“Um.” I swallowed hard. “Yeah. Sorry, should I not have—”
“Don’t apologize.”
“W-what?”
“I’m glad you told her.”
“You are?”
He nodded. “Fucking thrilled, baby.”
My eyes felt huge in my face, wide as saucers. But I could see by his gentle, unguarded expression that he wasn’t lying. Graham was indeed happy I’d spilled the beans to my best friend about us.
Us.
There was an us.
It was official.
“I wasn’t sure you wanted people to know,” I whispered, my mind spinning a million directions at once. “I didn’t want to—”
“Gwen,” he clipped.
“What?”
“Shut up.”
I shut up.
Mostly because, at that moment, he kissed me, which gave me no other choice in the matter.
Chapter Twenty-Two
You were my cup of tea.
(I drink coffee now.)
- Gwen Goode, caffeinating
“Whoa. Your aura is so stormy, they’re going to put out a Nor’Easter watch for the entire Eastern Seaboard.”
Hetti’s statement greeted me the moment I stepped through the front door of The Gallows. It was just past 9AM, which meant I was officially late — thanks to a certain bossy alpha male.
Flipping the CLOSED sign to OPEN, I heaved a sigh and allowed the door to swing shut. Hetti came out from behind the espresso bar, making several more comments about the dark color of my supposed aura as she examined me.
This was not surprising.
Graham and I had another tiff as he drove me to work — mostly because he was being high-handed again. Before he dropped me off, he’d informed me of his plans to track down Sally and Agatha to ask them some questions about my kidnapping and their suspicions regarding the Heretics’ next move. I’d told him to leave them the hell alone, seeing as their friend had just been murdered. They deserved some time to grieve in peace. The last thing they needed was a squad of Gravewatch badasses descending upon them like locusts, demanding information at gunpoint. Besides, they’d already told me they’d never trust law enforcement to handle the Heretics. If anyone was going to talk to them, I thought it should be me.
Graham, unsurprisingly, disagreed.
Ignoring the NO ENTRY signs like they didn’t apply to him, he’d driven the Bronco right up onto the pedestrian-only mall downtown, pulling to a stop outside the front door of the shop to make sure I got in safely. This was equal parts exasperating and considerate. Since I was already annoyed with him, I chose to see it as mostly the former.
I’d shot him a dark glare and moved to get out of the passenger seat. My hand hadn’t even hit the door handle when I found myself tagged around the back of the neck by a large, warm hand and hauled bodily across the cab, onto his lap. My screech of surprise was drowned out by Graham’s mouth, which caught mine in a searing kiss that was so thorough, it turned my bones to water. Feeling me go totally limp in his arms, he’d grinned at me, green eyes simmering with heat.
“Wish I’d known two years ago I could kiss the bitchiness out of you.”
“Excuse me?”