Cal’s hands closed over her hips and drew her backward into his chest. Elise let out a squeak on impact. His voice was a low bark when he demanded, “What was that? Who’s in your home?”
“No one!” She wiggled to get out of his grasp, but it was no use. Cal’s grip was immovable as he carefully leaned around her, his head angled to see past her entryway and into the kitchen and small living room beyond. She felt the cool brush of his magic ghosting up her spine, its tenor more aggressive than she’d felt so far.
“It’s just my Met,” she explained, embarrassingly breathless. “I keep weird hours, so it helps me keep track of everything. I can turn the voice activation off if it’ll make you more comfortable.”
“There’s no one in there?”
“No, just a little rubber ball thing that knows too much about me.”
Cal made a soft rumbling sound in his chest. It vibrated up her spine as he slowly eased them inside. Elise was hyper-aware of every bit of him that pressed against her back, as well as the hands that were curled over the bows of her hip bones like they were made to fit there. Magic licked over her nerves, raw and deliciously cool.
When he marched them into the space between the kitchen and the living room, she cleared her throat and pointed to the feed screen mounted on her wall. Just below it, on a small wooden cabinet, her Met sat waiting for instructions. A dull glow pulsed in its center.
“See that? It’s my Met.”
Cal’s fingers flexed on her hips. “I don’t know what that is.”
Gods, just how feral is this man?
It boggled her mind to think that someone born in 1906 didn’t know what a Met was. Surely, even if he’d never lived in a home, he’d been inside places before? He had to know at least some modern technology. He had to understand things like lights and showers and microwaves. If he could put on a pair of jeans, he had to know how to use a toilet, right?
Giving his hands a brisk pat as a signal to let her go, Elise explained, “It’s just an extension of the internet. It’s a fun bit of m-tech that can do things like manage my schedule, do basic cleaning, and set perimeter wards. Tons of people have them in their homes, Cal.”
Cal slowly released her and took a step back. Turning, she watched him scan her half-unpacked apartment with narrowed eyes. “You’re a witch. Why don’t you set your own perimeter wards?”
Setting her bag down by the couch, she answered, “I do, but it’s a convenience thing. Not all of us have the time to refresh wards every week. When I get busy, the Met does it for me.”
When Cal only made that same low rumbling sound in response, Elise shrugged. “Right, well, this is my place.” She waved a hand at the stacks of half unpacked boxes littering the floor. “Please excuse the boxes. I moved in last week, so I haven’t had much of a chance to unpack yet. I didn’t think I’d have a guest coming home with me when I left for the Aerie, or else I probably would have done more.”
Or not. Elise wasn’t the neatest of people. She didn’t have time for all that fussing when she had words to write, stories to unspool, hidden worlds to examine. In fact, she was pretty sure some of the boxes hadn’t even been unpacked in her old place.
Cal prowled past her, his hair moving in slow eddies around his shoulders and back. He didn’t move like a man his size should. He glided across the floor and around the boxes in his way almost like he was floating past them. Not one of his steps made a sound.
She watched him move to the wide window that took up most of the wall opposite her feed screen. The view wasn’t perfect, since the sunshine had a tendency to dredge up smog that obscured a bit of the city, but it was still gorgeous.
“You’re new to the city?” Cal glanced at her over his shoulder. He looked just as intimidating silhouetted against the window as he did on the dock, though it was in a different way. Then, he hit her like a wild force of nature. Now, dressed in his black clothing and with the hard plains of his body standing out starkly against the view, he looked dangerous.
Elise’s stomach swooped. Gods, but she wanted to unravel all of this mysterious man’s secrets. Like the very first time she basked in a storm, Elise wanted nothing more than to get closer to that magnetic force, the danger he represented, and take him into the hot, burning core of magic inside her.
It was a raw sort of feeling that welled up in her from the same part of her that chased stories and scaled dangerous heights and turned her face up to feel the howling storm lash her cheeks. It was a craving.
“Elise?”
“Sorry!” She turned on her heel, hoping to cover up the way her blush had spread to her chest and how quick her breathing had become. Their arrangement was complicated enough. They didn’t need to add her lust for thrills into things.
Swallowing her embarrassment, she waved over her shoulder, asking him to follow her as she escorted him to her office-and-guest-room. “To answer your question, no, I’m not new. I was born and raised here. I just moved into this place because it was better than my old apartment.”
She couldn’t hear his whispering steps moving across the floorboards as he followed her down the hall, but she could feel his nearness. “Why is it better?”
Casting him a smile over her shoulder, she answered honestly, “Because it has a better view of the fog, of course.”