She shrugged her shoulders. Cormac had worked so hard for that house. He’d loved every inch, every room. Watching the people who’d moved in from behind a maple tree two houses down, laughing in the sunshine out in his sprawling front yard, playing Frisbee with their children, had almost made her want to run to them and scream the house wasn’t theirs to enjoy.
They had no right to laugh when she was so miserable, but it wasn’t their fault Cormac was gone.
It was hers.
“I feel like a coward. Like there was just one more thing I could have done to find him that I didn’t, you know? Maybe that’s why I got on that dragon’s back. Maybe all my pent-up aggression over Cormac, my helplessness, is forcing its way to the surface. Maybe I’m metaphorically saving Cormac over and over.”
“Might I speak freely, Toni?” Jon asked, ever formal.
She nodded her head, too wrung out from the day’s events to protest.
“You’re no coward. Never say such. You feel guilt because of your brother. This guilt relates to Nina, too. You fight so fiercely because you want to make up for the loss of your brother. And it all leads back to this bastard Stas, whom, I assure you, should I ever encounter, will leave such encounter with no head.”
His possessive tone made her shiver, but his words made complete sense. Her life spinning so far out of control had all begun with Stas and the murders, which had eventually led her to working at the outlet mall for Attila The Bree, which then had led to meeting the ladies from OOPS.
Maybe, in some twisted way, she was trying to keep everyone from harm by taking enormous risks because she hadn’t been able to save Cormac. But was it a death wish like Nina had pointed out?
Or did she think each time she defeated one form of a villain or another, she was racking up some sort of points to make up for not finding her brother? As if she could turn them in to the mailman with a self-addressed-stamped envelope and she’d get something in return—like the return of her brother.
Toni shook her head to clear the cobwebs. “I feel like everywhere I turn, I leave disaster in my wake. First it was Cormac, now it’s Nina. Would any of this have happened if I hadn’t thought a stupid wish up in my head? I’ve spent a lot of time staying out of any kind of trouble since everything happened. I take a different way home from work every three days. I don’t go out, not that I can afford to anyway. I don’t date, I don’t—”
“Date? I must insist you explain this term in your world’s language.”
“See men. You know, go to one of those movies I’ll tell you about, talk on the phone, go for walks, have dinner,” she said on a soft sigh.
“Ah. Then might I tell you, I’m not displeased you don’t date men?”
Her heart shuddered in her chest and her toes tingled. “The point is, I stay out of the limelight. The only reason I’m doing something as public as working at a store is because I couldn’t find work anywhere else, and I think I’m deep enough into Jersey that Stas would never consider looking for me there. The job stinks, but it gave me a roof over my head.” Besides who wanted to hire a woman with an accounting degree and a killer on her ass?
“There is no need to run here in Shamalot. Here, you’re safe with me,” he said.
She slid forward on the toadstool and gave him a look of utter disbelief. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty. Have you forgotten Queen Angria?”
He leaned forward, too, cupping her chin. “I said you were safe here with me, beautiful maiden. I’m not in your land of Jersey. I would always protect you, should you stay here.”
Toni’s throat went dry. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
He slid in closer, splaying his hand across her lower back and pulling her tight. “I think you do, milady. I’m saying, stay here with me,” he murmured, just before he pressed his lips to Toni’s and she melted into him.
The moment his mouth aligned with hers, fireworks went off behind her eyelids. Vivid, colorful sparks, shooting upward as the soft pressure of his lips increased.
Toni leaned into his powerful strength, her back bowing, her heart pounding. She clung to the lapels of his vest, her fingers shaking from the sharp sweetness of his mouth on hers.
Jon slipped his tongue between her lips, the silken rasp making her nipples tighten and press hard against the bodice of her confining dress. The blanket around her shoulders fell to the ground and suddenly it wasn’t cold and snowing, it was hot and maddeningly delicious.
Each stroke of his tongue made her weak, made the space between her thighs hot and achy with need. His thickly muscled arms hauled her closer, his breathing strained, matching the heave of her chest.
She drove her fingers into his hair, pushing away the piece of material he used to hold it back and threading her fingers through the soft silken strands, clinging to him.
Jon moaned into her mouth, tightening his hold as he leaned back, pulling her until her hips were pressed to his, the strain of his shaft against his breeches making her squirm.