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My heart skitters. “Hopefully not another demon.”
He shakes his head. “No, just Jacob.” He looks around. “So, uh . . .”
Right. How did we want to do this? More like, how did I want to do this?
Oh my god. It’s awkward already.
“Look,” I tell him, “I was just scared earlier. You don’t have to stay the night. I’m fine, really.”
He cocks his head, a wisp of a smile. “I’m staying. You asked. I’m here.”
I should protest some more. But honestly, as weird as this all is, I’m glad he’s insisting on it.
“Get some rest,” he says. “Nothing is going to hurt you. I won’t let it. You know this now, don’t you?”
Did I fucking ever. And I try not to thrill over his protective words.
Nothing is going to hurt you. I won’t let it.
I’m going to start swooning any moment if I’m not too careful.
But I don’t pull the covers over me. “Are you just going to stand there?”
His eyes go to the easy-chair in the corner that I nicknamed Pinkie. It used to be downstairs, back when I was kid, and I convinced my parents to bring the ugly pink recliner with the stuffing coming out of one corner to my room. Now Pinkie is a million colors and textures, having to be subjected to years of sewing experiments.
Yet as much as it was a good chair, it isn’t right for him to sleep on it. I don’t even think his bulky frame would fit.
“I’m here to watch you, not sleep,” he says, as if knowing what I’m thinking.
“You have no idea how creepy that sounds, do you?” I ask, watching as he walks past the foot of the bed toward the chair. He moves with such ease, like each movement is silk, calculated to use minimal exertion. Despite his dark cinnamon hair, his limbs are tanned, the muscle distracting. This is the first time I’m really seeing him without a long-sleeved shirt or leather jacket and I can’t take my eyes away.
Which, naturally, is only adding to the tension in the room. I’m completely aware that the tension is only in my head, totally unfelt by him, but it’s enough.
He eases down in Pinkie. I was right. He barely fits. But he doesn’t look uncomfortable. I wonder if it’s some supernatural ability to just adjust to every single situation, every single chair that life gives you.
“Get some rest,” he says.
I can’t help but laugh. “Is this so if my father walks in here, you won’t get your ass kicked?”
He raises his brow, a wry twinkle to his pale eyes. “Is your father known for that?”
“He’s punched Dex in the face before.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
I chew on my lip, thinking, stalling even. The moment I turn off the bedside lamp, the moment this ends. I like having Jay in my room, his company, talking to him like he’s just some normal guy.
“What are you going to do?” I pause. “Do you sleep?”
“We already went over this,” he says. “I sleep. I do whatever else humans do, because I am, more or less, human.”
Yet the fact that he says that only brings out the fact that he’s not. Humans should never have to clarify what they are.
“Not everything,” I say under my breath.
“What was that?”
I try and think of a less nosy, less awkward way of saying this. “You obviously don’t have sex.”
The words seem to explode over the room. I regret opening my mouth and yet I’m watching him closely for his response.
He frowns at me, adjusting himself in the chair, the muscles in his biceps popping. “What makes you so sure I don’t have sex?”
Actually nothing. I just want to know. Because he’s here in my room and for better or for worse, I should know just what kind of a man he is. For safety reasons. I swear.
“Don’t you take an oath?”
He lets out a soft laugh. “An oath? There is no ceremony. We aren’t sworn in. We just . . . are.”
“So there are no rules then?”
“There are rules,” he says carefully. “Mainly common sense.”
“So have you had sex or not?”
“Have you?” he counters.
Tables have turned. “That’s none of your business,” I say stiffly.
“Then my sex life—or lack thereof—is certainly none of yours. It’s irrelevant to our relationship.”
“Doesn’t sound like a fun relationship.” Okay, I know I’m being overly bold now but there’s something about our dynamic that has me wanting to keep pushing. Find out where our boundaries are. I have a good idea.
“But . . . do you feel it? Do you have those desires?”
He swallows at that and looks away and I think he’s a bit uncomfortable for once. Good. I like seeing him more human, not this immortal, perfect being.
“We have instincts,” he says, his eyes swinging back to mine, blazing with something dark. “Some more animalistic than others.”
