The Last Piece of His Heart (Lost Boys 3)

I chuckled, which only irritated her more.

“Pardon me if I don’t want my great-grandmother’s food to get cold before she eats it. Bibi deserves the best.”

I smirked and shook my head.

“You disagree?”

“No, I one hundred percent agree your grandmother deserves the best.”

That’s why she has you.

“Well?”

“Well, you’re stubborn as hell.”

Her eyes—fringed with long, soft lashes—widened. “Me?”

“It’s not a bad thing. It means you want what you want.”

“I do,” she said, her tone softening a little. “It’s hard to compromise, especially where Bibi’s concerned.”

“How is she?” I asked. “Any more dizzy spells?”

“None, thank God.” She shivered a little though it was still warm out. “But it’s scary, you know? She’s eighty and… Never mind. I don’t want to talk about it. Like inviting bad stuff in.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

She gave me a small smile, and the tension evaporated. Or maybe it just changed. Shiloh was wearing high-waisted, loose, white pants and a short, white T-shirt with the beige cardigan tied loosely on her hips. The T-shirt revealed her midsection. Bracelets and rings—all her own making, I guessed—decorated her slender arms and hands, and her ears were pierced a dozen times, the rings and studs visible when she pushed her braids off her shoulders.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her, and my hands wanted to touch all the different textures of her. Hard metal and soft skin. Her hair where it was braided and where it frayed at the ends into soft waves.

So much for keeping my damn distance.

The walk to downtown from Shiloh’s neighborhood took about fifteen minutes. Her quiet street gave way to rows of galleries, restaurants, coffee shops, and bars. We passed a tattoo place with a Chinese dragon on a screen hanging in the window.

“What makes you decide to get a tattoo?” Shiloh asked with a nod at the shop. “There are an infinite number of designs or quotes to choose from. How do you pick?”

“You narrow it down to the most meaningful or important. Something you want to wear forever,” I said and thought of my owl. “Most times they pick you,”

As if she were reading my mind, her dark eyes went to my shoulder—to the Indian eagle-owl. In life, they were brown and gray with black stripes along their stomach and long ear-like tufts over bright orange eyes. My tattoo had no color but for the eyes. Shiloh looked like she was going to ask about it but changed her mind. She did that a lot, I noticed. Like tonight, letting herself get personal then retreating.

I couldn’t blame her. Something in her pulled something out of me, too. I had to keep reminding myself who I was.

The son of a murderer…

“Sooo, do you have an idea about the topic of your paper?” Shiloh asked. A neutral subject. “Like probably half the class, I picked the Romanov assassinations.”

“I was thinking the Khodynka Tragedy.”

“What’s that? Baskin hasn’t talked much about it.”

“It was pretty early on in the Revolution.”

Shiloh arched a brow. “And? Don’t leave me hanging.”

I jammed my hands in my pockets. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s dumb.”

“I’m sure it’s not dumb.” She nudged my elbow with hers. “Tell me.”