“Because so far as I can tell, that cerastes is keeping me from getting you properly alone, andthat will not stand.”
Luca stared at her. For a moment, she wondered if she had come on too strong, but then he whistled.
“Is that how you got elected? ‘Cause, lady, I gotta get my residency established just to vote for you.”
“I actually got elected by insisting on more public transportation and better funding for the youth programs, but glad to see I’ve still got it.”
She smiled at him, giving his hand a last lingering squeeze, wishing she could do more.
“Now go get that snake.”
CHAPTER SIX
∞∞∞
Macy showed up around seven with an overnight bag and two enormous chicken Caesar salads, and they ended up in her office again eating off their laps with plastic silverware. It was a good thing that she had shown up and shoved the bowl full of food into his hands, because the minute he saw her, everything else went out the window.
As it was, he only gave her a mournful look before digging into the admittedly very good salad. Beside him, she started eating her own, and a few times, he caught her glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, as pleased to see him eating as he had been to provide her with food. He didn’t know if it was a shifter thing or a Midwestern thing, but the deep satisfaction of seeing one’s mate nourished went deep, and apparently, it went both ways.
“How’s it going?” she asked when they had taken the edge off their hunger.
“A few sightings. I caught the cerastes once by the science displays in the atrium. Another time I saw it moving behind some grating I couldn’t tear out with destroying it altogether.”
Macy winced.
“Thank you. A lot of the gratings are more than a hundred years old, and the historical society would not be pleased.”
He found himself looking too long at her, long enough that a pinkish blush came up on her cheeks.
“What?”
“You really care about this town.”
“Well, of course I do. There’s no reason at all to be the mayor here if I don’t.”
“Power? Prestige?”
She gave him a wry look.
“Last month, I had to get up at four in the morning because Mrs. O’Donnell thought that a plague of locusts had come over the prairie and we were due for an apocalypse by bug.”
“Oh. Oh wow.”
“Right. Turns out it was just like, a dozen grasshoppers, mostly in her backyard. If that’s prestige, well, yeah, I guess I’m rolling in it.”
After dinner, he knew he should get back to work, but it was too tempting just to pull her into his lap and kiss her. The office of a small-town mayor maybe wouldn’t be the most romantic place in the world to most people, but to him, it was absolutely perfect because it contained Macy and no one else. She fit against his body like they were two pieces to a puzzle, and when she put her arms around him to hold him close, his panther chuffed happily, dropping down to a near growl of contentment. She shifted on top of him, both of them aware of his response, both of them eager, so eager for more—
And then his phone rang.
“Oh my God,” he said solemnly, and Macy, gorgeous thing, couldn’t stop laughing, stifling her giggles as he picked up for Ellie Madsen, who was looking after AJ.
“Heya, Luca, just calling because I thought you’d like to know that we’re putting AJ to bed with the twins.”
“Thanks for calling. You guys have a good day?”
“Oh, the best. Short ride out to the pine barrens, kids got good and dirty, got to run around smelling everything and then there was barbecue. Next time you should bring that pretty mayor of yours along.”
Luca glanced at Macy, who stretched back out on the couch and was watching him with bright, bright eyes. She was so lovely he thought he’d go crazy if he couldn’t touch her right then, but given the fact that he was on the phone with his nephew’s babysitter, he limited himself to cupping his hand over her bare ankle. It helped.
