Page 79 of Lessons with the Mothman

"Can we just keep going, without following anyone else's pattern or model or whatever you want to call it?"

I looked up into his impenetrable gaze, a cool stroke of study caressing over my face and down my neck.

He nodded slowly. "Of course."

A sudden gust of wind set the cats who'd watched us into sheltered corners. I sat up, squeezing my fingers around Elias's.

"Would you like to come in?" I asked, and watched him think, and then overthink the offer. "I've missed you," I said, and his eyes widened.

"Yes," he said, very quickly, and then added, "I've missed you too."

Elias was so soft.So warm. With the air cleared between us, I found it dangerously easy to wrap myself around his body, a touch I'd always been so greedy for and so cautious in accepting. He was freer with his touches too, hands stroking thoroughly up and down my side, over the leg I'd thrown across him, up my back, into the hair he'd tangled with his tireless fucking, and then back down again.

"I ran into Hannah and Rafe," I said, my eyes opening briefly as Hubert jumped up onto the bed and curled up against my bare back after a few moments of biscuit making.

"Ah. Rafe had something he wanted to discuss. Serves him right for showing up without warning," Elias murmured.

"The supper club venue dropped out," I said, recalling what Rafe had told me.

Elias stiffened, then relaxed once more. "I'll call in the morning." And he would take care of the problem for his friend was the unspoken message.

"How come you've never invited your friends to your house?" I asked, rubbing my cheek over his furred shoulder again. He wasn't as comfortable as a pillow, but I wasn't ready to quit the effort of cuddling him yet.

He liked cuddles.

"No need," Elias said, shrugging.

"Mmm, and youneeddozens of unoccupied rooms?"

Elias was silent for a moment, perhaps too tired for the conversation, and then he roused. "You think it would be an appropriate offering of friendship?"

It was my turn to shrug. "I think your house is sort of like a work of art. Or many works of art, each of the rooms its own moment. I'm surprised you don't share it more often, is all."

Another long stretch of quiet, and this time, I was the one dozing when Elias spoke.

"You think I should host the supper club," he said.

It hadn't at all been what I was thinking. That had been more along the lines of inviting his friends over for dinner, like he'd said before, or to…watch some kind of movie or sport? But the latter suggestion didn't really seem like an Elias kind of activity.

So I just hummed in answer and fell asleep, surrounded by velvety limbs and wings.

CHAPTER 26

Victoria

"You've been focusingon woodsy, earthy flavors and their contrasts. I was thinking perhaps a sort of art deco interpretation of Titania's bower. That would of course be where you, Khell, came in to assist."

I checked the time on my phone as the sound of several voices, rather than simply Elias's, floated through the halls of his house. I'd arrived alittleearly for our date, but I wasn't expecting him to have company. I paused on the threshold of the dining room, stripped bare of the stage Elias had arranged for my work, curtains thrown back and the soft glow of a cloudy day creeping in toward the small party gathered together at the center of the parquet floor.

Hannah was the first to notice me, and she drifted away as Elias picked up speed again.

"A modest nest erected there in the corner, perhaps a quartet of?—"

Rafe made a small choking noise, and Elias turned to glance at him, finding me hovering at the door instead.

"Victoria!" He pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced down at the screen, blinking. "Forgive me, I lost track of time."

"I'm not in any rush," I said, smiling at the twin baffled expressions Rafe and Khell'ar were wearing.

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