Dark Desires After Dusk (Immortals After Dark #6)(31)

He grinned. “If you’re going to be up for about twenty minutes more, I could go for some food. It’s too early for room service, but there’s a breakfast place across the street.”

She nodded. “Can you just get me a bottle of orange juice? I don’t like food prepared by others.” Or by myself.

“We’ll see. If you want to grab a shower, now’s the time.” At the door, he said, “And, Holly, do not take those pearls off. Or we’ll be in deep shite.”

*

She was still in the shower when he returned, which meant she was fair game. He grasped the bathroom door handle, gave a heft to easily break the lock, then swung the door open wide.

“The male’s back from the hunt,” he called, grinning at her outraged screech.

“Get out! Shut the door!”

Since he could only distinguish a vague shape behind the clouded-glass shower stall, he decided to comply with her requests.

Crossing to the dining table, he set down the plastic bag of food. Finding her something to eat actually had turned into a hunt—because she had such strict criteria. He’d watched her enough to learn about her eccentric eating habits.

Cade had wondered why she hadn’t hurried into the shower and been dressed by the time he returned, but now as his gaze swept the room, he realized she hadn’t been able to drag herself away from rearranging everything not nailed down.

Three of the four chairs were neatly pushed in. With the fourth, she’d propped the chair’s back against the table, leaning it forward on two legs. She’d clearly remade the bed and adjusted the pillows on the room’s small sofa, which she’d also moved a few feet over.

The alarm clock on the bedside table was flush against the wall with no wire to be seen, and the remote control sat at a right angle to the center of the clock. The trash can was pressed directly against one end of the dresser, her suitcase against the other end. Her wireless laptop and cell phone sat perfectly parallel on the desk, charging.

Cade needed to check his e-mail and sports scores and map out their route for the day, so he opened her computer, and signed in as a guest. After routine Web stuff, he Googled a couple of things, unsurprised to find that she had the safe content filter on.

He leaned back in his chair, trying to imagine a life filtered of anything sexual.

Not worth living.

Hell, he was one to talk. He hadn’t been with another woman since the day he’d met Holly, the longest stretch of celibacy since he’d first had sex. A few months ago, when he’d finally become convinced he could never have Holly, Cade had given a halfhearted try for a witch, but she’d wanted another.

Now he was glad of it.

He set the laptop back on the table, his attention drifting to her suitcase. Cade was itching to get a look at N?x’s letter. Thinking this a fine time to snoop, he crouched beside the bag, dragging it away from the wall so he could open the top wide.

After rooting through her folded skirts and sweater sets, he opened the side compartment, raising his brows at the contents. “Hellooo, lingerie,” he murmured.

Cade considered himself a male of simple tastes. He didn’t need outrageous lingerie to turn him on. But the thought of prim Holly in those wicked scraps of silk sent blood rushing to his groin . . . .

She emerged then, wearing a bathrobe drawn up to her neck. “What are you doing?” she cried.

“Looking for N?x’s letter.”

“You can’t just go through my belongings!”

“I never would’ve suspected such naughty underthings from prim Miss Ashwin.” He hooked his forefinger under the waistband of a thong, then spun it around.

“Give those back!” She snatched it away. “N?x did this! She swapped out all my underwear and hose.”

He didn’t doubt it, but still said, “Yeah, right. Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know—how could I possibly explain her actions?”

He snagged another pair of tiny panties, holding them up with both hands. “Then I bet a thong like this would still be feeling . . . unusual.”

“Ooh, give it!”

Before she could lunge for it, he rose, tossing it back in the bag as if he’d grown bored with it. “Now I have to wonder what’s under all that terry cloth.” He pulled out another one of the chairs, then sank down.

She jutted her chin. “Regular pj’s.”

“Bullshite. Then let me see.”

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

He leaned back with his hands behind his head. “I’ve seen all the goods, Holly. Not even half a day ago, so the memory’s still fresh. No need to choke yourself with terry cloth,” he said, but she wasn’t listening, her sad-eyed gaze back on the pile of her now unfolded clothes.

“I’ll have to redo everything.” She looked so despondent that he decided to cut her a break on his teasing.

“What would happen if you didn’t?”

“I would be a basket-case, unable to think about anything else.” When she bent down to repack, her robe tightened over her ass, drawing his eyes like a magnet.

She shivered, then frowned at him over her shoulder.

“You can feel my eyes on you,” he explained. “Immortals sense things more acutely. Sound, sight, even tactile perception. We call it hypersensitivity. You’ll get used to it in time.”