“Wil!” I said, feigning offense.
“Yes,” Dax said. “And as soon as her brother gets the heck out of her room, we’re going to make it official.”
Heat crawled up my neck, but I didn’t deny his words.
Willow let out a cackle that actually turned into a yawn, and her eyes started to water.
“Okay, that’s enough ribbing our friends about their relationship. Time for bed, Mrs. Kavanagh.” Talisen held out his hand to his wife. And once she was tucked safely in his arm, he glanced back at us. “Remember, safety first.”
Dax chortled. “On it.”
The two fae rounded the corner, Link chasing after them, and a moment later, I heard their bedroom door close softly behind them.
Still chuckling from our exchange with Willow and Talisen, Dax helped me clean up. And when we were done, he led me downstairs. Seth was already curled up on the couch, his head buried under a blanket.
I eyed him, longing to talk to him. To finally get answers, but Dax tugged me into my bedroom, shut the door, and locked it behind us.
“We’re going to need some privacy,” he said.
One side of my mouth twisted into a smile. “Is that so?”
“It is. I have a lot of time to make up for.” He backed me up against the wall and swept a lock of hair off my shoulder. “I’m going to need extra time to get reacquainted with every inch of you.”
A shiver of desire tingled low in my belly, and I licked my lips in anticipation. “I think we’re gonna need supplies for this.”
A gleam of interest lit his dark eyes. “Supplies?”
“Yeah, you know, water, snacks, extra lube. We don’t want to get dehydrated or weak or—”
“Dried out,” he finished and dipped his lips to my neck, nipping gently at my delicate skin.
“Yeah, that,” I said with a sigh, running my hand up the back of his shirt. He felt so damned good, his body pressing into mine, his lips tracing my skin, his hands digging into my hips. “Dammit, I want you, Dax.”
“You’ve got me, Phoebs. In every way that matters.”
I pulled back and met his heated gaze. Emotion and something that looked an awful lot like love stared back at me. His eyes softened as he studied me, and I could only imagine what he saw when he looked at me. Probably much the same, only I wasn’t ready to go there. Not today. Not after such an emotionally charged weekend.
We needed time to process, to get to know each other, to just love each other in the moment.
I cupped his face with both hands and pressed up on my toes to kiss him. It was gentle at first, tender. Then he sucked in a sharp breath and deepened the kiss, taking it from sweet to hot and almost desperate in a matter of seconds. Our hands were everywhere, each of us fumbling with each other’s clothes, tearing at each other, needing to feel skin on skin.
And finally, when we were free of our restraints, Dax stared down at me, his dark eyes molten with so much desire he made me quiver with anticipation.
“Now that you’ve got me here, Mr. Marrok, what do you plan to do with me?”
A slow, sexy as hell smile claimed his lips. Then he let out a growl and said, “Make every inch of you mine.”
* * *
I woke amid the darkness. Dax was beside me, warm and naked and perfect. I stared at him, remembering the way he felt hovering above me, pressing down into me, filling me, branding me with his hot kisses and staying true to his word when he said he’d make me his.
He’d succeeded. Because as I lay there in the darkness, running my fingers through his thick dark hair while he slept, there wasn’t any other man I wanted beside me. Dax knew me. He understood me, and he for damn sure respected me. Add in hot sex and it was a combination I’d never be able to pass up.
I shifted forward, pressed a kiss to his lips, and then rolled out of bed. Then I threw on a fresh change of clothes and headed out to find my brother.
Seth wasn’t on the couch. I glanced up at the clock. It was just past seven p.m. Had he slept most of the day like the rest of us? Or had he left? The thought sent me into a mild panic, and I took the stairs two at a time and rushed into the kitchen.
There he was, sitting at the table, munching on the largest sandwich I’d ever seen.
“Some things never change,” I said, sitting down next to him and grabbing a chip from his plate.
He watched me munch and nodded. “It’s true, some things never do.”
“How’d you sleep?” I asked, not wanting to launch into the deep end of my questions right off the bat.
“Good. Comfy couch. You?” he asked, his voice inflecting a fair bit of innuendo.
“Perfect. Thank you.” I got up and made myself a cup of tea. By the time I sat back down, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Dammit, Seth. You have to tell me where you’ve been all these years. Undercover? Locked up? Amnesia?”
He let out a sad chuckle. “No. Those are all great theories though.”
I slammed my mug down, not caring that the tea spilled all over the table. “I don’t want to play this game. Do you have any idea how much pain I’ve been in? Or how long I looked for you? I just heard the other day that you’d been sighted a few times within the past couple of years. Do you have any idea how much that hurts? To know you’ve been out there and yet didn’t come see me?”
“I did come to see you, Phoebs. I just…” He ran a hand through his thick dark hair. It was the same color as mine, only his had a curl to it I used to covet. Now I wanted to grab it and yank some sense into him.
“You just what, Seth? Just what!”
“It was too hard… I couldn’t explain. It’s…” He sighed. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Of course you should. I’m you’re sister. We’re family.” I placed my hand over his, and for the first time I noticed a platinum band on his ring finger. I stared at it, my heart nearly cracking in two. “You’re married.”
He nodded. “Listen, Phoebe. This is important.”
I squeezed his fingers. “I’m listening.”
“I don’t belong here anymore. The only reason I came back was because I knew about the ritual—”
“You knew! And you didn’t tell me? What the hell, Seth?”
“Phoebs, please. I don’t have much time. I didn’t know it would involve you or your friends. I had no idea about that. But I did know about Carter and Bandu. I’ve been trying to stop them for the past eight years. I failed the first two times, and then I’d say third time’s a charm, but you were the one who made it happen. I just got captured.”
I shrugged. “It happens to all of us at some point.”
“True. But I’d been working this case for the better part of a decade. Not the best way to end your last mission, right?”
“Your last… What does that mean? You’re leaving the Void?”
“I left a long time ago, Phoebs. Surely you knew that.”
I shook my head. “Actually, I didn’t know. All knew was that you were missing. Then I heard from some vamp that you hacked something for him, and I thought you were undercover. Didn’t you just say you were working this case for eight years?”
“Independently. It was the one I wanted to finish.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, now I have and it’s time for me to go back.”
“Go back where?” I demanded in frustration.
“Home,” he said simply. Then he stood and opened his arms wide. “Give your brother a hug, will ya?”
I practically threw myself into his arms, holding on tight as tears stung my eyes. We held on to each other for a long time, and when he finally pulled back, I noted he had tears in his eyes too. “I love you, Phoebs.”
“I love you too, Seth. Please don’t be a stranger.”
He gave me a sad smile and turned and walked out of the kitchen.
“Seth!” I called after him. “Wait. I have something for you.”
He paused at the bottom of the stairs, and I held up my hand in a wait motion as I hustled down the stairs and slipped into my room. It took me a moment to find the small photo album I’d kept for him just in case he resurfaced again someday. It was an album of the two of us, then pictures of me over the past eight years, documenting the milestones in my life.