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When I finally slid my eyes back over, Nova’s pointed gaze stayed with me, watching, saying nothing but everything. And then Mary was beside him, desperately shielding herself from the rain with thin arms, curvy but tiny body barely holding against the forceful wind. Nova’s tragic air receded like a fog in daylight, and our gaze broke.
Smiling, the demon looked down at the wind-battered woman and opened his umbrella to keep the rain off her. My superior hearing picked up their conversation from the curb, and I didn’t want to acknowledge how quickly it made my throat tight.
“I wanted to give this to you,” she said shyly, passing him a piece of paper. “Thank you for thinking of me today, and I hope…” Her eyes stole over to me before she wrapped her arms around her ample chest, cleavage popping out. “Well, I hope you call me sometime. I’ll buy you dinner as thanks.”
Forget the fact that I was the one who did all the thinking about her, but I couldn’t fathom the feeling coming into my throat, coating it in acid.
I watched Nova give her one of his typical charming dude smiles, taking the slip of paper as any polite person would, and my eyes followed her hand as she touched him, blatantly flirting. Then, leaning closer to him, she said something else I didn’t hear over the loud clap and thunderous groan of the storm.
My clothes clung to my body and water washed down my arms and legs. I licked moisture from my lips, blinking away unforgiving sprays, but my gaze was frozen on the other two.
Why does my stomach hurt?
Before I realized what I was doing, I popped the helmet over my pink hair and threw a leg over the bike—wanting nothing more than to leave, get out of here, go somewhere I didn’t have to deal with these…feelings.
Swallowing the odd sensation in my throat, I wrapped my arms around Fable’s waist and felt the muscles in the angel’s body flex and move, almost as if he hadn’t expected it. I was soaked to my underwear, so my frontside fused with Fable’s back in a way that gave my heart a little start.
Intense, overpowering heat bled through the angel’s thick coat like I’d put my body right in front of a fire, and I couldn’t help but gasp in surprise. This dude was like a bagillion degrees. Was he made of sunlight? With enough time, all it’d take was for me to be pressed up against him and my body would be dry.
I idly wondered if that was why he didn’t look as drenched as the rest of us did. A part of me was a little disappointed his clothes didn’t cling to his shape, but hell if I’d ever admit it.
Stealing a look to where Nova had been, a pang hit my chest when he wasn’t anywhere in sight. Mary was gone, too. I mean, I’d expect nothing less in this weather, but it made me wonder if he’d been a gentleman and walked her to her car.
That would definitely be a Nova thing to do, and I wasn’t sure what bothered me so much about him taking a woman who clearly didn’t know she was working in a lion’s den to her car. If he didn’t offer, I would have, so I wasn’t sure what my deal was today.
Indigestion from eating an entire basket of rolls, then a burger the size of my head, maybe?
What I did know was that the feeling was back. But this time, it lodged in my chest and made me shift uncomfortably behind Fable.
Gold-colored eyes caught mine over a broad shoulder, and the angel’s mouth quirked up. “Hold on tight, sweetie.”
“Call me sweetie or darling one more time and I’ll throw you off this bike and drive myself,” I warned in a guttural voice.
Fable’s head whipped back and his belly-deep laughs were smothered out by electric cracks and angry thunder. Then the angel revved his bike and sped off down the street, maneuvering around cars and through alleyways like he had it all mapped out in his head.
Away from the city.
Away from Nova.
FABLE DISCARDED HIS HEAVY LEATHER jacket after showing me into a house just outside the bump and thump of the city.
It wasn’t as rich-person fancy as Nova’s ungodly large home, which surprised me. I’d expected another Hammond moment, where I commented about the lavish space and gagged. But the place the angel took me to was cozy.
Not a million-dollar home, but one that likely held a million memories. The type of home you remembered. The home a girl who’d spent an entire life being dragged from one place to the next, never truly having a home to call her own, would pine over.
“One day, it’ll be you and me, kid. We’ll hang up our weapons and find a cozy place just for our group to live,”Aidan had once said to me, taunting future violence because he knew better than to refer to me in a patronizing way. But his eyes had danced with so much hope for that future, I couldn’t tease or punish him.
Of course, I’d quickly argued that he’d never convince me to give up my bat, but it was his long-game dream—our little Shadow Stalker family home.
The vicious burn of guilt was back in my throat, and I damned my inability to lock down my pain the way I always had. Lately, it felt like more and more I was feeling things I didn’t want to. More and more, I was faced with the reality that I could still hurt like the rest of them.
Fable’s caramel eyes found me over his shoulder before he pivoted with his arms out, gesturing to the space. “Welcome to my humble abode, Lady,” he announced, then stripped out of his now-dry white shirt.
I didn’t let the surprise show on my face from where I stood, bat on my shoulder, ready to bash the grossly large otherworld being should I need to. I adopted my usual bored expression and let my eyes wander over the room first before greedily taking in every detail about his body.
The sheer size of this man was inhuman. Or the dude did a lot of steroids. The tattoos were all down his arms, a pattern along both of his sides, and one partly across his collar and pecs. But his stomach didn’t have much in the way of ink. Instead, a rippling mountain range of abs were left bare for my greedy eyes.
Sculpted like a Greek god, this one.
