by J. L. Myers
And stupid me, trapped in shock and disbelief, hadn’t revealed his name or any of my morbid fears to the detective. I’d covered for him. I’d protected him. And now he was here to finish what he’d started.
I edged back a few steps, but I was already at the last booth and my back hit the wall. My breath sucked in, seeing the dagger strapped to his waist.
“I tried to stop it.”
“But your crazy is so much more than I ever thought and you just had to, didn’t you?” Tears flooded my eyes and I didn’t try to stop them or wipe them away. “Because of me, right? To get back at me for throwing you out? For screaming at you? For blowing up your vision of screwing me and every other female that is stupid enough to fall for your bullshit?”
Sexonlegs was up and right in front of me in an instant. The dagger remained harmlessly at his side, but my hand was inching closer to it while my other dug into my pocket for Tasey. Thank that guy in the sky that I’d found her after kicking my murderous lover/stalker out.
“You think I killed him?” An incredulous look darkened his face that was even more overgrown with stubble. He shoved the hair back from his eyes and glared at me. “How can you…” He huffed as my fingers met the butt of his dagger. He may have taken my heart, but he was not taking my life. A shake of his head loosened his tangled caramel hair, but the glare on his face fled, replaced by a look I’d seen before.
There was no time to stop it.
His lips crushed over mine, hard, demanding, and relentless.
And I melted at the contact, at the way his breath filled my mouth, at the sensation as he claimed my hips and pulled me hard against him. All thoughts on fighting back, on taking his dagger and stabbing him in the gut while I shoved Tasey into his neck, fled my mind. He was oxygen and I was a fish out of water—but I couldn’t get enough.
Adamaris pushed away suddenly, releasing my lips but not my hips. His raging eyes drilled into me, his lips wet and remaining parted with rough breath. “I didn’t kill him. Deep down you know I would never do that. You trusted me with your life and your heart.” He looked down as if ashamed, jaw clenching to make that muscle tick along its length. “At least I saved your life.”
Gaining enough sense to keep myself alive, I tugged out his dagger and darted out from his hold. To my surprise, he let me go, but frowned at seeing his weapon in my hands.
I nodded down to his boots. “You were there, in his office. Why?”
I kept backing up, and Sexonlegs followed at a slow pace, a predator stalking his prey. “To find out more about you. To appeal to the only person you let into your life so I could find a way to make up for what I’d done to you.”
“Bullshit.” I didn’t believe a word of it, and the closer he got the tighter my knuckles squeezed around his dagger. Those damned tears came back, spilling down my face in hot fury. “Then why the hell is he dead! He was all I had left, and you took him from me!”
“You know what took him from you. You heard the voices before the authorities arrived, I heard you talking to them.”
“You were there?” I was almost near the door, so close to escaping and running for my life. I’d never make it though. He was nearly a foot taller than me and faster than I could ever be.
Sexonlegs’s hands came up like I was a wild animal he needed to slow down before pumping full of lead. “I never left. I waited out on the street after he kicked me out, hoping he’d change his mind, trying to figure out what to say to you…then there was a crash. I raced back up to his office, but it was already too late. He was bleeding out, and even paramedics couldn’t have stemmed that stab wound. I tried to myself. Calli, I tried, but his heart… His last words were, ‘Protect Calliope. Promise me. She was like a daughter to me. The one we never had.’”
I’d felt the same about him. The father I had never had but had always wanted, though none more than how much I wanted my mother back.
I met the door and tugged. Right, locked. And the award for stupid goes to? You guessed it. I’d known it was locked all along and that damn mind-melting kiss made me forget. The keys were in the kitchen by the sink of…waiting dishwater Mr. Diner King Pin, Bob, would have filled up before leaving me to finish the cleaning.
“Calli, please. I’m not here to hurt you. Trust me…” Sexonlegs took assured steps closer, his hands falling as he raised a brow. He took almost no notice of his dagger as I held it higher, stepping close enough for the sharp tip to poke at his stomach. “If I wanted you harmed, I wouldn’t have saved your life. And I wouldn’t be here doing exactly what I’ve told myself my whole life I wouldn’t do.”
