“That’s so cool. What about the book though?”
“Werewolves in space.”
“Werewolves...in space... Okay.” He nodded, not following along at all. “Who fall in love?”
“Yes.”
“Is this a Fifty—”
“Full stop.” She held up her hands. “No. Don’t say it.”
“Sorry I asked.”
“Whenever I say I want to write a book it’s always either, is it Fifty or Twilight, and it’s neither. I snuck my mother’s old romance books into my room as a kid long before either of those books were ever a thing. I just...I never had the attention span for writing a book-book.”
“Okay, so what now that you’ve written it?”
“It’s more like a novella.”
“That’s still a book, right?”
“I guess? I don’t know.”
“Are you going to publish it so other people can read it?”
“Oh, hell no!”
“Why not?”
“I’m not that good.”
“Are you sure?”
“Raul, no one wants to read my werewolves in space with fated mates.”
“Fated—what?”
“Oh my God, can we please stop talking about this?”
“No, I want to know what a fated mate is.”
She covered her face with her hands, a completely adorable gesture she did whenever she was embarrassed. Which only made him want to know more about these fated mates.
“I’ll just Google it...” He pulled out his phone.
“No! God, no, I have no idea what the internet will say about the trope.” She leaned back onto the sofa. “If I tell you, can we talk about something else?”
“Sure.” For now.
“Fated mates is a mostly paranormal romance trope.”
“Wait—paranormal romance?”
“You agreed, one question and no more.” Her glare was not to be trifled with.
“Okay—fated mates.” He filed the other bit away to ask about later.
“Right. It’s a trope about two people being meant for each other. Fate or destiny makes them the only right match for one another in the world. Usually, they either know instantly if they’re supposed to be together, or they figure it out after a little while.”
“But you said its paranormal romance? Then why is it just people?”
“It’s not just people—it’s vampires and shape shifters and all sorts of paranormal creatures. People. And you agreed to no more questions.”
“One more?”
“No.”
“Can I read your book?”
“No. No one will ever read it.” She took a bite of pizza and pointedly stared away from him.
“Why not?”
“It’s not good. I just wanted to write it for fun. To see if I could do it. And I did.”
“And?”
“And...I’m writing another one.”
This was too much fun. He set his plate down and crawled across the sofa to her, until he had his face right up in hers.
“Are we fated mates?”
“You are not funny.” Miranda flicked Raul’s perfect nose.
“Ow!” He rubbed it and glared at her.
Fated mates.
That was a book thing. Not real. Still, it would make a nice, neat answer for what they were doing. This whirlwind thing. Was it all in her head? Was Rashae right in giving her major side-eye?
Raul leaned in and landed a lip-smacking kiss on her cheek. Normally, the butterflies in her stomach would take flight and she’d struggle to breathe. This time it felt more like a churning sea of Leviathan trying to bubble up inside of her. It wasn’t pleasant.
“Did I say something wrong?” Raul sat back, giving her that puppy-dog head tilt look.
God, he was cute when he did that.
“No, no.” She pinched the charm on her necklace and slid it back and forth.
“I was just joking. I didn’t mean to be an ass.”
“You aren’t.” Bless him for being so quick to apologize. She wanted to drop this line of conversation. “I was thinking we might want to swap Lola and Shiva for a bit, have them each get used to the way the other smells.”
“That’s a good idea. Hey.” He grasped her free hand and squeezed. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Really?”
Miranda rolled her eyes. Yeah, she had zero poker face, but he didn’t have to point it out.
“Come on, what’s bothering you?” He took her plate, set it on the coffee table, and settled in, holding her hand between both of his. “Did I do something?”
She sighed, albeit a bit dramatically, and slouched down next to him.
Here goes.
They were having the talk.
“If I say I don’t want to talk about it and you let it go, I’m going to obsess about it all night.” She peered up at him. “If we talk about it I’m going to feel like the needy, crazy, bitchy girl...”
“Well, if something’s bothering you telling me about it doesn’t make you needy, bitchy or crazy. It makes you honest. I appreciate that you don’t want to...come off that way, but it’s not fair to you. What’d I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Seriously? In the history of men and women, it’s never nothing.” He let go of her hand and wrapped it around her, tucking her in close to his side.
“No, really, you didn’t do anything wrong.” She snuggled in close, the scent of lemon soap still clinging to his skin. Eventually, she’d tell him about the stalker. About her ex. But not now. This moment, was about them. Not her history.
“Then what’s bugging you?”
“My friends are really over-protective.”
“And they—what? Don’t like me?”
“No, it’s not that. One...sort of, might have riled the others into pestering me today about us. I know they mean well, but it just messes with me.”
“I’m guessing—Rashae?”
“Yes.” Miranda winced.
“Okay, what’s her problem?”
“How’d you know it was her?”
“Just a feeling. What’d I do?”
“It’s not you. It’s—us. She just rode my ass about things going so fast and all.”
“Well, it’s cool your friends are that concerned about you—”
“But? I hear a but...”
“But, yeah, do your friends run your relationships?”
“No.”
“Then what’s their deal?”
