Blood of Souls

by Vivien Dean

  “What kind of name is Theodotus?”

  “Roman. Like Quintus.”

  He said it like it was supposed to mean something, but it only made Annie frown. “You don’t mean Quin.”

  “Who else would I mean?”

  “But that’s not his name.”

  It was Theo’s turn to look confused. “Did he change it?”

  “If he did, it happened before I met him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She cocked a brow. “I’m his personal assistant. I handle all his paperwork. What do you think?”

  Her confidence seemed to satisfy him, though that damn enigmatic smile returned. “Not just his assistant, though. He’s told me all about you.” He reached as if to touch, but when she jerked back, beyond his reach, he let his hand drop to his side. “But of course, he would choose you. I’ve seen your loveliness for myself all these years.”

  Annie knew he was making some kind of reference to the sword, to the fact that he believed he was the sword, except that was ridiculous. People didn’t turn into inanimate objects except in reruns of Bewitched and Harry Potter books, and said objects most certainly didn’t miraculously sprout legs and bashful smiles. She didn’t know how he knew her name or even Quin—

  Except she did. He claimed Quin talked to him.

  “How do you know Quin?” It wasn’t the question she really wanted to ask, but it would suffice.

  His lips parted to speak, but hesitation flickered in his eyes. “Perhaps you should ask Quin this,” he said slowly. “My presence is an obvious surprise. I do not wish to make this more difficult than it has to be.”

  It was so absurd, she had to laugh. “You have a crazy sense of difficult.” She continued to retreat, grateful when he never moved away from the sink. “So now what? Do you have until midnight and then you change back into a pumpkin? Or a sword? Or whatever it is you are?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing was different this time. Except for the fact that you cut your hand.” He paused. “Your blood. Some of it dripped on my hilt, didn’t it?”

  She tried to remember, but there were too many other things vying for her attention. “Maybe. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You’ve never done that before.”

  “Because I’m usually more careful.”

  “So that must be it. