Page 24 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

Sateddidn’t begin to cover it, and who knew Connor could be sweet?

Really sweet.

“What’s your last name?” I asked, thinking on the situation and how funny it was that I let this man into my body in all the ways, yet I didn’t really know him.

He smiled, a kind that looked depleted of energy but highly satisfied.

“Baghest. I can’t believe I never told you.”

“Honey—” I patted his chest. “You haven’t even told me your phone number.”

“When I can move again, I’m going to have to rectify that, too. Though, I’d be lying to say I didn’t enjoy you showing up here tonight.”

“Good boy,” I said and I scratched behind his ear. “I’ll point out that you weren’t singing that tune earlier tonight.”

“Different song drifted down.” He smiled, rolling in to kiss me for real. I tingled all over. “What’s yours? Your last name?”

“You mean you haven’t looked me up?”

“Been sort of busy working two jobs and trying to keep you safe from bad guys.”

I couldn’t believe that I’d never given him mine, either. We’d certainly dropped the ball on the whole “getting to know you” portion of mating.

“Lamia.” I pushed my lips up to kiss him again. “That’s the only thing I know about who I am. It was in a book left with me when I was abandoned as an infant.”

Connor’s face hardened when I talked about being abandoned as an infant.

“What?” I asked. “You knew that.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. Any thought of you being alone and vulnerable kicks in a protectiveness that I’ve never experienced before. It’s annoying as fuck.”

Well, that just pissed me off. Here we’d shared this amazing, wild—did I say amazing?—experience and he was going to complain that he felt protective? Screw him and screw this. I didn’t need it. I pushed him off me and stood from the sofa gathering my clothing that until minutes ago I was happy he’d torn from my body.

Why did men have to open their mouths and… and…men?

Was it the best situation? Not remotely. Especially not for a girl with supernatural powers being raised around regular old humans, but I was over it. Some things just were. My childhood wasn’t so different from a whole lot of other kids’—well, aside from the whole zappy-zap fingertips on the full moon. And I didn’t need his protective bit when he neither meant it nor wanted it, but was stuck with it because of some cosmic blunder tying us together.

Upon opening my mouth to tell him just that, I got cut off by an annoying knock on the door and Luc calling through. “Sorry, lovebirds. I tried to give you as much time as possible, but there’s some stuff going on in the cemetery. We’ve got alarms going off down here. Need you to check it out.”

Ha!Love birds? As if, but curiosity got the better of me and I wanted—no,needed—to know what set off the alarms. “Want me to come with you?” I asked, rather hopeful that he’d say yes.

“Are younuts?” he snapped.Snapped. Whatever. It wasn’t like I didn’t have a few specialties. Or one. One that would work bringing a baddie down. In light of that, his response hardly felt like the correct response after getting to know each other in all the ways. The man should’ve had faith in his mate, in the universe giving him an other half who could keep up with a death hound.

I tried to look badass as I pulled up my panties. It wasn’t easy to look badass while gliding up panties, so I did it with a scowl on my face.

“Simone.” He used his lightning-Connor-quickness to pull my still-almost-completely-naked body back against his still-very-naked one, which created quite the conundrum because I didn’t like being snapped at. He had an inside voice—everyone did—and he needed to learn how to use it.

But at the same time, my body reacted to his nearness. To hisnakednearness. It was a lost cause. I hated myself for melting beneath him.

“You’re aware of what just happened between us?”

“Uh, yeah,” I replied. “Since I gave you my consent to rock my world.”

“Right. So why in the hell do you think that I’d want you anywhere near trouble?”

“Because I have powers. I can help. Besides, do you think I want anyone else to get all the fun of kicking your ass?”

Uh, yeah… that answer went over about as well as I expected it to. As in, it didn’t. At all. He growled at me. How did a man who’d just been spectacularly laid—in my opinion—find enough annoyance in him to growl?

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