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He blinked and turned his whole head to face her, then straightened, arms lowering to his sides. “Did I just see your sisters leave?”
Sienna glanced reflexively toward the driveway, and the road beyond, where her sisters had just disappeared. “They’ve got a couple quick holiday errands to run. Maya wants to check on her store and grab up any last-minute donations that might’ve been dropped off, and then she has to take everything to the event coordinator’s office so it can get picked up on time. And Piper needs to get her cookies all handed out.” She smiled and offered a shrug. “We’ll meet up later to walk the streets and gawk at the lights like little kids because it’s something we love to do, and sometimes we catch a group of carolers while we’re out.” It was a silly, small-town-y celebration, but that was the life she’d always known growing up. So those were the habits she still craved.
Fenn’s expression softened. “You enjoy it.”
Sienna bobbed her head. No sense lying to the man with supernatural powers. Instead, she held out her hand. “My sisters will be busy for a few hours. I can show you the town if you want? If we stall long enough, I can show you Maya’s bookstore without actually running into Maya.” She grinned at her own ridiculousness. Maya was always happy to show off her inherited brick-and-mortar, but after the brief argument they’d had while Fenn was outside making his calls, Sienna was grateful for this afternoon reprieve from her sisters. It gave them all a chance to calm down and hopefully cool their heads.
Fenn took her hand and pulled her closer, into his chest. “I didn’t realize your sister owned a store.” He leaned in. “You can show me whatever you’d like. Soon.”
A giggle bubbled up inside her, but he smothered it with his lips and chased it away with a sweep of his tongue through her mouth. Sienna moaned and clung to his shoulders, breathless and all worked up by the time he pulled away. It was downright rude, really. She swallowed hard and searched for words that didn’t involve sex. “How’d your call go?”
The edges of his lips dropped into a frown and she immediately wished she’d just pulled him inside instead. “It’s a work in progress,” he said.
Sienna gave herself a mental shake and smoothed a palm over Fenn’s chest. “Should I be worried about who that guy is? Or about Florence, for that matter?” Florence was a psycho as far as she could tell, but that could easily make her dangerous.
Fenn’s frown deepened and he stared into her eyes. “Florence will never harm you. You have my word on that.” His words were resolute and it sent a pleasant chill running down her spine. “As for the man you saw, I can’t be absolutely certain I know who it is,” he said. “But if I’m right … then yes, that’s something to worry about.” He lifted one hand and cupped her jaw, holding her in place. “If it comes to that, I will protect you, Sienna.”
Her heart fluttered and she leaned up until she could press her lips over his again. It was an effort to keep the kiss short, especially with the way his fingers dug into her hip, but she managed to break the kiss after barley a touch of tongue. “You should really be careful,” she whispered, her voice heavy and slightly unsteady. “I might fall for you if you keep talking like that, and then maybe I’ll wind up being your next Florence.”
Fenn snorted.
Sienna grinned and looped her arms around his torso. “It could totally happen. I’m still young by most standards, so I could theoretically still learn to control my visions. Maybe use them to stalk you.”
A dark and delightful smirk lifted his lips and Fenn walked her backward, into the wall, until he’d caged her with his body. “Stalk me all you want, Sienna. If it’s you, maybe I’ll like it.”
Crap.It was really, really unfair. He was supposed to be the inexperienced one, yet she was completely helpless against him. If he ripped off her clothes right there on the front porch and fucked her for anyone to walk up and see, she wouldn’t have stopped him.
Fenn bowed his head and trailed his lip along her jaw. “We should get going, otherwise I’m liable to forget myself.”
She moaned and twisted her fingers in his sweater. She wanted him to forget himself.Wait. No. I wanted to do something else.It didn’t seem nearly as important in the moment, but she had had a plan of sorts. She’d wanted to get him out of his head a little, while they had the time, and maybe get to know him. Not Death, but Fenn, the man he was—or had been—beneath the mantle. Because it had occurred to her during one of their recent conversations that the figure she’d been dreaming of most of her life had probably not had any real friends in his lifetime. Almost certainly not before he’d been tasked with holding humanity together from the shadows.
It was a thought that made her heart hurt.
Sienna composed herself enough to bring a hand to his chest and give a light push, the gesture all he needed to ease back. She smiled. “You’ll get me all to yourself later,” she said. “For now, let’s head out and play human.”
Fenn let out a breath. “At no point in my existence have I known how to do that,” he said. “But it’s your holiday, and I have no intention of depriving you of it.” He angled toward the driveway and offered his arm, like an old-fashioned gentleman. “If you’re ready?”
Memory Lane
Walkingcasuallyaroundtown,with Sienna’s arm looped through his and the carefree lilt of her voice in the air as she talked, was possibly the simplest, most grounding thing Fenn had ever experienced. He would have expected to hate it and yet … instead, he felt calm. Even amidst the unavoidable bustle of people finishing their holiday shopping.
Mostly he listened as she saw things that sparked memories of her childhood and regaled him with stories of how she’d tormented her family in her wild youth. Familiar neighborhoods, an old park, and of course, the original Serendripity. Fenn suspected she’d have dragged him inside if it hadn’t been so crammed with people.
“And here we have the family bookstore,” Sienna said, gesturing out to the building nearest her. “My grandparents bought it when they were newlyweds, like a joint venture thing or something, and ran it together for a long time. Eventually Mom inherited it, and since Maya’s always been the most interested in books and things, she set it up so the store went to Maya when she passed.”
Fenn swept his gaze over the storefront obligingly. It was clean and decently maintained despite its obvious age. The front was mostly literal brick and window panes, and someone had designed the door to resemble a book cover. The store’s name, Turn A Page, was displayed in distinct frosted lettering across the top of the window display, as well as up higher, on the building itself. It was quaint, in a true, small-town-shop sense.
Sienna moved up to the window, cupping her hands around her face in an attempt to see inside the darkened building. “Looks like we missed Maya, though, so I can’t show you around inside.”
Fenn let a brief chuckle rumble past his lips. “I have seen bookstores before.”
She faced him with a grin. “But have you ever gotten a personal tour?”
He slipped his hand over her hip and lowered his voice. “I could always slip us inside, if you had something particular you wanted to show me.”
She laughed, bright and honest, and swiftly pulled him away from the building as if it were a natural thing. “Nice try, handsome. Maya’s come forward with the times. She has security cameras in there. No way am I playing that game.”
He couldn’t help the smirk that tipped his lips, though he allowed her to drag him along. That was very responsible of her. It was less so of him that he was so tempted to point out that he had ways around that sort of thing.
