“He hid them in the gutters?”
“Somewhere Mama definitely wouldn’t find them. But I remembered he kept getting himself stuck up there, and connected the dots. He must have dashed up and stashed the rubbish after he intercepted each parcel.”
“Chree!”
“That’s very impressive,” Corin said, completely honest.
“Tell me about it,” Maya grumbled. “Humanchildren aren’t meant to learn lying and misdirection until they’re at least three. Anyway. Get over here. I figure if there’s one person I can trust not to drop me out a second-story window, it’s my mate.”
Corin stalked towards her, frowning as she climbed up onto the windowsill. “I hope you’re not suggesting—”
“That I trust you with my life? Yes. Grab hold.”
She stood up, her head and torso disappearing above the window. Corin dived forward and held onto her thighs.
“What are you doing?”
“More evidence can’t hurt, can it? This is the only evidence we’re likely to have, unless you’re planning on hanging around waiting for the mail van until the next delivery. Almost—no, wait, that’s a handful of leaves. Ugh.”
“How do you know there’s anything else up there?”
“I put my phone on a stick,” she said, as though it was a perfectly normal sentence.
Downstairs, the door opened again. “Maya?” a woman called, at the same time a child shouted “Tommeeeee!”
Tomás jumped up and raced downstairs, wings fluttering and claws skittering on the wooden floors.
“We’re upstairs!” Maya called. “Dragon incoming!”
“Got him! I’ll put a pot of coffee on!”
While Maya and whoever was downstairs were shouting at one another, Maya was leaning further and further to the side. Corin tightened his grip on her thighs.
Oh, fuck.
She wasn’t wearing jeans, like the day before. She was wearingleggings. He was gripping her thighs for dear life, in her bedroom, and that was something they should be doing on the bed, damn it, not with her halfway out the window.
What was she thinking? She’d started this before he even arrived? What if she’d fallen? What if—
“Got it! Hah!”
She slithered down from the windowsill, straight into his arms.
He scowled at her. “What were you thinking?”
“Excuse me?”
“You could have been hurt!”
She gave him an odd look. “It’s not like this is the first time I’ve had to climb up on the roof.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
She flinched. Which he felt, all over, because he was still holding onto her. His hands were around her waist; she’d slipped into the gap between him and the windowsill, pressed against his chest.
He should have been doing anything but berate her.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean that—”
