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I chuckled and pressed my lips to Sierra’s hair.
“How did the two of you meet?” Kinsley asked.
She was looking at me, but I didn’t know how to answer. I wasn’t practiced at lying—it took effort and required actually giving a damn what others thought—but telling Sierra’s mother that I stalked her for two days before succeeding in convincing her to let me move in didn’t seem like great first-meeting conversation.
“We met at the cemetery,” Sierra answered. “I brushed him off, but then the next morning he walked into Fountain of Youth. I haven’t been able to shake him since.”
I hid my grin in her hair. God, she was perfect.
Kinsley asked more questions, and Sierra answered all of them, even questions that were directed at me. I was happy to let her talk. I didn’t have much interest in making conversation, nor did I want to take Sierra’s spotlight. This was her time with her family, and I didn’t need to encroach on that.
Easy conversation buzzed around us, peppered with laugher. Being here hurt just as much as I’d expected it to, but not in thewayI’d expected.
I did feel that hole in my heart where my own family lived. The more time I spent on Earth, the harder it was to keep thoughts of Alana from resurfacing from the vault I’d locked them in ten years ago. I’d never even tried to forget her death—I’d always known it was useless—but the memories of Alana when she was alive were a different story. I’d buriedthemas deep inside myself as I could. I didn’t want to think of every perfect, beautiful memory of my sister and the way she’d loved humanity as much as God did. But it wasn’t the memories that hurt the most. It was the longing.
Alana would have loved being here. Sierra’s family was everything she had dreamed about. And now I understood. What she saw in humans. I wanted this to be my life—waking up beside Sierra every morning, spending Sundays with her family, building her a house, helping her create mini versions of her so they could give me heart attacks just like their mother.
But I couldn’t have any of that.
I didn’t have the freedom to choose a life with Sierra. My life didn’t belong to me anymore. And even if I hadn’t sold all my days to the secret order, I still couldn’t be what she needed, what she deserved. I was an angel and she was a human. There were things I couldn’t give her.
After a while we ended up on the couch with her cousins and Kylie. One of her cousins—the one Kylie used to date—eyed my hand on Sierra’s thigh, his scowl implying that he wasn’t happy to see it there. I smirked, not interested in his permission. Sierra hadn’t pushed me away, and nothing else was going to move my hand.
“So, Nate, what do you do for work?”
I glanced at Sierra beside me, but she was deep in conversation with her other cousin’s wife. She wasn’t going to talk for me this time. I turned back to… Aiden? I hadn’t had to remember this many names since ever.
“I’m in security.” That seemed like a safer thing to say than telling him I was an assassin. Both were loosely accurate.
Aiden nodded, not looking overly impressed. “Where do you do that?”
I let a tiny bit of menace into my expression. “I’m a private contractor. Personal protection.”
“So you’re a bodyguard.” Sierra’s other cousin interjected.
My hand moved up Sierra’s leg possessively. It was a knee-jerk reaction. Logically I knew neither of her cousins would hurt her. That this conversation was about whetherIwas good enough. But the us/them complex was sending my protective instincts into high gear.
“Is that a problem?”
“I guess that depends on who you work for.”
Kylie snorted, and I wanted to laugh too. I couldn’t very well tell him I worked for the Lord and Creator of the universe. It would be entertaining to see the look on his face if I could though.
“What’s with the epic staredown?” Sierra asked, breaking the tension between her cousins and me.
“They’re having a testosterone battle,” Kylie answered. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Come on.” Sierra grabbed the hand resting on her thigh and stood.
I let her pull me outside, across the deck to a hammock that hung between two trees. She dropped my hand, stretched out on the ropes, and looked up at me with a grin. Her eyes drifted over my body and her tongue darted out, wetting her lips before she pulled her lower one between her teeth.
Every bit of blood in my body went straight to my dick, and it took everything in me not to groan out loud. Everything she did, no matter how innocent, was hot as hell.
Her eyes were wide and questioning as she asked, “Are you going to join me?”
Shit. This woman was going to be the death of me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew there was a reason I shouldn’t do this, but that reason was getting harder and harder to remember as Sierra reached out, wiggling her fingers in invitation.
