“We are going home.” Alexei materialised in front of me. “The cat will be happier at the cottage.”
Alexei was a strange dude, but that was probably the oddest thing he’d ever said to me. Leaning back in my seat, I nodded. “Can we talk about Locke and Folk tomorrow?”
“We can. But not too early, chaplain. It is the weekend, no?”
As if Alexei gave a shit, but I humoured him and he left.
Cam and Saint lingered to say goodbye in simpler terms. Cam hugged me, fraternal and paternal all rolled into one.
Saint kept his physical affection to himself. He typed a message into his phone and held it up for my eyes only.
Saint:trust what you feel
He melted away without waiting for a response. Cam followed him out, leaving me and Mateo with Rubi’s smug grin.
Rubi’swidesmug grin and Mateo’s habitual irritation.
He jabbed a finger in Rubi’s face. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Why?” Rubi hooked a bottle of whisky closer and poured himself an unhealthy shot. “I’m drunk and you’re right in front of me. Piss off somewhere else if you don’t like my company.”
Mateo had form for punching people—even his brothers—with too much force to be ruledbrotherly. But apparently his good mood knew no bounds.
He mussed Rubi’s hair. “Works for me, bro.”
Then he strode out of the bar, whistling, and it took a split second and Rubi’s deep chuckle for me to follow.
We jogged upstairs. Mateo stopped on the landing to open a window. Outside, it had begun to rain, warm summer drizzle that made even tarmac smell alive. I stuck my head out, letting it hit my face and the bare skin of my arms, before Mateo pulled me back in, rumbling a growl, his lips to my neck.
“No climbing tonight.”
“No?”
“Sleep, cielito.”
I had no problem with that. After the hotel slumber party, we’d slept in shifts on the road, but I knew him, and I’d felt his gaze all over me when he should’ve been dreaming of something else while I took my turn guarding the convoy.
My bedroom door was five feet away. I was tired too, but I wasn’t ready to give him up yet.
I turned from the window. He was right behind me. A heartbeat. A hair’s breadth. Then he wasn’t, and the kiss we shared now was nothing like the gentle brush of lips from the yard. It was every scrap of wildness we’d grown into on this trip. Every door we’d kicked open. Every dragon Mateo had killed with his brighter flame.
He stole my breath.
My common sense.
Recklessness returned, but Mateo pulled back before I asked him to do something destructive and crazy.
“Come on.” He kissed my forehead. “I need your bed.”
Those words meant as much to me as anything.
As much as how I felt when I woke up sometime later,surroundedby Mateo Romano.
He was behind me, an arm around my waist, a muscular leg draped over mine. The skin of his bare torso was hot, his chest to my back, and his breathing was deep and even enough that I knew he was asleep.
A rush warmed my heart. I’d dreamt of a lot of things when it came to him and me, but this had always seemed the most unattainable. That the co-dependant bed-sharing bullshit—my bullshit—we’d fallen into, would ever heal enough to become something else.
Something real.
