Steal the Day (Thieves #2)(25)

He leaned forward and kissed me swiftly. This time I didn’t really try to get away. “I am that, Z. Now, I need to go pull up that god-awful carpet of yours. Who installs lime green carpet?”

“You don’t owe me anything, Daniel.” I might have saved him once or twice, but it didn’t even start to equal the tally sheet he’d run up saving me.

He held up a hand in protest. “You let me work this out my way. You said I’m not allowed to run and hide, and I’m not allowed to act like an * to cover up my guilt. So I’m left with installing flooring. Besides, after the last couple of days, I need to do something manly, baby. I was stuck in some homoerotic nightmare where dudes held me down and forced me to feed from another dude.”

I couldn’t help laughing. Vampirism was forcing Daniel to look at his sexuality in a whole different light. “Neil’s very effeminate,” I pointed out. He was. Sometimes he stole my underwear.

“Not helping, Zoey.” Daniel walked back into the house. He was moving furniture around when I followed. He looked over at me and slowly stripped off his T-shirt, revealing that magnificent chest of his. It was ripped and tapered into a six-pack that made my mouth water. He shrugged, satisfied I’d noticed. “I know you like a show with dinner, baby,” he said, then went back to his work.

“So that’s your husband?” Chad stood beside me, watching the way the muscles of Daniel’s back bunched. I couldn’t blame him. It was an enticing sight.

“That’s him.” I let my gaze slide down to Daniel’s very nice backside.

I saw he wanted to ask about my boyfriend, but he was far too polite. “Well, Neil said we should retire to the back porch. It’s a lovely night. He would like to serve dessert al fresco. He’s making coffee. He said he’d be out in a minute.”

Chad held his arm out in a courtly gesture, and I allowed him to lead me through the house toward the back door. I loved my backyard. There was no fence, just two acres of land lush with trees. It made up for the commute I had to make into the city. It was peaceful and I felt a calm out here that I could never get in Dallas. I’d taken particular pains to make the back porch of my sturdy old farmhouse inviting. There was an entire set of plush patio furniture to lounge on while I watched the sun set or rise, and I tried to do at least one of those a day. But what I loved more than anything else was the antique porch swing Daniel had refinished and installed. I let Chad lead me to the swing and contentedly started to rock.

“Hey, what happened to the bug bite?” Chad asked, leaning forward to inspect my now perfect-looking neck. “It’s completely gone. That’s amazing. How did you do that?”

I hadn’t really thought about that when I’d downed the blood Daniel handed me. All I cared about at the time was clearing up my bruise and not having Daniel feel bad every time he looked at me. This was why we didn’t date everyday humans. In the course of one evening, we’d had to hide or explain away too many odd incidents. As I looked at Chad, I knew what Neil wanted but I wasn’t sure it was ever going to work. Neil was a werewolf. He couldn’t hide that forever, and I was pretty sure he didn’t even want to.

“Yeah, I took some Benadryl,” I lied. “Clears it right up.”

Chad shook his head and sat back. He looked out over the porch and into the night shrouded trees. “This place is strange. I guess I lived in the city too long. I’m not used to all the nature. I decided to move out here after my parents died. It’s so cutthroat in the city. I wanted something more laid back, you know?” He looked up as though surprised he was talking so much. “Sorry, I’m completely dominating the conversation. You’re very easy to talk to, Zoey. Odd, but easy to talk to.”

I was glad he found me easy to talk to because that way I didn’t have to talk back. There was a brief lull, and I wondered where the hell Neil was. How long did it take to make coffee? I tried to continue the small talk. “I like the whole wide open spaces thing. I lived in a tiny apartment for too long. I like the fact that I can come out here in the morning and there’s usually a fluffy bunny jumping in the yard.”

“It’s not so much the fluffy bunnies I have a problem with.” Chad looked out into the night, his eyes narrowing as though he was trying to spot something. “It’s the larger wildlife that kind of freaks me out. Did you know there are wolves out here? If I didn’t know better, I would swear I’m being stalked by a big white wolf. I’ve seen it three times when I’m jogging. It’s weird. It looks almost intelligent.”

Oh, it wasn’t intelligent. That white wolf was really stupid, and Chad was lucky Neil hadn’t come up and humped his leg. I was going to have a talk with my roomie about not freaking the locals out. This was the country, and the locals had shotguns. They probably had torches and pitchforks, too. I was thinking about all the weapons the locals might use on us when Chad suddenly reached out and stroked my hair.

“God, you’re beautiful.” He stared at me, and there was a languid heaviness to his words. I was stunned as Chad leaned over and pressed his lips against mine.

“You trying to take on a third, sweetheart? Or would he be our fourth?” a very sarcastic voice asked from the back door. Dev stood there, looking down on us with a predatory smile. He had on his black slacks and a form-fitting T-shirt. It was what he wore when hanging out at Ether. I stood up as quickly as possible and realized the situation was even worse than it looked because Daniel and Neil were watching, too. Dev, of course, couldn’t let a bad situation be bad. He had to go for really awful. “Seriously, little boy, you can’t handle her. You have no idea the exotic things she likes, and quite frankly, her schedule is a little full as it is.”