Page 35 of Seph

Oh, why,whydid penetrating suddenly sound dirty, too? The look wasn’t a flattering, admiring glance, it was stripping through layers of the front she tried to keep up around everyone.Damn Simeon. No, no, don’t.

Keep him back.

Save him.

Everyone close to me gets hurt. Or worse.

“Em, are you feelin’ all right? Maybe you should sit out this leg of the journey. It won’t be any bother to swing back and pick you up.”

“No. No, I’m fine. I’m fine, really fine.” Emily nodded and rubbed her temples. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I know we have a big deadline, but Hades didn’t make you fireproof did he?”

“Wasn’t in the mission briefing,” Simeon snarked, cracking a smile.

“Then tomorrow we’ll find a hotel and get some sleep. Sleep. Solid, restful sleep.”In one room? Or not. Maybe. Argh. Bad brain.“So, let’s go interview Demeter in the land of the Great Potato. Do you have an address?”

“Not precisely, but I think this car is pretty smart. Still, better have a practice while it’s disengaged. Take me to—”

“Wait!” Emily slapped a hand across his mouth and tried to ignore the way her body reacted to the feel of his lips against her fingers. “What are we going to ask? She’s missing her daughter. She’s a god. All these gods could probably kill us by blinking.”

“Yeah, but I doubt she will. She wants Seph back, too.” Simeon looked at the phone resting on the dashboard. “Nine is Hades. Two and three are Milly and Zag. I bet Seph is one. That’s funny, init, Huntress? The little human customs he’s picked up.”

That was a sweet thought, but totally untrue. Unrealistic. That’s why she needed to get any other unrealistic thoughts out of her brain. Simeon was an impractical romantic.

Who had used his unlimited spending card to pay her rent. Who came over weekly, even without a sudden influx of wealth, just to check on her and never came without some little peace offering.

Or were they tokens of affection?

Affection was different than love, not that she’d ever had much of either.

Her temples throbbed in accompaniment to her sigh of, “Simeon... She's been missing for a thousand years. She doesn’t have a phone. Hades doesn’t have a way to—”

The vampire cut her off in a low, firm voice. “Oneis for Seph. It’ssavedfor her. You get that?” Simeon’s voice grated against her skin, scraping some hidden part of her; scraped it, and then made it pulse too fast. When his voice rasped like that, it sounded like it had when he was breathless. It was confusing. Emily had seen him breathless too many times, all the time,really, because vamps don’t have to breathe. But it was that exhausted, injured tone from when he let her land punch after punch the first time they’d trained together after her accident. The tone he used when she couldn’t stop hitting and couldn’t stop shaking—and he finally caught her hands in his own and told her she was still every inch a demon hunter, no matter how her body betrayed her.

Or the breathless tone that existed after their heated kiss...

Don’t think about it. Don’t talk about it. Just agree.

“Whatever you say, Simeon.”

“Hades believes in her. He believes that after a thousand years, Seph’s going to come back, and they can get past whatever happened. He believes there’s a reason his wife is missing, that she will come home, and that she’ll still deserve that top spot. So, my plan is that we go to her mum’s farm in Idaho, and we ask what happened the day she disappeared, who was there, any godly interference or spats we don’t know about, and we try to search the place. Good?”

“Good.” Emily nodded, stunned by the impassioned anger and yeah, the leadership skills on display.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that? Like you’ve never seen me before?” Simeon grunted in an irritated voice, hands gripping the wheel as if he could drive by touch.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Emily countered, crossing her arms. “Simeon? Did Idaho even exist a thousand years ago? I mean... her house. As it is now?”

“Bugger. That’s a good point!” Simeon reached down and started fiddling with the knobs. “Don’t worry, just the air conditioning.”

Emily tensed. “Be careful. I don’t like when you diddle around like that.”

“Oh, trust me. You’d absolutely love it if I diddled around like this,” Simeon snickered, low and smokey.

Emily’s cheeks flooded with heat, and she smacked the vampire’s arm. “Don’t be gross. Be careful. I don’t want someone suddenly saying, ‘Oh, I wish we could go land outside of Demeter’s house in Idaho and—”

Emily never finished her sentence. The car shimmied and shot forward. “Simeon!”

“You hit my arm!”

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