Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(28)

Tiago approached with two steaming coffee mugs. “What a crabby little monkey you are,” he said as he handed her a mug. “Are you always this way when you wake up?”

“I am when I wake up at 5:00 A.M.,” she told him. She buried her nose in her mug and inhaled the rich aroma, using her coffee as a way to avoid looking at him as he settled on the sofa beside her. “Have you slept at all?”

“No, I’ve been too busy,” he said.

She looked at him sidelong as she sipped the hot coffee. Busy with what? He was sitting so close she could smell his clean masculine scent and feel the warmth of his muscled denim-clad thigh. He seemed well rested enough, even relaxed, whereas she had to fight to keep from fidgeting.

She felt miserable, tied up in knots inside. She was affectionate by nature, a touchy-feely kind of chick who loved hugs and cuddling. She wanted to scoot closer and curl against his side, to soak up the comfort of his warmth and strength again, to lay her head on his shoulder and let him keep the world at bay.

She swallowed hard. Last night all her guards had dropped with a shattering crash. She had said things to him in the dark and had cried in his arms. Apparently he was fine with what happened, but now she didn’t know how to act. A craven part of her wanted to keep leaning on him, even though she knew it couldn’t last.

She bit her lips to keep them from trembling. They needed to talk. She needed to know when he would be leaving. She had to know how long she could rely on him and to brace herself for what came afterward. She opened her mouth to speak.

He beat her to it. He set his mug on the table between the gun parts and stood up. He told her, “Breakfast is going to be here in just a few minutes, but in the meantime, I have some things for you.”

She was caught with her mouth hanging open. “What?”

He gathered up the shopping bags by the wall and brought them over to her. She glanced at them, for the first time registering the department store labels. Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.

He gave her a patient smile as he handed her a bag. “I said I have some things for you. The Dark Fae delegation isn’t being very cooperative.” He nodded to her. “Go ahead, have a look. If you don’t like any of it, it can always go back.”

Feeling like she was moving in slow motion, she set her coffee mug on the end table and pulled out the contents. When she had emptied it, he handed her another bag, until she had gone through everything. There were clothes and lingerie in cool jeweled tones that would complement her pale skin and black hair. There were also cosmetics in exactly the right shades, and scented toiletries, a pair of soft slippers and another pair of simple flat-heeled shoes. There were even some new-release paperbacks and magazines. A couple of the packages were gift wrapped.

She stared at him, big-eyed, the gift-wrapped packages in a pile on her lap. “You didn’t pick all this out,” she said. She didn’t say it as a question. He couldn’t have. She knew he would never leave her asleep, alone and defenseless. That would go against every protective Wyr instinct he had.

“Of course not,” he told her. “If it doesn’t blow up, cut up, or shoot something, I wouldn’t know what to pick. I sent someone. We used your things in the SUV and the T-shirts as size guidelines. I like this. The color suits you.” He fingered the soft material of a sapphire blue tunic top then cocked an eyebrow at her as he nodded to the packages in her lap. “Aren’t you going to open those?”

She looked down at the three packages she held in her hands, feeling as if he had sideswiped her. She took one and picked the taped ends apart. She pulled out a box of Neiman Marcus chocolates. She set it down, picked up another package and opened it. It was a small perfume bottle of Joy. The third box contained dangly earrings. Each earring had a moon of silver and several stars in different shades of blue that dangled at varying lengths.

Her mouth worked as she stared down at the presents in her lap. Long, hard brown fingers came under her chin and tilted her face up. Tiago’s expression had turned quizzical, searching. “If you don’t like anything, faerie, it can go back,” he repeated.

“I love it, I love all of it,” she said unsteadily. She moved away from his touch on the pretext of opening the box of chocolates. She took a bite out of one. It was too rich for her overempty stomach, and she put the rest of it back in its place.

His quizzical look deepened. “Then what’s wrong?”

She held on to the candy box with both hands. “We should talk about when you’re going to leave.”

Silence. Her senses were so attuned to his presence she felt when the relaxation left him and his body grew tense.

“I’m not leaving,” he said in a calm voice.

Her knuckles whitened. “Well, we both know you have to, at some point.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” he said. He picked up his coffee and drank it. His Power flared and filled the room, turning smoky and menacing as it wrapped around her.

She tried again. “Tiago, I need to make a plan in my head so I know w-what to expect and when.”

“I am not leaving,” he said again. While he never raised his voice, his hawklike face turned into a blade. “Deal with it.”

“That isn’t helping—” she said.

He stood and stalked out of the room. She stared after him, disoriented. Then she heard someone start to knock on the suite door. Tiago opened it.