He brushed his hand over my hair again and smiled. “Yeah, well. I’m certainly not perfect.”
I was about to open my mouth and tell him he was. He was perfect to me. That his flaws, his mistakes made him so. But before I could form the words, he bent, pressed his mouth to mine and kissed me, his fingers tangled in my hair so he could hold the angle of our mouths fitted together in the way he wanted.
I might have made soft sighing sounds as I kissed him back.
This thing that we’d had forever was still new to us. We’d spent so much of our time dancing around the idea of dating, then he’d left for years, and I’d moved on to other things that mattered to me. Training to become a police officer. Training to take care of Ordinary in particular.
When the kiss went from gentle to heated, we lingered, explored. There was a lot we needed to say to each other. A lot we had left to discover.
“You two done ‘checking the upper level’ yet?” Jean shouted. “Or should we just order you a breakfast delivery?”
I felt more than heard Ryder’s chuckle against my chest, in my mouth.
Sisters.
“We have to go,” I said as we pulled back to catch our breaths. “I have to talk to seers and witches…”
“…and the owner of the bowling alley…”
“…yeah, him too, but I’m going to see the seer first. And you have to shake the Department of Paranormal Protection and see what information falls out.”
“I know.” He kissed my forehead, then temple, cheek, and moved to my mouth, kissing just the corner. I should resist. But I wasn’t really very good at doing what I should.
After another long kiss that had me panting, I took a step back. “We need to go. We need to find Ben.”
His eyes were dilated, his hair a mess from me running my fingers through it. The last thing I wanted to do was to turn away from him and go back to work. A part of me was hoping he’d tell me we had time, that the others could start the search for Ben without us. A part of me wanted him to walk me back against one of the walls and pin me there so I could rub my hands all over him until I found skin.
“Yeah.” He swallowed, his fingers tightening for a moment on my hips before he let them slide away. He took a step back too. He stood there breathing, just looking at me, as if he were committing the image of me to memory before he brushed his fingers back through his hair, taming it.
“So. Will I see you tonight?”
I pulled my hair back behind my ears and made sure my clothing was straightened. “If we have any luck at all, we’ll find Ben before morning.”
“We’ll have luck,” he said. “Or we’ll make luck.”
“I’m going to hold you to that, Mr. Bailey.”
“Good.”
He gestured toward the stairs and I started down, leaving the sunset, the ocean, and a perfect memory behind.
Chapter 5
“Yancy doesn’t even like donuts,” Jean complained as I drove us to Hogan’s bakery.
“Have you met the man? He loves donuts.”
“Don’t do this.”
“What?” I asked innocently.
“Get involved in my love life.”
“Oh, it’s about ten years too late for that, little miss make-my-older-sister-and-Ryder-fall-in-love.” I turned into the Puffin Muffin parking lot.
“This isn’t what we should be doing,” she tried. I unhooked my seatbelt. “We don’t have time to stop. We need to talk to the seer.”
“This won’t take long and we need a gift.”
