She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen, and to have her for only one night, I am either the luckiest man on earth or the dumbest.
I’m contemplating taking a picture when she spots me.
“Elliot!” she shouts, racing toward me in her towering shoes. “Oh, thank gods!”
She crashes into me, tossing her arms around my neck, and I can’t resist the need to hold her, even as the simple act starts to suffocate me.
I lift her feet from the floor, cradling her close until she pulls back, pressing her mouth to mine. It’s a quick kiss, nothing like the feverish hunger of last night, but the kind of kiss you give someone when you know there will be more to come. I rear back, more than a little surprised.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, setting her back on her feet.
“I’ve been standing out here for almost an hour, and that’s what I get? What are you doing here?”
Her arms cross and her hip hitches as she nails me with an icy stare, those warm eyes suddenly cold. The image makes me smile, and I draw her back in, though she’s fighting me now.
“No,” she hisses, chuckling under her breath. “You’re ungrateful. Get off.”
“No, no, I’m sorry,” I murmur, fisting her ass and pressing swift kisses to her neck. “I just didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought we agreed,” I say. “Just once.”
She shrugs, biting back a smile.
“How about twice?”
Again? I had no business giving her one night, let alone two. But I seem to be incapable of making an intelligent decision when she’s around because the next words out of my mouth are, “I can do twice.”
She beams at me, and any hesitation I may have had quickly dissolves.
“Good,” she says, twisting out of my grip. “But we have plans first,”
“Plans?” I shake my head. “Iris, I need to go talk to Deacon. He might?—”
“Deacon’s still asleep,” she says. “And Kitty has an in at the admissions office who’s cross-referencing the rolls for any students with demon blood that were in attendance at Fright Night. There’s nothing for you to do right now. So I made plans.”
“What kind of plans?” I ask, remembering the last time she said those words, and I ended up sitting across from Owen, watching him fawn over a disinterested Elsie for two hours.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “You’ll like them. I think.”
* * *
“Hello?” Iris calls into the empty foyer, and her voice rings back over the vaulted ceiling as I stand beneath the dusty chandelier with my hands in my pockets.
“Isaac?” she calls out a name, and my ears stand at attention at the sound of another man’s name in her mouth.
I am not sure where we are.
Iris refused to tell me anything beyond which direction to point the bike.
It’s a home, that much I can tell. And not the Cross kind of home with the grand empty spaces and eerily silent gatherings. No, this smells like a home. Like people and food, it even sounds like a home. I can hear the faint notes of music playing upstairs and the quiet thud of footsteps.
But even with all the notes of an inviting space, I take a cautionary step further into the room, sniffing at the air as Iris starts to wander.
“Isaac,” she shouts again when no one answers.
“Library!” a male voice shouts back, and I try not to bristle.