“Rashae thinks we should, like, have an official label or something.”
“And what do you think?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Until Rashae said something and it bothered you?”
“Yeah. See? This is why I didn’t want to talk about it. I love Rashae. She is my best friend. But sometimes she butts in and puts ideas in my head, and I worry about them.”
“Well, she is right. We have jumped in the deep end.” He slid his fingers between hers, giving her hand a squeeze. “But it’s not like either of us are young and stupid. Okay, stupid could be arguable on my side. That said, I hope it’s obvious I’m pretty into you.”
Leviathan had to be another word for butterflies. Man-eating butterflies maybe, because they were swarming in Miranda’s chest to the point she thought her heart would beat out of her chest.
“It’s nice to hear it.” Her voice was pitched high, a bit girly.
“What do you think? Can I call you my girlfriend?” He leaned his head on her shoulder and blinked superfast, maybe even fast enough to call it a flutter.
Miranda snickered.
This was why she was falling for him.
Not because of his amazing abs or his movie star looks.
Because of this.
These moments when he was silly, when she felt in awe of how large his heart was, when she felt safe and at home in his arms. Maybe this was what the ideal of fated mates
was based on? The sense of finding a person who got her. That clicked with her.
She was falling in love with Raul, and there was no reason not to.
9.
Miranda breezed into the office. It was weird showing up so late, but she’d needed to meet Cliff halfway between their offices for a quick meeting to cover the next year’s conference schedule. With the ComicCon circuit getting so large they had to first pick and chose, then divide and conquer who went to what. Then there was breaking the news to their employees about who got to go, and who didn’t. She enjoyed the meetings a whole hell of a lot more, now that they no longer included a certain former Dark Matter employee who was behind bars.
“How’d it go?” Andrea, one of their lead programmers, was waiting outside of Miranda’s office.
“Good. What’s up?” Miranda set her tote in the armchair and shrugged out of her coat.
“Just wondering about the PTO request—”
“When did those get here?” Miranda caught sight of a beautiful bouquet of roses at the small, four-person meeting table to one side of her desk.
“Oh, those got here first thing this morning.” Andrea followed Miranda over to the desk.
They had to be from Raul. After last night...her knees went a little weak just thinking about him. How had she gotten so lucky?
Miranda pulled the card out. The scrawling handwriting was so not Raul’s. He had the doctor chicken scratch down perfectly.
To the woman I adore.
“Who’s it from?” Andrea peered over Miranda’s shoulder.
“I’m guessing...” She snapped a quick picture of the roses and their cellophane-covered vase. “I’m guessing they’re from Raul.”
She tapped out a quick thank you. He’d probably barely just be getting to the clinic and didn’t want to throw off his rhythm.
“Raul? Who’s that?”
“This guy I met last week.” Miranda did her best to keep her relationship with her employees strictly professional. It was hard with Andrea and a few others, simply because they had so much in common. “It’s all still very new. Actually, I wanted to talk to you—oh my God!”
Miranda yanked her hands away from the vase. She stepped back until she ran into her desk.
“What? What’s wrong?” Andrea peered at the white ceramic cat vase under the iridescent plastic.
“Oh—oh my God.” Miranda backpedaled around the desk.
The vase had been a gift from Crystal—Andrea’s friend and Miranda’s employee. It was their joke that they were confirmed cat ladies of the crazy variety. The vase had gone missing during the string of break-ins. It was a cheap, glass vase, but it’d meant something to Miranda.
And now it was here.
In her office.
Why was it there?
Who’d put it there?
She turned, eyeing the closet, the door. They’d never found the person who broke into her home. She was certain it was the stalker. Were they there?
“Miranda?” Andrea stared at her, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”
The buzz of her phone ringing barely penetrated the adrenaline fueled urge to run. Flee.
“Call Max, now, please,” she managed to get out without crying or whimpering in fear.
To Andrea’s credit, she pulled out her phone while crossing to the office door and flipping the flimsy lock into place.
Miranda snatched her phone from the desk and backed all the way to the wall.
“Babe? I—what’s wrong?” Raul’s voice didn’t even calm her. He wasn’t there. He couldn’t protect her.
“I—oh, God—I don’t know. I don’t know. He must be here. I don’t know.” She babbled the same words over and over again.
“Max is on his way, Miranda.” Andrea leaned against the door, her lips set in a grim line, her eyes wide with worry.
Of course—because the only people who knew were the girls. Miranda’s closest friends. Everyone else thought she was crazy. Paranoid.
He—whoever he was—knew where she lived. He knew where she worked. It wasn’t just smoke and mirrors, shadows and superstition. Not anymore. It was real.
She slid to the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest.
Her home, even her office wasn’t safe. She’d thought for a moment she could be happy, but she couldn’t. Not with this person out there taunting her like this.
Raul side-stepped the receptionist who’d guided him deep into the Grunge Games building. One glimpse of Miranda standing with her shoulders hunched and a tissue pressed to her mouth and he was ready to—he didn’t quite know what. She hadn’t made a bit of sense on the phone before he’d been cut off, and she hadn’t answered his calls since then.
