By the time the water cooled, I couldn’t even stand up. Miles couldn’t wipe the smug grin off his face as he toweled me off and sat me on the vanity. The blush staining my cheeks could well have been permanent after all the hollering I’d done. He had a one-track mind, and whenever he looked at me, that track was clearly all about sex. Sex and more sex. Getting me off and watching me squirm and trying to lick every inch of my skin.

Just when I thought he was done, I’d say something or look over my shoulder at him or just throw a handful of bubbles in his face and Miles would growl and press me up against the tiles again. I had just enough presence of mind to be really jealous of how long the hot water lasted—in between all the orgasms.

He took his time wrapping a towel around his waist, eyeing me as I debated trying to stand up again, and rubbed at his wet hair with another. “What do you want me to feed you?”

He said it such a weird way. Feed me. Like I was some kind of caged animal and he was the zookeeper tossing steak through the bars. I blinked and kept my eyes on his face instead of the washboard abs and the rest of his perfect body. “Breakfast tacos.”

“Breakfast tacos?” His dark eyebrow arched as he sauntered toward me. “What the fuck are breakfast tacos?”

“You’re such a barbarian.” I sighed and tried to wrap my soaking wet hair up into a bun so it stopped dripping down my back. “It’s breakfast in a tortilla. Breakfast tacos.”

Miles stopped in front of me, leaning forward between my knees, and caught my face in his hands. “Breakfast in a tortilla. Right.”

I didn’t mind the way his palms cradled my face, and before I knew it, my hands rested on his sides just above the towel. “Don’t act like you’re the one who’s actually going to cook it, hotshot.”

His eyes narrowed. “I can cook.”

“You can give orders to Mercy so she cooks,” I said. I patted his chest and eased to my feet so I could make my way slowly to the door. “And I need actual clothes. And to not die of embarrassment when I walk out there.”

“Why would you be embarrassed?” He got out of the way but stalked me into his room as I searched for my clothes.

There wasn’t enough money in the world to convince me to walk through the living room in just a towel. It would be hard enough to face everyone knowing they all knew I’d slept with him, although we were adults and we could do what we wanted. There was no reason to freak out. Except I didn’t think I could face the hope on Mercy’s face. It would break my heart to break her heart.

I bent to picked up my bra, puzzled over where my underwear might have ended up, and made the mistake of looking back as I straightened. “Well, if—”

And I caught Miles staring at my ass with renewed hunger, even with the bulky towel and a graceless jump to straighten up. I cleared my throat until his gaze traveled up the rest of me to land on my face and he smiled blandly, not an ounce of shame on his smug damn face. “As I was saying, I’m not used to having a whole family hanging out in the living room right after a... morning after, I guess. It’s weird.”

“Why would it be weird?” He folded his arms over his bare chest and leaned back against the dresser, watching me search, and I wanted to throw something at him for not helping—although he’d been pretty damn clear he preferred me without clothes. “We’re adults. Neither one of us is mated to anyone else. Why would it be weird for you to fall all over yourself climbing into my bed?”

Some of the charm of his confidence started to wear thin. I gave up on the underwear and figured I could go commando until I got to the guest room and the rest of the clean clothes. I dropped the towel and hauled on the jeans, scowling at him. “Because you kidnapped me and held me against my will, then tracked me down after I managed to escape, and you keep trying to die, and I’ll die if you die, and all of that? You forgot about all that?”

His eyebrows arched. “Of course not.”

“Then…what the hell is wrong with you?”

Miles blinked at me, then pretended to search for something in the bedroom. “What just happened? Where did Deirdre go and who the hell are you?”

A low growling bubbled up and I reared up to give him a piece of my mind about threats when he scowled at the floor near my feet and the telltale whisper of Cricket’s tail brushed against my foot. Well. At least I still had one supportive male in my life. I hauled on my shirt, ignoring my wet hair, and bent to pick the cat up. “Could you just…stop being you for a second? Go back to being Miles instead of big alpha asshole?”

“We were joking,” he said slowly. The muscles in his arms twitched as he flexed, but he didn’t move from his casual stance leaning against the dresser. “And clearly something pissed you off. Fill me in.”

“You act like this is a neat little bow on everything,” I said. I dragged Cricket up so I could rest my chin on the soft fur of his back, his tail curling around my neck, and I forced down the regret and fear of everything that I still had to deal with in my life. “But there’s at least one person in this city who still wants you dead, and if you die, then I die. And I’m not ready to die, Miles. It’s scary. And I still have to go to work and fix my house and it doesn’t matter how funny you think it is to ask me to move in with you, it’s not really funny. I don’t know what’s going on with the coven or Smith or anything. There are too many bad things and not enough good things right now, and I just can’t…I can’t deal with you making light of all this.”

