Part 6 (1/2)

Dominic shook his head.

”We've told Sarah. We've told the gang at the Freakshow. I called my family before I came to Gingerbread Pudding. If the Covenant is really going to be keeping that close of an eye on you while they're here, you're not going to be stopping by for s.e.xy naked fun times.” I unzipped my hoodie and shrugged it off, hanging it on the doork.n.o.b before starting to unbuckle my shoulder harness. ”I am thus demanding my s.e.xy naked fun times now, so that I'll remember why I like you and don't start endorsing an all-Covenant shoot on sight rule. Besides. I don't want you getting ideas about that oath of chast.i.ty thing.”

I wanted to touch him one more time before I knew whether or not he was going to betray me. I wanted him to touch me one more time when I still believed that it was safe to trust him.

”Chast.i.ty would be easier than trying to understand you, but not nearly so much fun. I suppose I will yield in this case to your very solid argument.” Dominic watched me hang my shoulder harness on the hook next to the door. ”Are you still armed?”

I smiled blithely. ”Why don't you come over here and find out?”

He came over there and found out.

My grandmother-Alice, the human one who spends most of her time in the Underworld, not Angela, the cuckoo one who spends most of her time in Ohio-always said that when I met the right kind of man for me, I'd know. He'd be the one who wouldn't bat an eye at the fact that I usually had three or more knives in my pants. Instead, he'd start suggesting ways for me to carry even more knives, possibly while wearing less clothing. I always figured she was talking about some crazy ideal, the way dancers dream about big studios with high ceilings and low rents. Then I met Dominic and realized that no, she wasn't fantasizing at all. She was telling me what it would be like to date a boy from the Covenant of St. George.

Dominic found and dispensed with the various holsters and straps holding my weapons in place in short order, either hanging them from the doork.n.o.b with my hoodie, tossing them onto the dresser or, as in the case of the collapsible baton in my sock, just throwing them onto the floor. I was too busy responding in kind to argue about the treatment of my things. Dominic didn't usually carry a gun-silly boy-but he had more knives than I did, secured in even more interesting places. If we'd been having a compet.i.tion, I'm not sure which one of us would have won.

Of course, once we'd finished stripping the obviously deadly toys away, we were down to our underwear, so I'd say that we both won. We stopped for a moment, hands briefly empty, and just looked at each other. Dominic was breathing hard already. The light coming through the open window was bright enough to let me see his expression, but not very much more. That was okay. I've always been good at picturing things with my fingers.

He took a breath, raising his hands like he wanted to ward me away. He didn't lift them all the way. ”Verity-”

”They could be here tomorrow. We could be back to being enemies tomorrow. They're not here tonight. Let's have tonight.” I stepped closer, to where he could either pull me close or push me away. ”We've earned it, don't you think?”

Dominic didn't answer. Instead, he reached out and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close, and kissed me hard. My lips would be bruised in the morning. I didn't mind, because I was giving back as good as I was getting, and we were already halfway tangled together when we fell sideways onto the bed.

Dominic's fingers ran through my hair and down to the nape of my neck, where he took hold, gripping firmly enough to keep me where I was. I made a soft noise in the back of my throat and bent to bite his shoulder. He pulled me closer still, and after that, words and meanings and consequences didn't matter to either one of us. Let the purge come tomorrow. We would have tonight, and while I won't pretend that one night is ever enough, it was still more than some people ever get.

Sunlight came in through the open window, s.h.i.+ning into my eyes and pulling me out of the dream that I'd been having. I groaned, rolling over and pressing my face against Dominic's chest. He laughed sleepily.

”If you don't get up, who will protect all the cryptids of your fair city from the big, bad men who are on their way?”

”Don't know,” I mumbled, without lifting my head. ”Don't care. Somebody else can do it. Lemme 'lone, I'm sleeping.”

”No, you were sleeping. Now you're denying the morning.” He leaned down to kiss the top of my head. ”That never works. Better men than I have died trying.”

I sighed and squirmed around to prop my chin against his chest, looking up at him sulkily. Dominic smiled.

”Good morning, Verity.”

”What's good about it?” Even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. What was good about it was that I was waking up-always a bonus in my line of work-in a bed that was toasty warm, thanks to the addition of another body. The mice hadn't come to bother us. We'd actually been able to get a decent night's sleep . . . once we finally fell asleep, anyway, which took quite a while. All in all, this definitely qualified as a good morning.

”Everything,” said Dominic, echoing my thoughts in a single word. Then he grinned. ”Your hair is sticking in all directions like an electrocuted hedgehog's quills. It's endearing. You should wear it like this more often.”

”Mmm. Get out of my apartment,” I said.

”No,” said Dominic, and sat up, sending me rolling half off of him. He caught me at the last moment, pulling me up into a kiss. Pulling back, he added, ”I don't have any trousers on.”

”Okay, fair. You don't have a s.h.i.+rt, either. Or boxers.” I let my hand slide down the length of his torso, proving my statement with a light touch of my fingertips. ”You'd get arrested for indecent exposure for sure if you went out there the way you're not dressed right now.”

