“Right, but…”
“Welcome to the perfect date,” Austin said.
We stared at each other for a silent beat. Mr. Tom and I stared at each other for another silent beat.
“Oh, how wonderful,” my mother exclaimed, listening at the door.
“Mother, stop listening at the door,” I said. I lowered my voice. “Okay, but… There are people who can sneak onto the property. We don’t know when they are going to attack. My parents are here. I’d love an outing, yes, but obviously that’s not realistic. I can’t possibly chill out for a freaking date.”
“We have a window,” Austin said, stepping closer and lowering his voice as well. “Just in case, I won’t hide the fact that I’m taking you out of here. If anyone is watching, they will see that you are traveling with me. Leaving the house. They won’t attack while you are gone—why would they? You’re the prize, not the house. Your parents will be safe, and worst case, they can hide in the walls. Should anything happen, Niamh and Cedric will make sure they are out of harm’s way.”
“But…”
“Jasper, Ulric, and the hotel gargoyles will be following us overhead, close at hand. If anyone makes a move on you, we’ll be ready. I’ll hold the line while you take to the air. They’ve been staking you out at the house; they won’t be ready for a moving target. I doubt they’d be able to regroup quickly enough to intercept us. Even still, I have an underground route they won’t find. They might follow us for a ways, but they won’t follow us forever. I can get you out of here in safety. This is doable.”
“You need the break,” Mr. Tom said. “You need your wits, and you need your rest. Let Mr. Steele take you for a reprieve.”
I stared into Austin’s cobalt eyes, at a loss. “Okay… But wow, you have your work cut out for you.”
“One thing you must know about me, Jess. I always rise to the challenge.” He smirked and held out the orchid. “I got you a living flower. It’s something to remember me by when I’m not here.” The smirk turned into a mouth-watering smile. “Or, if the date doesn’t go well, you can take the garden shears to it. Vengeance.”
I laughed despite my churning unease about the whole situation, moving forward to take the orchid. “Thanks. It’s gorgeous.”
Mr. Tom reached out for it, but I set it on the little table near the door. “The entranceway needed an orchid.”
“Perfect start,” Austin said softly.
“You do need this outing,” Mr. Tom said, “but be mindful. He’s had forty years of practice at these things.”
Austin’s eyes dulled and flicked to Mr. Tom. He leaned back just a little, his smile faltering.
“Oh now, don’t listen to him.” My mom bustled out of the room, where she’d clearly continued listening at the door. Hopefully she hadn’t heard the whispered part of our conversation. “He wears a cape. His opinion is bound to be suspect.” She smiled at Austin. “My, you sure do clean up nice. Well, shoo, you kids. Shoo, shoo.” She gasped as she shoved me toward the door. “Look at that gorgeous orchid. And the base! Great taste. Did you pick that out all by yourself, Austin?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just struck me as something Jess might like.”
“Well, yes, she does.” My mom opened the front door and motioned Austin out of it. “You should have seen her old house. All the wood looked like she’d picked it up off the side of the street. Trendy, my big toe. Her father kept telling her that he could’ve found all that for free.”
“Shabby chic,” I muttered, pushed out after Austin.
“Stay safe. Don’t worry about us. We won’t wait up.” My mom waved and shut the door behind us.
“Send-off…” I made like I was writing on a tablet. “Less than ideal.”
He paused by the passenger door of the Jeep, the tops and doors still on this early in the season. “Listen.” His expression and tone were both dead serious. “I’ve never tried very hard on dates. I’m always respectful and try to show my date a good time, but I don’t go out of my way. Not ever. For you—for this—I did. I care about you, Jess. I care about our friendship. This isn’t an everyday kind of thing for me. I’m not pulling stuff out of some womanizer playbook to try to schmooze you.” He paused, then added, “I just wanted you to know that. Whatever Earl and Niamh might say about me—those things might usually be true, but they’re not when it comes you, okay? I will protect you in all things, including from myself if need be. I will not do you wrong.”
