his word, the hellhound shifter eased up on the stunts, and even with the—okay—terror dwindling to a tamer uneasiness, I managed to summon enough sparks to burn up a few more strips by dredging up that sensation.
I hadn’t realized he’d swung around to arrive at the bus lot until he parked just outside it. I pulled myself away from him and clambered off the bike, figuring a little space was in order now, but the smile he shot me—the brightest and most genuine one I’d seen from him so far—brought back that pulse-thump of attraction.
That was okay, wasn’t it? I didn’t have any plans to actually jump his bones or anything. Why couldn’t a gal simply have unusual taste in men, as Vivi had put it?
“You’re getting a handle on it,” he said.
“Maybe not such a disaster after all?”
“We’ll see how it goes tonight.” He said that part dryly, but his gaze didn’t feel quite as icy as usual as it lingered on my face. “You have kept up all right so far.”
Coming from him, that was the highest of praise. Had I brought the hound to heel?
I found myself grinning back at him. “And you only took a little convincing.”
He snorted, but then his good humor seemed to fade. He motioned me toward the lot. “I’ve got to stash Charlotte. See if the others have made any progress with the final details. We’ve wasted enough time getting your issues sorted out already.”
Then he drove off without another word, leaving me caught in a different sort of whiplash.
23
Sorsha
Our hosts only looked a little put out when Ruse opted to make a run for Thai take-out instead of the rest of us digging into their stash of actual grass and other fine greens. “They make a great salad too,” Bow said, holding up his plate of foliage. He studied the containers of rice noodles and creamy curries with a puzzled expression as if he couldn’t work out why anyone would choose to put those things into their bellies.
“I need protein for brain food,” I said. “It’s… a mortal thing.” It seemed politest not to mention that eating grass and clover wasn’t a human thing in any scenario I was aware of.
Omen was flipping through the photos and blueprints we’d gotten for the Wharf Street building on a tablet Ruse had charmed out of our hacker-on-call. “Don’t feel bad for her,” the incubus had told me. “She has a stack of them twice as tall as your dragon.” Snap tucked his arm around me on the RV’s sofa.
I gave in to the urge to feed the devourer a tidbit of green curry chicken off my fork. His tongue flicked over his lips to absorb the lingering traces of spice, and his pupils dilated.
“It has a sweetness, and also so much heat.” His smile took on a sly slant. “I can see why you like it, Peach.”
“Shut up,” I said, and kissed him on the cheek so he’d know my light tone meant I was joking.
Ruse had tucked himself in at the table by my other side, not quite as cuddly as Snap but with more of his usual laidback air. Whatever he’d been tense about before, our recent interlude of three must have cured it. His eyes twinkling, he swiped his thumb over a speck of sauce at the corner of my lips and sucked it into his own mouth.
Oh, yeah, I was made of heat. A wash of it had pooled between my thighs before he even rested a teasing hand on my leg under the table.
“The best place to get some fiery action going would be here,” Omen said, zooming in on an image. “How close do you think you’d need to get, Sorsha?”
If I could get the building burning in the first place? I sucked my lower lip under my teeth as I considered. “I don’t know. I moved the flames on the camper van from something like fifty feet away, but that was just propelling what was already there—plus I was trying to stop those guys from murdering Thorn. I don’t think I’d like to go at this with the same inspiration. But maybe, if we come down this alley, I could get a lot closer than that without getting caught anyway.”
“While the rest of us stay in the shadows. That could work. And where would you dodge to—oh, let me guess, that window wouldn’t be too much of a scramble for you?” The corner of his mouth