Page 160 of Sky’s Edge

I did the mental calculations and stated, “So the noon talk with Dad is out.”

“You can tell him what’s happening. He won’t say anything to anybody.”

“He might haul Mom back up here.”

“We have room.”

So accommodating.

So farging sweet.

“Does Laura know?” I asked.

He dropped his hands to my neck. “Aleksei wants more information before he tells her. But he’s going to have to tell her because she’s going to have to know where you are.”

“Give me the heads-up when she knows.”

“I will.”

“Now, you have shit to do, and I need to go down and make sure Zyr hasn’t risen from her case to bean her husband unconscious.”

That was when I got the wet and wild kiss I was hoping for.

It was wetter and wilder than I expected.

But I was not going to complain.

When he finished it, he rested his forehead on mine and whispered, “You’re fucking perfect.”

That felt so good, it was a wonder it didn’t transform me into a pile of goo.

Since it didn’t, as I was Catla Truelock, I replied, “No duh.”

And then I got the best thing I could get from my male.

He yanked me into his arms and burst out laughing.

“If you don’t get him out of here this instant, we’re going to have survived an aerial bombardment only for me to kill him with an ano-scanner,” Zyra warned.

All righty then.

I clasped Manny’s arm and tugged. “Come on with you. We’re taking Hurley for a walk.”

“I don’t—” Mangold started.

“Half an hour,” I haggled.

“Make it an hour,” Zyra demanded.

Manny opened his mouth.

But I whispered quickly, “She needs some time. And she needs to know you’re all right, just like you need to know the same for her. You don’t sit on her at home. Give her a modicum of normalcy so she knows you’re all right.”

He shut his mouth and allowed me to pull him out.

Manny’s eyes never left his wife the whole way, like she’d go up in a puff of smoke if he didn’t have sight of her.

I waved to Zyra on the way, relieved that she looked relieved I was trying to take her husband’s mind off things.