My heart nearly exploded, and I put out my arms, wrapping them around his neck when he leaned down to hug me.
“Thank you. That’s nice of you to say.” I closed my eyes within the strength of his arms. “Send-off back to perfect.”
“Back on track.” He laughed and pulled back. “Before we head out…” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a clump of crushed flowers. With his opposite finger, he spread them out along his palm. “Which do you fancy?”
A few wild daisies lay in a pile on the right side, small and delicate as though plucked out of a field. Buttercups lay next to that, the petals scattered across his hand from the rough treatment. The spread on the far left had a mixture of buttercups and a sort of blue-purple wildflower.
“Like…what do you mean?” I asked hesitantly.
“Group A…” He pointed at the delicate daisies before moving to the middle cluster. “B…and C. Which group would you rather have a bouquet of?”
Saying none would’ve been rude, but honestly, the orchid had been perfect. And plenty. He had something in mind, though, so I just went with it. “This.” I pointed at group C. “The mix.”
He nodded, tilted his hand, and let the flowers and loose petals flutter to the ground. Without another word, he helped me into the Jeep, moved around to the driver’s side, and away we went.
I felt Jasper and Ulric take to the air when we were halfway down the road, quickly lost to me as soon as they crossed Ivy House’s boundaries. I did know a sort of tracking magic that I could’ve applied to them, keeping tabs on them at all times until the magic wore off, but it would have required some sort of preparation. Having been blindsided by all this, I just had to trust Austin to make sure all was going according to plan. Easy to do.
“I feel like my luck has run out,” I confided softly. “Like this time, I won’t slip out of his grasp.”
“I’d agree with you…if you’d previously slipped out of his grasp.” Austin headed out of town, toward the foothills. “But you didn’t. You broke out. You bested his people without apology, and you’ll do it again.”
“Sometimes it’s annoying how much confidence you have in me. I feel like you don’t see reality.”
“It’s not me who is missing the obvious. But you’re scared, I get it.”
“But do you? You don’t seem like you’re ever scared.”
“I’ve never known greater fear in all my life than when I woke up in Edgar’s cottage after you were taken. I promised myself it would never happen again. Then it did. It terrifies me to think he could grab you and I’d be helpless to save you. Fear is different than cowardice, though. Fear keeps us sharp. Fear is what creates courage. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s healthy. The danger is when you feel nothing at all.”
I let my breath out slowly. “Okay, then. I’m afraid today, but I’ll be courageous when the time comes.”
“That’s all we can hope for.”
An hour later, the conversation having moved on to trivial nothings without ever faltering, he parked at the top of a little hill off the beaten track, grabbed some spare clothes out of a bag in the back, and walked us down to a wide stream with quickly moving water. Once there, he dropped the pile of clothes on the sandy bank, as though we’d gone frolicking as polar bear and gargoyle.
“This is going to take a bit of trust.” He handed me a small vial filled with clear liquid. “I’m going to need you to drink that.” He held up a similar vial. “I will, too. It’s not a date rape drug, I promise. It’ll mask our scent and tra
cks. It’ll make us invisible to anyone trying to follow, just like what that deer shifter used. One of the things he used, anyway.”
“Are you challenging me to a battle of wits?” I asked, holding up my vial and looking at his. “Do I take what I am given, or do I trade it for yours…”
The grin intensified. “Careful here. It is never wise to go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.”
I laughed, delighted he’d caught the Princess Bride reference, and downed the contents of my vial. The liquid tasted fresh and sweet, not much more than a mouthful.
“Oops.” Austin pulled out the little stopper on his vial. “You chose wrong.” He winked. “Been nice knowing ya.”
“Meh.” I batted the air. “You always say that. I’m still here, aren’t I? Those dolls haven’t gotten me yet.”
