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“I don’t know.”
He glanced around the room and turned toward the fireplace. His gaze fell on the rough thick dark wood mantel and the surround. “Did you do the stone work?”
“No. I had –”
She broke off. When he turned to look at her, waiting for her to finish her sentence, she had two fingers pressed to her lips and her cheeks flamed. What the hell?
He glanced back at the stone work. Suddenly, he understood and his face eased into a smile. One of Oregis’s side businesses was stone-masonry but the labor wasn’t exactly legal. Or the materials, for that matter.
“Well, well, well. So, the professor’s daughter has feet of clay.”
Her color only deepened. “I’m not proud of it. She stared up at the ceiling. Her gaze refused to return to his.”
He started to laugh and couldn’t seem to stop. “Oregis uses illegals from the U.S. He smuggles them across the Access Point by paying huge bribes to the officials on both sides.”
She sighed heavily. “I couldn’t have afforded it, otherwise.”
He glanced around. “Wait a minute.” He even moved back into the hallway and stared at the kitchen. “That’s not a cheap fridge you’ve got humming back there.”
“Okay, you got me. I buy a lot of stuff on the black market. Because you’re right. I teach two classes a week plus I sometimes run workshops in mixed media. My income’s a bit thin. You don’t need gloat.”
“I’m thinking maybe I do. But I have to say I like you better for it.”
“Well, lucky me.
He laughed outright “How did you meet Oregis, anyway?”
Her lips formed a soft twist and her hands slid behind her back. She rocked on her heels. She then cast her gaze toward the floor. No not the floor. Her feet.
He got it. “You buy shoes on the black market.”
“My budget isn’t small. It’s cramped.”
He drew closer and caught her softly pointed fae chin. “You do it because it’s exciting and different. You can’t fool me, Holly. You’re a secret rebel.”
~ ~ ~
Holly glared at Rez. “No. I’m not.”
He didn’t say anything to her protest. He just grinned.
The trouble was, the smile on his face of pure amusement made him look young. For a moment, she saw the kid he must have been. The errant thought wiggled through her mind: When do we lose our youthful enthusiasm? Our innocence?
She knew when life shifted for Rez, of course. The night his family was killed and his daughter abducted. She’d read of the brutality in the newspapers. His loss had been severe.
Her own had as well with the death of her brother. He’d been dismembered by several Invictus pairs, tortured in fact. Very few people knew the truth.
She and Rez had two things in common. They had loved ones savaged by wraith-pairs and they were both connected to the black market. Three, when she thought about it. Each appreciated her father’s writings.
Was he right? Was she a rebel?
She’d never thought of herself in those terms. But maybe there was a grain of truth. She supposed he’d only meant to tease her, but here she was, taking the whole statement apart and holding it up to the light.
When she’d healed Rez the first time, his face had been unrecognizable. Mastyr Stone had truly beaten him within an inch of his life. Later, the bartender at the Wild Boar, Wanda, had related the sequence of events to her. Stone had come through the door like a Valkyrie on a mission of vengeance. Rosamunde and Rez had been quickly working their way to taking their clothes off in front of the Goddess and everyone when Stone burst in.
A wave of his power had swept through the bar and he’d attacked Rez. As big and as powerful as Rez was, the surprise and viciousness of the attack incapacitated him. He’d never had a chance, despite his size. Stone might be slightly taller, but Rez’s shoulders had greater breadth. And Holly would know. She’d held onto them when he’d pinned her to the oak.
For a few seconds, her mind dropped down that rabbit hole. She became lost in the memory of having sex with him. Little lightning-like shivers chased over her body. She could feel his cock inside her.
