I close my eyes and revel in the warm, textured silence. “I’m so glad I found you,” I whisper after a while. I reach out, run my finger along the side of his face, down to his jaw. I don’t want to let him go, to break the connection. “I can’t imagine what this world would look like right now without you in it.”
He takes a long time to answer, and when he does, his voice is fading, soft, balanced on the edge of sleep. “Have you really ever pictured the two of us, away from all this?” he whispers, letting his hand rest above my hip. “Somewhere else?”
I smile, rest my head in the crook of his armpit. “You dreaming, Alex Danfrey?”
“I mean it. Somewhere new, that we could be together,” he mumbles. “Maybe I could help you . . . help your family . . . you could leave all this, for me.”
But I can’t imagine a future like that. I’m so far in, so tangled up in this web of magic and secrets, that even imagining a world without it feels like an empty trick. “We’re together right here, right now, Alex,” I say softly, as I play with the ends of his hair. “Just focus on right now.”
“Right now,” he whispers. I watch his face become a little slacker, his breath start to deepen. He’s inches from sleep.
But I’m not ready for the now to end, not yet, and so I gently place my hand on his chest, and then slide it down, farther, farther—
Alex’s eyes are closed, but he smiles a sleepy, heavy version of that half smirk of his. He leans over and kisses me once more. And then he’s pressing against me again, and I dive headfirst into the deep, dark, warm pool of abandon.
*
I jump at the sound of a knock, a hard swift rap that soon becomes an all-out pound. I’ve got no idea what time it is. Alex is gone, must have slipped out while I was sleeping—I see the imprinted sheets beside me and feel a warm, dull ache. Outside, the parking lot of the Red Den is as dark and quiet as a graveyard, Gunn’s Six Coupe the only car in the far corner of the lot.
The knocker raps again, and the door practically bursts from its hinges. I unravel myself from the covers and stand.
“Joan,” I hear on the other side of the door. “JOAN!”
Lord. It’s Gunn.
I throw on the cotton pajamas that rest in my top dresser drawer, as a sharp panic lodges itself in my throat.
“Mr. Gunn,” I say, after I open the door to find him leaning against its frame. “It’s mighty late.”
“It’s eleven, Joan.” Gunn’s got that loose, shined look about him, and I’m positive he’s on something magical. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gunn out of control, not in full, frightening command of himself and everyone else. It’s terrifying, seeing him unhinged, this close, in the doorway of my room. Especially when I think back to that strange, loaded conversation we had yesterday morning.
“I was asleep.”
“I was shouting.” Gunn stares at me, unwavering, unflinching. Like if he looks long enough, he can see right through me, to everything I might be hiding inside. “Was someone here?”
I give a jumpy laugh. “No.”
He sidesteps his way into my bedroom. The faint brush of his suit jacket on my arm sends something near electric jumping through my skin. Fear.
No. More complicated, tangled, mixed-up than fear.
“Is there anything wrong, sir?”
But Gunn just pushes my door closed behind him. The hairs on my arms stand up on end. “I know you’re lying.”
Before I can mumble another lie, he cups my face with one hand, arching my neck back. It’s the first time he’s touched me since that night he shook my hand in the clearing, and once more it sets off that complicated, uncomfortable stirring inside. I wonder if he’d have the gall to place his hand on me right now if he hadn’t been lit up with magic.
Gunn releases his hold on me just as quick and walks to my bureau. “I have an awful habit, when I fall hard for something, of not noticing its imperfections, Joan.” He runs his hands along the top of the chest. “Sometimes I never catch them, and I’m none the wiser.” He flits those white-blue eyes back to me. “But sometimes I find these flaws. And I get so angry at myself for being blind to them, weak, that I go too far in trying to correct my mistake.”
Quick as a reflex, he grabs a thin splinter sticking out of the bureau top and yanks. It leaves a long, bleached scar along the top of the stained wood. My heart jumps, starts racing—
Correcting my mistake—
“I gave you an order, Joan, an order I have my reasons for.” Alex. He has to be talking about Alex. But how can he know? Besides, no matter how turned around this man’s got me, hell, how much I’ve turned around myself, I know that Gunn’s got no right to be talking about Alex. A hot throb of anger starts jumping with my pulse.
“You disobey my order, and I start wondering: if you’re lying about one thing, maybe you’re lying about others.”
“I’m not lying.”