Page 23 of Nightcrawler

He was looking up at me with a plea in his gorgeous navy-blue eyes. I deflated. He was right in a way. He was a grown man with his own life and I couldn’t keep him from it as much as I’d grown accustomed to having him around. Besides, my lousy apartment was nothing to write home about. He probably had a really nice house and really nice neighbors with dogs, who waved and smiled greetings as soon as they saw him.

Just like I’d had…once upon a time.

“Okay, I understand. If I were you, I’d want to get home to all that. Let me help you get dressed.” I bent to take the waistband of his jeans in hand when he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Get home to all what?” Curiosity swam in his eyes, but it was more than that. He really wanted to know what I’d meant by it, and I really needed to learn how to shut my damned mouth.

“I just meant I bet you have a real nice place.”

“Oh…yeah, it’s…fine.”

I nodded as I helped him get into his pants. “I’m sorry about your shirt. I threw it away. It was kind of—”

“Full of holes?” he asked, grinning at me. We were standing close again, close enough for me to kiss him if I wanted to. I lifted my hand to my hair and ran fingers through it when Raven took a step closer and slid his hands around my waist bringing our bodies into contact. He looked up at my hand. “I told you…you have a nervous tic.” I dropped my hand. “Are you nervous because you’re so close to me or because the last time you were, you were kissing me?”

“Neither…I guess, maybe…well, yeah, maybe the kiss part.”

Raven smiled, making those navy-blue eyes dance. “Do you maybe wanna do it again, Trigg?”

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to or if it was some kinda fluke or something.”

He snorted, tightening his hold on me. “A fluke?”

I felt myself turning red.

“If you don’t mind, I’d really love it if you’d kiss me again, Trigg,” Raven said.

I looked down at his lips, wondering for a split second when I’d started thinking of him as Raven instead of Mathis, knowing only that it had happened at some point in the last twenty-four hours, probably when I’d realized I wanted to tell him everything about me and everything that had happened.

“Trigg?”

My mind snapped back to the present. “Miguel…I mean I’d really like it if you’d call me Miguel.”

“Well, then, I’d really like it if you kissed me again, Miguel.”

I did then. I slid my arms around him, making sure I didn’t press on his back wound and fused our lips together. It felt like sparks went off in my brain as his mouth opened to me. Our tongues brushed together, and I drank him in, desperate to claim him as a warrior would. The kiss grew hotter as our tongues slid together, doing that ancient dance lovers did with each other. I felt like I’d known him all my life, comfortable with him like I’d never been with any other lover even though the kisses may not ever get us to that point. Still, I felt drawn to him as I’d never been to anyone else. Kissing Raven as the man named Miguel felt different.

He kissed me back with great enthusiasm and I was sure in the knowledge that by the time the kiss ended and our lips parted, I wanted to do it all over again. By the way he looked at me, the way his body pulsed against mine with sexual energy, and the way he was panting, I had a good idea that I wasn’t alone in that desire. A ghost of a smile crossed his lips as I finally loosened my hold on him and took a step back.

“That was really nice,” I said, lifting my hand to run it through my hair. I dropped it when his eyes followed my actions. “Son of a bitch. Now I’m gonna think about what you said about being nervous every time I do that.”

He chuckled, and I smiled because I really liked to hear that. “We should…ah…probably get you home, Raven. You said you have calls to make, and I admit, I gotta do that too.” I glanced at the stack of bills on my bar top as reality came crashing in. I looked back at him. “Gotta get me some work or I’m gonna find myself out on my ass next week.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Nothing for you to worry about.” I squatted in front of him and looked up, meeting his gaze as he looked down with a frown on his face. “Sit on the bed and I’ll help you into your shoes.”

“Oh! Okay.” He sat, and I laced up his boots. “Um, you know, if your boss—I think you said his name is Jamie?”

I stood. “Yeah. What about him?”

“You know, if you need work, I can ask my boss. Maybe they’ll have something for you?”

“You mean a bounty?” I was puzzled. Surely, he wasn’t suggesting I go to work for the insurance company.

“Yeah. I mean considering how well we worked together on that Gemma Monroe retrieval, maybe we could do a couple of jobs together.”

I snorted, walking away from him and going to the counter. The bills with the red notices stared up at me and I deliberately ignored them as I snatched up my keys. When I turned back around, he was standing a few feet away.

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