by Jax Garren
“Crazy boy, is that a yes? I am warning you we are going to move slow.”
For some reason he just laughed. “Em, I’ve got a demon lab partner to figure out how to work with, and we’re studying science for which there is no precedent. Meanwhile, I’m moving into a new apartment in vampire central and figuring out how to staff a modern medical ward with as many midwives and other reasonably scientific healers as I can find, then filling gaps with homeopaths and people who believe in ether. I have my hands full with life. Slow is all I’ve got to offer right now.”
She couldn’t help grinning as she realized he was shooting straight. He did have his hands full with other things. There was no pressure on her to be a high-performance girlfriend. “Well, then,” she said, straightening the collar of the lab coat he’d put on earlier to treat survivors—looking so professional and smart and sexy. “To answer your earlier questions, I would like to be in charge of moving forward, if that’s all right with you?”
“Yes, please.” Worry crept back onto his happy face. “And nothing until you’re ready. I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted.”
“Yeah, yeah, I…” She trailed off as she thought about his words a little more carefully. His problem wasn’t the normal macho “must please woman.” Growing up the way he had, he was used to being shuffled around and kicked out. What he was saying came from a much deeper place of needing a home where he was not just put up with, but loved and appreciated.
She put her hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry I haven’t always been honest with you. I didn’t realize how much it hurt. I’ll do better.” She felt heat creep up into her cheeks again. “But one place you are most definitely wanted is kissing me whenever the fancy strikes you. I think I would get lonely if I was the only one always leaning in. That okay with you?”
He gave her a smile so boisterous she might even call it boyish. “Yes, ma’am, that is definitely okay with me.” And with that his arms came back around her as he pulled her against him, close but not too tight, in a way that was comfortable and yet made her skin feel electric. “This okay?”
She nodded. Definitely okay. More than. She should tell him that. “Yes, please.” She even tilted her face up, hoping he was about to lean down and—
His lips descended on hers softly, moving just enough to send shivers down her back and steal her breath. She didn’t have to do any more than this—there was no mental preparation required for what came next—which meant she could clear that clutter from her brain and just concentrate on the moment.
And the moment, with Javi’s hands pressed securely on her back and his lips gentling hers, was perfect.
Chapter Twenty-Six
One month later…
Fairy lights in jars and clusters of candles softly illuminated the living room in Rhi’s new condo, casting a glow on the happy faces of vampires seated on couches and chairs and sprawled on the floor—mostly member of CoVIn’s elite. But Javier was among them, with Emma, Vince, and Charlie, somehow in the group of royalty, military commanders, psychics, and a… whatever Elvira was. And everyone treated him like he belonged.
“To my best friend in the world,” Vince said, lifting his glass to Rhi, his arm casually around his fiancé. “You’ve done beautiful work with the place. About damn time, girl!”
Glasses shot up all over the room, but Rhiannon lifted her head from Cash’s thigh, where they lounged on the couch, and looked at Javier, her smile only halfway there. He knew what she was feeling. He’d felt the exact same way when he’d moved out of Danielle’s—excited about the possibilities, relieved for himself, and terrified for what would happen to his mother. Back then, he’d tried to get Rhi to come with him, but she’d stayed. And now Danielle had no one to stop her from free-falling.
He lifted his glass of extra-red wine, pointing it at her as he told her what she needed to hear. “I’m proud of you. We’ll help when we can, but you did the right thing.” He’d met with his mom and offered to pay for rehab and classes at a technical school, and she’d ignored all of that to scream that he’d “poisoned my own daughter against me.”
He wished he could say she couldn’t hurt him anymore. He’d be lying.
Emma pressed a kiss to the top of his head and slid onto his lap in the overstuffed armchair he’d claimed, comforting him with a touch and then smoothly changing the subject to pull them out of the encroaching maudlin. “I gotta admit, I wasn’t too sure about that orangey-brown wall color you had us painting, but you got this furniture in here and all them witchy things on the walls, and it’s right homey. I got the cooking skills, but I sure didn’t get the decorating part of the homemaker skill set. Maybe one of these days I’ll get you to help me set up my own space nice.”
“You moving out on me already, Em?” Cash asked as Rhi lay back down, and he ran his hand reassuringly through her hair. The proprietary move—without any commitment behind it—didn’t bother Javier the way it had used to. Rhi was happier than Javi had ever seen her—the pretty-boy prince had more to him than the glam veneer—and though Javier still thought Cash was crazy, and Cash thought he was boring, they were starting to get along.
“What, free lodging in a mansion with a pool? Ah, hell no. I was just gonna repaint my room, maybe use my new giant nonprofit salary to thrift shop some new-to-me pieces—seeing as I can’t afford my roommates’ fancy services.” She grinned at Charlie and Vince, two exquisite artisans who both commanded high-end commissions.
Charlie rolled his eyes. “You can ‘thrift shop’ for free at the warehouse where I keep everything I never sold. I believe you could outfit several houses.”
Vince’s head whipped around. “You have a warehouse of unsold furniture?”
Charlie’s ears turned pink. “I experiment when I’m upset about something. I don’t always sell my experiments. Take that over several hundred years…”
“I want to see!”
