Bryce nodded. “The tattoo on my back says the same thing. Well, in some fancy alphabet that she dug up online, but … Danika had a thing about that phrase. It was all the Oracle told her, apparently. Which makes no sense, because Danika was one of the least lovey-dovey people I’ve ever met, but …” Bryce toyed with the amulet around her neck, zipping it along the chain. “Something about it resonated with her. So after she died, I kept the jacket. And started wearing it.”

Hunt carefully set the jacket back on the chair. “I get it—about the personal effects.” He seemed like he wasn’t going to say more, but then he continued, “That sunball hat you made fun of?”

“I didn’t make fun of it. You just don’t seem like the kind of male who wears such a thing.”

He chuckled again—in that same way that slid over her skin. “That hat was the first thing I bought when I came here. With the first paycheck I ever received from Micah.” The corner of his mouth turned upward. “I saw it in an athletic shop, and it just seemed so ordinary. You have no idea how different Lunathion is from the Eternal City. From anything in Pangera. And that hat just …”

“Represented that?”

“Yeah. It seemed like a new beginning. A step toward a more normal existence. Well, as normal an existence as someone like me can have.”

She made an effort not to look at his wrist. “So you have your hat—and I have Jelly Jubilee.”

His smile lit up the dimness of the gallery. “I’m surprised you don’t have a tattoo of Jelly Jubilee somewhere.” His eyes skimmed over her, lingering on the short, tight green dress.

Her toes curled. “Who says I don’t have a tattoo of her somewhere you can’t see, Athalar?”

She watched him sort through everything he had already seen. Since he’d moved in, she’d stopped parading about the apartment in her underwear while getting dressed, but she knew he’d spotted her through the window in the days before. Knew he realized there was a limited, very intimate, number of places where another tattoo might be hidden.

She could have sworn his voice dropped an octave or two as he asked, “Do you?”

With any other male, she would have said, Why don’t you come find out?

With any other male, she would have already been on the other side of the desk. Crawling into his lap. Unbuckling his belt. And then sinking down onto his cock, riding him until they were both moaning and breathless and—

She made herself go back to her paperwork. “There are a few males who can answer that question, if you’re so curious.” How her voice was so steady, she had no idea.

Hunt’s silence was palpable. She didn’t dare look over her computer screen.