She astonished him. She understood what he was and she didn’t care. She didn’t care. It was really that basic, and that amazing.

Her mind was fascinating—limber and agile, able to expand and accept within minutes something most people would still have been denying days later. She could talk all she liked about believing what she saw, but the fact was, most people didn’t believe anything unless it fit into their already-established worldview, no matter what they saw or experienced. His mother was frequently indiscreet about exercising her powers in front of people, and at first it had concerned him, until he’d realized most people just shrugged it off and went about their business without questioning.

Lily hadn’t. You’re not human, she’d said to him, as if it was the only possible explanation for what she’d seen in Vegas. And he supposed he’d wanted to tell her, or he’d have made more than a token attempt to put her off. He could have done better than to blame the lighting, when she told him his eyes were glowing. He could have lied about knowing some kind of martial arts, when she said he was inhumanly strong. He could have, as a last resort, compelled her to believe him—though, given that she seemed to have some innate resistance to him, that might not have worked.

But no matter. He was glad he’d told her, glad she’d accepted it. Glad was a paltry word for it, really. He’d resigned himself to an existence like his mother’s, and it had seemed a lonely and miserable future, to be sure. Now, it looked like he might have escaped that fate. And that was … well, he’d have called it a miracle, but he didn’t suppose miracles were intended for the likes of him.

He studied her as she tapped out a message on her phone. She was wearing a little sundress in pale blue—there seemed no end to her supply of little babydoll-length dresses, and something about the sweetness of them combined with those lush, womanly curves drove him just about out of his mind. Her feet, bare but for pearly pink nail polish, rested on the edge of the low table between them, which meant he had a straight line-of-sight up the backs of her thighs to her panties—a flash of hot pink there, and lace edges. Whenever he got her out of her clothes, which he had managed to do at every available opportunity this last couple of days, what was underneath was always frilly and pretty, like a little present for him to unwrap.

She made a sound, a little throat-clearing noise, and he looked at her, realized she’d been watching him watching her. He wondered, idly, how long he’d been staring. “What are you looking at?” she asked.

“I can see up your dress.” He smiled and watched, delighted, as she went beet-red and thumped her feet onto the floor. “At this point, you’ve got nothing I haven’t seen,” he reminded her.

“Then you don’t need to be creeping your eyes up there like a dirty old man,” she said pertly, glaring at him.

“You said I couldn’t touch you,” he said. “You never said I couldn’t look.”

She looked like she might have a retort, but seemed to think better of it, and returned her attention to her phone.

After a moment, she propped her feet back up on the table.

He said nothing, just sat back to enjoy the view.

She scooted forward a bit on the chair; now there was considerably more view to enjoy.

Still he said nothing.

Absently, as though she wasn’t even aware she was doing it, she reached down and scratched her leg, right where the hem of her dress fell. To no one’s surprise, the fabric slipped further up her thigh, revealing a great deal of creamy white skin.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” he said.

She kept her face tilted down to her phone, looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Am I?” she asked, but a smile ghosted around the corners of her mouth.

“If you expose so much as one more inch of yourself over there, I’m taking you in the back,” he said. “Punching be damned; I’m not afraid of you.”

Slowly, deliberately, she set her phone down on the table and then stretched, arching her back and reaching toward the ceiling. Her whole dress shifted, settled; the buttons on the front waged a valiant battle to keep her contained. They won, but it was a hard-fought victory.

He stood, took the two steps that brought him to her, and plucked her out of the chair effortlessly, then swung her into a fireman’s carry and headed for the bed alcove.

As promised, she punched him, right between his shoulder blades—but it was clear her heart wasn’t in it.

And when he turned his head and nipped at her, right there where the edge of her frilly panties met the back of her thigh, she sighed and went all soft and pliant against him.

They didn’t make it back to their seats until it was time to buckle in for landing.