Lupi 04 - Night Season

us.”
    â€œShe was a religious woman, then.”
    â€œRaised Catholic, but spent most of her life mad at the Church. She wasn’t exactly thrilled about my decision to join it. She went around muttering under her breath and came damned close to breaking her own rule.”
    â€œWhich was…?”
    Cynna smiled. “‘Advice is like shit. Don’t pass it around and don’t take someone else’s.’ But…well, she knew why I needed the Church.” The Catholic Church offered the best demon protection available. At the time, that had been an important criterion.
    â€œWhere was she before your mother died?”
    Cynna’s smile slipped. “She didn’t believe in interfering, and…well, I always suspected she thought she hadn’t done such a great job with Mom, and she didn’t want to fail again. But when Mom died, she was there for me.”
    â€œI take it she didn’t die all that long ago.”
    â€œThree years. Well, three and a half.” She sighed. “I tried to get her to move in with me, you know? She was getting up there in years and her health seemed good, but…well, she wouldn’t do it. Didn’t even want to discuss it. She never would let me help her with money or anything, and she liked living alone.”
    â€œWas it after she died that you moved into a hotel? Or after she refused to live with you?”
    Cynna opened her mouth. Closed it. Her throat felt tight. “That’s not how it was. My apartment went condo and I didn’t want to buy, so…” Lame. That sounded so lame. Especially with the way her eyes were stinging—which he would notice, damn him.
    Had she moved into a hotel room because, with Aunt Meggie gone, she’d given up on having a home?
    Duh.
    Cullen stood, raising the smooth sculpture of his upper body above the water, and started toward her.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked, suspicious.
    â€œI can’t offer to comfort you,” he said in the reasonable voice he used when he was being outrageous. “You’d push me away. So you’ll have to comfort me for making me feel sad about your loss.”
    Cynna rolled her eyes. “Aunt Meggie died over three years ago.”
    He sat beside her and slid an arm around her waist. “That’s not the loss I’m sad about. Quit squirming.”
    She shoved at his arm, not caring if she was being predictable. “I am so not in the mood.”
    He just pulled her closer and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Pretend I’m your gay hairdresser.”
    She twisted to stare in astonishment. “My what?”
    â€œI’m going to wash your hair.” With his free hand Cullen snagged the basket of toiletries. “Every woman I’ve ever known zens out when she gets her hair washed.”
    â€œDone it a lot, have you?”
    â€œNo.” He shifted so that he was behind her. “But I used to wash my mum’s hair after the cancer had her. She didn’t much like being touched by strangers, and by then”—his voice turned wry—“she’d argued with or outlived most of her friends. She was an ornery old bird. Loved me to hell and back, but she could have taught stubborn to a jackass. Tilt your head.”
    The shampoo was in a little jar, not a tube. It had a tangy, mineral scent and didn’t lather at all. His fingers made soothing circles on her scalp as he rubbed it in, and the last tension drained right out of her. “Mmm. Your mum sounds a bit like my aunt Meggie.”
    â€œThey’d have understood each other, I think.” And that was all either of them said until he spoke again. “You’d better duck and rinse yourself.”
    The moss was slippery. Cynna took a breath, scooted her hips, and slid out flat on the shelf, her head bumping one of his legs. She ran her hands through her short hair, rubbing her scalp to get rid of the shampoo, then rubbed her head against his leg like an affectionate cat marking her territory. She stretched and came up smiling, eyes closed, water streaming in her face and down her back…and with his arms around her from behind, his hands on her breasts.
    â€œI thought you weren’t going to seduce me.”
    â€œI said I didn’t know when to do it,” Cullen corrected her, his fingers teasing her nipples. “But that’s if I’m thinking about what you need. I’m