“You don’t have to worry about that,” Damon said, but I thought I saw a little worry creep into his expression. He pushed past me abruptly, stalking to the edge of his bed and sitting down there. His fingers raked through his dark hair. “Whatever comes up, I can handle it. It’s on me.” He glanced up. “Do you really think… it’s going to screw up your chances of getting your dad’s help? If he even would have helped.”
My gut knotted. “He’s not going to be in the most receptive mood to hearing about my consorting, even if I manage to leave out your connection to Derek’s attack.” I still had the contract burning a hole in my pocket. Would it be better to throw that at Dad the second he got back or to wait until Derek had recovered a little, until any protective instincts Dad might have felt toward his soon-to-be son-in-law had faded some?
“That’s not what I was aiming for,” Damon said.
“I know.” My breath came out of me in a rush. I walked up to him and set my hands on his shoulders. “I know you just wanted to protect me. I know who you are, Damon, and I’m not going to tell you to be some other way. All I’m asking is that you don’t go off doing things like that onmybehalf, all right? Or at least ask me first to make sure it’s what I’d actually want?”
His mouth tightened, but he nodded. He rested his hands on my waist, tugging me a little closer. The heat of his touch bled through my thin shirt.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, looking up at me. “You do have me. Body, mind, heart—soul, if I’ve got one. I’m just… not very good at this yet.”
Emotion tightened my throat. I leaned over, tipping my face close to his. “I can’t ask for more than that.”
His hand came up to touch my cheek and guide my mouth to his. The kiss was so slow and gentle and not at all like the Damon I knew that it was hard not to see it as an apology, even if he didn’t want to say it with words. The tenderness of it left me breathless.
“Is this really what you want?” I murmured when our lips parted. “Hanging out with some gang, helping them do… whatever else it is they do? That’s how you want to spend your life?”
I felt him start to bristle again. “I’ve done what I have to—”
“Hey. I’m not telling you that you can’t want that. I just want to know. So I can know you as well as I possibly can.”
He was silent for a bit. Then he said, “I don’t know. It’s hard to think about what Iwantseparate from what I need, what I can get… I want you. I want my mom taken care of. But if I could have that without all the crap… Hell, sometimes I think there’s nothing I’d like more than for things to be like they used to be, way back when. Running around in the forest, swimming in the pond, just being. Being happy, being a part of the world.”
His face flushed a little as he admitted that. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “That was pretty wonderful.”
I kissed him again, my lips lingering against his until a groan worked its way from his throat and he pulled me closer. “Rose,” he mumbled.
I swallowed thickly. “I can’t stay. If my dad gets back before I do, I’ll have more explaining to do than I think I’m ready for.”
Damon nodded. “You’ve got no idea how hard it is to keep letting you go, angel,” he said, his thumb tracing over my side.
I gave a choked laugh. “I do. I have to keep doing it four times over. But maybe it won’t be much longer before we can spend more time being together than being apart.”
Chapter Eighteen
Gabriel
When I saw the estate manager head out through the gardens with one of the staff, I ducked in through the manor’s front door. My legs stalled for a second in the expansive hall: chandelier twinkling overhead, gold-framed paintings on the walls, sweeping mahogany staircase rising up to the second floor.
It wasn’t that the place was grander than some of the temples and mansions I’d toured around during my roaming across this continent and the next. If anything, it felt smaller than I was expecting based on memories I hadn’t updated since I’d last poked my head in here as a preteen.
There was just something so stately and snooty about the atmosphere… Like it disapproved of my very existence.
It reminded me of Rose’s dad.
Thankfully, he was still off wherever he’d taken that jerk of a fiancé. That was the only reason I was risking venturing in here anyway. In a way I was thumbing my nose at him and whatever he did think of me.
I climbed the stairs, trying not to worry that I might somehow be getting engine grease everywhere. I’d washed my goddamn hands. In the second-floor hall, I paused to get my bearings. I’d never been up here at all, even as a kid. But I knew which window was Rose’s bedroom from the outside. Over by the big oak tree. Which meant from inside it should be right—there.
I could tell I’d picked right when I reached the door. A hint of that soft lilac smell that followed her everywhere lingered outside it. I knocked lightly.
There was a rustling as she got up. The door eased open, and then she was right there in front of me, staring at me, her eyes going wide.
“You—” She cut herself off with a strangled sound and grabbed my arm, yanking me into the room. She pushed the door shut with her back braced against it. It connected with the frame with a thud.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered. “No, don’t tell me yet. Wait a second.”
For the second time in a week, I watched Rose will the magic out of her body. The spell she was casting didn’t look as dramatic as that moment when she’d whipped herself right out of my apartment in an instant with a tremor of energy so potent it had raised the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck. The movements of her arms and feet now were slower, more solid. But I still felt a tingle pass through me, seeing her in motion. I wasn’t sure how much that sensation was the magic itself and how much my own awe.