Page 59

With a shameful mix of relief and disappointment sitting heavy in my chest, I make a beeline for the fridge. There’s a box of leftover pizza from a couple nights ago that’s got my name written all over it.

Cracking the lid, I pull out three slices, then find a plate in the cupboard. I forgo the microwave—cold is the superior way to eat leftover pizza, anyway—and am just about to make my escape when—

“Ophelia?”

I nearly shoot through the damn roof at the sound of a familiar voice, and spin around to find Cas on the opposite side of the room, standing in the secondary kitchen doorway that leads to a set of back stairs.

“Jesus, Cas,” I breathe, with one hand pressed to my chest and my plate clattering onto the island while I try to calm the spike of adrenaline coursing through me.

It’s followed quickly by embarrassment, and an awkward tension that seeps through the room like a living thing. Little mortified tendrils to creep like ivy and wrap themselves around my throat.

“I didn’t know you were home.”

“I just got back,” he says, voice sounding strangely gruff.

I hum in response, ready to cut the conversation off here and retreat to the van with my pizza, when he speaks again.

“How was your day?”

My day? He wants to know about my day?

Oh, god.

I can’t do this.

Ireallycan’t do this.

I can’t do pleasantries and small talk with the vampire who had his fangs and fingers in me last night. Not when I’ve resolved to walk things back to being strictly business between us.

I especially can’t do it when he’s standing there with his tie loosened and his jacket off and his shirtsleeves pushed up around his forearms, one elbow propped on the doorframe as he watches me stand here guiltily with my pizza, like he caught me in the middle of robbing him or something.

“Fine,” I manage to say. “It was fine. I got the van fixed, so I’m all squared away.”

Cas frowns. “I’m glad to hear it, but I thought you might want…”

He trails off, like it’s just occurred to him how many deeply inappropriate ways that sentence might end.

I might want to move right into that amazingly cozy bedroom he brought me to last night?

I might want a repeat performance of hands and fangs, lips and oh-so-talented fingers?

I might want even more than that?

“It’s fine.”

Apparentlyfinemust be the magick word to make Cas’s frown appear, because his lips turn down again, setting that handsome face of his in stern, disapproving lines.

I need to get out of here.

Seeing that frown, and all the dark, interesting angles it creates on his face, is like a giant, flashing warning sign sayingDanger, andLeave, andDon’t Look Too Close Or You Might Do Something Stupid Like Try To Kiss That Frown Away.

Responsible, capable freelance investigators don’t kiss their partners in luxurious kitchens over plates of leftover pizza.

“Do you want to talk about what happened last night?” he asks, still with that strange huskiness to his voice.

I skirt around the island, inching closer to the doorway leading back to the entryway and to my salvation. “You mean the part where you acted like an overbearing ass and dragged me out of my van?”

The corners of his lips twitch. “We could start with that, but I’d be far more interested in talking about what happened after.”