Glyma grimaced. “How expensive are they?”
“It’s not my field, but easily twenty thousand,” Waryn said, and Glyma balked.
“Oh my gods.”
“That’s why you request inspections,” Quin jumped in. “You check electrical, vents, pipes, everything. Make sure it’s all on the up-and-up. Then you decide whether to sign a contract.”
Glyma wandered around the flat, then out onto the fire escape. Quin joined her as Waryn headed back downstairs, probably to pester Grof some more.
“Imagine this as your view all the time,” Glyma said, staring out over the desert.
The wind was hot and filled with grains of sand, but even Quin could admit how beautiful it was. “Pretty good view.”
With a cheeky smile, Glyma knocked Quin’s shoulder with her arm. “Better with you here.”
“Charmer,” Quin said dryly, even as her cheeks flushed.
Glyma’s fingers grazed the back of Quin’s hand, and without looking at her, Quin turned it in invitation. Their fingers slotted together, shooting more electricity over her skin. Like twopuzzle pieces, their hands fit perfectly, Quin’s smaller, daintier, Glyma’s soft and cool.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Glyma said, thumb rubbing over the back of Quin’s hand.
“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Quin admitted, and it was so very, very true.
Chapter nine
Checkmate
Quin
Three weeks later, Glyma’sbusiness loan was approved. She came to Quin and Waryn’s house for dinner to celebrate, where they drank too much wine and laughed too loud. It was the most fun Quin had had in a long time, and somehow, they’d all ended up asleep in Waryn’s large bed with Quin in the middle. She’d woken half-sprawled on Waryn’s chest with Glyma curled around her from behind. She had a splitting headache and dry-mouth, but she didn’t regret a single thing.
Waryn had left the bed first to shower, and Glyma’s hands had wandered. Carefully, carefully. Stroking Quin’s tail. Drawing designs on Quin’s stomach under her shirt. Higher, where her thumb had cautiously brushed the small swell of Quin’s breast.
She’d nearly asked Glyma to kiss her then, but Waryn returned from his shower, muttering miserably about horny women in hisbed. The fact he had been entirely naked while whining had put a damper on the mood.
Somehow, through their hangovers, they’d managed to fill out the paperwork for Glyma’s application to rent the Purgatory property. Quin had pulled some strings with an inspector friend to check over the property and make a detailed report, and with that in hand, Glyma could negotiate. Everything was falling into place perfectly, which left Quin on pins and needles, waiting for the next shoe to drop.
“Quin, are you even listening to me?” Her mother snapped two fingers in front of her face, and she startled.
“What?” she said, and her mother scowled.
“What do you mean, ‘what’? I’m here, taking time out of my busy schedule, to help make your special day perfect, and you don’t even have the courtesy to pay attention.”
Her mother’s office was lavish and overstated. The artwork on the walls were original and cost more than most Hellians made in a lifetime. But it was the portrait on the wall behind Claryn’s desk that made Quin want to roll her eyes. It was overkill, hanging an oil painting of herself looking regal and almost queen-like.
“I didn’t ask for a party,” Quin said, and her mother went eerily still behind her desk.
Her mouth puckered into a tight, wrinkled monstrosity that honestly reminded Quin of an asshole. She had enough self-control not to say it aloud, though. Glyma might have, and the thought made her smile.
“Are you mocking me?” Claryn demanded, and the smile dropped immediately from Quin’s face.
“No.”
“What has gotten into you?” Her mother stood and rounded the desk, forcing Quin to lift her chin to retain eye contact. “You have been avoiding everyone’s calls, you didn’t attendthe military ball as I instructed, and you have yet to make an official statement to the papers defending the family’s good name against the little environmental hiccup the pharmaceutical branch is facing.”
“Little hiccup? The pharmaceutical company dumped toxic material into the Dark Sea.”
“Which we knew nothing about,” Claryn said with a significant look at Quin. “Those responsible have been dealt with, and we—”
