Page 50 of Yearning For Her

“We’ll see.”

“We shall.” He squeezed her hand, and his expression sobered. “Now, I don’t believe you finished your tale.”

Willow stared at his hand. It was big and warm, covering hers so perfectly, and his chest was solid beneath her palm. She could feel the steady thump of his heart. “I guess not. You sure you want to hear more?”

“Are you warning me of what’s to come or assuming I’ll be bored, mortal?”

“I guess I figured you’d be bored. I mean, you’ve lived for so, so, so, so—”

“Yes, so, so long, I get it,” he said with a laugh.

Willow grinned, but it faded. “So yeah. I hated living with my parents. I found places to go if I wasn’t locked in my bedroom reading to escape my life. I spent a lot of time at the library, or went to friends’ houses, but those friendships faded as we got older. They all had lives of their own, boyfriends and girlfriends, after-school activities and sports practices. And they were always going out to do stuff. I never had the money to join them and felt bad when they offered to pay all the time. At sixteen, I also landed my first job, and I worked as many hours as I could get. Besides spending some money on a junker car and gas, I saved every penny for the day when I could move out and be on my own.”

She fiddled with the zipper on Kian’s jacket. “When I turned eighteen, I found an ad online for an apartment here in Washington. It was tiny, but it was affordable, and I jumped at it. I was so happy to leave Florida behind. To be out on my own, to never have to deal with my parents and their resentment again. It was like this huge, crushing weight had been lifted off me. It was…freedom.

“I hardly had any belongings, so it wasn’t hard to fit it all in my little car for the cross-country drive. I knew I needed to find a job as soon as possible when I got here because my savings would only last so long. I ended up taking a position in Verity’s, a department store down the block from my apartment. It was supposed to be temporary, but I guess they liked me, because they kept me on. I worked there for a couple years, training in pretty much every department. And then one day I saw a posting for a position in the portrait studio.

“I thought it’d be a nice change of pace. It was one of the few things I hadn’t done in the store, and the pay was supposed to be better, so I applied. I got the job, and…I loved it. I discovered my passion there, found what I wanted to do for a living. I took classes, took a lot of photos for practice, and eventually started my own business. I made a profession out of it. Throw in several failed relationships during that whole time”—She spread her hands in front of her—“and here I am now.”

“Yes, here you are. With an incubus of all things.”

Willow smirked. “Who would’ve thought?”

“Reality is even stranger than your books, isn’t it?”

“Not unless half-spider, half-humanoid creatures exist too.”

Kian laughed and shook his head. “No one can claim you humans lack imagination. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there are such beings somewhere beyond the Veil. Gods know what exists in the wilds of the other realms.”

“So there’s a chance…”

He caught her chin and leaned close, eyes boring into hers. “Mortal, you are mine.”

Willow chuckled. “I haven’t agreed to that.”

“That doesn’t change anything.”

That strange fluttering returned in her belly. She examined his face—his perfect, sensual, deceptively human face. Now that she knew what lay beneath it, she could discern things even his glamour didn’t quite hide, like the subtle glow in his eyes, or the specks of glittering blue in their depths.

“Does it get tiring, using magic to disguise yourself all the time?” she asked.

Again, his expression softened, and he stroked his thumb along her jaw. “No. It’s natural. I rarely think about it at all. But when I do let my glamour drop… Well, I feel something akin to the freedom you described when you left Florida.”

“You can drop it now. You don’t have to hide from me.”

He smirked. “Oh, I have your permission, do I?”

Willow snorted and withdrew from him. Swinging her legs back over the stone wall, she hopped down. “Just figured that since there’s no one else around, you’d want to…be yourself.” Brushing off her backside, she faced him.

“I understand.” He turned away from the city as well, but instead of coming down, he climbed up to stand atop the wall, casually unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt. “You want to bask in my glory, don’t you, Violet?”

“On second thought, keep your glamour. I don’t need to—” Willow narrowed her eyes when he began to unfasten the front clasps of his corset. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you exactly what you want.” Kian slipped off the vest, dropping it to hang over the wall, and then those long, dexterous fingers went to work on his shirt. He tugged it free of his pants and undid each button from top to bottom, revealing his chest slowly. Tantalizingly.

“I didn’t tell you to undress!”

“You want to see me, Willow.” He slipped the shirt down one shoulder, then the other, and peeled it off. It fell atop the vest, already forgotten. “The real me.”

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