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‘He slept well,’Sayagul replied.‘Nugget was a huge help.’

Nugget was a rare Familiar who glowed white in the dark, but the seal pup usually dimmed his light while he slept. Last night, he’d kept himself bright for Roman’s benefit, glowing softly beside Shay like a fuzzy moon. He was still there now, looking content to sleep forever.

“I’m glad,” Shay whispered.

Sayagul squinted her slitted eyes in a dragon’s attempt at a smile before shutting them.

Roman came back a few minutes later with takeout from a restaurant that served all-day breakfast. He walked in, rain sparkling in his wind-swept hair. His charcoal shirt was—obviously—ripped, his black jeans tattered too, chains hanging from pockets.

He hesitated when he saw that she was awake. “Morning.” It sounded more like a blunt statement than a greeting. He shut the door.

“Morning,” she replied. She said it in the same flat tone—she couldn’t help it.

He placed the drink tray and paper bag of takeout on the little table by the window and untied his combat boots. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”

He took off his boots and waved her over.

They sat at the table together and ate in complete silence while Pax continued to sleep. Shay expected him to rouse from the tantalizing smell of bacon, but he just kept sleeping. Roman checked on him often, still concerned about what’d happened yesterday. They ended up putting his portion of the food in the mini fridge, where Itzel had taken up temporary residence. The Hob almost gave Roman a heart attack when he opened the fridge and found her in there peering out at him.

“Itzel!” he hissed. She hissed back.“Move.”She hissed again. “Stop being a menace!” he whisper-shouted. “I need to put this in there.”

Hssssssss!Like an angry feline, she swiped a tiny hand at him and backed herself into a corner. A few more seconds of hissing and whisper-shouting, and he managed to slide the container in and shut the door with her still in there, trapped between the container and the back of the fridge. A moment later, Shay heard the container thunk against the door as the Hob pushed it away with another muffled hiss.Thunk thunk thunk. Hiss hiss hiss.It sounded like she was punching or kicking it.

Shay fought a smile. “You said you rescued her?”

He stood, dragging a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’m regretting it.”

“You might want to check on her previous owner. They might have been the one in need of rescuing.”

He sighed. “I would, but I decapitated him.”

Shay blinked.

Hours passed, and Paxton still slept. Shay lay down on her bed and watched a tacky vampire soap opera while Roman took a shower, and when he came out she kept her focus glued to the television as he walked shirtless in front of it, nothing but grey sweatpants on.

She snuck a peek at him as he organized the contents of his bags and sifted through the pockets of the jeans he had been wearing before his shower. The scars and tattoos on his back stood out in the silvery light slanting in through the blinds. While his arms and hands were covered in ink, only one side of his back was tattooed, the bare skin on the right side of his spine making the hundreds of raised scars marring his flesh much more noticeable.

He caught her looking when he straightened, cigarette in his teeth.

She looked away in a flash.

He took the cig out of his mouth. “We need to talk.” His deep, husky voice skittered across her every bone. It was the first thing he’d said to her in a while, and it didn’t exactly sound promising.

Ugh, was someone she wasn’t even dating about to break up with her?Again?That would be just her luck, wouldn’t it?

“About?” she muttered without looking at him. Goddamn him and that perfectly honed body of his. Seeing him half-naked like this only served as a reminder that she’d had himcompletelynaked not long ago, the hard lines of his lean muscle pressing against her. They’d breathed each other’s air for hours, their bodies moving as one in the pool and on the bed in the motel room. Having sex with Roman for just one night had done the exact opposite of sate her appetite for him. That one taste had her starving—feral—for more. To learn what else he could do with those hands and that body.

She had never been fucked by anyone the way Roman Devlin fucked. And a part of her wished she had stayed completely oblivious to his talents. You couldn’t miss something if you had never experienced it.

He merely walked out the door, leaving it partially open in a clear invitation.

She sighed. This wouldn’t be good. She could feel it.

She got out of bed. It wasn’t until she was standing that she remembered she still had to buy clothes. And shoes. She left the room in bare feet, the pavement refreshingly cool and speckled with rain. A chill wind brought a rush of goosebumps to her skin and billowed the shirt that barely covered her ass.

Roman stood by the water-streaked car—smoking, shirtless, and brooding, those gray sweatpants hanging scandalously lowon his hips. Gods, he was hot. She couldn’t get over him. Someone should come arrest him, because this was criminal.