She rolled her eyes. “You’re so smart, and yet you’re still just a man. You understand nothing.”
“Spell it out for me, then.”
Autumn laughed. Truly laughed. She hid her face in her hands and cackled. When she finally looked at him, it was with affectionate pity. “You areverygood looking, and you exist in this miasma of mystery and temptation. No one is immune to that kind of seduction, David. It drips from everything you do. People say they’re scared, but what they really are is intrigued.”
Okay. Well… That washorribleinformation. It couldn’t have been true. He spent the majority of his energy hiding. Why the fuck would that be tempting to anyone?
“To top it off, you ration your smiles.” Autumn leaned forward, elbows on the table. “But you save the best ones for her, especially when you’re baiting her for attention. She’s noticed, David. So when you offer to take her to a private place and whisper temptation into her ear, can you not see how that would be slightly unnerving? Maybe even a little tantalizing?”
“She’s a pixie,” he felt compelled to point out. “Pixies don’t…”
How to finish that? He’d read everything he could find on the Pixie Effect, and each book was clear—their sex drive woke only with the experience of falling in love. This was the one thing he’d never questioned with Anna, that the prospect of sex was squarely within the impossible.
“They do when feelings are involved,” Autumn said.
“Feelings? What are you even… This—you—are wrong.”
Autumn snorted. “I can hear how much she thinks about you, too.”
Ugh.He didn’t need to know that. After meeting that pixie, the constant sense of isolation that had accompanied him since childhood had been crumbling away, and he’d found himself craving more and more of her. It had never occurred to him the draw might be reciprocal. The absurdity of a woman like her—a pixie, no less—wanting anything deeper than a tidal pool of a relationship withhim, especially since he’d be akeila, had kept things fairly straight in his head. It was easy to not imagine the inconceivable.
Didn’t stop the dreams that had begun to wake him up at night, teaching him how easy it was to want things he couldn’t have or to wonder how those things tasted.
Autumn dropped her voice. “Why is it so hard for you to imagine that people might like you?”
“Because no one ever has,” he said honestly.
“Anna does. Stop pushing her away.”
He didn’t want to push her away. He wanted to carry her right back to this table where she belonged.
“Then do it!” Autumn said and tossed the book again.
Fed up, David stood. “You are the most obnoxious creature in the world.”
She lit up with a megawatt smile. “Thanks! That’s what big sisters do best. We annoy.”
A rush of warmth spread through David’s veins, laced with affection. Big sister? Was that what she considered herself?
“Yep,” she said. “Siblings by fire. It’s stronger than blood, by the way. So keep being a jerk. It won’t change a thing.”
He groaned out a sigh. “I really like you, you know. It’s very inconvenient.”
She smiled. “I know.”
A quick peck to Autumn’s temple, and he was gone.
So…
He wasn’t offended.
Hewasn’t.
But also…he was kind of offended. He had offered a piece of himself to Anna, volunteered to give her something he’d never given anyone—a window into his life—and she’d spurned it.
No. She hadn’tspurned. She’d asked for more.
I want you both.
