The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition

by Janine Infante Bosco

  Bored, I reach for another piece of bread and butter it as he pushes back his chair. I wonder if the fancy dish the little packages of butter are on will fit inside my clutch. He stands and brushes his finger over my bare shoulder, forcing me to lift my gaze from the little dish.

  “Stay here. Give me a moment to handle this mess. In the meantime, order whatever you like,” he croons.

  Yeah, right. Me and my new butter dish are busting out of this joint the minute you’re out of sight, buddy.

  I smile at him then turn my gaze to my lap as he whispers something to the bartender. Nonchalantly, I open my purse and shove the butter dish inside before closing it quickly and folding my hands over it—don’t judge me. I deserve something for my efforts. I just spent an hour with this idiot, one hour of my life wasted. If I had my tote bag I’d be taking the silverware.

  I don’t lift my head and count down from ten as I stare at my hands, plotting my escape.

  Something changes.

  Goosebumps prick my skin and I swear it’s almost as if an angel whispers in my ear and tells me to lift my head. The angel doesn’t remind me to breathe though and when my eyes lock with a pair of familiar baby blues, I gasp for air. A frenzied surge of energy crackles around us and for one rapturous second the world stands still.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” he rasps softly as he slides into the seat across from me.

  My lips part, drawing in a much needed breath as I pinch my forearm and dig my nails into my skin, begging myself to wake up because I know how this dream ends.

  “Celeste,” he calls.

  “No,” I croak, shaking my head. “You’re not really here.”

  I glance around the bar, desperate for the idiot date of mine to return and for all of this to be a figment of my imagination, but then he touches me and my eyes dart to our joined hands. My hand is lost against his, small and colorless compared to the tattoos that travel from his fingers to his wrists. Yet when he laces his fingers with mine, they fit just as perfectly as they did six years ago. He squeezes my hand softly and my palm feels like it’s on fire.

  It’s too much.

  Too real.

  “Feel that, don’t you?”

  His voice is deeper than I remember; a dangerous combination of raspy and rough.

  “Yeah you do,” he answers his own question. “Quit lookin’ at me like I’m a ghost,” he hisses, lifting his eyes to look behind me briefly before they slice back to mine. “Time to go.”

  I blink mindlessly as I stare at him, taking in all the features I memorized when he was just a boy. Now as a man his features are still the same but more profound, more masculine. Like his voice, they’re just as rough…just as dangerous. My eyes rake over the light dusting of stubble covering his square jaw and drift across his high cheekbones to his narrow nose. By looking at it one can’t tell that it’s slightly crooked, but if I run my finger down the bridge of it I know I’d be reminded of the night a football slammed into it and broke it. His hair is different too. The top is longer, the sides shaved making his light colored eyes that were pinned on me seem much more intense.

  Pushing back his chair, he releases my hand and stands, pulling the napkin off my lap. His fingers graze my thigh and all the air is sucked from my lungs, leaving my heart thundering inside my chest and I gasp for air. He touches his mouth to my ear as his other arm slides underneath mine and my lungs squeeze painfully. I feel as if I am suffocating, like my past is stealing my air and burying me deep in the earth.

  “Up you go, gorgeous,” he purrs. His voice like gravel, scraping over every inch of me as he tugs me to my feet.

  The butter dish spills out of my purse as it falls to the floor with a soft thud and I force my knees to stop shaking.

  “Shit,” I mutter, finally finding my voice. Snapping out of the fog, I snatch my arm away from him and bend to retrieve the contents of my purse. Anger coils inside my veins as the shock fades away and his presence blankets me.

  My posture strains under the heavy weight of his unyielding stare and my hands clench into fists. I don’t know if I’m mad because he’s here or because I feel him everywhere. Jagger has consumed my mind, body and soul since I was just a teenage girl, but after he disappeared I mourned him the same as I did his sister. I trained myself to believe he was dead, and all that was left of him was a memory. As he crouches down beside me, his hands working quicker than mine to pick up the contents of my purse, my lie becomes exposed and the ugly truth is reared.

