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“That was…”
“Not bad, but only because of my wittiness,” she teased.
“I was witty too.”
“Yougot drunk.”
“I couldn’t refuse his offered cups. He was testing us.”
“Hmm. No,” she protested when he moved in the direction of his house. “My place. Your butler can’t see you like this. He will blame me and it will be a shitshow.”
“I’m just drunk. I can undrunk myself.”
“Not with that magical alcohol that paranoid man used. But it’s okay. You just need to sleep it off.”
A sigh petered out of his lips and his hot breath rested against her neck.
“What would I do without you?” he mumbled.
He exhaled again and she shivered. His hand gripped her tighter, refusing to let go as he latched on to her like a leech. That he was a leech who made her body react in a whirlwind was a different story.
“I know, right?” she forced herself to keep teasing. “You would be lost and helpless.”
“I’m Henry Lyra. I’m never lost and helpless.”
“Tell that to your stumbling feet, Mr. Prim.”
“Then hold me closer, Miss Bold.”
There were more brushes of knuckles and grazes of fingers, driving her mad with need. Pearl ignored every lick of fire inside her and felt relief when her cottage finally came into sight. That relief doubled when Moon was nowhere in sight, allowing her to deposit Henry in a spare bedroom without any questions. Then she ran away from it and locked herself in her room—a protective measure, she told herself, because being stupid wasn’t part of the equation.
The next day, she cursed Pampei hard as her head throbbed from the few alcohol cups she had consumed. Pearl was sipping on her newly-boiled remedy when a presence made itself known in her kitchen, standing close behind her. Braced to face it, she turned around and offered him a steaming mug.
“Remedy. It’s not poison. Drink it up.”
What she wasn’t prepared for was the sight of Henry with his clothes rumpled, his hair standing in different directions, and the thunderous storm on his face. Gone was the controlled man who always faced her with a no-nonsense expression, and in its place was a grumpiness that she found strangely endearing. He took the cup from her hand, their fingers brushing. He sipped its contents and let out a low, satisfied groan that made her belly jump.
“You should mass produce this.”
Mouth dry, she cleared her throat. “I have the dry ingredients in stock. We don’t really need it. Ruby doesn’t drink much, and Mad—Maddox—and Moon can inhale drinks like they’re just chugging water. But I’m prepared for emergencies.”
“We all should be,” he agreed. A few more sips and his face fell into a peaceful state. Those brown eyes regarded her thoughtfully. “Good morning, by the way.”
“Good morning.” Why did it feel so intimate?
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes.”No.She had tossed and turned, too aroused for her own good, but there was no need to tell him that. “You were pretty drunk last night.”
“I know. The man’s clever to get us drunk and make sure we don’t remain threats to him.”
“I wasn’t drunk,” she shot back. “Also, we were never threats to him. Have you heard of his power? Barriers aside, he would have pulverized us with just a flick of his finger.”
“I’m sure the Council altered his power, too, in some way, to prevent him from harming anyone in his angry state.”
“Grieving state. He loved his wife. Maureen, too, at some point. He lost them both.”
His mood dipped, and she could tell he was thinking hard. His gaze met hers. “Pearl?”
