Линси Сэндс - Meant to Be Immortal [calibre]

“So do I!” he heard Dani say, her voice a little distant but still he heard it.

He also heard Bricker call out, “Me too.”

“Did you hear that? We’ve voted. She passes Argeneau and Bricker muster. You can keep her.”

“I can, can I?” he asked with a smile.

“Yeah,” Decker said lightly, and then in a more solemn tone, “Seriously, cousin. I’m glad you have her. She’s perfect for you.”

“Do I have her?” Mac asked with concern.

“You’re asking the wrong person, Mac. Man up and go talk to your woman.”

Mac bristled at the “man up” bit. He’d only wanted to know what he was walking into, so he snapped irritably, “How do you know I haven’t talked to her already?”

“Well, for one thing, because Dani, Bricker, and I just left maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago,” Decker said dryly. “And for another, if you’d already talked to her you wouldn’t be asking me these questions, would you? Go talk to her.”

“I will,” he assured him. “But first just tell me what exactly she knows.”

“I think Bricker pretty much covered everything,” Decker said thoughtfully.

“Bricker?” Mac asked with alarm.

“Yeah, but he did okay,” Decker assured him.

But Mac heard Dani snort in the background and mutter, “Sure, once he got past that ‘We’re the Casper the Friendly Ghost of vampires’ stuff.”

“What did Dani say?” Mac asked sharply. “Casper the friendly what?”

“It’s fine,” Decker assured him. “I think he was just going with that because of the whole bit about her thinking you were a cyborg or a werewolf.”

“What?” Mac squawked.

“It’s all good,” Decker said soothingly. “She’s there, isn’t she? She didn’t run off into the night screaming. She’s there waiting for you to talk to her. So go do it.”

“But what—”

“Dani’s telling me to hang up now, Mac. Gotta go,” Decker said. The words were followed by dead air and Mac pulled the phone away to see that the call had been ended.

“Casper the Friendly Ghost of vampires?” he muttered with bewilderment as he slid the phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “And how the hell could she think I was a cyborg or werewolf?”

Shaking his head, he moved back to his duffle bag and pulled out a T-shirt that he yanked on as he moved back to the bedroom to claim the bags of blood CJ had brought him. He slapped the first one to his fangs and waited impatiently for it to empty, then switched it out for the second bag and waited again before heading out in search of CJ.

He found her in the kitchen, humming as she stirred a creamy orangey red soup in a pot and flipped some kind of sandwich in a frying pan. She appeared much more relaxed than she’d been in the bedroom, and that made some of his worries ease.

“Oh, hello,” she said, offering him a smile when she spotted him.

“Hello.” Mac paused just inside the kitchen and smiled in return. “You seem much better.”

“Me?” She blinked in surprise and then laughed and pointed out, “You’re the one who was shot. I’m fine.”

“Yes, but you seemed anxious and eager to get away from me or something in the bedroom and I was worried . . .” He let the words trail off and shrugged.

“Ah.” She nodded, and gave the soup a stir, then lifted first one sandwich and then the other to check their bottoms before saying, “Well, I’ve been waiting for you to wake up so that we could talk, and then I walked in to find you standing there in nothing but your boxer briefs and male glory and—” she paused to give him a crooked smile “—you and I both know that half-naked in close quarters usually leads to fully naked and no talking at all for us.” She shrugged and shifted her attention back to her cooking as she ended, “So I was anxious and eager to be away. But now you’re dressed and so long as you don’t get too close, or touch or kiss me, we should be able to manage that talk.”

Oddly enough, her words made him want to get closer and kiss and touch her, talk be damned. But the moment he started to move closer, CJ stopped cooking to face him and warned, “Don’t even think about it, my love. I’ve got a spatula and know how to use it.”

She waved the spatula at him threateningly to back up her words, but she needn’t have bothered. Her words had stopped him cold.

“My love?” he asked.

CJ tilted her head in question. “Yes?”

“No.” He shook his head on a soft laugh and explained, “You called me ‘my love.’”

“Oh. I suppose I did,” she admitted easily.

Mac hesitated and then asked point-blank, “Do you love me, CJ?”

She didn’t hesitate or prevaricate. CJ simply nodded and said, “I do,” as she turned back to her cooking. It left Mac standing there just gazing at her, wonder filling him. She loved him. He’d told her he loved her in the middle of the Jefferson mess, but she hadn’t responded in kind then. This was the first time she’d spoken her feelings.

His feet started to take him toward her, but Mac stopped himself when she waved her spatula in his direction in warning, and said, “You are eating this food I made for you, Macon Argeneau, and then we are talking, so do not even think about moving a step closer to me. You will not be making love to me on this island counter—which is the perfect height for such endeavors by the way—and having my food burn and possibly set the house on fire while we’re lying unconscious in our blissful satisfaction from an excess of the crazy hot pleasure you give me.”

Mac was just envisioning the image she’d put in his head of having said pleasure on said island when she added, “By the way, in future you will not have to stop me from touching you. Bricker told me about the shared pleasure you’ve been trying to prevent my experiencing and possibly questioning you on. I know about it, so from now on it will be true mutual pleasure between us. There’ll be no more of that not letting me touch you business.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mac said with amusement, but his voice was almost growly from the new images she’d put in his mind. Her touching him, caressing him, running her warm hand down his—

“For instance,” she continued, drawing him from his imaginings to see that she’d halved, stacked, and moved the sandwiches—grilled cheese, he thought—to a plate and was now pouring what he was guessing was cream of tomato soup into a bowl set between the two half stacks as she said, “If I want to push your pants down and take you in my mouth, you should let me.”

Mac blinked at her, that image now life-size in his mind and making him instantly erect.

CJ set the pot down, picked up the plate holding the bowl and two sandwiches, and turned to present it to him with a truly wicked smile.

Mac’s eyes narrowed on that smile and his own mouth widened with amusement. “Witch,” he accused. “You’re driving me mad on purpose.”

CJ shrugged with unconcern. “What are you going to do about it?”

It was a challenge. Mac had never been able to pass up a challenge. Sauntering forward, he pointed out, “You’re not holding your spatula now.”

“Oh, dear,” she said with feigned dismay.

Mac chuckled and took the plate from her to set it on the counter with one hand, as his other slid around her waist.

When CJ immediately leaned into him with a little sigh and tipped her face up, offering her lips, he said, “I thought you wanted to talk?”

“I want you more,” she answered, leaning up on tiptoe to press her mouth to his.

“God, I love you,” Mac groaned, and kissed her, his hands gliding over her body even as hers slid over him.

He didn’t try to stop her from touching him this time, and nipped at her lip when she broke their kiss, but she pulled back and gasped, “I love you too.”