  He left.

  Death isn’t a choice but abandonment is.

  His colorful hand closes around my elbow as he tucks my clutch under his arm and his pensive gaze stares back at me.

  “Your eyes always told your story,” he whispers. “I can see there’s a storm rolling through, gorgeous, but lock that shit up because right now all eyes are on us.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek as my eyes dart around the room, noticing that we have the attention of the few stragglers surrounding us.

  “They don’t need to know you hate me they just gotta think you can’t wait to rip my clothes off,” he says as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and swipes his thumb across my bottom lip.

  One touch and a rapid sensation penetrates through my body.

  “As long as you know it,” I hiss.

  “She speaks,” he replies, tucking me against his side.

  His cologne assaults my senses as his fingers dig into my hip, guiding me across the lush lobby of the hotel toward the bank of elevators. He extends his arm and the sleeve of his suit rises, exposing more ink. Desperate for space, I step to the side but his fingers dig deeper and I stumble on my heels. Wrapping one arm around my waist, he pulls me against him so our bodies are flush. The simple touch and our bodies ignite like a tinder of a match. The flame is instant—the burn slow until it dies.

  “Don’t make a scene,” he warns gruffly as the elevator doors slide open.

  The nerve of this asshole.

  Leading me into the packed elevator, he asks someone to press the button to the fortieth floor of the hotel before he continues to torment me by keeping me close to him, scraping that match again and again. The flame flickers, forcing me to feel the things I never expected or wanted to feel again.

  That’s right, I didn’t want to feel the wrath of Jagger Richardson ever again. Once we allow ourselves to feel we also subject ourselves to grief, and I have grieved enough over this boy…this man.

  When we reach the fortieth floor, he ushers me out of the elevator and down the hall.

  Keeping one hand on my hip, he pauses in front of a door and hands me the keycard.

  “Open the door,” he commands.

  “I’m not going in there with you,” I argue, swatting his hand away from me. “There is no one in this hallway but you and me, so you can get your hands off me.”

  “Like my hands where they are,” he replies as he grabs a hold of my wrist. Chills roll down my spine as he moves to unlock the door.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” I blurt as he kicks the door open and turns back to me. Piercing me with a glare, his eyes darken and narrow causing my chest to tighten.

  “Gotta catch me to kill me, sweetheart, and I ain’t ready to be caught,” he sneers. “Get in the room, Celeste.”

  Hearing my name on his tongue ruins me.

  Weakens me.

  Breaks whatever is left of my shattered heart.

  The door closes behind me, the lock slides into place sealing my fate and robbing my choice.

  Like death isn’t a choice neither is your soulmate.

  -Three-

  Cobra

  Keeping my eyes off her, I shrug my suit jacket off and throw it on the bed before I move to the mini-fridge and grab two bottles of over-priced beer. I twist the tops off them, bring one to my lips and tilt my head back as I guzzle the ale.

  I’ve killed with no regret. I’ve lied, cheated and stole without conscience.

  And I’ll do it all ag
ain.

  In a couple of hours, I will transform into the motherfucking reaper and pursue the mayhem I was born to chase. But right now, I’m standing here clutching a beer, struggling to find the courage to turn around and face the only regret I have.

  It doesn’t help that she’s more fucking gorgeous than I ever imagined.

  Torture was God’s intent when he made her beauty match her soul.

  Fighting for focus, I turn around and offer her the other bottle of beer. Her eyes dip to my offering and I see the anger ripple through her like a current.

  I wasn’t kidding when I said her eyes told her story. Line after line, chapter after chapter her eyes tell everything she’s feeling, thinking, wishing.

  And right now, she’s angry as fuck, thinking of a way out and wishing I was dead.

  “You’ve lost your goddamn mind if you think I will sit here and drink with you,” she sneers, shoving my hand away. The touch of our hands sends her retreating backward.

  It’s too much, always has been and always will. One touch and everything lying dormant awakens and fucking swallows us whole.