That last little admission plus the way his eyes pleaded down at me made my knife-wielding hand tremble. Tasey was in my other hand, my thumb on the button to fire her up. But I didn’t move. I could barely breathe. “Why are you here?”
“Because I lied. To you, but even more so to myself. I felt it with you, that undeniable spark, that promise of forever that I never let myself believe could be mine. Even before I saw you naked, even before you broke my world apart when I held you in my arms. In the seconds when you ran from that gallery, I knew I needed you like I’d never needed anyone else in my entire life. When you kicked me out, I felt like I had when my mother died. I felt like I’d lost you forever. But I won’t accept that. I can’t let you go when I’ve finally found what’s been missing all along. And that realization terrifies me. My life has never been my own. What I want doesn’t matter, but I can’t accept that anymore. I won’t.”
My heart was ready to leap out of my chest. I should have been running, I should have screamed, hoping by some miracle a passerby would hear and come to my aid. But no one was out there. The streets were dead this time of night. And none of those things were even hitting a five on my action/survival plan. My lips throbbed with the memory of his stolen kiss, and my body wanted more. Would I live to regret it? “What are you saying?”
Adamaris reached up slowly, touching my face so gently it made my eyes close. He tucked the hair behind my ear and smiled before lowering his hand down and curling his fingers around mine on the dagger. I gasped as his grip tightened and pulled my hand up higher, taking the point from his muscle-shredded abdomen to right over his heart. He pressed the sharp tip into his pec, and a circle of red bloomed under the pressure through the white material of his tight V-neck, growing as he held the dagger in place against my attempt to tug it back. “You are all I want. All I will ever want. My body is yours and so is my heart, do with it what you will.”
He let go and stood waiting, accepting if I decided to drive the dagger right through his bleeding heart. It would be so easy—and it would be the worst mistake of my life.
I wetted my lips and dropped the dagger. It clattered to the floor as I leaped up, slinging my arms around Adamaris’s neck. He caught my thighs and hoisted me higher, meeting my lips with a kiss to end all kisses. Hard, soft, and everything in between, each kiss washed away the pain I’d felt two mornings ago and replaced it with a hope I never thought I’d let come alive again. Today had been the second worst day of my life, and I needed this like a fish needed water to breathe.
Backed into the door, all thoughts on escaping had long fled. The eerie quiet outside only heightened my desire as Adamaris’s wet clothes drenched my uniform. Apron twisted and skirt riding up, I kissed his prickly jaw and down across his collarbone as I tugged his V-neck aside.
And then we were moving, leaving the entry and returning to the last booth I’d been cleaning. Swiping the spray bottle and cloth off the bench, Adamaris laid me down, remaining straight despite my clinging hands and fingers that trailed down to his chest then abs. I tugged on the hem of his V-neck. It came off in a hurry, hitting the floor with a wet slap. A quick tug of the tied strings of my apron had the frilly white cover ripped away, and the press-studs down the front of my uniform popped open easily with his quick fingers. Bared in black lace, I reached for his jeans, unhinging the button.
After all that h
ad happened, this was crazy. It was reckless.
And it was just what I needed.
Adamaris stalled my hand, staring down at me like this was the first time, like he hadn’t seen me this naked when he’d appeared in my bath. Like he hadn’t seen even more of me from every angle after saving my life.
I rolled my hips, arching up to sling my hand around his neck. My lips met his chest before I craned my head, staring up at him with wide eyes. “Make love to me.”
Leaning down, Adamaris joined our lips for a kiss that was too soft and too brief for what I needed. I wanted the euphoria I’d felt Friday night when everything else had melted away. I wanted to forget the horror and the fear and scare off any thoughts of what would come next, but Adamaris drew back.
“If I take you now, here, I can never go back. I can never let you go.”
I smiled up at him, trusting my heart for the first time in my entire life, trusting that this could work out, somehow, some way. He was Mer, and I was who knows what, and danger lurked around every corner, but together we could take on anything. I had to believe it. I had to finally trust in something, even a sexy stalker who was as dangerous as he was delicious. “Then I guess you’re stuck with me.”
I tugged down the zipper on his jeans and used my heels to work them down his legs.
