’ll call off the search party then. Valen was looking ready to step to Hong Kong. You’re lucky you answered this time or you would have had unwelcome company.” Ares’s voice brightened, losing the hard edge, and he chuckled as Valen muttered something in the background, probably about stepping to Hong Kong to disturb them anyway. “Just be back before dark… and… be careful, okay?”
Now his brother sounded like a strict parent and it grated a little, but he let it slide because he had felt protective of Ares too when he had lost his power and found Megan.
Daimon had worried that Megan would end up hurting his brother. It was understandable that his brothers would feel the same concern about Cass.
“Sure,” he mumbled into the phone, shutting out the sound of the water running in the adjoining bathroom. “Tell Marinda that Cass is fine… but next time she wants to do something as reckless as following me to Antarctica without the appropriate protective gear, someone better stop her.”
“Got it.” Ares paused, as if he wanted to say something more, and then added, “Laters.”
Daimon ended the call and sank back against the mattress, his breath leaving him on a long sigh as he dropped the phone on the bed beside him and stared at the ceiling.
He wasn’t looking forward to returning to Tokyo.
He could only imagine how badly his brothers were going to tease him, and Cass.
Daimon tossed the navy covers aside and rolled from the bed, and huffed when the shower switched off, his opportunity to join Cass there slipping through his fingers.
It
