CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Noelle had a bad habit of falling asleep at her desk. Though she’d intended to peel herself away from the screen and climb into the perfectly functional bed she’d spent half a paycheck on, she’d gotten distracted by the need to pull “Just one comparable listing.”

One had turned into six.

She blinked dry eyes at her computer screen and furrowed her brow. The little clock on her desktop said three a.m. Somehow, she’d lost a few hours.

“Not even December yet,” she muttered, rubbing her stinging eyes.

She shut down her computer, grabbed her phone off the charger, and scraped a bit of ectogoop from the protective case as she went.

She stopped.

Goop.

There was a reason for the goop, and that reason had been clutching bacon in her kitchen.

She could smell the bacon. Competently cooked, she guessed, based on the fact there was no char odor lingering. No smell lingered in the air quite like burned bacon.

The kitchen was dark as she approached, but there was enough light from the moon for her to navigate without injury. He’d left a bread bag on the counter, but had otherwise tidied up after himself. There were even a few dishes in the drying rack she was pretty certain she’d left crusty in the sink a few days prior.

“Did he leave?” she asked herself quietly, still moving.

He’d taken out the trash, too.

She let her fingertips slide along the chair rail in the hallway as she traveled to the front of the townhouse. She could hear voices in the living room, but couldn’t imagine him vegging in front of a television.

What do fallen angels watch on television?

She snickered at the thought. The show title Touched by an Angel suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

Tamatsu didn’t have the set on, though. He was reclined on her sofa with his eyes closed, bare feet propped up on one chair arm, legs crossed at the ankles, and his shirt off.

His wings were tucked neatly beneath him and his arms folded atop his chest.

She blinked, and not only because her eyes were dry.

Apparently, he’d taken her seriously when she’d told him to make himself at home.

Her long-neglected CD binder was open atop the coffee table, and though she’d have to get a bit closer to confirm, she was pretty sure the player was spinning Muddy Waters. Her hearing was far better than the average human’s, but angels could hear phenomena Noelle couldn’t even properly describe.

He opened his eyes, looked at her for a few tense seconds, then closed them again. He twined his fingers over his belly.

“Um.” She wriggled her toes in her slippers and scratched her head.

There was probably a prescribed etiquette for the situation. Clarissa would have known what it was. Noelle had never been quite as good at discerning mainstream behaviors, though. She wasn’t sure what was happening and why he was there.

Taking a breath, she shoved her hands into her pockets, and walked to the window. She’d left the blinds open. She’d always hated that paranoid feeling of being watched. Turning the rod attached to the blinds, she glanced over her shoulder at him.

He’d craned his neck to look back at her.

She forced a swallow down her tight throat, mouth suddenly dry. “Uh. Sorry to be such a bad hostess. I forgot to turn on the timer. Jenny installed new software on my computer last winter. Used correctly, the computer is supposed to chime repeatedly as a five-minute warning before shutoff. Once it’s powered off, I can’t log back in until morning. The scheme is supposed to help get me into bed before I fall asleep. Having a stiff, cramped body when the sun comes up because you didn’t sleep in a horizontal position sucks a fat one.”

He cocked a brow.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with fat ones, of course,” she murmured.

He straightened his neck and resumed his former position.

“Sorry. That was crass.”

No matter how long she lived, she’d probably never develop a competent verbal filter, and now he was going to be thinking that she’d been thinking of his fat one.

Gods.

Rocking back on her heels, she set her teeth into the meat of her lip. “Listen, do you need a pillow or blanket or anything?”

He shook his head.

“All right, then. I’m going to bed. If you need anything, you’ll know where I’ll be.”

He didn’t respond in any way, but she’d sort of expected that he wouldn’t. Even when he’d had a voice, he didn’t always respond. He’d just look at her, and that’d been enough. They understood each other in some ways.

So she bounded up the stairs, kicked her slippers off at the bedside, and flung herself beneath the covers.

She hated feeling so out of sorts. She hated not having a plan for something, but where he was concerned, perhaps she’d never known what she was doing. He wasn’t exactly normal.

But then again, neither was she.

