I frowned. "Why is there mud all over your clothes?"
"Because I'm the one who found you last night," Owen said. "You called me. Don't you remember?"
I had a vague recollection of hitting Owen's number on my speed dial instead of Finn's but that was all. I concentrated, and more flashes of light and sound swam up in my mind, filling in some of the blanks from last night.
"I called you, and you came looking for me," I said. "But how did you find me? I didn't exactly give you directions."
Owen leaned against the doorway and took a sip from his mug. The smell of sugary-sweet hot chocolate made my mouth water. "No, but I called Finn, and he told me where you were and what the two of you had been doing. When you called me, you said that you'd jumped into the river and were downstream. I told Finn that, and he was able to guess where you might have washed up. So I got in the car and went looking."
"And Eva was with you too, wasn't she? I remember hearing her voice."
Owen nodded. "She wouldn't let me go without her, and I thought that the two of us searching would be better than just me."
I shook my head. "But even if you had a general idea of where I was, it would still take hours to search the riverbank, especially in the dark. So how did you find me?"
Owen walked into the room and picked up something from the nightstand on the other side of the bed. Sunlight streaming in through the window glinted off the edge of one of my silverstone knives.
"These," he said. "I knew that you had to have at least a couple of them left on you, not to mention the metal melted into your hands. So I just concentrated and focused on finding any silverstone in the area. They led me right to you."
Of course. Owen had what he considered to be a small elemental talent for metal, which was an offshoot of Stone, although I knew that his magic was anything but weak. The bottom line was that Owen could sense, control, and manipulate metal just the way that I could Ice and Stone. Still, it must have taken every bit of magic he had to specifically sense the silverstone in such a big area, especially with all the cans and other metal debris that littered the riverbanks.
"That's why you look so tired, isn't it?" I murmured. "You used up all your magic to find me last night."
Owen shrugged as though it was nothing. But it wasn't nothing to me. Besides Finn and the Deveraux sisters, I couldn't even remember the last time someone had cared enough to come looking for me when I was in trouble. I was so used to being on my own for so long, always being the tough, strong, capable one, that I'd forgotten how nice it felt to have someone else look out for me.
To have someone else care about me.
And just like that, the fragile strings of my feelings for Owen joined together, all the tangled threads wrapping around and weaving their way through my heart. Scary and painful in some ways, but necessary in others too.
Ignoring the needles still tingling in my legs, I managed to walk around the bed. Owen put his mug down and opened his arms. I stepped into his embrace. For a moment, I just laid my head against his chest, breathing in his rich, earthy aroma. Then, when I felt steady enough, I stood up and pressed my lips to Owen's.
Maybe it was my frame of mind or the fact that I'd almost frozen to death last night, but I felt so much in our kiss. Owen's lips against mine, his body flush with my own, his tongue slowly stroking against mine. The familiar passion sparked to life deep inside me. The feel of Owen, the smell, the taste of him, heated me in a way that all the wool socks in the world just couldn't.
But it wasn't just my body he'd affected. As much as I'd tried to fight it, warmth had blossomed in my heart for him too, unfurling one small, fragile petal at a time. And the emotion had only been strengthened by what he'd done for me last night. For coming to my rescue when I needed him the most, for helping me when I couldn't help myself, for saving me when I couldn't save myself.
Some time later the kiss ended. We stood there in the middle of the bedroom, our arms wrapped around each other, breathless. For the first time, I didn't try to ignore what I was feeling or pretend that things were only physical between us. They were much more than that now.
"Well, now," Owen murmured against my lips. "That makes it all worthwhile."
I drew back and arched an eyebrow. "Really? I wouldn't have figured you for a man who could be so easily bought off with a mere kiss. Even if there was a good deal of tongue action involved."
A wicked grin spread across Owen's face, softening the scar on his chin and making his violet eyes sparkle with a sly light. "Well, if you have something else in mind, I'm open to suggestions."
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. "There is a bed in this room."
"Yes, I had noticed that," Owen said. "I also happened to notice that you have on about a closet's worth of clothes."
"You don't like the marshmallow look?" I quipped. "Or perhaps you're just not up to the challenge of getting through all my many layers of woolen chastity?"
Owen's eyes narrowed, and his lips quirked up into a sly, sexy smirk. "Oh, baby. You have no idea what I'd do to get through those layers and down to the good stuff."
I pressed a soft kiss to the side of his mouth then put my lips up against his ear. "Then why don't you show me?"
Owen's hands slid down my back before coming around to the front of my body. Our eyes met and held as he undid the top button on the topmost flannel shirt I was wearing-
Someone let out a not-so-discreet cough. I looked over Owen's shoulder to see Finnegan Lane standing in the doorway, a cup of chicory coffee in his hand and a knowing grin on his handsome face.
"Well, it looks like someone's feeling better," Finn drawled.
Chapter 20
I sighed and looked back at Owen. "Rain check?"
He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. "I'll hold you to that."
And I would have been holding him, if I'd had my way. But Finn was here now, no doubt to check on me, and I knew that the others would be wondering how I was doing as well. The romantic reunion and thank-you-for-saving-my-life sex would have to wait until later. I sighed and stepped out of Owen's embrace.
By this point, most of the pins and needles had vanished from my legs, but I still wasn't rock steady on my feet, which is why I held on to the polished banister as the three of us went downstairs.
Since it was Sunday, Jo-Jo's beauty salon was closed, but that's still where I found the middle-aged dwarf, painting Natasha's fingernails a sweet little-girl pink. Vinnie held his daughter on his lap, his hands around her waist, his head perched on her shoulder, as if he couldn't quite believe she was back here with him instead of dead and buried. Rosco, Jo-Jo's basset hound, was snoozing in his basket in the corner as usual, his fat, stubby legs twitching with some sort of dream.