Page 29 of City of the Lost
He stalked toward me, but the hound reared its head and speared Azren with amber eyes and a chest-rumbling growl.
“Ha!” I stuck out my tongue.
Azren exhaled, composed his features, and then looked down at the hound. “He knows I don’t mean to hurt you. Merely remove unauthorized content featuring me from your mobile device.”
The hound stopped growling and backed up, and heck, was that a glint of amusement in its fiery eyes? But Azren was making a move at me, and there was no way he was getting that video. Chair scraping on tile, I stumbled up and tried to dodge, but his powerful frame had me pinned to the counter, groin to groin.
I tilted my chin in challenge. “You wouldn’t dare.”
His hand dove down the front of my top.
My pulse spiked at all the contact. “Hey!”
His fingers grazed my breast, calloused and deft, and my sexy dream surged to the surface of my mind’s eye. Heat surged through me, staining my neck and spreading along my collarbones in an unwelcome flush that had a gasp tumbling from my lips. Azren froze, his hand still inappropriately placed. His jade gaze fell to my parted mouth, and a new pressure exerted itself against my groin. My eyes widened, but Azren didn’t seem fazed. In fact, his attention was still on my mouth, hungry and wanton. Oh, God. Was he reading my mind? Because, of course, he could do that. He’d promised not to, but ... My stomach flipped and clenched. Pancakes, think about pancakes.
“Wila?” Tay said from the doorway.
Azren slowly released me and stepped back, both hands in the air as if in surrender. My phone was still safe. Still tucked in my bra, but my breasts tingled from the brush of his fingers, and it took everything I had to tear my gaze from him and focus on Taylem. And fuck did the troll blood look pissed.
“Problem?” His tone was even, but I knew from experience things could go from even to unstable in a matter of seconds if Tay lost it.
“We’re cool.” I adjusted my top. “Azren just wanted me to delete the video of him dancing off my phone. I declined, and he decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“It looked like he was taking more thanmattersinto his own hand,” Tay said dryly.
Azren pulled out a chair, grabbed a fistful of bacon off the plate Gilbert had placed in the center of the table, and began to eat. “You’ll delete that video,” he said with his mouth full.
I snorted. “Like hell.”
“You have to sleep sometime.”
“Trust me,” Trevor said. “You do not want to enter her room, not unless you’re colorblind.”
Gilbert chuckled.
“Shut it, the lot of you. There is nothing wrong with the color pink.”
Taylem’s brows shot up. “Your bedroom is pink?”
“Wouldn’t you know that,” Azren said snidely.
Taylem went very still, and then he pulled out a chair and parked his butt. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Azren looked up in surprise. The two guys did that weird silent communication thing they’d done the first time they’d met, and then Azren reached across the table and pushed the plate of bacon toward Taylem. Taylem took a rasher and popped it in his mouth, chewing slowly.
Seriously? What had just happened?
“Wila? Listen,” Gilbert prompted.
The radio turned up, and Missy’s voice echoed around the room.
“...strange sightings of feral creatures at the edge of town by the old water mill. Howls and screams. What has found its way into Arcana City now, and will the institute give a fuck?”
Gilbert turned down the volume. “It sounds like a Lost sighting to me.”
It sure did. “How the heck does she get all this information?”
“The hobo network,” Trevor said absently while scanning theDaily Vine.