When she opened her eyes again, she smelled coffee, toast, eggs, and what she hoped was sausage. There’d been sausage links in her refrigerator beneath all that bacon. She never had the time or energy to cook anything. Of course, Tamatsu had boundless energy. And probably more time than he knew what to do with.

She ran her tongue over her scuzzy teeth. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she decided to partake in the tiniest amount of ablutions before heading downstairs. She didn’t usually let people spend the night, and wasn’t entirely certain there weren’t rules about how she should look when she made her appearance downstairs. She may have been immaculate in public, but in private, she preferred to look how she felt.

She felt like shit. Her dreams had been fitful—replaying of her stealing his voice again and again, but in different places and different centuries. Seeing every place she’d been in eight hundred years, played out in such a fashion, had repeatedly jarred her from sleep.

Her teeth were clean and face washed when she arrived in the kitchen.

Tamatsu was standing in front of the counter, clad as before in nothing but dark cargo pants, and tucking slices of seven-grain bread into the toaster slots.

The landscape might have been quaintly domestic and Instagrammable if it weren’t for the wings.

And probably the unbound hair.

And possibly his pants. They slung a bit too low on his hips, and she wondered if they were actually fastened.

Please let them be fastened.

She didn’t know if she was equipped with the right sort of mental faculties to do that mind-over-matter crap so early in the morning. Plus, her imagination was too damned good. If she saw the tiniest hint of pelvis, she could fill in the gaps of what was down lower—the fat one.

Danu, help me.

He depressed the toaster lever, and, rubbing her thighs together to slake the pressure between her legs, she tried to get a hold of herself. Where Tamatsu was concerned, all she’d needed to do was climb on and squeeze. The rest of the acrobatics were nice, but certainly not necessary.

Gods, she’d missed him.

“I haven’t used that toaster in two years, probably,” she said through gritted teeth. “More precisely, Jenny used it two years ago. I’m not sure I’ve ever plugged the damned thing in. Why do I even have one?”

He canted his head.

“Right.” She made a dismissive flick of her hand. “Because adult people are supposed to have toasters.” Against her better judgment, she moved closer to the counter. Her nose had been right. There were sausage links draining on a plate atop paper towels, and she let out an indelicate growl of approval. “That sausage is supposed to be amazing. The last time I was able to get some, I kept the pack in the fridge too long and it spoiled before I could cook it.”

Tamatsu’s eyes went comically round, an impressive feat given the lack of creases in his lids.

She put up her hands in a gesture of defeat. “I know, I know. Jenny would probably lecture me about there being starving elves in Ireland or something. I keep trying to be more responsible. I guess I’m not quite ready to concede yet that I’m doomed to eat eighty percent of my meals on the run.”

He clucked his tongue and folded his arms over his chest.

“Spare me the lecture. I know I suck.” Biting her tongue on the salacious quip that had about to been tumble out after that, she grabbed a plate. Atop of it, she placed two sausage links, both slices of toast when they popped up, and a mound of scrambled eggs. “I guess I shouldn’t tell you that I normally skip breakfast. Most days, I grab a pastry at the real estate office.”

He put a hand over his chest and closed his eyes.

“You’re so dramatic. I forgot that about you.”

He crooked a thumb toward himself and lifted an eyebrow.

“Yes, you.” Leaving her plate on the table, she returned to the counter for coffee and utensils. “Maybe my memory is faulty after all these years.”

He gave an aggressive nod.

Ass.

“Anyway, I seem to recall one time when you insisted that I was in great danger and that I needed to run. Three minutes later, I was naked as a jaybird in the middle of a field and you were doubled over with laughter at my expense.” She set her mug of coffee atop the table. “All of that for a spider.”

He grinned.

She rolled her eyes. “Stopped believing you after that. You should know all about that ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’ effect. After that time, I assumed that you were trying to …”

She let the words trail off.

He knew what had happened on that night and others. He would have remembered all the touching they’d done in that field. All the pleasure in spite of the exposure. Or maybe because of it. He’d never been shy about showing affection or ardor, much to the chagrin of the locals.

She’d never been with anyone else who was so eager to show her off, even when doing so was entirely inappropriate.

She sat. Ate. After a few mouthfuls, she actually tasted the food and relished the deep, roasted flavor of the coffee.

“Mm. I’d almost forgotten what coffee tasted like in containers that aren’t made of paper.”

