and dirty…”
“And you were gorgeous then too,” Lex finished for me.
“Don’t forget how lucky you are.” Logan clapped Lex’s shoulder. “Northsea women are complete pains-in-the-ass, but they’re worth it.”
“I heard that,” Piper said from the front door. She carried a paper bag from the Baby Supply Depot. She had left on her shopping trip with Kai and Nick and Arthur in tow, and I had to wonder how much nesting material she’d picked up this time around that they’d actually let her carry a bag. My sister’s mates had crossed the line lately from merely adoring to straight-up worshipful.
“I know.” Logan flashed her a devilish grin. “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise. I’m being honest, not disloyal.”
She rolled her eyes, but still crossed the distance to grab his hand and pull him away down the hall. “Leave the kids alone. They don’t need to know how bad married life is.”
I heard him laugh out loud, right before the sound broke off. The two of them must be kissing. Eight years together—and Piper pregnant with twins now—and they were still madly in love.
“It’s a nightmare,” Logan teased distantly, and then there was a faint crash as the two of them bumped into something, like they were once again making out so intensely that they were willing to get bruised for it. I winced at the sound.
“You know, you guys already knocked her up!” I called.
Lex shook his head at me, his lips pursing but quirked in amusement. His mischievous lips were made for me to kiss, and I felt a familiar ache—of lust, but more than that, of longing. Lex made me so happy that I always wanted more of him, even when he was right there.
“They are embarrassing. And hard on the furniture,” I told him.
“I think it’s sweet,” he said. He held his hand out to me, and I came down the last few steps to take it. “I hope you and I are that happy one day. I hope you don’t get sick of me.”
He drew me into his arms, against his body, and I tilted my head back as his lips met mine. Lex’s kiss was sweet and tentative, the way it always was in my sister’s house.
That soft kiss was a lie, though. Lex was full of passion and certainty.
“What do you mean, someday?” I asked, as hand-in-hand, we headed through the front door and across the porch. We were off on an adventure, a date night in the city. I waved goodbye to Arthur and Kai as they wrestled an enormous box out of the trunk of my sister’s car.
He frowned. “You know…sometimes people aren’t as happy as their relationship goes on.”
“Yeah,” I said. I had never seen that, though. My mother’s marriage had ended unhappily, after I was kidnapped by the coven that had raised me. My father was missing, presumed dead.
My sister’s ridiculously happy marriage was the only up-close-and-personal example that I had.
“I assume my parents were happy at some point, even though the other’s continued existence makes them miserable now.” He swung my car door open for me. “Now, do we have to talk about failed relationships on our way to what is hopefully a romantic date?”
“I can’t wait to see what you planned,” I said,. “Pretty sure it’s going to make-or-break whether I get sick of you.”
“I didn’t know things were so dire.” He ran his hand through his hair, feigning distress. “Or maybe I would’ve planned something more exciting than Taco Bell.”
The charade didn’t hold. When I smiled, he finally gave in to a grin that lit his blue eyes. His light brown hair was sun-streaked above his tanned, big-jawed, gorgeous face, and I couldn’t resist that smile. I leaned over the console to kiss him.
We’d been together since we met at my prospective student visit to the academy. The chemistry between the two of us was instantaneous and hot, and it had only grown more intense once he came to stay with me for the summer. It wasn’t possible for me to grow sick of Lex.
The two of us drove through Blissford, passing the high school I’d graduated from in June—no more pretending to be normal for me, thank Cain—and then took the highway to the city. He played Taylor Swift without me having to tease him for it now, and I bobbed my head to the music. I caught him smiling. There was a reason he’d surrendered his old driver-picks-the-music rules.
Dusk was falling across the sky, like a