Page 38 of Lost Kingdom

“So I suppose we’ll see how things go.” She moves into my home of her own accord. There’s no kicking or screaming. No shouting. No arguments. She throws nothing at me, nor the walls, and she doesn’t release feral animals to shit on my rug.

This is a good start to what may be a positive future.

Setting our dinner on the counter, she turns back to face me, peeling her coat off and revealing perky, pebbled nipples that my Malone-eye can’t help but notice. Because she’s delicious, and I’m a thirsty, thirsty man. “If we continue to do this Stockholm thing, I should probably store a pair of pyjamas here or something. Sleeping in my jeans gets to be uncomfortable.”

“Eventually you’ll sleep naked.” I close the door and hide my smile when her eyes flare wide in reaction to my words. Then I shuck my coat away and hang it on the only remaining hook attached to what was once a perfectly functional rack. It’s a little broken now. A little dented and imperfect. But then again, so am I.

There’s no need to throw it away.

“I’ve kept my shorts on while you’ve been here.” Turning back again, I meander closer and fold my sleeves up, grinning when her gaze drops to my arms. She’s shameless. “To undress completely when you’re here under less-than-ideal conditions would be a violation, I think.”

She drags her eyes up and tries forhoity-toity. “I tend to agree. A misdemeanor in this state. Multiple counts will upgrade you to a felony charge. Can you handle that kinda smoke, Malone?”

I slide my tongue across the front of my teeth and try not to grin toowide. “My legal standing is… under control. You’re welcome to borrow any of my clothes if you want to get comfortable. You’ve managed before.”

“Now explain to me why I get the feeling you prefer things this way?” She raises a brow and circles the counter before I can reach out and touch her exposed hipbone. The tiny gap between her jeans and the top that sits skewed to the side. She snags a knife first. Threat. Promise. Then she sets it down and selects forks second. “Do you think I haven’t noticed how possessive your people can be?”

I take a seat at the counter and reverse our roles. She can serve me for once. For the first time ever. “My people?”

“Arrogant. Egotistical. Controlling. Look upMalonein the dictionary, should be right there.”

“You sure have a lot to say about my family, Doctor Emeri.” I catch my fork when she tosses it, neither stabbing myself in the hand, nor losing an eye.Success. “Most folks who know that name certainly aren’t brave enough to disparage it.”

“Uh-huh. Do you have any soda?”

I tip my chin toward the fridge. “Help yourself. Who was your first ever serious boyfriend?”

She comes to a screeching stop, her feet skidding on the tile and her shoulders jumping almost high enough to touch her ears. Wrapping a hand around the fridge handle, she slowly rotates her head and eyes me over her shoulder. “What?”

“First serious boyfriend. We’ve been friends for a long time, but I didn’t know you existed before your twenty-first birthday. And dinner at your family home this week tells me I have no fucking clue who you are outside ofthis.”

She snags two cans of Sprite and slams the door, bottles rattling on top to create a musical cacophony. Then she circles back around and stops on the opposite side of the counter. “This?”

“I see you in the bar. I see you as a medical examiner. Very few times—as in, twice—I’ve even seen you interact with the New York portion of my life. But I’veneverseen you at a packed dining table with all those other Emeris, discussing vaginal pH levels, gay brothers, and pregnant sisters. You have an entire existence outside of what you and I have. So…” I reach across and take my soda. “Who was your first serious boyfriend?”

“And you think I’ll answer private questions about things you have no right to know, because…?”

“I asked nicely.” I pop the seal and bring the can up to sip. “I’m not yourenemy. We’re not even fighting right now. Why can’t we talk about our lives?”

She stares for an impossibly long, heated beat, burning me with her gaze so her probing look is almost like fingers tickling the back of my mind. But then she nods. Short. Sharp. Damning.

“Okay.”

I sit taller and smile. “Okay?”

“Ask me anything you want. I’m an open book.”

“First serious boyfriend?”

“Chester Samson. Nerdy name, I guess, but he was the star quarterback at our high school and went off to college to play pro.”

Stunned, I look her up and down once more. “He’s a pro football player? Right now? He’s in the NFL?”

“Mmhm. We have no horrible break-up story. He was good to me. He was kind and gentle, considering how large he was.”

My stomach turns at the images populating my mind, greasy black sludge rolling in my gut. But I push it down. Down. Way fucking down, so I don’t burn the bridge we’re so carefully rebuilding after the last few I torched.

“We graduated high school together. Dated till the end. But then he was headed to Alabama, and I went a different way. He still texts sometimes to say hello, and he’ll be at Eli’s wedding this weekend, since they’ve been best friends their whole lives.”

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