Kat sighed. “Mom, it’s not like we’re going to have sex with you home.”

“Well, honey, it’s good to know that you only have sex when I’m not home.”

I coughed as I fought a smile. “We can stay—” The look Kat sent me warned that I’d probably never have sex with her, ever, if I continued. I wisely kept quiet.

“Mo-om.”

“Keep the door open,” her mom warned.

Kat beamed brightly. “Thanks!” Then she all but dragged me up the stairs. Pushing me inside the bedroom, she shook her head at me. “You’re terrible.”

“And you’re naughty.” I backed up, grinning. “Thought she said leave the door open.”

“It is.” She gestured behind her. “It’s cracked. That’s open.”

“Technicalities,” I said, sitting down on the bed. I curled my fingers at her. “Come on…come closer.”

She didn’t budge. “I didn’t get you up here to indulge in wild monkey lust.”

“Crap.” I dropped my hand to my lap.

Her eyes gleamed with amusement as she moved closer to the bed. “We need to talk. Will’s been talking to my mom.”

My eyes narrowed. “Details.”

She sat beside me, tucking her legs against her chest. “He said he’s at a conference and would be home in a week or so. He also told Mom that we were seeing each other. The fact that he even brought us up…” She trailed off, rubbing her temples. “He can’t come back. If the mutation didn’t hold, he knows you’d kill him. And if it did…”

“He has the upper hand,” I admitted.

She threw herself onto her back. “God, this is a mess—a freaking mess of epic proportions. If he comes back, I can’t let him near my mom. I have to tell her the truth.”

Leaning against the headboard, my head raced to process this problem. “I don’t want you to tell her.”

She frowned as she tilted her head to the side, meeting my stare. “I need to tell her. She’s in danger.”

“She’s in danger if you tell her.” I folded my arms. “I understand why you want to and your need, but if she knows the truth, she’s in danger.”

“But keeping her in the dark is worse, Daemon.” Rising to her knees, she faced me. “Will is a psycho. What if he comes back and picks up where he left off? I can’t let that happen.”

I ran a hand through my hair, exhaling long and hard. “We need to find out if Will actually has intentions of coming back first.”

Irritation darkened her eyes. “And how do you propose we do that?”

“That I haven’t figured out, but I will.”

She stared at me a moment and then nodded. How I was going to figure out if Will was coming back was a mystery, but right now, he didn’t feel like the worst of our problems.

“What were you doing all day?” she asked. “Chasing Dawson?”

I nodded.

“What was he doing?”

“He was just roaming around. I know he was trying to get back to that office building, and if I hadn’t followed him, he would’ve. The only reason I feel safe leaving him alone right now is because Dee has him cornered.” I paused, looking away. My shoulders tensed as his words replayed over and over. “Dawson…he’s going to get himself captured again.”

Chapter 4

Since Dee was keeping an eye on Dawson Saturday evening, I wanted to do something with Kat. Well, I wanted to do a lot of things with her.

A lot.

But I wanted to take her out, do dinner and then a movie. Something normal, and God knows, she needed something normal right now. All of us did. And what I’d told her while we made snow angels had been true. We had to forge forward like nothing had happened. Easier said than done, but if we had to act normal, then I was going to take advantage of it.

Going out on a real date, the dinner and movies variety, wasn’t something I’d ever done before, not even with Ash. We’d always seemed to skip that step, but with Kat, I didn’t want to bypass a single stage.

But then I saw her Sunday evening and not rushing through all those steps became real hard.

Kat was…damn, she was beautiful with her hair down, falling over her shoulders in soft, dark waves. The red turtleneck and dark jeans clung to all the areas I wanted to get to know personally. Like real intimately.

After chatting up her mom, I led Kat outside. Held her hand and everything, even stopped and opened the car door for her. I was the epitome of a gentleman…on the outside. In my head, the things I was thinking about were definitely not gentlemanly.

Warm air blasted out of the vents when I cranked up the heat in the SUV. I grinned at her. “Okay. There are some rules about our date.”

Her brows rose. “There are?”

“Yep.” I backed out, careful around the patches of black ice. “Rule number one is we don’t talk about anything DOD-related.”

“Okay.”

I glanced at her sideways and saw that she was fighting a major smile. “Rule number two is that we don’t talk about Dawson or Will. And number three, we focus on my awesomeness.”

Kat lost the battle. Her smile was huge. “I think I can deal with these rules.”

“You better, because there is punishment for breaking the rules.”

“And what kind of punishment would that be?”

Pulling out onto the main road, I chuckled. “Probably the sort of punishment you’d enjoy.”

I reached for the radio at the same time Kat did and our fingers brushed. Static raced over my hand, jumping to hers. Kat jerked back with a soft gasp. Her eyes were bright, and it was suddenly so damn hot in the SUV, and it had nothing to do with the heat coming out of the vents.

I’d picked out an Italian restaurant and had stopped by earlier. The manager had been rather ecstatic when it came to helping me out with dinner. She most definitely developed a crush.

Kat eyed the red-and-white checkered tablecloths as we were led to a small table in the back. She blinked once and then twice when she saw the bare table lit with small candles and two wineglasses filled with water.

Kat sat across from me. “Did you…?”

I propped my elbows on the table and leaned forward. Light from the candles flickered across her face. “Did I do what?”

“Arrange this?” She waved at the candles.

I shrugged. “Maybe…”

Smiling, she tucked her hair back. “Thank you. It’s very…”

“Awesome?”

She laughed. “Romantic—it’s very romantic. And awesome, too.”

“As long as you think it is awesome, then it was worth it.” I glanced up as the manager arrived at our table. “Hi there…”

Rhonda, who probably didn’t normally take orders, smiled at me and then took our orders. Once she dashed off, Kat grinned at me and said, “I think we’re going to get extra meatballs.”

I laughed. “Hey, I’m good for some things.”

“You’re good for a lot of things.”

Her blush that immediately followed her words stopped me from pointing out all the things I was good at. Instead, I asked her about the book I’d seen in her room, one with a shirtless dude who looked like he could chest-press a truck.

“It’s a historical romance,” she explained. “About pirates.”

I arched a brow. “Pirates.”

She grinned as a ginormous pile of breadsticks was placed in the center. “Pirates were all the rage back in the day.” She plucked up a breadstick. “You’d look good on a book cover.”

“I don’t wear leather pants.” I bit into the garlic-and-butter heaven.

“Still. You have the look.”

I rolled my eyes. “You just like me for my body. Admit it.”

“Well, yeah…”

“I feel like man-candy.”

She busted out laughing, and that one laugh was worth a million bucks. Finishing off the breadstick, I wiped the specks of garlic off with the linen napkin. “What are you going to do about college?”