  I shrug my shoulders, setting the two bottles aside and work the buttons on my sleeves.

  “Suit yourself,” I say, rolling up my sleeves before I cross my arms against my chest and level her with a steady look, fighting the ache in my chest. “You’re mad.”

  “You’re a fucking genius,” she retorts, rolling her eyes. “Is there something you want to say? Something you want from me? If there is then please get on with it so we can forget this ever happened and I can go back to telling myself you’re dead.”

  Sparks crackle between us and the ground shakes as the past threatens to erupt and blow this fucking reunion wide open. It will be ugly, but then again, the truth always is.

  Before the war implodes, before I bury the part of me she remembers and introduce her to the monster I am, I let my gaze sweep over her. Painfully I commit every feature, every curve, every fucking inch of her to my memory. The image before me will sit with the hundreds of others I hold of her in a vault inside my mind.

  So fucking gorgeous.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” she attempts to order, but her delivery is more of a plea.

  “Like what?”

  “The only way you ever have…”

  Like she’s everything.

  My whole fucking world.

  I close my eyes momentarily and suck in a breath as I prepare to introduce the only girl I’ve ever loved to the man I despise most…me.

  Cobra.

  A Satan’s Knight nomad.

  My eyes open and lock with hers before I roll my neck from side to side, cracking my knuckles. Her eyes dart to my hands and she takes another step back before lifting her wide eyes to mine. The closer I step the wider her eyes become, and fuck me, my dick twitches.

  I inch closer, breathing in her sweet scent as I bend my knees and bring us eye to eye. A part of me likes playing with her, wondering how much she’ll take and what she’ll give in return. Her small hands ball into fists at her sides as I lean into her, invading her space and reach around to grab her purse off the bed.

  Her breath hitches as I move away from her and pull her phone from her bag.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she shrieks breathlessly.

  Ignoring her, I pull out the chair in front of the desk, flip it around and straddle it. I dig into the duffle bag propped onto the desk in search of my tools and pull out the scanner. I swipe it over the front and back of her phone, clearing it of any tracking devices.

  “The man you were with,” I start as I power off the phone and turn back to her.

  “Don’t you dare,” she seethes, charging for me. “You don’t get to ask me questions.”

  “He your boyfriend?” I ask anyway as I cross my arms on top of the back of the chair and lazily stare back at her, stoking the fire in her eyes.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Answer the question, Celeste.”

  “How about you answer some questions, Jagger,” she hisses. My name once sounded like a song on her lips, but now she sneers it like it’s venom poisoning her tongue.

  She leans her ass against the desk, crosses her arms under her full breasts and stares daggers at me.

  Here we go.

  The ground quakes as the story in her eyes explodes from her mouth.

  “I’ll start real simple,” she scorns, flipping her waves over her shoulder as she glares at me.

  “Why? Why did you lie to me? Why did you make me believe we were something when we were nothing? Why did you make me fall in love with you? Why wasn’t I good enough? Why didn’t you say goodbye? Why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you call? Why did you fucking leave me?”

  Her voice turns hoarse and I watch her throat as she swallows. Pushing off the desk she steps closer to the chair and points her finger in my face.

  “How?” she shrieks and I see the tears fill her eyes. The urge to touch and heal vibrates through me and I start to slip over the edge of sanity, knowing if I touch her now I will drown.

  “How could you walk away and never look back? How was I so easy for you to forget? Please tell me how because it’s six years later and I still can’t do it! I still can’t forget any of it, and so help me God, I want to. I want to forget you. I want to forget every damn moment I spent with you and all the nightmares we faced together. I want to forget it all.”

  I stay silent and watch her take a much needed deep breath as she looks around the room.

  “Look at me,” I coax, swallowing down the lump that’s trying to choke me.

  “I can’t,” she admits, turning around.

  I jump out of the chair as she turns around and pushes the shit on top of the desk aside, searching for her phone. Her gasp vibrates through me and I know she hasn’t found her phone but the duffel bag full of guns.

