Or maybe not, Qhuinn thought as he went around to get Rhamp out first. It was quite possible his son’s sniffer was broken.

After wrestling with the car seat, he got the carrier free and then combat-booted himself and his boy up the walkway. “Care for a kid?” he said to Blay’s dad.

“Oh, you have no idea,” the male replied as he accepted the transfer. As Qhuinn was about to turn away, he got a load of their expressions as they looked down at the young—and he nearly teared up. The two older vampires were rapt with love, their stares glowing, their eyes blinking, their faces flushing.

It made him think about what Blay had said about not torturing them with kids that were not their own.

Well, he’d fixed that.

Trying to be surreptitious, he leaned to one side and looked into the front hall. No Blay. And no Blay coming down the stairs, either. Or emerging from the back of the house. And Qhuinn was far too scattered to be able to sense the guy.

Hmm, how to put it into words—“Is Blay here?”

As his mouth opened and the syllables came out, the male’s parents froze.

Blay’s father frowned and glanced at Big Lyric. “He’s just on the back porch. Where else would he be?”

Lyric, on the other hand, clearly knew what was up. “Why don’t you go get him?” Then she looked at her hellren. “Honey, grab Lyric out of that enormous carbon-footprinted nightmare, will you?”

As Blay’s dad hopped on that duty, Qhuinn felt like hugging the female. So he did—and the fact that she accepted his embrace so readily gave him hope.

“Go on, now,” she whispered in his ear. “You two work out whatever this is. We’ll watch the young.”

When Qhuinn straightened, something of what he was feeling must have shown in his expression, because she reached up and stroked his face.

“I love you, even if your choice of automobile appalls me. That gets, what, maybe two miles per gallon? On the highway?”

Blay’s dad piped in as he came back with Little Lyric: “It did get us safely to the training center last night. Your Prius? That thing wouldn’t have made it out of the driveway.”

Like the male knew he’d pushed it as far as he could, Rocke winked at Qhuinn, smiled with love at his shellan, and beat feet into the house with both carriers like he was being chased with a rolled-up copy of Mother Jones.

“You two take your time,” Blay’s mom said. “I’m going to quote some climate change articles to your young. Maybe make them watch Bill Gates’s Innovating to zero! TED talk.”

Qhuinn helped her back into the house, even though she tried to resist the hand on her elbow, and she was right: The cinnamon and spices did smell terrific, and the warmth from the fire in the family room was perfect on a cold night, and everything seemed to glow with love.

Bracing himself, he passed by the kitchen and went to the porch door in the back. Before he opened things up, he checked to make sure the collar on his button-down was where it needed to be and that his wool coat was, like, properly whatever’d. Also did a quick Desitin review in case he had the stuff on anything.

And then …

Through the glass panes in the upper part of the door, he saw Blay standing in the cold, nothing but a sweater on, staring out over the snowy landscape to a frozen pond. As the male took a drag on his cigarette, the end flared orange, and then a cloud of smoke drifted off over his red head.

He looked regal in his reserve, his shoulders back, his eyes narrowed on some distant point, his feet planted on the otherwise empty porch.

Something told Qhuinn to knock before he went out.

When he did, Blay didn’t turn around. He just shrugged a little. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, Qhuinn thought as he opened the door and stepped into the early winter’s night.

And shit knew he was more than willing to beg.

“More toast?”

As Xcor made the inquiry from across the table, Layla shook her head, wiped her mouth with a paper towel, and sat back.

“You know, I think I’m quite satisfied, thank you.” Translation: I’ve sucked back two pieces of toast, two eggs, and a mug of Earl Grey. Can we be done now and go downstairs to make love?

“I’ll just get you one more slice. How about more tea?”

Whilst he got up from the table, she could tell by the set of his shoulders and the disapproval on his face that he somehow knew she had lied about being full—and he had no intention of being diverted from the goal of feeding her properly.

“Yes, please.”

Her tone was closer to “screw that” than “thank you for your further Earl Greying on my behalf,” but that was what sexual frustration would do for a female.

“How about we take it and go downstairs?” she suggested, thinking that way, they’d be closer to the bed they were going to mess the heck up. “In fact, I’ll just head down now.”

Over at the toaster, Xcor put in another two slices of Pepperidge Farm white and pushed down the lever. “I shall bring you everything. Go and put your feet up—leave your mug for me.”

Heading for the cellar door, she paused and glanced over her shoulder. The gray and white kitchen was small, and Xcor’s heft dwarfed the space sure as if a German shepherd had wandered into a dollhouse. And it was so incongruous that this warrior was bending down over the toaster to carefully monitor its toasting process.

Not too light, not too dark.

Then there was the buttering. He approached the dispensation of sweet butter over a crispy bread surface with the seriousness and attention span of a heart surgeon.

It was exactly how she had always wished the male she loved would treat her—and that wasn’t about whether it was First Meal or Last Meal, day or night outside, winter or summer. Xcor’s focus and concern simply showed that she mattered to him. That he cared about her.

That he saw her.

After a lifetime of being one of many to somebody divine, it was a rare gift to be the only one to someone mortal.

But damn it, why couldn’t they be having sex right now?

Down in the cellar, she lowered the lights and turned on the TV, hoping to find one of the romantic movies Beth and Marissa liked to watch on cable. News. News. Commercial. Commercial—

What was taking him so long, she thought as she glanced to the stairs. Commercial. Commercial—

Oh, this was good. While You Were Sleeping.

Where was Xcor, though?

Finally, after what seemed like a hundred years, she heard him coming down the stairs. “I turned the security system on,” he said.

She muted the volume on Sandra Bullock trying to pull a Christmas tree into her apartment through an open window and then attempted to arrange her and her robing in a suitably come-hither fashion on the sofa. The robe was frustrating. When the doggen had refreshed the house, they had delivered several of the Chosen uniforms for her, not knowing she didn’t wear them anymore. Too bad it hadn’t been lingerie. With the loose folds swallowing the contours of her body, she was hardly beauty queen material.

Although her male did seem to prefer her naked.

When he wasn’t stuffing her with food, that was—

“Oh,” she said as she took a gander at the tray he’d brought with him. Xcor might as well have lugged the kitchen table down to the cellar. He’d toasted the rest of the loaf, scrambled more eggs, and made a teapot full of hot stuff. He’d also included the cream, even though she hadn’t used it, and the honey pot, which she had.

“Well, that’s … just lovely,” she said as he set it all down on the low coffee table.

Sitting himself next to her, he took a piece of toast off the stack and began the buttering process.

“I can do that,” she muttered. “I should like to serve you.”

Then drop your pants, she thought as she eyed the huge thighs that strained the seams of the black nylon sweats he was wearing. And then there was the way the bottom of the sleeve of his T-shirt struggled to hold the thick circumference of his bicep. And the shadow of beard growth that darkened his jaw.

Sinking her nails into her knees, she looked at his mouth. “Xcor.”

“Hmm?” he asked as he moved a mathematically precise layer of butter over the toast with a knife.