Javier stifled a smile as the two of them geeked out over design history and craft movements from the past two hundred years as they headed for the kitchen to pack the remains of their potluck contribution. He’d had his doubts about them early on—Charlie and Vince had vastly different personalities. Turned out their shared love for art gave them something in common, while their differences just made them stronger together than apart.
He ran his fingers through Emma’s short hair. She’d decided to keep it just about chin length, which brought out the elfin quality of her face. Add the traffic-stopping red lipstick she’d started sporting, and he had a hard time keeping his hands to himself around her.
Unfortunately, between him staffing a medical facility and learning how to safely work with a demon partner and her starting up Emma’s Eats and Treats, they hadn’t seen much of each other since the day they’d stopped the zombie apocalypse.
He’d helped stop an apocalypse. How nuts was that?
But the little time he had spent with Emma had been different, or at least he thought so. Good different, more relaxed and fun, like the night they’d first met, but without the sex. Which was fine. He wanted her to be happy. But he wasn’t sure how to move forward from here—or if she even wanted to. Or what the rules were or where they were heading toward. But they had time—all the time in the world, actually—to figure it out.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Emma whispered in his ear, her voice low and sending shivers through him.
He shrugged, embarrassed she’d caught him thinking about her. “Just, uh, glad you’re here.”
She squeezed him quickly. “Me too.” Then she tensed up, and he wondered what was going through her head. Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long. “So, uh, judging by the time, Vince’ll be dragging Charlie out of here soon so they got time to bone each other senseless before Charlie sun-sleeps.”
Javier slapped a hand over his face before he snorted a laugh. “I didn’t need to hear that.”
She grinned. “It’s cute! They’re so in love, it just makes the house happy. ‘Hash
tag relationship goals,’ as one of my ladies says.”
The trendy language coming out of her mouth made him laugh in earnest. “Yes, they are.”
“So I was thinking…” She hesitated, stiffening up again as her cheeks pinkened.
“Yeah?”
“Well, since they do like having the house to themselves, and Cash is planning to stay here tonight, I was thinking maybe it would be nice for me to stay here too.” Her eyes got so wide with nervous hope he got confused.
“Here… at Rhi’s?”
She scoffed. “No, doofus. Why would I stay at your sister’s? At, you know, your place. I ain’t ready to”—she glanced around the room, lowered her voice, and took off talking at a racehorse pace—“go all the… well, dammit… not ready for sex yet. My therapist says I gotta quit using euphemisms when I’m talking about myself. It’s weird how my mouth has no filter with other people, then I clam up when it comes to my own life. But anyways, I told her I thought it’d sure be nice to wake up with you sometimes, but I didn’t think that was fair to you. And she said I should tell you that and quit making assumptions about what you’re thinking. And I am so not used to that because you always gotta figure out what someone else is thinking or you’ll get into trouble, right? But I figure if I’m going to see her, I should at least try the shit she says, so… yeah. I want to have a… a slumber party, I think they call it now, because I have the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old.”
He cupped her face with his hands—she’d said that was okay—and she stopped talking to look at him with a panicked gaze. “I’d love that,” he assured her. Then he pulled her face down for a quick kiss to reassure her. She’d also said kisses were okay, which he’d happily taken advantage of whenever they had managed to see each other.
But when he tried to pull back, she didn’t let him. Her lips parted, and her tongue darted out, exploring his mouth carefully. He loved that she moved slowly, testing each advance thoroughly, like a science experiment. Being her test subject aroused the hell out of him. One of her hands slid into his hair, tugging him closer to her, and he sighed against her, letting his own hands wander the back of her slim frame.
“Guess that answers my next question,” Vince interrupted.
They were in public. Javier backed away, his face heating at the gentle harassment as he bumbled for something to say. “Next question?”
Vince’s grin got even bigger. “Emma told me she was thinking about doing something wild and crazy like spending the night with her boyfriend, but she wasn’t sure you’d say yes.”
So she was still calling him her boyfriend. He’d wondered—hoped, but wondered. They really needed to talk. He squeezed her knee, and her fingers curled in his hair again. “You were going to ask if I said yes?”
“Oh hell no. I was going to ask if she’d gotten up the ovaries to talk to you, because of course you’d say yes.”
Emma frowned at him. “You couldn’t know that. I didn’t know that. We have a complicated history.”
Vince shared a look with his fiancé, then smirked at Emma. “You do remember Charlie and I getting together, right?”
“She was living in the house with us when it happened,” Charlie interjected mildly.
Vince grinned. “Right. And that was our second go at a relationship. We know complicated. You two have fun tonight. I’m going to see how far my future husband can make it toward the car like this.” He held their entwined hands up.
“Shut up,” Charlie grumbled, tugging Vince toward the door.
“You made it halfway through the lobby holding hands last time. I was so proud.”
Charlie opened the door, still grumbling, “I was trying to explain to Max how a dovetail works, and I couldn’t do it with one hand!”
“Excuses, excuses,” Vince teased. The door shut behind them.
From the couch, Cash motioned at the bar cart. “You guys want another round?”
