Page 27 of Midnight Kiss

“Thanks.”

“I’ll text you,” Michael said.

Was it wrong that Michael had started annoying me lately? It made me feel weird that he was so protective when we were just friends. But then again, that might’ve just been because of what Morgan had said.

“You told her that already.” Alexander’s words were gruff, and they sent a shiver through me.

“Huh?” Michael stopped mid-step and turned toward us again. “What did you say?”

“You told her that you would send her a message, didn’t you? Why repeat it?”

“Why do you have an issue with how I talk to my friends?” Michael asked, and shot me a wide-eyed quizzical look. It said, “Are you sure about this one, Em?”

Alex stepped between us. “You’re making her uncomfortable.”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“A blind man can see it,” Alex said, putting an arm out when I tried to step past him.

I grabbed his arm and tried to force it down, but it was like trying to bend steel. “I’m fine, Alex. Michael, just … drop it, all right? There’s no need for all this weird tension out here. I’m good.”

Michael stared up at Alex for a second longer then scoffed. “Yeah, whatever.” He brushed a hand through his blonde scruffy hair then sighed. “I’m not going to cause any trouble, Em, but I don’t think you can say the same for this guy.”

Alex growled. He actually growled.

And why do I find that attractive? What kind of a psycho am I?

Michael walked off, shoulders back, but his steps were quick.

“What was that about?” I asked. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“I didn’t need to, no,” Alex said, and he sounded thoughtful. “I didn’t need to.”

“So why did you do that? I can handle myself.”

Alex turned toward me. “You think you can, but you have no idea—” He took my hand gently then raised it to his lips. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I overstepped.”

“Thanks,” I said, watching his lips as they inched toward my skin, my breath catching in my chest.

“So,” he replied. “Are you ready to go out? Where would you like to eat?”

10

ALEXANDER

Iplaced my hand in the small of her back and walked her down the stairs in her apartment building, a certainty growing in my mind. The book was trouble. Last night, when I had used my magic to toy with its pages, she had moaned and tried to reach out. She had been disturbed, not because of my presence, but because I had been touching the book.

The book she was now connected to.

I hadn’t been close enough to it to feel its pull, but I was familiar with her symptoms.

The nausea, the fever, even the way she’d trembled in my arms, burning against my body—the book was cursed. And removing it from her might kill her.

I listened to her talk through a quick meal at Cervo’s, her eyes alive with excitement as she told me a story about her childhood dog, Granger, her palms closed around a mug of coffee.

“That’s what I don’t understand about Reginald,” she said.

“Reginald?”