Most likely, he would also discover urgent business in his former lair that required his immediate attention shortly before their neighbors’ arrival, but so be it. The offer was still incredibly sweet.
“Yeah, but…” She’d leapt, and he’d caught her with ease. Gods, she loved him right back. “That would be a terrible waste of money.”
“What did I say about money?”
As she smiled against his neck, she deliberately tickled his throat with her lashes. “That you have far too much of it, and you’ve chosen to spend it on an enormous underground lair, apparently in preparation to become Superman’s next archnemesis?”
“Ingrate.” His retaliatory tickling targeted her ribs, and he had to cover her mouth again when she squeaked in helpless laughter. “Listen to me, human. I’m not asking you to leave your home, and I’m not asking you to abandon all tangible mementos of your lost family. If I did, I’d be an utter hypocrite.”
“You don’t care if you’re a hypocrite,” she pointed out, lifting her head.
He grinned down at her. “True. But in this instance, I don’t qualify anyway.”
“You have mementos of your family? Where…” Those uber-modern rooms in his lair hadn’t contained a single sentimental item. She’d swear to that. Which meant—“Your library. Your family’s possessions are in your library.”
That warm, cozy nook with honeyed wood and a thick, silky,now-stained rug. The small private space he’d initially kept locked away from her.
Because, she now understood, it revealed the softness of his heart, its reluctant vulnerability, beneath all that cold, harsh armor.
“I didn’t keep much. But the things I had, I wanted displayed in a suitable location. A room my parents would have found comfortable and welcoming.” After one last stroke of her now-smooth hair, he crouched to search the pockets of his hoodie where it lay on the floor. “And there’s one memento I always bring with me. Here.”
Rising, he flipped over her hand and placed something in her palm.
Metallic. Round. Cool.
Instinctively, her fingers curled around the silver sphere to protect it from falling, and she lifted it for closer scrutiny. A band of the shiny metal ringed the middle of the ball, splitting the item into two clear hemispheres, both finely pierced and engraved with birds, leaves, and delicate flowers. At the top, a small suspension ring—also silver—attached to nothing.
The piece was gorgeous. Clearly very old. And she had no idea what it was.
When she looked up at him questioningly, he touched a reverent fingertip to one of the tiny birds. “My mother’s pomander. A long-ago gift from my father. At one time she wore it everywhere, either hanging from her neck chain or attached to her girdle.”
Somehow, she didn’t think he meant midcentury shapewear. “It’s beautiful.”
He didn’t offer any further explanation. Just watched her study his offering.
Apparently he thought the average twenty-first-century human would know precisely what a pomander did besides look pretty and—evidently—dangle from an outfit. So…okay, maybe she could figure it out on her own. Challenge accepted.
As she bent down to study the gorgeous openwork, a whiff of something delightfully citrusy made her crinkle her nose in thought. “Was a pomander…something she wore and sniffed whenever things smelled bad?”
“Her human friends would roll together various perfumes in a net—ambergris, cinnamon, musk, civet, and so forth—and put the ball inside their pomanders. They thought it would protect against infection during times of pestilence.”
Pestilence? That was an awfully archaic term. And the reliance on a spa-scented silver ball for continued health instead of, say, antibiotics or vaccines kind of implied…
“You’re talking about the Plague, aren’t you? Like, Black Death.” Holy shit. “Oh my gods, you are so fuckingold.”
He merely rolled his eyes. “Since vampires don’t get sick, Mom wore it to help combat foul odors instead, as you suggested. But she also paid a witch to create a recovery charm that would fit inside, with orange peel, clove, oils, and a golden ribbon.”
“Is that what I’m smelling?” She gave the sphere another sniff. “Because the scent is yummy, but it’s also remarkably strong for something that incredibly, unbelievablyancient.”
It was also very…familiar? And she had no idea why.
He didn’t bother responding to her gibe. Instead, his eyes narrowed on the pomander in her palm, and he did something subtle to the band circling its center. “Here. Look inside.”
The top and bottom of the gorgeous silver sphere opened like a book, and—
“You stole one of my soaps?” One of her shaped soaps, to be exact. Custom-ordered, scented with orange and clove, and made to resemble the iconic citrus fruit for a farmer’s market in California. “Do I need to hire security guards for my garage to prevent shoplifting, or should I simply bill you?”
Despite her tart tone, she smiled down at her own handiwork.
