In her arms was a gray cat, with no collar or tags, wet from the rain. The cat regarded them calmly, then set about grooming herself.
* * *
Magic hour.
The only thing better than being out for a run, mile seven on a perfect stretch of downhill trail, Sailor thought, was spending that last hour of sunlight in bed.
In the right company.
Declan reached for a glass of water on the bedside table and took a long drink. “Performance-wise, you’re doing well,” he said, “for a woman who half drowned not twenty-four hours ago.”
“And you’re doing well for a man of advancing years.”
He looked over at her. “Am I going to be listening to this forever? When I’m ninety, will you be flirting with the eighty-year-olds and making fun of me?”
“Think we’ll still be dating?” She toyed with the white bedsheet, pulling it up over her breasts, suddenly shy.
He pulled the sheet back down. “Well, it will take me at least a century to tire of this.” He traced his finger from her throat downward, between her breasts, over her sternum, stopping at her belly, covering it with his hand. The warmth on her skin started a fire inside her. Don’t stop, she thought. Keep going.
Instead he rolled her toward him, caressing her hip, her birthmark. His eyes met hers, so blue she thought she would cry just looking at them. “Anyway,” he said, “I’m not letting you out of my sight, not until you’ve paid me back.”
“For what?”
He raised an eyebrow. “The Aventador. You pumped four bullets into it.”
She laughed. “Wow, I’m a better shot than I thought.”
“At your present salary, giving me twenty-five percent of your take-home, we’ll be square in forty-eight years.”
“Except I’ve been fired,” she said. “While trying to stop a war last night I missed my shift and I didn’t call in. Instant pink slip.”
“In that case,” he said, pulling her close, “I guess you’ll have to marry me.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
He pulled back and looked down at her. “Nothing to say? That’s not like you.”
She gazed up into his eyes and smiled.
“Ah,” he said. “The telepathy thing. I’ll have to work hard to have any secrets from you at all. Any other abilities I should know about?”
“Yes, many,” she said. “But I believe it’s your turn.”
“Meaning what?”
“Well, you keep saying you can do birds, but except for a fleeting glimpse—in the dark, I might add—of some sad little extinct thing, I haven’t seen any. I’m starting to think you’re all talk, no feathers.”
He laughed. “I was saving it for the honeymoon.”
“Uh-uh,” she said. “I want to know what I’m getting into.”
His hand snaked around her waist once more, moving her effortlessly until she was underneath him, her thighs wrapped around his, her eyes staring up into his shadowed face. “What kind of bird would you like?” he asked.
“Surprise me,” she said.
“Really? Anything?”
“Well, because it’s my first time...I wouldn’t like to find myself in bed with a turkey. Or an ostrich—that would be disturbing. So maybe a bird with your face. And your hands, of course. Your chest.” She ran her hands down to his waist. “And this...” She moved her hands lower. “And, of course...this.”
“That is not your average bird,” he pointed out.
“More like an angel, then,” she said. “A dark sort of angel.”
His eyes half closed, sleepy. A lock of black hair fell forward onto his forehead. She studied his unshaven face, hardly able to believe her luck that it would be hers to look at for the rest of her life. He inhaled and opened his eyes, meeting her look with the intensity of a hawk, and something inside her awakened. His shoulders shimmered, and the next thing she knew the air itself wavered and then arranged itself into...wings.
He stretched them out and asked her if she would like to fly.
She watched a feather float through the air, in the last moments of sunlight. “Yes,” she said, “I would.”
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460306963
Copyright © 2013 by Harley Jane Kozak
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Keeper of the Moon (The Keepers: L.A.) Page 27