Austin took my empty vial and pocketed them both. “Speaking of dolls.” He held up his hand to keep me put for a moment. I felt the liquid fizzing down my body. “Is Ulric putting those around the house, or is it Ivy House? Your mother was not amused at dinner yesterday. Clearly she’s not doing it.”
“Ivy House,” I said dryly. “I don’t know how to reel her in. She is endlessly delighted by the ways my parents try to rationalize her magic. They apparently think the secret doors Ivy House keeps popping open are plaster siding or something that is about to fall off.”
“Isn’t plaster siding for the outside of a house?”
“I think so, but my mom doesn’t know any better. They think the house is basically falling down around them. The dolls are a joke, the doors moving on their own are ghosts, the thumps are rats, and so on. I can tell the shifting mantelpiece carvings in the TV room are making my dad think he’s losing his mind. He seems to ignore the carvings half the time and stare at them with a scowl the other half, as though daring it to move. What he thinks about you changing I have no idea. It’s like he never saw it.”
Austin shook his head, directing us right, looking back to check that we weren’t leaving any tracks behind. “It’s beyond me why it was so easy to convince you, yet they refuse to believe what’s in front of their eyes.”
“Yeah, right?”
“I hate to hurry you, but I need to hurry you. This stuff isn’t that strong. I don’t have access to impressive mages. Yet. This elixir won’t last long.”
“Strike one…”
He directed me to a mine shaft that was so well hidden that there was no way I would’ve found it without him, the bushes and trees creating a natural blind. We gingerly sank into it, Austin going first to watch out for bugs and spiders (I’d insisted, threatening him with a second strike). Once in, he asked again if I trusted him.
I stared down at the rickety old metal cart on the rusted set of tracks, leading down into the blackness.
“I mean…I do, but that doesn’t exactly mean I want to get in this thing.”
He crawled in, facing the black maw. Only a slight diffusion of light made it through the natural canopy blocking off the entrance. Once there, he put out his hands for me.
“I’ve taken this ride many times before,” he said. “It’s an escape hatch, so to speak. If someone is following you, they won’t be able to follow us. Not quickly, anyway. Only a handful of people in the town know about it. I test it a couple of times a year to make sure it is still safe. It has not failed yet.”
“Not yet, huh?” I closed the distance slowly. “I’m not going to lie, man, this is not shaping up to be a great date. I’m not so into this idea.”
“Have faith.” He stretched his arms out toward me and wiggled his fingers.
“Are there seatbelts? Helmets?”
“I can wrap my arms and legs around you, if you want?”
A spear of heat blasted through me. My breathing turned shallow, and against my better judgment, for a couple reasons, I climbed into the cart and nestled between his spread thighs.
“Your shirt is going to get dirty if you lean back,” I said with a suddenly dry mouth.
“Too late.” He pulled me back against his chest. His legs pushed into my sides and his arms came around me, wrapping me into his body. Into his smell, clean cotton and a delicious spicy sort of cologne. “Strike…three? I forgot what strike we’re on now,” he whispered, the heat from his body soaking into me, his breath enveloping my cheek. “You look absolutely beautiful tonight, Jess. I was waiting to tell you.”
“Why?” I asked, turning my face, feeling his lips brush against my jaw. I tightened my fingers on his knees. “Why wait?”
“Because if I told you right off the bat, I worried you’d think it was a line. Telling you now, right before I send you on a joyride that might kill you, seemed so much more fitting.” His lips, against my temple now, curled up into a smile. “I’m biased, though. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen the second I met you.”
His heart beat against my back, speeding up, matching mine. I turned, sliding my hand up his leg, my logic on hiatus, responding to his words, which I could tell were definitely not a line. He meant every syllable.
Still twisting, I lifted my lips toward his. Our breath mingled, heating up. He dipped his head, those full, lush lips skimming the corner of mine, nearly lining up. I closed my eyes, wanting this with everything I had.
He dropped his hand to my hip, pulling my body in tighter between his legs. He shifted his weight, leaning over me. I moved my hand from his leg toward his shoulder, uncomfortably twisted but not caring, needing to taste him. To feel his lips on mine.