He closed his eyes and mouthed something to himself.

She wished she’d learned to read lips in the past eight hundred years, but she could guess that whatever words he’d wanted to speak weren’t flattering.

“Yeah, I know.” She took another sip. “If I were to sit down and actually use my budgeting app, the wedge of the pie chart indicating barista-crafted coffee drinks would be far too large. Believe it or not, I used to be thriftier.”

He made a rolling gesture with his hand—a kind of, “Go on,” motion.

She nudged sausage and eggs more tidily between the two toast slices. “I’ve only been financially flush since the late eighties. I used to play the stock market a lot. Gave up on that game, though, because it seemed too much like gambling. How the hell I ended up in Vegas, I certainly couldn’t tell you. I hate gambling.” She tapped her chin and thought. “That’s right. I remember.” She brought her sandwich to her lips and chewed.

Apparently, she wasn’t talking fast enough for Tamatsu’s liking. He leaned across from her and turned his hands over in the universal sign language for “Well?”

“Oh! Well, Jenny’s a dressmaker, right? So, she’d taken a short-term gig making costumes for a show, and I followed to keep an eye on her. Before I got back into real estate, I was a cocktail waitress for a while. After that, I was a croupier, then a personal assistant for a guy who I later found out was a con artist.” She cringed at the memory. She’d never considered herself to be particularly naïve, but that fool had managed to bamboozle her like no other. There was something in his voice, perhaps, that engendered trust, even if his smile said, “You shouldn’t.”

“That guy went to jail for racketeering, and he had this huge network of people he’d conned. They came out here looking for the deals on properties he’d promised them, and I took advantage. I knew Vegas pretty well by then, and a real estate agent I knew cut me into the deals and tossed me some kickbacks for the referrals.”

Tamatsu furrowed his brow.

“Not really the job I would have pictured myself in, but the pay can be pretty good, especially here in Vegas. I don’t see myself staying forever, if that’s what you’re thinking. Vegas is okay for now, but I’m an elf. I’d prefer a less crowded place. I don’t want to use magic around humans who are out of the loop, or even being around them so much. I feel corruptive. Also, there are scads of elves around here for some reason. Some were associated with people from Lorcan’s crew, but I can’t help that. The world is smaller now. Word’ll eventually get around about who’s where, and I’m tired of running. If anyone wants a piece of me, they can come and get it.” She shrugged and took another bite of her sandwich. She hoped her digestive system didn’t go on strike for her having deigned to consume legitimate sustenance before ten o’clock.

He bobbed his eyebrows, turned, and began stacking dishes into her sink.

“You can leave them. I’ll wash them later.”

He shook his head.

“Least I can do, right? I mean, if you’re going to cook stuff, I can pitch in and wash a few dishes.”

Again, he shook his head.

“Huh.”

Never in a million years would she have thought she’d miss arguing with someone, but she did. She missed that frustrated edge to his voice when she made spurious points, missed the way he sighed, the way he scoffed, even.

She hung her head and slouched lower in her seat.

There had to be some way to fix what she’d done. She’d find some elf somewhere who understood all the vagaries of their magic and also the ways power could be abused. That was what she’d done. She’d used magic in anger. Instead of her being the sole reaper of the karmic backwash, Tamatsu suffered.

Maybe I should ask another angel …

Tamatsu might not have had answers, and Gulielmus didn’t remember anything, but there were others. Certainly, she could find one if she asked the right people.

When she finally straightened up, he was leaning against the counter, eying her.

Oddly, there was no judgment in his expression. Not even any curiosity. Just neutral observation, as far as she could tell, as if she were any other specimen he watched every day.

“Angelic indifference,” she whispered.

He tilted his head again.

“Ignore me.”

As if he ever did what she said. He didn’t. He folded his arms over his broad chest and watched her some more.

Her courage fled.

She pushed back from the table, carried her plate to the sink, and then scurried away with her coffee mug. There was no way in hell she’d be able to think, or even breathe deeply, with him around. She could go do some thinking at work. Maybe even sell a house or something while she was gone. The prospect of money tended to boost even the lowest of her moods.

If only he could yell at her. She’d probably feel better then.

The silence …

The silence hurt.