Page 14

I cleared my throat. “I wanted to do all those things. I used to plan it in my head. This is even before I got my first job modeling. But the modeling seemed to be an answer to that original dream. But Maman died and then it was just me and Amorette. She would never have let me spoil her the way I would have wanted.”

A half-laugh escaped me and Alphabet brushed his knuckles to my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

“Sorry.” I downed the rest of the chocolate like it was a shot. “I didn’t mean to just dump all that.” I wasn’t even sure where it all came from.

“You have nothing to be sorry for Gracie.” He took the empty cup from my hand and set it aside before he turned to face me fully. There was nowhere to go to escape the depth of emotion in his blue eyes.

The intensity pinned me in place. The warmth in his hands penetrated the ice that had seemed to coat me.

“Can I?”

His question pierced through the fog and I tilted my head. The action had me rubbing my cheek against his palms, but I wasn’t trying to pull away.

“Can you—what?”

A slow smile curved his lips. “Can I kiss you?”

Could he— “Yes.” The answer just burst out of me with a smile of my own. “Of cour?—”

He didn’t let me finish the thought, he just kissed me. Not a storm or a tempest. Not a raging fire. But a firm, slow, deep kiss that held promise and hope. He teased my lips apart with a steady application of pressure. With tiny licks of his tongue, he sampled and invited me to do the same.

The thunder erupted in my pulse as it seemed to crash in my ears. I leaned into the kiss, straining to give even as I took. Missing him had taken on texture and weight, all of it seemed to disintegrate almost effortlessly under his kiss.

When we broke apart, he didn’t leave but merely pressed his forehead to mine.

“You don’t know it yet,” he said, the soft whisper as much a soothing caress for my senses as his kiss had been for my heart. “I’m going to be someone you can count on, you can trust. We all will be. But I’m telling you right now, you can depend on us, Gracie. We’re not going to let you down.”

That was the thing.

I did know it.

Maybe he didn’t understand how I knew. But I did. I was going to be someone they could trust too. I covered his hand on my cheek and closed my eyes as we existed there.

Together.

It was close to five when Alphabet and Goblin went back up to bed. As tempting as it was to go up with him, he really needed the sleep.

And I…

I needed to think.

Standing at the sink, I stared out the window into the quiet dark of the French countryside. The drag of a step alerted me to someone else coming down. It hadn’t been that long since Alphabet went up.

“Gunning for my job?” Lunchbox asked as he padded into the kitchen.

Not that he made a sound as soft as his steps were. No, I’d heard him only because he’d let me hear him. Watching his reflection in the window made me smile.

“Your job?” I twisted to face him.

“You made sandwiches last night.” He raised his brows. “Don’t tell me you’re down here to start prepping breakfast.”

“Okay,” I said, managing to contain my own amusement. “I won’t tell you that.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re giving me shit, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” Deadpan took discipline, because I really wanted to laugh. “Though, I try not to cook too much when there are no fire extinguishers around.”

His lips twitched. “You and Alphabet will get along just fine.”

“I actually know that. We had a very similar discussion about not cooking in your kitchen. Though—I did make hot cocoa in it. That I can do.”

Like the others, he’d dressed for sleep. Though instead of sweatpants, he wore shorts and his t-shirt seemed a little tight. His biceps were on full display.

So was the tattoo on his right bicep. He had several others that I’d glimpsed, but this one looked like some kind of chemical compound.

“Hey,” he said, drawing my gaze back up to his.

“Hmm?”

He narrowed the distance between us, bracing his hands on the lip of the sink on either side of me. I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze.

“You scare the shit out of me, Grace.”

“Why?”

“Because I find myself not wanting to let you out of my sight ever again.”

That didn’t answer my question. Or at least, I didn’t think it did. But he didn’t give me the opportunity to comment, not really as he dropped his hands to my hips and lifted me up even as his mouth came down.

His lips were hot and firm, the kiss searing as he took possession of my mouth. It wasn’t gentle or just a brush. It wasn’t a tease or a taste. It was deep, claiming and tasted like salt, smoke, and all the things that could never be spoken aloud.

When he wrapped his hand around my nape, and tilted my head to the side, he took the kiss even deeper. The strokes of his tongue staked his possession even as his lips branded mine.

The world crumpled up into ash, devoured entirely by the flame he fanned. It lasted forever and not long enough. Then he pulled back, just an inch and stared into my soul.

“Don’t volunteer to be the damn bait,” he said.

“I have to,” I whispered. “This is about me.”

“I don’t want you to risk yourself.”

“But it’s okay for all of you to take the risks?” I licked my lips, savoring the taste of him lingering there. Him. Alphabet. Voodoo.

They were all stealing away pieces of me and it was really hard to care.

“Yes,” he said, almost defiant. “We take the risks because we have the training. We know what we’re doing and if anything happened…you’d still be safe. Because one of us is always going to be with you.”

His words dug in, fisting my heart, and squeezed the tears from my eyes.

“I need you to be okay. All of you.” I didn’t want any of them to sacrifice themselves for me.

“And I need you to be okay.”

Blowing out a breath, I pressed my hands to his chest. “Lunchbox…I need to do this.”

He took my mouth in another kiss, a little longer, a little rougher, and a lot more than the earlier one.

“I know,” he whispered, when he finally released my mouth. “I’m just never going to like it.”