  “Fuck,” I growl, grabbing her wrist. Flipping her around, I watch her spine straighten as she throws up her guard.

  “Who are you?” she whispers.

  “Not the guy you remember,” I hiss. Drawn to her like a moth is to a flame, I greedily close the distance between us, sucking the fire out of her.

  “You’re right, the Jagger you know, the guy who fucking loved you with every fucking breath he took, that guy is dead. You want answers, I’ll give you what I got but it ain’t pretty, Celeste, so you better ask yourself if you’re ready to meet Satan.”

  I don’t give her a chance to answer, deciding it is better she knows the gruesome truth. They say the truth sets us free, and she deserves to be free from the nightmare. She deserves to be free of me and the dark fucking cloud that’s been following me since we were fourteen.

  “Yeah, I left you but not because you didn’t mean anything to me,” I seethe, reaching behind her for the pack of smokes on the desk. Pulling one from the pack I push it between my lips and point my finger back at her. “Quit that shit,” I order before lighting my cigarette.

  Her brown eyes flicker in surprise and I wasn’t sure if it was my words that shocked her or the fact I was smoking.

  “Quit thinking you’re anything less than the girl I loved with every fucking fiber of my soul,” I scold, huffing out a frustrated breath. “I loved you so much, Celeste, I freed you.”

  “Freed me from what?”

  “Hell.”

  “Bullshit,” she hisses. “We survived hell, lived through it together—”

  “Baby, that was heaven,” I argue.

  I’m not sure if there is a heaven in the afterlife, but I know for certain there is one here on Earth. A realm of unsurpassed glory where there is undiminished bliss. I’ve been there and I took the trip with her.

  Holding her gaze, I point the tip of my cigarette behind her toward the duffle bag filled with enough ammo to start a massacre.

  “That over there is hell.”

  She glances over her shoulder at the guns.

  “Gonna ask you
one more time, who’s the guy?”

  “Or what?” she questions as she spins around and raises an eyebrow. “You’ll shoot me?”

  With fire in her eyes, she moves her hands to her hips and taunts me with that fucking body of hers—a body that’s just as much mine as it is hers. Or it used to be anyway, it’s been a real long time since I grabbed onto those hips and buried my face between those perfect tits. A real fucking long time since I watched her ride my cock.

  A fucking eternity.

  Grinding out my cigarette in the ashtray, I keep my eyes on her watching as her eyes fill with recognition. Her eyes aren’t the only pair that tell a story, and right now she’s reading a filthy novel out of mine.

  “That mouth,” I growl, taking a dangerous step closer. Then another.

  “What are you doing?” she mutters nervously, lifting her hands to my chest in an attempt to stop me from getting any closer to her.

  “Shutting you up,” I say, bringing my hands to her face. My hands look foreign against her creamy skin, reminding me of who I am and what I lost. For a second my conscience creeps up on me and tries to warn me off of what I’m about to do…what I’m about to take.

  Then she opens that mouth again.

  “Jagger,” she breathes.

  I kiss my conscience goodbye, fight fire with fire and take back what belongs to me by dragging my lips across hers. She gasps at the simple touch and I know the reason. I feel it too, right down to the core of my soul. My mouth pauses over hers and I wait for her lips to part before I take us both back to heaven.

  A mythical place where it’s just me and her.

  A place where sins are forgiven and innocence is restored.

  She opens for me and I slide my tongue over hers in soft, slow strokes. For a fleeting moment, I forget the years have passed us by and that we’re not just two kids standing under the bleachers unable to keep our hands off one another. For one moment, I forget we’re standing in a hotel room with the ticking clock and bag of guns. I’m still Jagger and she’s my sister’s best friend, the girl I gave her first kiss to. The same girl whose virginity I took in the back seat of my parents’ car. The first girl I ever loved—the only one I ever will. I’m not Satan’s soldier and I’m not going to leave her once we’re done. For one moment, she’s mine and there is no end in sight.