Page 29 of Which Witch is Willing?
Something warm and wet nudged Moira’s calf, startling her out of her thoughts.
Cheeto sat at her feet, velvety pink skin fuzzy in the glow of the bathroom lamp. His small eyes squinted as he gave an impatient grunt.
She didn’t have Tierra’s talent for yakking with critters, but she was pretty certain she knew what he was saying.
Get on with it, biped. That stick ain’t gonna pee on itself.
“All right, all right. I’m going.” Moira stood on legs gone numb from sitting too long on the edge of the tub and hovered over the toilet, pausing when she saw Cheeto blinking up at her from the bathmat. “If I wanted some male in here eyeballing me while I squat on the pot, I’d have invited Nick in here.”
Not that she’d had to invite him.
He’d invited himself.
In fact, she’d practically had to slam the door on that chiseled jaw he was so damned proud of.
Even now, she could hear the footfalls of his expensive loafers echoing up and down the hallway where he already paced like an expectant father.
Nicholas Kingswood. An expectant father.
Now that there was a colon-loosening thought.
But no more or less troubling than Bane, or Julian, or Dru as potential baby daddy Moira supposed.
And truth was, as of this particular moment, any of the immortals in question might have been the one to supply the de Moray baby batter, so to speak.
When Julian had toted Paladin Planetary Magic and Tierra had insisted that it mean one of them was knocked up, they’d all been forced to admit—after copious denials and general panic—that they’d each, at one time or another, boned their respective Horsemen bareback.
Moira, when chained to Nicholas Kingswood’s bed, thinking she was going to die anyway.
Aerin, when she’d finally relieved Julian of his millenia-long virginity.
And Claire, when she and Dru had bumped uglies in addition to souls.
And Tierra…well, no one needed a pregnancy test to know she was heavily knocked up.
“All right.” Moira sat down and angle the stick toward what she approximated would be the splash zone. “Here goes nothing.”
15
Moira was the last to arrive in the parlor, a room that looked cozy when it was just the four sisters, but positively claustrophobic with the addition of the four Horsemen, who’d they’d been sharing quarters with since Claire had accidentally reduced Manresa Castle to a heap of smoldering ash.
As was their way, each Horseman had chosen a strategic position. Death, as close to the bulging-bellied Tierra as the furniture would allow. War, with his back to the corner and his broad chest facing the exits. Pestilence, near the bookshelves from which he seemed to draw strength. And Conquest, where the architecture would best magnify the sound of his voice.
A surge of ardor doused the flame of irritation Moira had been fanning against him.
Hearing him was one thing. Seeing him was another.
Tall against the corner where wall met wall and the ceiling vaulted overhead, his head tipped back against the plaster at an insolent angle, the lamps casting amber sparks into hair the color of brick roux it had taken Moira pert near ten years to master. Arms crossed over his chest, his biceps strained the midnight blue fabric of his tailored dress shirt. Not for the first time, Moira marked that Nicholas Kingswood didn’t so much wear a suit as force each seam and panel to worship the planes of his body. Not that Moira could blame them. Lord knew she’d done plenty of worshipping at the temple of Conquest in the days of their acquaintance.
She felt his awareness shift from his favorite focus—himself—to her. A subtle rearranging of the room’s molecules around her as a center axis. His gaze lasering away everything in the room that wasn’t her, his warm whiskey eyes tracing the coastline of her body with a cartographer’s zeal. Shores he had mapped with his lips, fingers, and tongue. His face slid into that particular grin he got when she caught him looking at her naked. Not that he ever really tried to hide it. Nick Kingswood wasn’t prone to much by the way of remorse as a general rule. It was something Moira both loved and hated about him depending on the day.
“Finally. What did you do? Fucking forge the plastic from scratch?” Aerin de Moray perched on the edge of the chaise longue, her long legs creating sharp, slim angles in their expensive slacks. She still dressed every inch the high-powered, ball-busting businesswoman she’d been before coming to Port Townsend, just as Moira still favored her ratty cut-offs and threadbare tank tops. In times like these, a body wanted to hold on to everything, any shred of comfort or familiarity it could find.
“You try relaxin’ enough to pee when you’ve got this guy marchin’ up and down the hallway outside the bathroom door.” Moira jerked her chin toward Nick, who detached himself from the wall and took a step in her direction.
“I just wanted to be nearby in case you needed any help.”
That voice.
