Page 30 of Sleep With Us

I climbed to my feet, and collected his mac and cheese bowl to take back to the kitchen.

“After, can we spoon?” he asked, when I was almost out the door.

His big eyes explained his meaning. This wasn’t about sex, but comfort. “I’d like that.”

When I returned to his room with bowls of ice cream, I found him sitting cross-legged on his bed, wrapped from the waist down in a towel, with his tail idly flip-flopping beside him. After climbing on beside him, we ate ice cream, chatted about the hotel, and about plans for its future, avoiding any topics too personal or heavy—and Reynard.

When tiredness claimed us both, Zee crawled under the sheets, and I undressed and climbed in beside him. His soft breaths in the quiet of his dark room were almost comfort enough. Did I roll into his arms? What if I got hard? How did this work? I hadn’t ever been close enough to someone to snuggle before.

“Come here, Kitten.” Zee scooped me into his arms and spooned close, wrapping me in seven feet of demon, plus wings and tail. I sighed, cocooned in firm, muscular warmth. We’d hurt each other with our words, and we were a long way from perfect, but this was good.

There really was no better place to be, than with the people you cared about the most.

CHAPTER 9

I left Zee sleeping, and padded in my PJs down to the bar in the early hours of the next morning. I had a few hours before the guests began to wake and go about their day, and I liked the quiet, early hours in the bar, watching Tom bustle and mutter grumpy complaints.

Reynard was seated at a table, and staring at the cabinet while sipping his tea, as though the piece of furniture was his arch nemesis. I never would have asked him to make it if I’d known he was going to obsess over it.

“Ah, good morning Adam.” He brightened. “How is Zodiac?”

I yawned and settled in the chair beside him. “I think he’s alright. But he’s going back. He believes Sebastien is going to be fine with sharing him, but he doesn’t know about the note, or that Sebastien dumped his friend on the hotel steps.”

“Hm, that is concerning. Forgive my candor, but Sebastien will tighten Zodiac’s leash until it chokes him.”

That was my fear too. I held Reynard’s gaze. He knew how to keep his feelings off his face, which made him difficult to read, but I suspected we were on the same page when it came to Sebastien. “We can’t let that happen.”

“No, we cannot, but I’m afraid the contract is binding. There is one possibility to void it though. And that’s if we find General Copernicus, the demon who sold Zodiac and the others, and determine whether he did in fact have the right to trade the battalion to begin with.”

That sounded promising. “How do we find him?”

“I have people working on it. Like most demons trying to craft new lives, the general probably goes by another name now. It may take some time.”

That didn’t sound so promising. “Time in which Sebastien tightens the leash.”

“Hm . . .” Reynard sighed. “His treatment of Zodiac displeases me.”

It displeased everyone, including Zee. But we had a target to work toward, which was a good thing. It was better to focus on the positive. “Admit it, you like Zodiac.”

He clacked his teacup onto its saucer. “Like is an overstatement.”

“But you do feel something for him?”

“Feeling anything but hatred for a demon is highly inappropriate. We are enemies.” He’d said all that as though reading off a script, and without meeting my gaze. Those weren’t his words, they were the words of his vampire family. He didn’t believe them. But maybe he was still working through all that vampire drama, as Zee called it.

Reynard’s gaze lifted, checking whether I was paying attention. I was. He pinched his lips together and leaned back in the chair. Was that a little hint of resignation in his eyes?

The internet had been right. Hashtag Reyzee, and hashtag enemies-to-lovers was a thing. Had Reynard read the same fanfic as Zee? There was probably explicit fanart out there too. I couldn’t quite imagine the two of them ever being close enough to get naked, but there was a spark of something between them, and it definitely wasn’t all hatred.

“However,” he began tightly. “This hotel and its proprietors are of considerable personal value to me in a way my business empire is not.” He cleared his throat, as though the confession had almost choked him.

“Oh.” Reynard didn’t do elaborate gestures or talk about his feelings. Considerable personal value was another version of Zee’s saying he needed the SOS Hotel to come home to. I grinned. Lord Victor Reynard, billionaire vampire nobility, was totally into us.

“Your smug smile is unnecessary.”

“Smile?” I coughed into my hand and wiped my smile away. “What smile?”

Tom caught my eye and winked.