“Fuck!” Dad thunders.
Oh shit.To say I tiptoe out of there is putting it mildly.
I slide my feet into a pair of shoes and duck into the garage, open the garage fridge, and pull one of my stress cigarettes out of the old Eggo box in the back of the freezer before nabbing a lighter from the basket of odds and ends on top of the fridge.
I need to clear my head. Maybe I should walk to the library, dig into some research for Cicely. Open a new thread in my book club group chat with my shifter gal pals to start a petition for mating-related rights for female shifters, asking if they’ll help disseminate it so I can plan an approach to the SCC to implement a law change. In fact, I should get on that as soon as possible. Because what if the spell is lifted in the three days and he comes at me?
I’m barely off the driveway before I hear, “Where are you going?”
I huff and pick up my pace. It’s still raining, but now it’s more of a drizzle.
“Bay?” Now Jase is beside me.
“Leave me alone,” I spit, blowing an exhale in his face.
Jase rears back, “Since when do you smoke?”
“I smoke when I’m stressed.Youstress me out,” I point at him with my smoking hand and without touching me he plucks the cigarette from between my fingers and drops it in a puddle.
I growl. “I need to circle the block, take a walk alone. Go away.”
“Not a chance. I’m your shadow until I claim you and fuck you enough times that every male around knows by your scent that you’re mine.”
I shoot him a disgusted look, but I also stumble and nearly do a header into Mrs. Ashcroft’s (from three doors over) hedges. The jackass tries to catch me and gets zapped, shouting, “Fuck!”
I wince and resist asking him if he’s okay. Because I shouldn’t show sympathy for the devil, and also because now he’s smirking. He’s smirking because he figures his dirty mouth got me all frazzled, and it did, but I’m not about to admit that it feels like my underwear are ablaze.
I circle the block, walking past Grey’s house and then cut through the park to get back home. And neither the walk nor the small nicotine rush help, probably because he’s my shadow, and also because I’m on overload. The three-day timeframe looms, weighing heavily. I’m currently focused on the fact that I have to move fast with the SCC, so that if the Young coven have no choice but to lift the spell, I can stop my choices from being taken from me.
I’m uncomfortably soggy now that we’re back in my room. I change my clothes in the bathroom and dry off before getting back into bed, trying to ignore him while he, too, dries off and undresses down to those underwear again. Looks like it’ll be an endless night.
***
I’m staring at my phone, scrolling through video reels, and not really even seeing what I’m looking at because he’s only inches away, in his underwear, with that terrifying erection. He’s not looking at his phone. He hasn’t turned the television on despite the fact I tossed the remote from my nightstand to land beside him, hoping he’d turn it on and watch something. But he’s just lying here awake, doing nothing.Psychopath.
Finally, I roll to the edge and as I reach, Jase’s eyes light up, but I’m not reaching for him, I’m grabbing the remote from besidehis pillow. I put on a reality TV show stream that I happen to know annoys him. He says nothing about it, but after two episodes, I can’t stomach it any longer, so I change it to one of my comfort watches,Sixteen Candles.
“How often you watch this?” he asks.
“Why?”
“Could swear I’ve seen you watch it at least three times over the years.”
Try thirty.
***
“Fuck,” Jase gripes.
“Oops,” I mutter, climbing over him to get back into bed after my third trip to the bathroom. We’ve been here for hours, and I’ve had too much bottled water.
His leg moved and grazed my toe while I was climbing in, so he got a zap.
“If I were evil, I could probably zap you enough times that you’d go home,” I say.
“Doesn’t matter how many times you zap me, I’m goin’ nowhere without you.”
If he thinks sweet talk will work on me, he’s very wrong.