I pushed the window up. Chilly air wafted in. The temperature had dropped, low-hanging clouds had moved in. It was once again cold and gloomy in Dublin.
He lifted a cup of Starbucks. “Good morning, MacKayla. I brought you coffee.”
I eyed it with equal parts suspicion and longing. “You found an open Starbucks?”
“I sifted to a store in New York. I ground the beans and made it myself. I even … how do you say? Frothed the milk.” He held up some packets. “Splenda or raw sugar?”
My mouth watered. Raw sugar and caffeine in the morning. Only sex could make it better.
“Is Barrons around?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Where is he?”
“Busy for the day,” I lied.
“Anything pressing on your agenda?”
I narrowed my eyes. V’lane wasn’t talking like he normally did. Usually he spoke with great formality. Today he sounded almost … human. I eyed the towel, trying to decide if there might be a Book beneath it. It was possible. “Could you swap that towel for something like, well, skintight shorts?”
He was suddenly nude.
Definitely no Book. “Put your towel back on,” I said hastily. “Why are you talking funny?”
“Am I? I endeavor to learn from humanity, MacKayla. I thought you would find me more appealing. How am I doing? No, wait. I am appropriating human contractions. How’m I doing?”
He was still nude. “Towel. Now. And you contracted the wrong words. ‘I am’ becomes ‘I’m.’ ‘How am’ does not become ‘how’m.’ But, really, it’s okay. Contractions don’t sound right coming out of your mouth anyway.”
He flashed me a dazzling smile. “You like me as the prince I am. That is promising. I came to take you for a day at the beach. Tropical surf and sandbars. Coconuts and palm trees. Sand and sun. Come.” He offered a hand. It wasn’t the only part of him extended in my direction.
I’m surrounded by intensely sexual men at every turn. “Towel,” I demanded. I bit my lower lip. I shouldn’t. I had no right. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I even had the tarot card to prove it.
“I do not know why you do not enjoy seeing me nude. I enjoy seeing you nude.”
“Do you want me to go to the beach with you or not?”
His iridescent eyes were brilliant. “You have accepted my invitation. I see it in your eyes. They have taken on a languorous sheen. I find it arousing.”
“But not to a beach in Faery,” I said. “No illusion. Can you sift us to somewhere like Rio, in the human world, where only human hours will pass?”
“Command me, I am yours, MacKayla. We shall spend a finite number of human hours, to be specified by you.”
I was fatally flawed. I couldn’t say no. “I’ll take that coffee now.” I reached out the window for it, expecting him to float it up or something.
“I am unable to oblige. The paranoid one’s wards are still active. They keep me several feet from the building.”
“But not off his car,” I said, a smile tugging at my lips. Barrons would go nuts if he knew V’lane had touched his Viper. And stretched out on it nude? He’d have an aneurysm.
“It is all I can do not to sear my name into the paint. I am afraid you will have to come down for your coffee. It is hot; make haste.”
I ran a brush through my hair, splashed water on my face, slipped into shorts, a tank, and flip-flops and, ten minutes later, I was in Rio.
I can’t be on a beach without thinking of Alina. I keep telling myself that, when all this is over, I’ll ask V’lane to give me an illusion of her again and we’ll spend a day playing volleyball together, listening to tunes, and drinking Corona and lime. I’ll say good-bye, once and for all. I’ll let go of the pain and the anger, tuck the wonderful parts of the life we shared into a sacred corner of my soul, and accept living without her.
If Barrons had truly been dead, and enough time had passed, would I have eventually accepted living without him? I was afraid I never would have.
I turned my attention to the Seelie Prince walking beside me. I was glad he’d come to find me this morning. If he hadn’t, I would have summoned him with the sensual sting of his name through my tongue. My dreams last night had unsettled me deeply. I had questions, and he was the only one who might have the answers.
We walked a short distance down the powdery beach to a pair of silken chaises sunk in white sand, close to the salty spray of the sea. My clothes melted away and were replaced by a hot-pink string bikini and a gold belly chain adorned with fiery stones. The beach was deserted. I had no idea if there were no people left or if V’lane had sent them away for privacy.