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I can barely pry myself out of our bed to check the perimeter and the phones on Sunday afternoon. When I come back, she’s waiting for me, gloriously naked and on all fours, a big grin on her face. “Bring me that.” She crooks her finger at me, and my cock follows orders.

She wraps her mouth around me with a moan that makes my knees buckle, quickly getting me to full hardness before sliding her mouth down. I feel the narrowing of her warm suction turning into the tightness of her throat, and she’s taking all of me.

The voice in the back of my head, the one usually buried in grumpy silence, pops out long enough to shout “Make her your wife for real, fool!” and then disappears in a haze of enthusiastic slurping. I let Teri drive, just happy to be her passenger.

When she’s done wicked, wicked things to me and caused me to explode across her chin and her beautiful full breasts (with sweet peachy-pink nipples and soft globes that fall naturally to the sides), we shower again. That just leads to more naughty things, with me bending her over in the shower and licking her from behind while she clutches onto the sides of the tub, three ofmy fingers sliding into her tunnel hard and fast as she babbles in bliss.

Yes. It’s a honeymoon. There are naps, sex, naps, and more sex.

It’s Sunday night before either of us realizes that Powell hasn’t called.

“WHAT IF HE’S DEAD?”

“I don’t think he’s dead. He probably just figures there’s no reason to call.” Reggie paces behind me as I make a loop around the outside of our safe house. Even though it’s hot and sticky tonight, I have to be outside—as long as my protector is by my side. I feel too cooped up in the house.

“Judges don’t work on the weekends, do they?”

“Some do. But I’m sure that has nothing to do with why he didn’t call. No news is good news. He probably just didn’t want to stave off questions.”

I hold his hand in one of mine and swat mosquitoes away with the other. “How did you know he was lying? You couldn’t see his face.”

Reggie's brow furrows as he ducks under a wall of honeysuckle behind the garage. “Pauses and intonation in his voice. Some of it was just logic. Some of it is instinct, being built as a divine protector, a supernatural defense. You’re not the first person I’ve helped. You begin to sense when something is off.” His voice is pressed right against my ear.

“What?” Panic hitches my breathing, and I dig my nails into the back of his hand. He’s my lifeline.

That’s scary.

It’s even scarier to think I’ll be cutting it off as soon as I get a phone call.

“Let’s go in the house.” He shepherds me in, a frown deepening the lines on his face.

“You’re freaking me out.”

“There’s no reason to freak out,” Reggie's voice is even as he locks the doors. “We’re here so you can carry on the charade of starting a new life and remain protected until you can testify or get placed in the WITSEC program. You have the right to refuse protection from them.”

I nod my head. “I know. Everything from the early days is a blur, but I remember feeling safer with Kim and her ‘contacts’ than with the different officials I met. There were so many different ones, I couldn’t keep them all straight. Why are you bringing it up?”

“Did you refuse protection from them at some earlier juncture, in favor of Kim ?”

As I retrieve a glass from the cabinet and fill it with ice water, I think. At various points, I’m pretty sure people offered to post a female officer in my room or told me there would be officers checking in. “I don’t remember outright refusing. I remember being relieved when I was finally given travel arrangements. They told me I could leave Rome and fly to London, then leave London and go to New York, and finally, come h-here.” I almost said home. That’s ridiculous. I haven’t felt like I was home in over a year. How can I feel at home in this place that has almost nothing in it of mine?

It has Reggie. He’s yours. You just have to let him know it. Not yours for the week. Yours for a lifetime of running and hiding away.

Hiding in plain sight? He’s used to that already.

“Someone put a tail on us. We know that. That means Delgado or someone higher up assigned them.”

“So? He had to at least suspect I was the informant.”

“They’ve stopped coming around because they saw you get married, just like you said you were. That backed up your story—or because the protections around us are stronger than the dark forces they have access to. Remember that good will always be stronger than evil, especially when there are enough good people standing together.”

“Okay. Comforting.”

“Yes, on the supernatural front. But on the ‘mere human’ front, I’m afraid Delgado’s men will be back soon. After the motion for discovery passes, we’ll see them again.” Reggie grabs the last hard lemonade from the six-pack. “Split it? Or you can have the whole thing if you want.”

“You have it.” I melt. The little things he does...

“Therese, you told Powell you were having second thoughts.”