A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(81)

I trudged up the stairs from the office to the apartment. Mom and Dad were off doing God-knew-what to celebrate, and Lukas, being the gentleman that he was, refused to be here while they were away. After what happened between us in the cave, I had a feeling he was worried about his control. Or, maybe it was my control he questioned. Either way, that’s what I assumed until I pushed through my bedroom door.

“Been waiting for you,” Lukas said. He was propped against the windowsill on the other side of the room, wearing a mischievous grin.

I smiled, glad I’d been wrong. What good was having a boyfriend who could shadow if he wasn’t willing to pop in for some midnight smoochies? “Have you?” Pulse quickening, I made my way across the floor. “And why’s that?”

I stopped a few feet away. He pushed off the sill and came forward. With a deep breath, his gaze skimmed my body from top to bottom. “I’ll admit it. I came to talk to you, but now that you’re standing in front of me…”

I took his hands and wrapped them around my waist. All the things that cave demon said bounced around inside my head. “I know what you mean,” I whispered, kissing him lightly.

“I don’t know how Damien does it,” Lukas said, gaze settling on my lips. He tightened his arms around me, fingers tugging at the back belt loops of my jeans. “If it’s normal to be this…charged up…all the time, how do he and Klaire keep their hands off each other?”

Ick. Not a place I wanted to go. “Way to kill a mood, Grandpa.” I laughed.

Some of the heat in his eyes evaporated, replaced by that familiar spark of sweetness I loved so much. He took a breath and let go of me, stepping away. I wanted to argue, but it was for the best. As much as he wanted me, I wanted him, too. With a ferocity that scared me. I was half demon and was blown away by the intensity. I couldn’t imagine how he felt.

“I want you to know that I can control it,” he said. He took my face between his hands. “I lo—I’ve made it clear how I feel. All of you, Jessie. I’m here for all of you. I may be something darker than human, but I was that when you met me. Not merely a man, but something tainted. You’re the brightness in all that. I will be honorable for you.”

I let my forehead fall against his and chuckled. “Not too honorable, I hope?”

With a finger, he lifted my chin and planted the softest kiss against my lips. There was a spark of hunger in his eyes. I knew because I felt the same one mirrored inside me. He stepped away, this time putting several feet between us. A shift to the right, and he backed into the darkened corner of my room. With a wink, he said, “Jessie, please. I’m a demon. There’s only so much honor I can handle.”

The words were on the tip of my tongue. Cocked, loaded, and ready to fire. But my metaphorical gun jammed up, and Lukas blended into the shadows, disappearing before I could get them out. “I love you,” I whispered. I’d said the words in the cave. I meant them. Speaking them face to face would take some time, though.

A breeze blew in through my partially open window. Warmer than it should have been for January. God. Was that really so hard?

I smiled, unable to keep from grinning like an idiot, and sank onto the bed. Smokey was sprawled out on the floor at my feet, camped out on my shredded pillow. He was chewing on one end and sitting on the other, amid a pile of feathers. I yanked both halves out from under him, which earned me a scathing glare. With a bark and irritated turn of his nose, he puffed out in a cloud of thick, foul-smelling smoke.

“Awesome,” I said, holding one of the pieces between two fingers. It was covered in demon dog drool.

“That stuff is a bitch, isn’t it?”

You think I’d be used to it by now, but I jumped anyway. I whirled around to see Valefar sitting cross-legged on my bed.

“Please don’t say you need me to go run an errand,” I said, flopping down into the chair by my computer. “I’m about three days overdue for a coma.”

“There is something I need you to do, but it will keep until morning.”

I blinked, then brought the heel of my hand up to rub my eyes, certain I’d just imagined the whole thing. “Seriously?”

Val frowned. “Come on now, Peaches. Have I not proven myself a fair and empathetic Master?”

Master. God. He knew damn well I hated that word.

I sighed. “If you say so.”

He picked an imaginary piece of lint from his shirt and flicked it over the edge of my bed. “So I trust all is well in the Darker world?”

He was fishing for something. “Dad proposed, if that’s what you’re nosing around for.”

“Ahh. Yes. I assumed he would do it straight away. And your mother said yes, of course?”

“Val, could we not—”

His expression darkened. He was off the bed and in front of me before I could swallow the rest of my screw up. “What did you just call me?”

Oops. “I—um—I mean—”

For a second I thought he was going to implode. Go nuts and zap me or something. But instead, he laughed. “Val. I like it.” With a nod, he said, “You have my permission to call me that, Sugar. It seems only fair. You being my right hand, after all…”

“Yeah. About that…”

“That’s what you want to talk to me about?” He fell back onto the bed. “Huh. I was sure there would be something else you’d be itching to ask. You being so, what’s the word, inquisitive?”