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I took my phone back. “As well as it ever does.” Over the last ten years, we’d sucked more and more people in town into helping us with our scavenger hunt tasks.
Evie and Aubrey were as aware as I was that no matter of planning could prepare us for the surprise of what each year’s task would be. Planning was a tradition rather than a reality these days.
I hung around a bit longer and the three of us talked about business and life and whether it was a mistake to mix blue Kool-Aid and coconut rum. When Aubrey and I were yawning so much we were swallowing all the oxygen in the room, Evie sent us home.
Haddarville was the kind of place where it didn’t feel scary to walk down the street alone at two in the morning, but it was nicer to make most of the trip with Aubrey. We strolled in silence until we reached her clothing store—she had an apartment above it. I wished her good night and finished the walk to Onyx’s alone.
I let myself in, and paused in the entryway, letting the darkness wrap around me.
“Where were you?” Onyx’s soft question startled me. He stood near the kitchen, barely more than a shadow.
“Couldn’t sleep. Went for a walk.”
As he moved toward me, and my eyes adjusted, details came into view. He’d lost all of his clothing except the boxer briefs between when I sent him to bed earlier and now. His dark hair was mussed, and the ink on his chest slithered and danced with the shadows around us.
“You doing better now?” His voice was clear. Most of drunken Onyx was gone.
If by better he meant my brain was still a jumbled mess, then sure, I was great. “Yeah. Tired enough to crash on the couch.”
“What? No you’re not.”
“Tired? I really am.”
“You’re not crashing on the couch.” He caught me and tugged me toward his bedroom.
I could protest, but his heated grip was comforting and familiar and seared away my thoughts.
Onyx nudged me to sit on the edge of the bed and knelt at my feet. “You can’t sleep in your shoes.” He unlaced one and removed it, then the other. He set both aside. “Pants next.”
I did hate sleeping in my jeans, and being closer to him sounded nice right now, so I did what he said.
Onyx climbed over me to lay in bed on his side, and patted the mattress next to him. “Well?”
I was already convinced. I curled up with my back to him, and he draped his arm around my waist.
“Are you going to tell me the real reason you didn’t drink tonight?” His question confirmed he’d sobered up.
I couldn’t. It was too embarrassing. “Not yet.”
“Okay. You know I always have your back, right Bunny?”
“I do.” And I wished like hell it mattered this time. He couldn’t make the past go away any more than I could.
Onyx rested his head against the back of mine. “You smell good.” Or maybe he wasn’t completely sober.
“I smell like beer and ozone.”
“Yummy.” He nuzzled my hair aside and drew his nose up my neck. “I missed you. A lot.” His tone shifted to serious.
The words hit me harder than I expected. Mixing with a confusion I didn’t want to confront. “Me too.” I squirmed playfully against him.
The groan Onyx let out was low and tantalizing, and he rested his palm against my stomach, under my shirt. “Are you trying to start something?” he asked.
“Who, me?” I wiggled my ass harder against him. Shifting the mood to playful and sexy was far better than wondering why I missed you clenched around my heart the way it did. “I’m absolutely not. You’re drunk.”
“I’m not, but we can stop if you want.” Despite the words, he glided his hand higher, to brush the bottom of my breasts.
“I didn’t say that. I just don’t want you to regret this when you sober up.” I shouldn’t have said that, because it tugged loose an insecurity I rarely acknowledged. That little voice that sounded distinctly like Don, from long ago, and insisted he was going to regret me regardless, someday.
