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His head jutted up. “I beg your pardon. I can take an army of ambushes if it comes down to it, no matter my state. I was trained by the best in our field. I can hold a fight or two—granted, I didn’t get much field experience other than some scuffles, because diplomacy is always the best approach, but I can give them a lesson or two.”
“Right.”
“I’m amazing. I’m insulted you think otherwise.”
He was pretty sure he tried to make it sound hurt but couldn’t manage when his words were slurring. She nodded solemnly. Or it looked like a nod.
“Hmm. God. You can sound so prissy sometimes.”
“Alexa, one more insult, and I—”
“Will do nothing, right?”
That smile…it was doing things to him that he couldn’t understand and had him diving into the softness of her features. She looked so relaxed, so vulnerable. It called to him as he neared her, which she didn’t seem to mind, either. Alexa breathed in the night air, contented to tease him as she leaned against the wall.
“I gain nothing from doing you harm.”
Her smile dropped, and she studied him for the longest time. One of her hands rested on his chest as sincerity vibrated in her voice. “Or maybe people are just wrong about you, and you have no cruel bones in your body.”
“I can be cruel.”
“Hmm. Dare or dare, Edmund.”
“Truth.”
“I dare you to do something for yourself now.”
His senses were unweaving, forming…breathing her in. Like she was the fresh air he needed. He leaned forward. The rest blurred, but an image of her mouth pressed against his and opening up became an anchor he held on to. Maybe it was a dream as the alcohol seeped inside him, but he threw all caution out the window as he savored this dream or whatever fantasy his head was concocting.
He kissed her softly, then with more power. He absorbed her quickening exhale and her moan, and angled her head so he could taste her deeper. His hands wandered to feel what they could, and he imagined her as ripe as she was now, holding a taste that drugged his system and wreaked an intense hunger for more. It felt so real, made him feel so alive…desperate, the kind that didn’t want anyone but her.
“Alexa.”
Her name was a whisper in his soul. His dizziness took over and made the dream disappear, carrying with it a memory he grieved over.
And that was when Edmund realized that he wouldn’t get home without, in fact, getting ambushed and stupidly dying from it.
Chapter 7
Archie woke up in a chipper mood demanding breakfast, where he regaled Alexa with the stories that Grandma Lena had filled his head with and a question that had her stilling.
“Mama, why were you making sounds earlier? Did you have a bad dream?”
She closed her eyes. She tried to smother the picture of bodies rolling over each other in their haste to feed their hunger, of hands brushing and squeezing as a set of powerful hips thrust with all his might. She had woken up wet and aroused beyond belief, chained to a dream that left her nipples tight and her body quaking. Of course, it was just a dream, and the person who had triggered it wasn’t in her bedroom, but perhaps a moan or two had come out in her grogginess and bafflement.
“I don’t remember, honey,” she lied, then filled Archie’s plate with pancakes. “And you should eat up. Your Uncle Charlie will pick you up later and take you to the mall.”
The boy’s face lit up. “Mall! I love the mall.”
“I know you do.”
“I think you had a bad dream, mama. Can I hug you to make you feel better?”
“I’m feeling better already, but you know you can hug me anytime.”
With a grin, she reached for the outstretched arms, nuzzling a head that smelled of clean sheets and powder. Then she wrinkled her nose and picked him up, dancing him around until he wriggled out to leap down and snatch his plate. Archie wandered to the living room where the sound of the television came on, a cartoonish voice encouraging his comrades to go on an adventure with him.
“One hour,” she called out. “Bedroom cleanup after.”
