Page 148 of Carnal Urges

Sighing, I turn and pace the other direction. “Later. Sorry. I’m too distracted. This is the longest I’ve gone without talking to her since I was five years old, and I feel like I’m missing a limb. She sounded okay when we talked on the phone—like her usual self—but that feels like a million years ago. And what if it was an act? What if he wasforcingher to sound happy? What if—”

Kage reaches out, pulls me down onto his lap, and wraps his hand around my jaw. Gazing into my eyes, he says, “She’s fine, baby.”

He kisses me deeply. I instantly relax, melting against his big hard body, loving the feel of his mouth.

“Better?” he whispers when we come up for air.

I hide my face in his neck. “Better. If he hurt her, will you please kill him?”

He exhales. “I can see there won’t be any peace around here if I don’t.”

On his desk, his cell phone rings. My heart starts pounding. I jump off his lap and stare at the phone with my hands on either side of my face, biting my lip.

Shaking his head, Kage swings the chair around and reaches for it. He answers without saying anything, which is a weird thing he does, then listens for a moment. Then he hangs up and looks at me.

“She’s on her way up.”

I make a little noise of joy and terror and tear out of the room to the elevator landing.

The front door is a bank of elevators. We’re on the top floor of a high-rise building.

From his position sprawled on the living room floor, Mojo lifts his head and looks at me. He woofs in solidarity, then promptly falls back asleep.

I hold my breath as the elevator slows to a stop. The doors slide open, and there she is.

Looking like she’s returning from a yoga retreat in hell.

It isn’t her outfit, which is a beautiful cream cashmere sweater, designer skinny jeans, and sky-high heels, or her face, which is as pretty as ever. Though maybe thinner.

It’s her eyes.

Her normally clear green eyes—her normallydryclear green eyes—are welling with some kind of strange watery substance that if I didn’t know her better would think is tears.

My heart flip-flops. I say hesitantly, “Sloane?”

Her face crumples. She drops the bag she’s carrying. She hiccups, says loudly, “How the fuck are you, sis?” and throws her arms around me.

I smell alcohol and am swamped with relief.

She’s only drunk, not crying. Crying would mean it’s the end of the world.

I blurt, “I’m good, I was so worried, I can’t believe that bastardtook you, Kage will kill him if he hurt you, oh my god, I missed you so much,are you okay?”

“Great. I’mgreat,babe, simplymarvelous.” She laughs. It sounds crazed.

I pull away and hold her at arm’s length. Inspecting her expression, I say, “You’re giving me the willies.”

“Girl,” she hiccups, “same.”

Frantic again, I look her up and down. “Sloane, talk to me! Are you hurt?”

She nods vigorously. “It feels like all my skin has been peeled off, and I’ve been thrown into boiling water, and there’s a live wire in there, too, so I’m getting electrocutedwhileI’m being boiled alive. No. No, no, that’s not it. It feels like I’m being suffocated and roasted over hot coals and pushed off a very tall building, all at the same time. It’s awful. It’s the worst! How the hell do you deal with it?”

Now I’m totally confused. “Deal with what, honey? What the heck are you talking about?”

From behind me, Kage says, “Sounds to me like she’s talking about being in love.”

We both look at him. Then we look at each other. Then Sloane says wearily, “Oh, fuck.”