phone. “What’s with you this morning? Has the idea of buying a winery gotten you all squirrelly or something?”
His smile faltered and an uncomfortable expression crossed his face. Apparently not.
“I was just wondering…” He scratched his temple before moving through his room, the camera showing the light brown stubble on his chin. The image bounced as he set down the phone, and when it settled, I found myself staring at his chest. The urge to take a screenshot was strong. “Edgar is working on translating a part of the book that should allow you to set magical snares.” To everyone’s surprise, Edgar had been chosen to translate a book that acted as instruction for my magic. He had to but (laboriously) read a passage and the knowledge for that spell blossomed in me as though I’d known it all along. “He’s not exactly sure what those snares might do when triggered—blow someone up, rip off a leg, sound an alarm, discreetly let you know someone has tracked through them… Can you squeeze some training in to go over it? By the way, what’s the status with his flowers? I forgot to ask when I spoke to him earlier.”
I stopped working the brush through my hair for a moment. His muscles lengthened and contracted as he pulled a beige shirt down over his abs.
“I can get a training in, yeah, but are you serious?” I finally asked. “You suddenly have an interest in Edgar’s flowers?”
He bent until his face took up my view once again, his smile infectious. “Think I’ve gone native?”
“I don’t think I’d be able to handle it if you turned as weird as that vampire.”
He laughed. “I want to know if he’s found out what’s eating them. I haven’t smelled anything suspicious around the property, but I want to make sure the flower prowler poses no threat.” He bent until I saw the top of his head.
“You put your shirt on before your pants?” I asked, unable to help it. Watching his morning routine fascinated me.
“Yeah, don’t you?”
“No, pants before shirt. Though I usually start with panties, then a bra, then pants. Since you don’t have a bra, I suppose it makes sense to go from underwear to a shirt, then on to pants… I can see that. If you put your underwear on before the shirt, that is.”
His eyes found mine from beneath thick black lashes. He didn’t speak for a moment, but then he straightened up, his shirt bunching as he brought his hands up to secure his pants. “I’ll be shifting today, probably a few times. I’m free-balling it. One less thing to keep track of.”
My face heated and I looked away, back to brushing my hair. “No purple sweats?”
“No. In case you change.”
“Why should that determine your choice of pants?”
“I’m tired of the purple sweats making it seem like I’ve looked when I haven’t.”
My face flamed a little hotter. Every time I stripped before shifting, he turned completely around so he couldn’t accidentally look, a courtesy I never afforded him. Even still, his sweats were always tented by the time he turned back. If Niamh was there, she’d inevitably accuse him of using a mirror to look over his shoulder. She liked to make an awkward situation worse. It was part of her charm.
“How are jeans going to help with that? I assume you’re wearing jeans?”
“Jeans are uncomfortable as hell when you have a hard-on and no briefs.”
“Ah. So that’s the real reason you’re free-balling it—trying to force self-control.”
His lopsided smile was adorable. “That purple sucks, anyway. It in no way matches your other form. It’s much too drab.”
I laughed and stood with the phone, dropping the towel into the laundry. It would be interesting to see who came in to grab it—Mr. Tom, as usual, or my mother, whom I’d banned from doing my laundry in my teens because she shrank everything but wouldn’t give me money to buy more. The ban hadn’t worked. She hated seeing clothes in the laundry basket. The woman was a machine.
“When did you want to train?” I asked, flicking on the light in my spacious closet and propping up the phone on my dresser, against my jewelry box.
Austin was on the move again, walking through his house, a place I’d never been. I had only been to his cabin on the lake, a place he usually didn’t tell people about.
“I have to hit the bar and put in a couple orders,” he said, “but I can run