Atlantis.
I still can’t believe Calanthe saw me bringing him there. How wild…and unexpected.
“Callie’s getting married in Atlantis on Labor Day.”
“I heard.” He slides his palm back around my waist and holds me in place, even as he softens.
“Want to be my date?”
Chapter 34
Cillian
We’ve christened the sofa, an armchair, her shower, her bed, her area rug, and her ab bench.
I have never in my life felt this out of control with lust. I don’t even know where my dick and balls get their stamina. All I know is that every kiss leads to fucking.
The only place we’ve yet to christen is the one place I love the most in a house: the kitchen.
I’m saving it for tonight—for after the three-course meal I intend to whip up while she and Calanthe are getting fitted for their dresses. The ones they’ll wear at the Hadezes’ wedding.
The weddingI’vebeen invited to.
In Atlantis.
For a second there—right after she asked me to be her date—I thought it might be a setup. Like she rode me bare, giving me the best sex of my life, just to loosen me up. Get me talking. Get me to admit my name isn’t Cillian, my job isn’t gym coach, and the story about getting struck by lightning the first time I saw her is a complete fabrication.
When I didn’t answer fast enough, she’d gone pink and tried to climb off my lap, making me realize it was all nerves and notmanipulation. I’d finally belted out a “yes” so full of enthusiasm it sounded like the answer to a marriage proposal.
I hadn’t cared if I seemed unhinged. All I’d cared about was clearing the blush from her cheeks and making sure I sounded lessopportunistic little shitand morelovesick foolwho’d travel to the ends of the earth with her.Which I would, since Atlantis was probably going to be the end of the line for me.
“Hey, son, does this readcorianderornutmeg?” the old woman browsing the supermarket spice aisle beside me asks.
I glance at the glass jar. “Nutmeg. Is that what you were looking for?”
“No. I need the coriander.” She tries to set it back on the shelf, but her hands tremble too hard, so I park my shopping basket on the floor and help her.
“That’s the one you want.” I grab the coriander and put it in her shopping cart.
“Thank you.”
“What else is on your shopping list?”
I end up going around the grocery store with her, only leaving her side once all her purchases are tucked in the trolley she’d left beside the register. She pays me back in stories about her life as a military spouse, first in South Korea and then in Germany.
I learn that she now shares a home with her youngest, an elementary school teacher married to a fiction author. A very famous one. That her three other kids followed in their father’s footsteps—one is currently deployed abroad, while the other two rotate between US bases.
I considered enlisting at twenty so I could travel the world and fight another type of evil than the supernatural kind. But I’d wanted a break from violence so I could create instead of destroy.
As I turn away from the door to resume my shopping, my gaze lands on a familiar figure.
Electra stands with her arms crossed, a soft smile playing on her lips. I find myself smiling back as I approach her, the two spice jars I picked earlier rolling around my otherwise still empty basket.
“You really have a way with older women. I’m a little jealous.”
“Are you really?” I step right into her body, forcing her arms to loosen and her head to tip back. I lower mine for a chaste kiss that awakens the beast in my pants.
This girl, with her crisp scent, mismatched irises, and soft skin, has turned me into a sex fiend. At times—like this morning when I woke curled around her in bed, dick already hard—I forced myself to study her runes and recite the names of the four Hunters she’d killed.
