Page 41 of Lucky or Knot

His eyes widened.

“Killing him,” he rasped, and cleared his throat. “Killing him? Tony, have you ever killed anyone?”

“Tigers are natural predators, and Cunningham’s a fucking piece of shit.”

Raven glared at me. “I’ll take that as a no, then? Well?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Well, hopefully this doesn’t surprise you, but neither have I. And aside from the moral implications, and yes, thank you, I do have something like morality, it would be complicated and messy and dangerous, and I obviously can’t do it myself or to be frank I probably would have by now despite all of that, and if you try to do it, you’ll get yourself killed or put in prison for the rest of your life!” He broke off to suck in a couple ofdeep lungfuls, since he’d ranted all that at me in one breath. “There are prisons strong enough to hold you here in the human world, aren’t there? Or would they just kill you? The authorities, I mean, not Cunningham’s security team. They’d definitely kill you.”

“Aren’t you a ray of fucking sunshine, and yes, there are prisons that would hold me. If they could get me there. But you could use your magic to hide me if it came to that, right? Take me to the spa or something.” I tried for another joke. “Paint my claws purple.”

He didn’t even dignify that with a response, simply countering with, “And then you’d never see your family again, and reading between the lines, you seem to like them rather a lot. Killing him isn’t an option. At least not for you.”

Not for me. Right. The only person who seemed to be showing the desire, will, and possibly even ability to get it done. “Let me guess, your fae buddies won’t do it because it’d be cheating your bargain.”

He shrugged again. “That, and we don’t really kill. That’s not our way.”

“More of the ‘ensnare for a thousand years of confused torment that you didn’t really deserve’ kind of people, huh?”

“Yes,” he said primly. “It’s more fun that way.”

“Endless torment and nail painting,” I remarked absently. “Thematic.”

To my shock, that won me a soft laugh. “I won’t take you to the spa with me, then,” he said. “But I enjoy it. Aside from seeing my people. Facials are lovely.”

No, I wouldn’t say it, even though I could feel the words forming on my tongue and a leer on my face.

Coming all over his face had a certain amount of appeal, but the way he was looking at me, open and soft (for him, anyway), head leaned back and the parking lot’s lights gleamingon his white neck, stirred up stronger impulses. Less crude ones.

Slightly less crude, anyway. I’d never claimed to be a poetic romantic.

“What now?” I asked. “Since you don’t want me to kill him. Although full disclosure, I might not be able to resist if the opportunity comes up. But a thousand years of torment sounds okay, if that can be arranged. I’m open-minded. As long as you end up free of him.”And all mine. But I knew better than to say that. And it wasn’t true, anyway. I wanted him free of Cunningham whether he ended up mine or not.

“Now?” He couldn’t meet my eyes, eyelashes sweeping down as he fixed his gaze on his hands where they rested on his thighs, running a thumb over his brand-new completely different (identical) shiny nails. “Now I go back to Audacity. And you go to work. Nothing. There’s nothing you can do, Tony. You shouldn’t have tracked me down today.”

Every time he protested that he wanted me to go, or that he wished he hadn’t been with me, it sounded less and less convincing, and it gave me a thrilling swoop in my stomach that I didn’t know what to do with.

I reached out and laid my hand over both of his where they twisted together in his lap. My much bigger hand covered both of his, enclosed them. Gods, I wished I could wrap myself around him like that, physically and in a more metaphorical way.

What the hell could I say to him that’d convince him to stop arguing?

“Your magic wore off. The kissing thing? This morning. I felt it dissipate.” That snapped his gaze back up to me. “I mean, now I’ve kissed you again, so who knows.”

“You,” he said, and stopped. “You, ah, you. Came to see me, with no magical compulsion at all?”

That would’ve been the perfect time for a cheesy line.Your sweet ass is magic, baby, possibly followed by a wink.

Jesus, I’d been a strip club stage performer for way too long.

“You really thought I’d left you for good when I walked out of that room, Raven?”

“Yes,” he whispered, and his eyes had gotten suspiciously shiny. So had his lashes, gleaming wetly. He blinked and a drop fell. “I did, and I didn’t, I didn’t—”

With a gun to my head—actually, strike that, a gunshot or two wouldn’t even kill me. With an aircraft carrier to my head, I couldn’t have resisted.

Raven collapsed against my chest as I caught him in my arms and gathered him close again, and he shuddered and shook, the front of my shirt instantly soaked through, his freshly painted nails digging furrows in my sides.

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