Javier didn’t want another round. He wanted to go back to his place with Emma. “I’m good, thanks.” But he didn’t get up, waiting for her to say… something.
She did him one better, hopping up. “I think we’re going to go too, if that’s okay with you, Javi. We ain’t had much time together lately, what with me starting a business—that’s a lot of work, y’all!—and him having a demon lab partner and whatnot.”
“Still got your soul?” Rhiannon teased. Or, judging by the hint of anxiousness in her eyes, maybe she wasn’t.
“Think so,” Javier answered, standing up. “It’s definitely been an experience.” To his surprised delight, Emma took his hand, just like Charlie had grabbed Vince’s. And despite Vince’s teasing, it had been Charlie taking his fiancé’s hand, not the other way around.
“An experience how?” Cash asked with what appeared to be genuine curiosity. “I’ve never spent time with one. You’re outdoing me, here, doc.”
“He’s odd, but it’s like working with someone from a totally different culture—one where you never express gratitude and death isn’t something to avoid at all costs. I’m learning to work with him.” He squeezed Emma’s hand. “Em actually got him to say ‘thank you’ the other day. It was a whole negotiation. Pretty hilarious.”
Rhiannon snorted and turned to Emma. “How did you do that?”
She chuckled. “He’s just like a lot of my girls—nobody taught him any manners.”
When she didn’t continue, Javier prompted, “She brought a box of baked goods to the hospital for the staff—really sweet of her.” And they’d made out in his office. Before Marbas had walked in.
Emma smiled at him as if she was thinking about the same thing. “He really wanted a lemon tart. I wouldn’t give him one unless he said thank you.”
“But she was really specific about what he had to say and how he had to behave, which seemed to work for him because it sounded like a contract. It was a smart way to handle him. I took notes.” He winked at her.
She blushed. “Oh, I don’t know about that, but he was pretty funny about it. What’d he say?” She mimicked his overly serious tone, “‘I shall receive a cookie and, in exchange, give a verbal thank you and, upon consumption, either issue a compliment or say nothing.’ I had to teach him that part about how you can’t be rude to someone—you know, like whining about nuts or something—when they give you food.”
“Damn those whiners.” Cash scoffed. “I’m going to come annoy you guys in the lab sometime so I can meet him.”
Rhiannon slapped his thigh. “You’re going to get your soul condemned to hell.”
“I don’t believe in hell.”
“Then where did the demon come from, you idjit?”
Emma tugged, pulling Javier toward the door. Far more interested in the promise in her smile than the ridiculous argument in this room, Javier followed. “Congrats on the place, sis. It looks great.” He gave Rhi another reassuring smile. She took a deep breath and nodded at him.
Cash’s eyes narrowed just a bit, as if he noticed her distress. Then he turned to Javi and Emma, and with a dangerous twinkle in his eyes said, “Adios, amigos. Have fun storming her castle.”
Rhiannon bolted up to sitting and smacked him on the chest, her slide into regret forgotten. “Cash!”
“What?” he said, all innocent.
Another smack. “You are so crass!”
Javier pulled Emma out the door before he started laughing or smacked Cash himself—he wasn’t sure which. “Sorry about that. He—”
“Figures we can handle ourselves and is looking out for your sister. I know.” She pulled him toward the elevator and leaned against his chest as they waited for it. Her weight against him felt lovely and peaceful, something he’d never thought they could have. She sighed. “It’s going to be a while before I got my head screwed on right.”
He chuckled. “Oh, that’s something we can do? Get our heads screwed on right? I kinda figured I was going to be working toward sanity for the rest of my very long life. Never actually, you k
now, getting there. But hey, in a thousand years or so, who knows?”
That made her outright laugh as the doors opened and she pulled him into the elevator. Outside the glass walls, CoVIn stretched beneath them in all its security and prestige—a life he and Emma belonged to. His home and his people.
Emma wrapped an arm around his waist and looked down with him as the elevator descended to his floor. “I’ve never felt so safe as I do with you.”
He swallowed. They had a long way to go, but he was allowing himself to believe they would stick it this time. “I’ve never felt so at peace as I do with you.” He snorted as he poked her in the ribs. “The last month anyway. Before that…”
She shrieked and backed away. The doors opened, and she hustled out of them, her sassy grin practically begging him to follow her. He chased her to his apartment, moving faster than science allowed. She snatched the key from him and opened his door. Once inside, he kicked it shut, and her arms slipped around him. “Yeah, well, that isn’t all me. You made peace with yourself.”
He guessed he had. “And you built your own security—starting a business, going to therapy, learning to read.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Ugh, don’t get me started on that boring-as-shit phonics. Ugh ugh ugh. Makes illiteracy seem fun.” Her shy grin came back. “But you’re quite the inspiration, Javi.”
“So are you, babe.”
She hummed as she pulled him closer. “Now, I think we’ve only got a half hour or so. I may not be ready for the whole shebang, but I can still think of a few fun things to try before sunrise.” She kissed his jawline.
He closed his eyes with a happy sigh as they shuffled toward his bedroom. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And I think I mentioned that I am quite enamored with what you can do with your mouth.”
His brain just about short-circuited at the thought, and he picked her up. “Oh yeah?”
