“Ren. You need to let him go. Push him away. Break up with him. Whatever. You need to get as far away from him as possible.”
I stiffened and my response was immediate. “No.”
“Ivy—”
“No,” I repeated, waving my left hand. “End of discussion.”
Tink stared at me mutinously, but he shut up. I knew that letting Ren go and pushing him away would be the smart and right thing to do in case things went south, but I couldn’t bring myself to even consider that. That probably said really bad things about me.
Okay. It definitely said really bad things about me.
But I had just found Ren. I’d fallen underwater, completely over my head, for him, with him, and I couldn’t do it. I was too selfish. He was . . . he was mine, and I’d be damned if I lost that too due to things completely out of my control. It wasn’t fair. I . . . I deserved him.
“Fine,” Tink muttered finally.
Lying there for a few moments, I gathered what remained of my composure like it was a tattered blanket, wrapped it around me, and sat up, wincing. “I need to shower.”
“Thank Queen Mab!” Tink buzzed to the foot of the bed, giving me room. “You were starting to get a bit rank.”
I shot him a dark look as I rose.
“And your hair looks like I could cook French fries in it.” He twirled in the air and what was left of the powdered sugar hit my face. “It’s that greasy.”
My shoulders slumped as I shuffled to the bathroom. “Thanks,” I said, pushing open the door.
Suddenly Tink was right in front of my face, causing me to jerk back. “I know you’re mad at me and you probably want to slice and dice me up and wear my skin as a new bracelet.”
I glanced around. “Um. That’s not exactly what I want to do.”
Hope widened his eyes.
“But I kind of want to flush you down a toilet,” I amended.
He gasped. “I’d get stuck! And these pipes are old. How would you even do that? I’m not a goldfish.”
I rolled my eyes.
Tink swayed and then shot forward, placing his tiny hands on my cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
Blinking, I tried to remember if Tink had ever apologized for anything. Not even when he knocked my laptop off the balcony when he’d decided he wanted to watch Harry Potter outside. Or when he caught the stove on fire and then tried to put it out with my favorite blanket. Or when he . . . Well, there were a lot of examples of when he should’ve apologized but hadn’t.
“You might not believe this, but I didn’t stay with you because of what you are.” His pale Otherworld eyes met mine. “I stayed because I like you, Ivy. I stayed because I care about you.”
Oh gosh.
My lips parted, and that messy knot of emotion ballooned in my throat. I wanted to cry again. I was such a mess, a hot and stinky mess.
Tink grinned and his eyes glimmered. “And, okay, I also stayed because you have the magical and wonderful Amazon Prime.”
Chapter Two
Exhausted physically, mentally, and most definitely emotionally, all I managed to do was pull on a pair of pajama bottoms and a tank top after my much-needed shower. There was no way I was going to have the energy or even the desire to dry the mass of wet curls on my head, so I twisted them up and shoved a thick bobby pin into my hair.
I roamed back out into the living room around eleven. The entire time I was showering I fought down a hot mess of emotion and locked it away and threw away the key. Well, to be honest, I probably only lost the key to the Pandora’s box level of emotional breakdown, but I stayed in that shower until I was confident I could handle everything.
I had to handle this.
I walked into the kitchen, noticing that Tink’s bedroom door was cracked open and the room was dark inside, but I doubted he was actually asleep. Stomach grumbling, I headed for the carryout container Ren had showed up with earlier. Mentally crossing my fingers, I flicked open the lid and sighed.
There was one beignet left.
One.
Shooting Tink’s door a glare, I snatched a paper towel off the counter and scooped up the piece of sugary heaven. Then I grabbed a root beer out of the fridge and the can of Pringles out of the cupboard.
Healthy eating at its finest, but I figured I deserved it.
Back in the living room, I eased down on the couch and turned on the TV. Settling on a show about child geniuses, I did the whole hand to mouth thing, getting more sugar and potato-chip crumbs on my chest than in my mouth while I got way too engrossed in the TV. I was equally fascinated by how incredibly smart these kids were, and somewhat shamed because I had no idea what the capital of Tajikistan was when a ten year old did.
I must’ve dozed off, because the next thing I knew I felt the soft brush of fingertips coasting down the right side of my face. My eyes flickered open, and the first thing I saw was a powerful forearm covered with vines shaded in deep green. I followed that tattoo up to a dark-colored sleeve, knowing it formed the most amazing design under the shirt, and over a sexy throat. I never knew throats could be sexy, but they could be. Oh yes, they could be.
Ren was sitting on the edge of the couch, and my heart did an unsteady flip as a horrible thought invaded my sleep-hazed consciousness. Would he be sitting here if he knew I was a halfling? I squeezed my eyes shut. Of course I knew the answer. He’d be as far away from me as humanly possible. Probably in a different time zone.
“Hey.” Ren’s deep voice was sex on a stick. Good sex, too. Perfect sex. Mind-blowing sex. It was smooth like chocolate and cultured. I really need to make my brain stop. “You okay?” he asked.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah,” I said, telling myself that I’d pulled it together earlier. I opened my eyes and saw that Ren was holding a Pringles can in his lap. “What are you doing with the chips?”
A dimple appeared in his left cheek. The boy had a set of dimples that were absolutely kissable. And lickable. Actually, Ren’s entire face was all that and a bag of beignets. His jaw was like marble. His cheekbones were broad and high, and his nose was slightly hooked, as if it had been broken at some point, which was highly possible considering our line of work. His lips were full and expressive, and those eyes of his were absolutely stunning. Thick, dark lashes framed irises so green they looked like emeralds freshly picked from a mine.
Ren was gorgeous, almost so attractive that he could compete against a fae in the looks department, and that was saying something, because the fae were extraordinarily beautiful in their glamoured and true forms—especially the latter. But Ren had them beat. Fae didn’t have an ounce of his warmth and humanity.
“Chips?” he said, laughing as he held them up. He shook it. “How about an empty can?”
I frowned. “I was hungry.”
“You were cuddling the empty can.” A wayward curl fell across his forehead.
My brows lifted. “Was not.”
“Was too. You were holding it to your chest like it was a treasured possession. I had to pry it from your fingers.”
“Well, I do like Pringles a lot.”
“I can tell.” He leaned over, placing the can on the coffee table. The other dimple appeared as he eyed my chest, and I got all warm and fuzzy. “You have sugar and crumbs all over you.”
Oh.
The warm and fuzzy vanished. “I was hungry and tired.”
Ren chuckled as he lowered his head, kissing the corner of my lip. Another wretched thought started to break free. Would he kiss me if he—I cut the thought off, and focused on a better one. I couldn’t wait until he could really kiss me again. A split lip sucked ass.
He lifted his head. “Did that ass save you any of the beignets?”
One of these days he might actually refer to Tink as something other than a body part. “One.”