Miranda glanced up and her lips parted. The man speaking to her frowned as she stepped past him and into Raul’s arms.
“Thank you, I’m sorry, thank you,” she said over and over again.
“Hey, no problem. What’s going on?” He stroked her hair and squeezed her to him. At least she appeared unhurt, but the tears bothered him. A lot.
“Miranda...” The man, a cop judging by the badge hanging from around his neck, glanced from her to him and then into an office.
“I don’t want to know,” Miranda said into Raul’s shirt.
“I need to ask you a few more questions.” The officer’s gaze jumped back to Raul. “You are?”
“Raul. Her boyfriend. What’s going on?”
“I’m Max Bowman, Seattle PD. Miranda, can you please answer a few more questions?”
“No, I don’t want to.” She shook her head, face buried against Raul’s shoulder. “Please don’t make me?”
“Can I help? Anything I can answer?” Raul would do just about anything to fix this.
“Come in here?” Max nodded inside the office.
“Hey.” Raul bumped Miranda’s chin. “I’m going to go in here and see what he needs, okay?”
“Hey, Miranda, want to come in my office?” A shorter, twenty-something girl stepped up, wrapping an arm around Miranda’s waist.
“Thanks, Andrea,” Max said before gesturing into the office.
Raul watched Miranda being led away, down a hall and out of sight.
“Coming?” Max called from in the office.
“What the hell is going on?”
“How long you been with Miranda?” Max asked.
“Long enough.”
“Know about the stalker?” Max stood next to a circular, glass table. A man with a camera ignored them both, snapping pictures of the same flowers Miranda had sent him a picture of.
“Stalker? What?”
“Not that long, then.” Max scrawled something else in his notebook before turning toward Raul. His gaze was not friendly. “When did you meet Miranda?”
“Last Wednesday. She brought her cat into the vet clinic.”
“And you’d never seen her before then?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Are you aware that Miranda has been—is being—stalked?”
“What? No.” Raul and Max stared at each other. “You think I did this?”
“Stalkers do their best to get close to the object of their affection.”
“No.” Raul shook his head. “I did not send her those flowers.”
“Would you be willing to submit a DNA sample to prove that?”
“DNA—what?” Raul frowned.
“Just to rule yourself out.” Max shrugged.
“Why?”
“It appears a braid of hair was inside the plastic, wrapped around the vase.” Max pulled a glove out of his pocket and used the latex to pick up a plastic evidence bag. “There appears to be DNA on the hair.”
Raul stared, most of Max’s words not clicking. DNA. Hair. Vase. What the ever loving fuck was going on? The only thing that made sense was that Miranda needed to be safe, and proving he was on her side was paramount.
“Yeah. What do you need?” Raul swallowed.
“It’s just a
swab.” Max took a long swab from the other guy, and in a matter of moments the deed was done. “Miranda needs to go home. Settle down. I’ll come by later to talk. My card.”
Raul took the card, his brain more than a little numb.
Someone out there was scaring Miranda. His Miranda.
And she hadn’t told him.
Miranda stared at her patio door.
She hadn’t been able to drive herself. Her hands were still shaking too bad. Raul hadn’t asked her questions, but they were coming.
He turned the Jeep off and for a moment they sat in her driveway.
“Can you go inside and check first, please?” She hated that she was scared of going into her own house, but she hadn’t even realized she’d been vandalized the first time.
“Sure. Lock the door after me, okay?”
Raul got out and she jabbed the lock button. She agonized every second he was inside, ready to call the cops at the first sign of a problem. Instead, Raul returned, collected her things, and led her inside. Without even a raised eyebrow.
She went straight to the kittens, counting them first to ensure they were okay. Once she was positive they were fine, she shed her work clothes for sweatpants and Raul’s hoodie.
“Want to talk about it now?” Raul sat at the foot of the bed, his dark gaze worried.
“No.” She tugged the hoodie down over her bottom and wished she could crawl inside it, like a protective shell.
“Come here.” Raul spread his arms and she joined him, letting him hug her pieces back together. “I need to know what’s wrong. Max said there was a stalker and break-ins?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell me about them?”
People finally believed her, and all she wanted to do was ignore it. Weird turn of events.
“I don’t really know when it started. A few years ago, maybe? I’d just get this...feeling that someone was watching me. I thought a guy was taking pictures of me on the walk to the train station out where I used to live. I reported it, but the cops laughed at me. Told me I should be flattered someone wanted my photograph. Others called me paranoid. One night, someone broke into the house while I was at home.” She could taste the fear, even though it’d been—what? Two, three years ago?
“I’ve got you,” Raul whispered.
“I’d dialed 9-1-1 but I was too scared to get out of bed. This person came into the bedroom and I dropped the phone. I tried to get away but he grabbed me and held me down.” She buried her face against Raul’s shoulder, inhaling the smell of dogs and lemon soap. “I can still remember his breath—it smelled like peppermint. I still can’t stand peppermint.”
Mr. Purr-fect and the Geek (Gone Geek, #2) Page 9
