Page 63 of Immortal By Morning
Abril clucked with irritation. “The Foleys must’ve been idiots. I swear most of the windows in this house don’t have any kind of covering. What were they? Exhibitionists?”
Crispin smiled faintly and said, “To be fair, the house is so far back from the road and surrounded by trees that it is doubtful window coverings are needed as a rule.”
“Yeah, well they sure would come in handy now,” she muttered with irritation, and then sighed and met his gaze. “Thank you in advance for getting my things. My suitcase is in the closet. Just throw everything in and bring it around. No need to pack it nice.” Turning away then, she started walking toward the end of the island, saying, “I’ll be in the office.”
Crispin was watching Abril’s derriere as she walked around the island to the hallway. She had just headed up it and disappeared from his sight, when Lucian said, “You should also go to the room you chose for yourself and were napping in when the intruder struck. Roberts stopped at your place and picked up your go bag for you. He put it in there.”
Crispin’s eyebrows rose slightly at this news, but he knew he shouldn’t be surprised. He and Roberts both kept go bags in case of something exactly like thishappening. They also had keys to each other’s homes for the same reason.
“Thanks, Alex,” he murmured, nodding at Roberts.
“Happy to help,” Roberts assured him. “Speaking of which, want any help packing Abril’s things?”
Crispin almost said yes, and then realized that Abril’s things would include intimates like panties and bras and shook his head. “No, thank you. I can manage.”
Abril dropped into her desk chair and turned on her computer, her mind on the fact that Crispin had been tasked with the chore of packing up her clothes. In truth, she didn’t really mind when it came to her jeans, dress slacks, T-shirts, tops, and dresses, etcetera. However, she was a little less blasé about his sorting through her underwear. Oddly enough, she didn’t mind the idea of his seeing her pretty brassieres and panties. It was the granny panties and sports bras she was less thrilled about.
Sighing, she quickly typed in the password to unlock the screen, opened her web browser, and clicked on the Netflix icon. Abril stopped there though. She couldn’t watch a movie at her desk if Crispin was going to be in the room too. The couch was in front of her desk. He wouldn’t be able to see it and it would be rude. Aside from that, honestly her desk chair really wasn’t comfortable enough to be sitting in for an hour and a half to two hours.
Standing, she turned the desktop computer so that it faced the sofa, and then walked around and quickly removed the cushions from the couch. Those wentonto the top shelf of the closet after she removed the blanket and pillows she kept stored there and set them on the corner of her desk.
Closing the door then, she quickly pulled out the sofa bed. It already had sheets on it from the last time she’d used it. All she had to do was spread the blanket over it, put the pillows on, and voila! She had a bed. Well, she and Crispin had a bed. Because with the bed pulled out, the only space left in the room was a four-foot square area between her desk and the closet door. There really wasn’t room for Crispin to even spread out on the floor, let alone to bring in a single mattress from one of the guest rooms and lay it out. The man was going to be sleeping with her.
“Oh, yeah, you can stop thinking about that right now,” she told herself firmly. The very thought had raised her temperature and made her mouth go dry, which made her think she should fetch a drink and maybe snacks for the movie she intended to put on.
Nodding to herself, she headed out of her office.
Lucian was alone in the kitchen, seated where he’d been when she’d left. His gaze was scanning the various images showing on the monitor and then sliding to the windows where the blinds were now open to check the front and side yard.
Abril ignored him as she went into the pantry to consider the snacks she’d purchased and stored there. White cheddar popcorn, barbecue corn chips, extra flavor sour cream and onion chips. Which would Crispin like?
She considered that briefly, and then shrugged and grabbed all three. She had no idea what he liked, so it was better to be safe than sorry. Abril carried them outof the pantry, pushed the door closed with one foot, hurried to her office and dumped everything on her desk before heading back out to the kitchen.
“You are not supposed to be in rooms with uncovered windows,” Lucian said, glowering at her as she walked over to the refrigerator and opened it.
“Then you shouldn’t have opened the blinds,” Abril said with irritation. “I need a drink.”
“And apparently more food despite the fact that we just finished eating,” he said testily. She guessed he only said it to point out that this was not her first foray into the kitchen and he hadn’t said anything the first time. To be fair, she suspected that had been him showing great restraint. She assumed it was also why he’d been peering out the windows so hard, to be sure there was no one outside staring in to see her.
Grabbing several different cans of pop, she let the refrigerator door close and had started toward where Lucian sat at the island near the hall entrance when he suddenly growled, “Stop.”
Abril stopped, but asked, “Why am I stopping?”
“Someone is walking past the house.”
She hesitated, then set the pops on the island. She then moved to the window over the sink and tugged aside the blinds that were still closed there, but just enough to see out. Abril immediately relaxed when she saw the lone woman walking the golden retriever.
“That’s Kim,” she told Lucian, releasing the blinds. “She is a Realtor. Her house is that blue one across the street and a little to the left.”
“And can you tell if she is a mortal, or immortal, and a threat or not?” Lucian asked dryly.
“No,” she admitted. “But I bet you can. Is she immortal,Lucian? Or can I grab a couple glasses and some ice for the pops so I can go back to the office now?”
“Crispin can get the ice,” Lucian said sounding irritable again. “Speaking of which, Crispin, stop talking to your brother, collect Abril’s luggage, and get it to her office.”
He hadn’t raised his voice above a normal speaking tone and Abril was staring at him, thinking that Crispin would never hear him from the bedroom, when he entered the kitchen at a rather shocking speed.
Abril gaped at him as he shot past her and disappeared down the hall, reeling under the realization that he had actually heard Lucian. The knowledge made her now worry about what exactly Roberts had heard while she and Crispin had had their passionate encounter in the laundry room. She had already known that he had heard or at least witnessed part of what had taken place in the living room after they came in from the pool, but she had put that down to the cameras. There were no cameras in the laundry room. But if his hearing was as good as Lucian’s, Roberts had probably heard every moan, sigh, and gasp as she and Crispin had made out in the laundry room. If so, he’d known exactly what they were doing.
