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both,” he said, his voice dark. “But don’t you worry. I know all my demons by name. I’ll just add your daddy to the list.”
    Sophie blinked. “I didn’t think you’d answer that. Much less admit it.”
    “Was that you saying no down there?” he asked quietly. “I couldn’t hear it over the sound of you shooting off that mouth of yours and then coming apart in my hands. My bad.”
    She nodded. “Of course. Why am I surprised that you’re terrible?”
    A crook of those lips, hotter somehow with that dark gold beard of his to frame them. “You’re not surprised that I’m terrible. You’re surprised that you like it.”
    Sophie refused to think about that little bomb that felt an awful lot like truth. She crossed her arms and winced when the movement dragged her tank top over her sensitive nipples, and he saw that, she was sure he did. She didn’t think he missed a thing.
    “You didn’t answer my question. You could have made your calls downstairs, in the street, or wherever the hell you’re staying. You didn’t have to break into my house.”
    Ajax’s mouth curved. “You think I broke in?”
    “I know I locked the door.” She was Priest Lombard’s daughter and this was New Orleans, not Disneyland. “I always lock the door.”
    “I have a key.”
    “You disappeared ten years ago. You kept your key?”
    He didn’t reply, and she didn’t feel like another trip down memory lane. Back to when she’d been a curious teenager with a strict father and he’d been so beautiful his smile made the gargoyles weep. Back when she’d had to awkwardly navigate around this house with him always underfoot, always oozing that deadly, feral charm of his all over the kitchen table, but never at her. Back when Ajax had been her father’s confidant in a way she never was and now never could be—there was no point thinking about any of that. It only made that raw thing inside her worse.
    “Well, you can’t stay here. You’re not actually my brother, despite the way my father treated you. You don’t have any right to come rolling in here like you’re
my
family and I have some obligation to put you up.”
    “Never thought I was your brother, babe.”
    That took on a different shade of meaning, given what had happened between them downstairs, but she couldn’t focus on that just yet. Or maybe ever.
    “Sophie.” And that blue gaze of his was serious then. “I was his family, if not yours. You know that.”
    He didn’t ask her what her plan was, because, of course, he didn’t have to. If he refused to leave, what could she do? There was no forcing him. And Lombards didn’t call the cops.
    Are you really this person?
she asked herself tightly.
Ajax was his favorite. Are you really going to shit all over that because you’re jealous?
    The funeral would be later this week, she assumed. Next week at the latest. Then all of these things she wanted gone from her life would fade back into the shadows and the gutters where they belonged, Ajax along with them. She could deal with him for a few days, surely. She could deal with anything for a few days.
    “I made the third bedroom into a yoga studio,” she gritted out, which wasn’t entirely true. She’d once done a yoga DVD in there, yes. But she was hoping the idea might horrify him straight down to his adamantly anti-hippie soul. “It’s not really a guest room anymore.”
    Ajax did something with his mouth and those gleaming blue eyes of his, where he grinned at her and even laughed a little bit without actually doing either one of those things, and she felt that like he was on her again, hard against her, so hard it made her shiver deep inside.
    “I tell you what. You want to come on in and tie yourself into knots on the floor and then show me all the ways you’re as flexible as you are hot, I won’t complain.”
    She made a low, frustrated noise, and forgot her half-formed good intention to stop being a jealous little brat. Only partly because he’d