“Uh, how far did you say the safe house was again?” My voice betrayed the tension I was feeling, trapped between these two gorgeous men who were currently fighting for dominance. Wesley turned in his seat to look back at me, then shook his head at Cole as if scolding his childish behavior.
“Here,” Wesley said, stretching out his hand for me to take. Not questioning why he wanted my hand, I reached forward and clasped his. The next thing I knew, I had vacated my awkward seat between the Romanian brothers and was sprawled inelegantly across Wesley's chest.
He gave me a cheeky smile. “Has to be more comfortable than caught in the cross fire back there.”
The two imposing men in the backseat were glaring death into the back of Wesley's head, and I laughed, rearranging myself into more of a comfortable position. Or trying to anyway.
Eventually Wesley must have grown frustrated with my wriggling because he picked me up and re-set me on his lap, bracing my back slightly against the door with his arms around me.
“Better?” he murmured, his lips only inches from my ear, and I nodded silently.
“All right, can we all just keep it civil for the remainder of the drive?” River asked, using his in-charge voice.
“Yes, sir,” Cole and Wesley both replied, almost as a reflex, and River shot me a look.
“Yes, sir.” I grinned and saw a tiny smile pull at his lush lips. Vali made a noise, which had me looking back over at him, but I couldn't make out the expression on his face.
For a long time, no one spoke—I suspected because no one could think of anything to say that wouldn't spark another argument and River had given an order to keep things civil. Before long, I grew tired of the tense silence, so laid my head on Wesley's shoulder and closed my eyes. His fingers stroked soft lines down my arm, tingling my skin through the thin sweater I wore, and I relaxed into his embrace. I was beyond glad that things didn’t seem to be awkward between us. But if that dream really was a shared thing, then did that mean I hadn't imagined that sexy body under his oversized hoody?
Oh fuck, now I can't stop thinking about it.
My hand crept up from where it had been resting in my lap and slid across Wesley's chest, pausing near the zipper of his hoody.
“Sweetheart,” Wes whispered, “what are you doing?”
“Just curious,” I whispered back, not moving my head from his shoulder, but cracking my lids back open so I could see. My fingers teased the zipper down just a couple of inches, then snaked back up to the neckline of his shirt.
“Curious about what?” he murmured, not stopping me.
Rather than answering him, I slid a finger under his neckline and tugged the fabric down just enough that I could see the very top lines of his tattoo, confirming my theory. Satisfied, I released the fabric but kept my hand tucked inside the neck of his hoody.
“Just curious whether I had imagined that body or not.” Raising my head up a little, I whispered the words near his ear so the rest of the car wouldn't hear. A small groan slipped out of him, and he shifted a little under me in his seat.
Coughing awkwardly, he shifted his arms to circle my waist and pulled me in closer so I could feel his rapidly increasing feelings for me, and I bit my lip in satisfaction.
“Well, that would mean I hadn't imagined yours…” he whispered back to me, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast and making me sigh, remembering the feeling of his hands on me during our not-dream.
“Do you two fucking mind?” Cole asked from the backseat, but not actually sounding that annoyed. “We still have a decent drive ahead, and I'd probably prefer not to do it with a raging hard on.”
“I would second that,” River groaned, adjusting himself one-handed before turning his attention back to the road. Wesley was clearly trying not to smile while his face flushed with heat, and I snuggled back into him to show I wasn't embarrassed. From the backseat I could feel Vali's heavy stare boring into me, but I had no idea how to deal with him yet. He was an issue for future-Kit to deal with.
27
CALEB
Austin smacked my hand away from the controls as I tried to change the radio station for about the seventeenth time since we had left Manhattan.
“Sorry,” I muttered, not feeling sorry in the least. Nerves made me fidgety, he knew that, and I was anxious as fuck.
“No, you’re not,” my twin snorted, glancing at me quickly as he navigated the road. “You’re clearly stressing the fuck out. You don’t need to subject me to song changes ever three seconds to prove it to me. I get it. Just, talk if you need to talk.”
Heaving a sigh, I began drumming my fingers on the armrest as I stared out of the window. “This whole thing is fucked. She only just got back from whatever hell she went through getting kidnapped, and now someone tries to blow her up? It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Fair?” Austin sounded like he was about to laugh. “What’s ‘fair’ when it comes to a magical war that we are totally in the dark on? We know nothing. Not what’s at stake or who the opponents are. All we are running off is that bad people want to use Christina.”
“Yeah. What’s your point?” I put my feet up on the dash and didn’t miss the small noise of frustration from my brother’s throat. He hated when I put my boots all over his car.
“My point, dickhead, is that until we get a little more info, we should all stop being so fucking shocked at every new turn of events.” He reached over and slapped my feet down off his dash.
“I see your point,” I agreed, thinking it over. We really did need to get more info. After the address Mr. Gregoric had supplied didn’t pan out, or at least not yet, we should have tried harder to track him down. He had just up and disappeared that night. Kit’s chat with him in our garden seemed like the last time anyone had seen or heard from him, which was just insanely frustrating.
“Do you think she’s okay?” I asked, mostly rhetorically. My brother knew exactly as much as I already did. Sweet fuck all.
He glanced at me again, quickly. “Yeah, bro. I think it takes a lot more than a badly made car bomb to take her down.”
“She looked really rough… like she was wrecked.” I chewed on the edge of my thumbnail while I ran over everything that had just happened in my head, like a movie stuck on repeat.
“I’m not really surprised,” Austin responded, startling me with the lack of condescension in his tone while speaking of Kit. “She did just heal herself from what should have been fatal injuries and then Cole as well. I imagine it’s got to be draining?”
My eyebrows shot up, and I gave him a sharp look. When did his attitude suddenly change?
“What?” He frowned, noticing my look and my eyes narrowed at him.
“What was this Kit said about you two making out at paintball?” In all the chaos, it had totally slipped my mind until now. But I needed answers on this. My twin never kept secrets from me. Especially about girls. Especially since Peyton.