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The wind tossed his tawny curls as if it meant to chuck him right back on the ground, and his knuckles whitened where he was gripping the branch. I shoved the pane higher and yanked out the screen. My consort scrambled in, accepting my helping hand.
I peered outside for a moment. No security guards nearby. I yanked the curtain shut again and turned to Kyler.
He was still holding my hand. Without a word, he pulled me to him, dropping his mouth to mine. The kiss was so sure and full of desire I melted into it. We’d come a long way from the first awkward peck I’d pressed to his lips a few weeks ago. And I hadn’t been able to see any of my consorts since yesterday in the town museum.
I hadn’t used enough magic to be hungry on my spark’s behalf, but I was hungry in all sorts of other ways. If we’d been able to behave as proper consorts did, I wouldn’t have left their sides for more than a few minutes in this first week after the ceremony.
On the other side of the room, Philomena cleared her throat. “I think that cooling spell might be in order now. I’d better, ah, find another way to occupy myself.”
I kissed Ky again, reveling in the heat of his lean body, in his smell: lightly musky with a hint of mint. His arms came around me, but after the kiss he eased back a few inches, still grinning.
“I’m thinking I should get in the habit of stopping by more often.”
The thought of how much risk he’d taken to stop by at all chilled a little of my desire. “You should have let me know you were coming. I could have given you some cover.”
“I didn’t need it,” he said. “I was careful. Security hasn’t changed their patrols much since my dad was on duty here.”
The guys had snuck into the estate dozens of times before, but I had trouble feeling completely reassured. So much was at stake now that we had so much more to hide.
Stepping back from Ky, I cast a quick silencing spell over the room that would let sound in but not out. Nothing another witch should be able to sense from outside my door—which was locked, but not securely enough to feel quite safe.
A spell on the door itself, Mrs. Gainsley might pick up on if she came by. I hesitated, and then dragged my reading chair over to block it from opening.
“Okay,” I said, brushing my hands together. “Now I feel better.Areyou just stopping by, or is something else going on?” My heart gave a sudden lurch. “The other guys are all okay, aren’t they?”
“Yes, yes, don’t worry,” Kyler said, holding up his hands. “There was some information I wanted to get from you, and I wasn’t sure if doing it by phone would be secure enough.”
I stepped closer to lean my head against his shoulder, and he slid his arm around my waist. “Well, now I’m intrigued. What kind of information?”
He chuckled. “Nothing all that exciting to you. I was just thinking—you know you said the other day that you wished you could go to Seattle to check out the witch-related records there?”
“Yeah. But I—”
“I know,” he said gently. “You can’t explain away the trip. But no one will think anything of some techy dude heading over to the city for a few days. I figured I could hang around, see if I can crack whatever security that Assembly of yours has on their internal network… Maybe I can dig up some records for you that even you couldn’t get to.”
He offered me one of his brilliant smiles, so pleased with himself that my heart squeezed. Both with gratitude and with nerves. “Are you sure? If they realize that you’re poking around in their business… The Assembly takes their secrecy pretty seriously.” Would they hurt him? Wipe his memory?
Kyler waved off my concern. “I’ve managed to get into international banks and government databases,” he said. “No one’s caught me yet. It’s not as if I even need to be in the building. They’ll never notice me, and I won’t leave a trace. Maybe I can ferret out a little more info about the people those phone numbers belonged to—and about your Master Cortland too. My preliminary digging hasn’t turned up anything suspicious.”
Hope was already overtaking my worries. Kyler did know what he was doing when it came to computers, better than anyone I’d ever known—and witching folk didn’t tend to be all that tech savvy in the first place. Who knew how much he might be able to discover out there? I’d put my plan into action with Dad tomorrow, he’d scour the Assembly’s digital archives, and in just a couple days we might have all the answers we needed.
“All right,” I said. “So I guess you need to know exactly where the Assembly buildingis. I assume you have to be close for all this special server hacking?”
He laughed. “That would help.” He dipped his head a little closer to mine. “But just so we’re clear, that’s not the only thing I came for.”
My breath caught at the promise in his voice and the mischievous glint in his gray-green eyes. “No?”
“If I’m going to be away from here for a while, I definitely need to get in all the Rose time I can beforehand,” he murmured, nuzzling my cheek.
“I see,” I said. “And how were you thinking we’d use that time?”
“Oh, I’m just full of ideas.”
“Like always,” I teased, and then he was kissing me again, and I couldn’t think about anything but the tender slide of his lips against mine.
My bed was just a few steps away. I sat down on the edge, and Kyler bent over me, his hands traveling up under the thin cotton top of my pajamas. His thumbs stroked over the peaks of my bare breasts, and I whimpered against his mouth.
He kissed me harder, teasing my nipples with careful strokes of his fingers until they were so stiff it was almost painful. Pleasure radiated through my chest. I wanted to pay him back with some of that exquisite torture.
