“I did that for purely selfish reasons. I didn’t want to have to fight hundreds of reporters for your attention.”

The look in his eyes scorched her from the inside out. She looked away, fussing with the bottom rim of her top.

“I missed you, Sera. Every moment I was there, in those stupid meetings, I was thinking about you.”

She snickered. “I thought you were fantasizing about killing them all in a fit of rage.”

“I can do both. And I’m not kidding,” he told her, his voice as hard as granite. “I was thinking about you. Your lips. Your body.” His hands slid down her sides, igniting her senses. “Our night together. How I want to have many more like it.” He caught her hand as it scuttled to her hemline. “You’ve been trying to take off your clothes since I got here.”

“That’s not true.” Her blush burned deeper—lower—as his hand brushed across her top.

Kai’s phone chose that spectacular moment to ring. He answered it with one hand, keeping the other on her but sliding it lower, across her stomach, down to her hip.

“Ok,” he spoke into the phone, even as his fingers traced the inside of her thigh.

Sera bit back a moan.

“Sounds good,” Kai said, then hung up. His eyes met hers, wicked as sin. “Riley says hi.”

“I can’t believe you were touching me like that while talking to my brother!” She punched him in the arm. “Have you no shame?”

“Of course I have no shame. Don’t you know that by now? Besides,” he added, giving her a smoldering look. “I can’t help myself around you. But I will.” He smoothed down her top. “Riley will be back in a few minutes. I don’t want to leave any evidence of my transgression.”

“Oh? Am I finally going to hear about the fight you and Riley had?”

“I wouldn’t call it a fight.”

“What would you call it?”

He thought about that for a moment. “An understanding. He found out that we spent the night together.”

“And he…understood?”

“No, he was pissed as hell.”

“But I thought he wanted us to get together,” she said.

“Not about the sex. He was pissed that I didn’t tell him. Since we’re friends and all.”

“And I’m his sister. Are you supposed to tell your friend that you slept with his sister?”

“He thought I didn’t trust him enough to tell him.”

“Hmm.” She nibbled on her thumb. “What else did Riley say? Did Dal have to use the compressed magic?”

“No, but you look like you wish he had.”

She nodded enthusiastically.

“Riley told me that if I hurt you, he’d come up with a magical explosive that worked against dragons. And use it. I said I understood. That was the ‘understanding’ part.”

“Wow.”

“Precisely.”

“I think it’s easier to make jokes about your friend getting together with your sister when it hasn’t happened yet,” she said. “Once it happens…well, then you realize your friend is banging your sister.”

His lips quirked. “The word ‘banging’ was not mentioned in the course of this conversation.”

“Of course not.” She grinned. “Because that would just be crude.”

Kai looked at her, his hands clasped together behind his back, but his eyes burning. He cleared his throat.

“We should get the pizza ready,” he said and swooped it off the table, carrying it to the coffee table in front of the television.

Sera followed him, her pulse still pounding. “Kai, what are we going to do about Alden?” she asked him as they sat down on the sofa.

“I don’t know,” he said, wrapping his arm around her in a protective embrace. “But we will find a way to end him. And this time, it will be permanent.”