A Cheshire grin quirked his dimples, and Adamaris leaned over me, laying me down gently on the tabletop. His hands dipped between us, shifting the material of my panties aside. And then his mouth met mine as he buried himself in me, eliciting a gasp of sheer ecstasy from my lips. Moving together, my back arched, his strong arm lifting me up off the cold table. Our chests met, the lace over my breasts grating in a way that made me moan and gasp with each thrust of his moving body. His lips fled my mouth, burning a trail of hot kisses down my neck where he licked and sucked, grunting as I gasped. Leaning up higher, I laced my fingers through his hair, keeping his mouth on me. I cried out when he dipped lower, teasing the material that still covered my chest. And then the clasp of my bra came free and there was no more separation. Hot, wet, and hungry, his mouth reclaimed its prize and it was all too much. The movement, the heat, the sucking.
My body shattered apart on the inside and I cried out, lips planting on his chest and biting down. Adamaris bucked and both his arms came around me. A bark of pleasure ripped from his throat as he held me close and buried his face in my neck, his body shuddering in slowing spasms.
Breathing hard, he stayed that way for long moments as I fought to catch my own breath while my body throbbed in reaction to every sensation of where he touched me inside and out.
Slowly he drew back, a lazy smile tugging at his sexy mouth. “It’s crazy. Unbelievable, given how long I’ve known you, even though I’ve known about you my entire life. But I know it’s true when I look into your eyes. She said I would, and I have.”
“You know what is true?” I panted, sliding my hand up to brush strands of his hair back from his vibrant eyes. “Who said what?”
“I’ve fallen for you, Calli. I’m in love with you.”
Chapter Twenty
I came awake like I was rising out of a warm blanket of water, drifting slowly up from deep below where all that existed was ecstasy. My entire body hummed with pleasure, lost in the memories of the remainder of the night back in my loft, while trapped on my bed. Though trapped wasn’t really the word, and bed was a loose description for any flat surface within the whole loft. Table, wall, wooden chest, floor, door, it was all fair game in a new and heart-racing flurry that stole my breath even in memory. Every kiss or brush of his lips, every touch that was hard, soft, gliding and squeezing, and every other sensation as our bodies spoke a language I never thought I’d understand, was magic.
I never wanted to wake up, and I clawed at the water around me, trying to pull myself back under. I was desperate for it not to end, for the images swirling around me and the lingering sensations not to fade with the return of a reality I wasn’t sure I was ready for.
The danger. The possibility. And…a man who had fallen for me?
Had I really fallen for him too? In the short time we’d known each other, was that even possible?
The beat of my heart promised it was, but the tightening of my chest said something else, listening to the internal murmurs of my racing mind that were quickly spoken and…creepy?
My eyes cracked open, unable to fight it—and then they widened as far as they could stretch.
I’d been wrong. So very wrong. The murmurs weren’t in my head at all.
Leaning over me from the edge of the bed, Adamaris’s lips moved with speed, chanting words that were too fast and thick with his accent to make proper sense of. Safeguard. Protect. Connect. Earth. Air. Water. Death. Life. The intensity of his blue eyes shot fear into my heart, staring at me through the hair hanging over his forehead like a man possessed. And then as he shoved the shell compact into his pocket, his other hand came up between us, palm upturned as his fingers uncurled. “When I make my wish, you will grant it. You will secure my fate.” And then he blew, sending a flurry of gold glitter from his hand right at me.
Ratcheting upright, I failed to evade the cloud of gold dust as it assaulted my face. Sucked into my mouth and up my nose, I coughed and spluttered, twisting sideways and almost face-planting off the mattress in my fight for air. “What…” Adamaris placed his heavy hand on my back, patting to help clear the reaction he’d caused. I shoved him away and glared up at him. “What. Did. You. Do?”
His handsome face lost that crazy edge and softened, his lips pressing together in a smile that was neither happy nor held any malice. “A backup, should you ever be taken from me. I told you, Princess. I can never let you go now.”