He held his hands out, like I was a wild animal he didn’t want to startle, and slowly stood. “I’m not making light of anything, witch. I’m trying to catch up, since you seem to be riding the express train to pissed off, so help me out.”

Cricket grumbled and squirmed, still growling, and I wondered if I could just toss him at Miles to make my point. Cricket’s claws would leave behind the kind of damage I kinda wanted to make myself. I took a deep breath and tilted my head at the door to the living room.

“I’m off balance and I was trying to tell you I’m uncomfortable having all your pals sit outside when I have to walk across the way to get a bra because someone ripped this one all to hell.”

And I shook the tattered garment at him for good measure. Miles’s mouth hung open as he watched me, his eyes flashing gold. I put Cricket down so I wouldn’t use him as a weapon, although I doubted the cat would have had a problem with it, given his current mood. But I wasn’t done with Miles yet. I threw the bra at him instead. “And you made a joke out of it. You make a joke out of everything. I’ve never had a live-in boyfriend or even a sleepover boyfriend, Miles, so I’m trying to figure this shit out and it doesn’t help that this is your house and I’m supposed to hate you. It’s conflicting. You’re conflicting.”

I paused to breathe, a little surprised I wasn’t breathing fire or floating with rage, and clenched my jaw until my head nearly exploded as Miles turned and walked to the door without a word. I stared as he exited, closing the door behind him without a word, and I couldn’t think of what to do or say. He just walked out? Just like that? Without another word? I picked up my towel and started trying to dry my hair, even if it felt like I wanted to rip it all out and strangle him with it, and spun on my heel to confront him as the bedroom door opened once more.

Miles strode in and dropped the entire duffel bag of clothes onto the bed. He fished around in the pile of clothes until he came up with a bra. “Not really my style, but this looks like it’ll get the job done.”

He tossed it to me but I didn’t react; it hit my chest and fell to the floor instead. Miles snorted, shaking his head, and shooed Cricket out of the way with his foot as he walked up to me. I almost retreated, though I managed to put some iron in my spine at the last minute. Miles caught my face in his hands and bumped his nose against mine. “Look, witch. We speak different languages. Find some damn patience, okay?”

I blinked. “Uh—”

“Right. Patience.” His thumbs brushed over my cheekbones and he searched my eyes for something I couldn’t even imagine. “Here’s the thing. I’m not going to die anytime soon, partly because I don’t feel like kicking the bucket, but mostly because I just met you and there are still a hell of a lot of things I want to know about you and even more I want to do with you. And to you.” He started to grin and my stomach shivered in anticipation. Miles grumbled in his chest before going on. “And there’s no reason to be conflicted. We had a rocky start. Shit happens. It’s a better how-we-met story than a stupid bar, isn’t it?”

I mumbled something and tried to look away, but his fingers dug in near my jaw and I forced my eyes back to his. Miles shook his head, still entertained more than irritated. “For the record, I’m very pleased that you haven’t had any stay-over boyfriends or whatever you called them. That means I get to have all of your firsts and seconds and everything after. Hear me?”

“I don’t think that—”

“And since it’s been a hell of a long time since I wasn’t an asshole to everyone around me, you’re going to have to find a little patience of your own, witch.” Miles planted a kiss on my forehead before raising his eyebrows at me. “I make jokes. You’ve made jokes. If you’re not in a joking mood, tell me.”

I wanted to stay mad. I really did. I even scowled at him. Miles just smiled, the charm back in full force, and waited. Finally I took a deep breath and kept up my narrow-eyed look. “Look, buddy. I can be any kind of crazy I want. If I want to be mad about something, I’m going to be mad about it—and you telling me not to be mad will never, ever work.”

“Understood,” he said.

I poked him in the chest as hard as I could, hard enough I might have bruised my fingers, and threw my wet towel in his face. “And when I’m not in a joking mood, you’ll know it.”

He snorted and whipped the towel into a twist that he snapped at my ass as I walked toward the door. “Ditto. Now get your ass out there and show me how to make breakfast tacos.”

“I’m putting a bra on first,” I muttered. “Since I don’t really want to give Henry a show.”

“There’s no one else out there,” he said. Miles threw the towel into the bathroom and dug through the pile of clothes on his bed to come up with a pair of silky red panties. He held them up and waggled his eyebrows at me. “You should wear these. Look super comfortable.”

I rolled my eyes and found some regular cotton ones. “Yeah, and if I wore those, you’d never get any work done.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Miles smiled blandly and headed for the living room.

I took a moment to get myself together and fully clothed before I dared follow, still only half-convinced he’d actually made everyone leave. Maybe it was childish to feel weird about his friends knowing we’d been having energetic morning sex, but after spending so much of my life in a nearly-silent house with a nearly-empty family, it was hard to deal with so much noise and energy and talking and movement all the time. I liked his pack, but... it would have been nice to have Miles to myself without an audience.