”Infuriating woman,” said Dominic. This time there was no ”almost” about it; the words were fond, even affectionate. Then he sobered, and said, ”Verity. I have to ask you something.”

”I don't know where your pants wound up last night, but I can help you look,” I said. Then I paused. ”That's not what you were going to ask, is it?”

”Truly, your grasp of the obvious remains monumental in its scope.” Dominic sat up a little straighter, dislodging my hand in the process.

I blinked and sat up, clutching the sheets around myself like some sort of soap opera heroine covering herself from the camera. I realized a moment later how stupid that was, and I let the sheets fall. There was nothing about me that Dominic hadn't seen. Not even the scars that my tango costumes normally hid from the rest of the world. My scars are nothing on my father's, or my grandmother's-life in the field is hard on a body, and it gets harder the longer it goes on-but they're mine, and I usually make love in the dark to keep people from seeing them. Not Dominic. He had scars of his own to share.

He watched me as I pulled away, a strange seriousness in his dark eyes. ”You said something last night,” he said.

”I said a lot of things last night,” I replied. ”Which thing in specific was the problem?”

”It wasn't a problem, exactly. I just . . .” He paused, and sighed, muttering, ”I am so much better at this with women who aren't you,” before he asked, in a more normal tone, ”Verity, what are we to one another?”

”Uh . . . what?” That wasn't a question I'd been expecting. Not from him, not now, and possibly not ever. ”What do you mean?”

”You, me . . . this.” He waved a hand, encompa.s.sing the room, the weapons scattered on the floor, our mutual nudity. ”Are we lovers? Are we in a relations.h.i.+p? What are we? The tanuki called me your boyfriend. You didn't deny him. You even used the term yourself.”

”He has a name, you know. It's Ryan.”

”I know. You're avoiding the question.”

”I know.” I sighed and ran the fingers of my right hand through my bed-messed hair, using the gesture to buy myself a few seconds to think. ”Jeez, Dominic. Most guys start the day by asking the girl if she wants breakfast. Not if they're dating.”

Dominic smiled a little. ”I am not 'most guys.' No more than you are most girls. You are a fabulous, insane, infuriating creature, and I have never felt that normal was a requirement for this . . . whatever it is. Still. I'd like to know.”

”Is this about those vow of chast.i.ty jokes? Because I really didn't mean them.”

”Verity.” Dominic reached out and took hold of my chin, resting his thumb in the hollow just below my lip. ”Most of the young knights in my generation have taken lovers as soon as they arrived in a new city. Others hire prost.i.tutes to fulfill their carnal needs. All of them know that one day, they will return to the Covenant and be married to a member of a good Covenant family, to have children of good breeding to join in the cause.”

My eyes widened. I pulled away. ”So what, I'm your spring fling?”

”No! No.” Dominic scowled. ”That isn't what I'm saying at all. Verity, I didn't take a lover because I didn't want one. I was not looking for distraction from my mission. And so, instead of falling into the arms of a soft American woman who would never ask where I spent the small hours of the morning, I found myself with you, and you, Verity Price, you were so much more than that phantom girl could ever have been. Do you understand me? I did not choose you because you were expected. I did not choose you at all. But now that I have found you . . . please. I just want to understand what you are to me, and what I am to you.”

I stared at him. That was the only thing that I could think of to do. ”I . . .”

In the pocket of his pants, kicked half under the bed and nearly hidden under the black cotton of my sports bra, Dominic's phone began to ring. We both froze, the rest of the sentence dying before I could force it past my lips. It wasn't a ringtone I'd heard before. Not that I'd heard his phone ring more than once or twice, but that ringtone- ”Is that . . . ?”

”Yes. It is.” He rolled away from me, spine suddenly stiff again, like the spine of the wannabe holy warrior who caught me in his rooftop snare. He was still there with me, but he was already gone by the time he found his pants and dug his phone out of the pocket, flicking it open. ”De Luca.”

There was a long pause as whoever was on the other end spoke. Then Dominic asked, in a light, rhetorical tone, ”If G.o.d is occupied with the fall of sparrows then who, on Earth, will count the fall of dragons?”

It must have been the right thing to say. There was another pause, and some of the tension went out of his shoulders.

”Yes, of course, sir,” he said. ”Pier A, in Battery Park. Two hours. Yes, sir. I have arranged for transportation and housing.” He paused again. ”Yes, sir, I understand. I will bring all my reports thus far for review during the trip to your residence.”

The next pause was longer. Dominic closed his eyes as it stretched on, chin dipping slightly, so that he looked for all the world like he was praying. Finally, he said, ”Yes, sir, I understand the scope of the honor that is being afforded to me. I will not question my privilege. I will not doubt my orders. I will do my best to bring glory to the name of the Covenant, and to the family whose name I bear. Yes, sir. I will be on time.”

Then he closed the phone. For a moment, he just stood there, eyes still closed, lit by the early morning sun streaming through the window.