Adamaris slid his hand along the rumpled sheets that we’d made into a twisted mess with all the body-to-body lovemaking we’d gasped, groaned, and sweated through. The heady smell of it still lingered in the air, overpowering the ever-present scent of tuna. It clouded my thoughts and dared me to let my guard down as his skilled fingers crept up over my thigh, riding higher towards the hem of his V-neck that I now wore. My breath hitched, my eyes betraying me by roving up from the waistband of his jeans over the light dusting of hair and higher to the ripples of his washboard abs.
My lips parted with a shaky breath as his fingers crept higher until I mentally slapped myself. “Stop. Just…just stop.”
I can never let you go. Although Adamaris had said the words like a promise rather than a threat, the chanting and that gold dust refused to let me calm down. The same gold dust my mom had used on me as a child. And the same gold dust I’d found in my shrink’s office—Greg’s office—in the clawed message that had been left behind.
I sucked in a rattled breath again, but this time it wasn’t out of lust or restraint. Grief and fear tightened my entire body, removing the remnants of a night of passion and replacing it with shuddering shivers that threatened to break me into pieces that might never fit back together. I wanted to yell at Adamaris, I wanted to accuse him of something that was so unconscionable it would ruin everything we’d shared and become to one another.
And that was the exact reason I couldn’t do it.
Looking up at him now, with his face bathed in pale light as it fluttered in through the dirty windows with him sitting on the edge of my bed and waiting patiently for me to recover from all that was running rampant in my mind, I knew he wasn’t a threat. Not to me. Not to anyone—at least anyone who didn’t deserve it. I had no doubt he would kill to protect me. Would he die for me too?
I quashed the thought as fast as it occurred. Even to think it was like asking for an Acme anvil to fall from out of nowhere and crush him right in front of my eyes. There was enough bad juju going around, and now that I’d found him—or rather, he had hunted me down—I wasn’t ready to let him go.
Taking a deep breath, I brushed the cascade of my tangled red hair back over my shoulders and smeared a hand down my face. The gold came away easily,
coating my palm. Locking down the accusation that wanted to accompany my voice, I met Adamaris’s eyes, begging for the truth. “This gold dust was in Greg’s office. It spelled out a message. And now you have the same glitter. Was it you?”
That muscle ticked in Adamaris’s jaw. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I know you didn’t.” And somehow, that was the truth. I trusted the man sitting before me, watching as the quick darkness that had hijacked his face melted into something much more vulnerable. “And the message, you know what it said?”
Adamaris blew out his breath. “The Unseelie Queen left it for you. Or one of her minions did.”
I gathered up his hands and squeezed, wishing I could slow my heart from bashing into my ribs. “I’m not human?” He glanced sideways down at the twisted sheets. “Then tell me what I am. Tell me how you have the same gold fairy dust that evil monster had.”
I expected Adamaris to chuckle at the ‘fairy dust’ comment. I’d thrown it in to lighten the mood that was dark and stifling and threatening to suffocate me with a bout of hyperventilation. The sudden shift of his eyes and the way they drilled into me made it feel like I was trying to breathe underwater. He studied my face, my eyes, and then his hand lifted, his thumb stroking the pointed tip of my ear. “The daughter of a witch, and a being I never thought I would see as more than an ally against a common foe. You’re Fae, Calliope Rivers. A faerie. And that dust came from your mother, a gift enchanted with her power from your father.”
“I’m Tinkerbell?” I scoffed, laughing off the crazy impossible declaration. “And what, I’m going to suddenly shrink to the size of a thimble and sprout wings?”
“Fae…” Adamaris’s expression remained devoid of humor, jacking up my pulse. “Not a fairy.” Lost for words and tongue-tied, he captured my face and brushed his lips over mine. “There’s a difference, although you can grant wishes—” Adamaris hissed suddenly, and the no-nonsense look on his face darkened as he glanced down at his inner forearm. “And I will explain it all,” his words rushed. “I will answer every single one of your questions, but not here. It’s not safe, Calli. Danger is coming for you.” Adamaris revealed his inner forearm and the swirling tattoo that faded in from the dull edges right before my eyes. “I meant what I said last night. We have to go, and we have to go now. We cannot stay. Come with me. Come back to my home, Calli. Let me protect you.”