Pretty Perfect Toy - Angel Payne Page 0,51

serenity of her own, she whispers. “Yes. I am.”

“In that case, you’re also crazy.”

She rises slowly on tiptoe, taking my bottom lip between both her own. So damn soft. So fucking sexy. “Probably.”

I dip my head, unable to resist the perfect taste of her…the incredible, insane waltz to which her soul has invited mine. “In that case, Miss Santelle…you’re also on.”

NINE

*

Mishella

My consciousness crawls out of the haze of sleep, into the strange place a brain goes when awakened by thoughts or circumstances beyond its norm.

In this case, both are true.

Before my eyes are open, I know I am not in my usual bed at Temptation. The body heat and soft snores of the man wrapped against me, smelling like cedar soap and sandalwood shampoo, supplies that clue before my eyes are open. I crack my gaze open by a little, smile by a little more, then burrow closer to Cassian, wondering how I gave this up for six long weeks. Being in this bed has not been the same as waking up in this bed, even if this still does not officially qualify as such an occasion. We have only been asleep for a few hours, after all…

What time is it?

Trying to gauge the hour by the light through the windows is fruitless. Summer showers were predicted and have arrived, spattering drops against the window beyond the Roman shades, and turning his bedroom into a collection of misty brown and gray. I peer around, conducting a slow study of the space that has become so familiar. The stark lines of the modern furnishings are mellowed by fixtures in graceful curls, cushions in soft fabrics, and the clothes Cassian tossed before taking thirty seconds of a shower—the door repaired by Hodge before we were even finished at the hospital—then falling into bed, his pain meds having finally kicked in.

I sigh quietly…and wish the same peace would make its way to my mind.

Instead, my thoughts are awake and ablaze in flashing, rioting colors.

Green. Gold. Red.

Green. Gold. Red.

Go. Slow. Stop.

Then again and again and again, taunting stoplights on the street race inside my mind. I need to go. Just let me floor it…

I push out a small huff, though it softens to a smile the moment a memory takes over. My first hour in the city. Cassian and I still on our way home in the Jag. The streets whizzing by, a kaleidoscope of amazing sights, sounds, color, humanity. And the streetlights, enrapturing me…

So when the lights turn red, everyone just stops? What if someone does not agree to that?

My smile grows, as I recall Cassian’s reaction. He’d given that special laugh, from deep in his chest…as if I had just given him the largest delight of our journey. Now, I know that I likely did—and that this man sat there, entertaining the possibility of being that one to not agree. That if he so wished, every light on our route would have indeed been green.

Cassian Court.

The man who has brought endless possibility to my life.

To my heart.

The confession is not new—though the fit of it in my psyche is. It presses a fascinating weight to my chest as I circle my stare back to him.

Unbelievable.

He takes my breath away even when lost to sleep, though it is in different ways than his “Mr. Court” mode. Stripped out of dark Prada and custom Ferragamo, the Bluetooth gone from his ear, he is like a massive lion freed from the zoo, allowed to laze in all his tawny glory…and latent danger.

I love him.

And there it is. The largest part of the danger. I love him—to frightening reaches of my heart and terrifying corners of my soul. But it took him lying in the Bryant Park bushes, bleeding from the three bullets in his body because of defending me, for fate to clonk me over the head with that truth, as well as its peculiar gift of an aftermath.

Hiding does not take away the fear.

And only makes the vulnerability worse.

I refuse to accept weakness about something that has brought me such strength—someone I want to give strength to. No moment coalesced those conclusions more than standing with Cassian in the living room this morning, and embracing him in the spirit of that bright, amazing courage.

You’re serious.

Yes. I am.

In that case, you’re also crazy.

A new smile lifts my lips from the memory. “I am crazy about you, Cassian Court.”

I confess it as quietly as I can but the vibrations tickle the valley between his biceps. His