As my hand moved, it hit something that knocked backward.
Clunk.
The metal box we were sitting in dropped a few inches, startling me.
“Crap,” he said, quickly grabbing my hips with both hands and wrenching me around so I was facing forward. He slapped his hands down on the sides of the box and pulled his legs up and over mine before leaning in, holding me to him. “Hold on. Here we go…”
Fifteen
As the mine cart sped through the deserted hard-rock mine, Jess reached up around Austin’s arms, squeezing his biceps for dear life. She wasn’t screaming, though. With the first big drop, speeding up the cart to an exhilarating pace, loud, manic laughter flew back toward him.
He smiled at her delight, feeling the adrenaline himself. Truth be told, he took this ride more than a couple of times a year, loving the rush. Loving the adrenaline. Laughing at his fear. Just like she was.
If it wasn’t for a turn coming up that would whip them to the side, clattering their heads together, he’d lean over her and kiss along her jaw.
Good thing he couldn’t.
He had to stop this! He could not give in to this attraction. Not with her. The second she got a true glimpse of what it was like to be with an alpha like him, with his hang-ups, she’d go running for the hills. She’d cast him out of her circle and, if she grew powerful enough, out of her town. He wasn’t like his brother. He couldn’t temper his possessiveness. He couldn’t balance his strong feelings. He’d be lost to her, and he would react in ways no Jane would tolerate. He would not be able to suffer another man touching her, for one, or even overtly flirting with her. It would eat at his soul until his animal exploded.
That wasn’t a situation she needed to be in, especially so soon after getting divorced. It also wasn’t the man he wanted to be. He’d chosen a mate once before, and it had brought out the very worst in him. His ambition. His greed. His anger. He’d made a vow to avoid getting that close to anyone ever again. He needed to remember that.
Not to mention that Jess wasn’t looking for anything serious. Even if he would allow himself to lose control and give over to his incredible attraction for her, with a passion so fierce it felt like it was stretching his skin, she wasn’t ready. She felt the electricity, she felt the pull, but she wasn’t ready to handle what came next.
He had to be the brakes. He needed to be stronger than this!
After a few more turns, the cart slowed as they reached t
he first plateau, the tracks about to curve around a corner and plunge deeper into the ground. He eased the brake forward until the cart stopped. Sunlight filtered into the tunnel from a partially covered grate above, dappling Jess as she twisted to look back at him, her beautiful face flushed with excitement and wonder.
How the fuck was he supposed to be the brakes with a woman like her?
“That. Was. Ah-mazing,” she said, beaming.
“Fun, right?” He smiled at her and unhooked his legs from hers.
“Tell the truth: you were planning that all along, weren’t you? The potential spies watching the house were just an excuse.”
“Can I lie and say yes?” He helped her get out before heading to a control panel on a pole sticking out of the rough-hewn ground. In no time the chains engaged under the cart and began pulling it back up to the top of the hill. He’d had that installed a handful of years ago, which was why he wasn’t the only one who knew about the mine shaft. But the few people who’d done the work were trustworthy. “So.” He helped her through a small exit in the side, over some wood and bricks and out of the natural canopy that concealed the opening. “Do you want to ride on me to our next destination, or would you prefer to fly? It’s about ten miles from here.”
“But…what about your car? Are we going to go back and get it?”
“Jasper will take my Jeep back to Ivy House. It’ll make it a little harder for your admirers to track you down. I can run us home afterward, or you can fly. Same choice.”
He paused, waiting for her decision. Her eyes flicked down his body and red infused her cheeks.
Heat pulsed through him with the knowledge that she was thinking impure thoughts.
“I’ll ride you—ride on you. If you don’t mind.” She put her hands to her hips and then slid them down, as though suddenly unsure what to do with them.
He pulled a plastic bag out of his back pocket and handed it to her. “Will you be the keeper of my clothes?”
“Sure, yeah.”
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