Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)

At that, she seemed to get how genuinely upset he was. Lifting her head, she searched his face. “I’m okay. For the moment, everything is okay.”

He took in her appearance for the first time, and his eyes narrowed. Her dark curls were glossy and defined, and they fell down her back in an extravagantly feminine mane. And she had done something to her eyes and mouth, making them dramatic and sensual. The smoky accents she had applied to her eyes had turned them even more electric than usual.

“You went into town looking like that?” he asked. He couldn’t help himself and touched a forefinger to her red, ripe mouth. A soft smear of color stained his fingertip, and he licked at it. It tasted of her. His cock went from zero to sixty in a single second, rock hard and straining against the seam of his jeans.

She gave him a leery glance. “Like… what, exactly?”

The truth tore out of his gut, raw and husky. “Like something I couldn’t wait to eat up.”

Her pupils dilated in quick, involuntary reaction. She recoiled, pulling out of his arms. “Too late,” she said harshly. “You had your chance and decided to cut it short.”

As she turned back to the Mini, he gritted, “Sophie, I still want you.”

“No.” She stuck her head into the back and pulled out packages. When she emerged again, her cheeks were flushed with pink color and her eyes snapped with some unnamed emotion. She met his gaze, the line of her jaw tight. “You walked away last night, and you got to do that. That was your choice, so okay. I can go with it. But you don’t get to push me away, only to try to pull me back in again. I don’t play that kind of game.”

He snapped, “I don’t play any games.”

Instead of responding in the lively way he had come to expect, she merely looked bruised. “Oh, no? Well, I don’t know what you’re doing then.”

“I don’t either,” he whispered.

That made her pause. She searched his expression uncertainly, but when he would have reached out for her again, to touch her in any way he could, the cottage door opened and Gawain strode out.

“Hello, lass,” he said. His intelligent gaze traveled from her to Nikolas, who stood with his fists clenched. “How was your trip to town?”

“She ran into Morgan,” Nikolas bit out. As Gawain’s expression changed, he said telepathically to Sophie, We’re not finished talking.

She not-quite-glanced at him. The flush of pink color had fled, leaving her looking pale and strained.

Oh no, we’re finished, she said. Until you figure out what you’re doing—whatever that might be—we don’t have anything more to say to each other that’s of a personal nature.

“Come inside, lass,” Gawain said gently while looking around sharply at their surroundings. He put a protective arm around her. “Tell us all about what happened.”

As he touched Sophie, Nikolas nearly went for his throat.

His friend’s throat. One of his closest, staunchest friends.

Rooted to the spot, he watched them step into the cottage together. Just before Gawain stepped inside, the other man speared him with a look that clearly said he thought Nikolas had lost his damn mind.

Nikolas couldn’t blame him—or Sophie. He had lost his damn mind. Glancing around one last time, he clamped down on his self-control and strode into the cottage.

Inside, he found Sophie on her knees, offering a small blue jacket to Robin. Looking befuddled, the monkey blinked as he took it. She said gently, “It’s okay if you don’t like it. I just thought you might get cold sometimes.”

From nowhere, her compassion struck Nikolas with an evil kind of accuracy, deep inside where he wore no armor. Pressing his knuckles against his mouth, he watched as the monkey ooh-oohed silently and turned the jacket over and over in his spidery hands. Sophie helped the puck slip into it, and he sat looking down at himself, fingering the gold buttons.

“I brought you a cake too,” she whispered to Robin. “It’s three times your size, and you can have all of it.”

Robin’s eyes were shining. Ooh-ooh, he mouthed and set his hand against her cheek. She covered his small hand with hers.

She brought the puck a jacket and a cake, Gawain said to Nikolas. And she bought flowers and hot chocolate and coffee. That’s all she wanted from town. Flowers, for fuck sake. She shines with spells, and she can make magic bullets. Every single fucking one of our men is going to fall in love with her, Nik. Every single fucking one. Hell, I might even fall in love with her a little myself.

You can’t, Nikolas thought, as his hands clenched again. She’s mine.

The naked aggression on his face caused Gawain to check, and comprehension dawned on the other man’s face. “Oh, boyo,” Gawain said softly while his gaze darkened. “Like that, is it?”

Her interaction with Robin over, Sophie stood and looked at them. She asked, “What’s like what?”

“Nothing,” Nikolas said harshly. He gave the other man a warning stare. “Tell us what happened with Morgan.”

“Okay, but I get to have some of that brandy you bought yesterday while I do it.” She pulled out a chair, sat, and put her head in her hands while Gawain broke open the bottle and poured some of the amber liquid into a glass for her. She took a deep, bracing swallow, then told them everything.

Just listening to how she confronted Morgan over Isabeau’s cruelty had Nikolas heading for the brandy bottle himself. He poured a hefty amount into a glass and knocked it back. It burned all the way down. Then he pivoted to glare at her.

“What is wrong with you?” he demanded. “Are you suicidal?”

Her beautiful, luscious mouth, that mouth he wanted to eat right up, dropped open. She glared back. Then a kind of hilarity entered her expression.

She muttered, “You really are an asshole, aren’t you? You almost tricked me into believing otherwise, but nope. Still an asshole. Honestly, I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed by that fact. My head is turned upside down. Mostly I think I’m just disturbed.”

“You knew he was a killer, and you confronted him anyway.” Nikolas advanced on her, rage blinding him. A belated rage born of fear that came much too late to be of good to anybody. “While I’ve been congratulating myself on being modern and reasonable by letting you go to town by yourself, you could have been kidnapped, killed, or tortured every bit as badly as Robin had been or worse. Do you realize what he could have done to you?”

He was shaking from the force that raged through his body. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gawain shift away from leaning against the counter, but Sophie beat the other man to it as she stood and advanced quickly to Nikolas.

Toward him, not away, just as she had done that first night in the pub. Just as she had done during the attack. Just as she had done to Morgan. This woman, this woman—she might be the death of him.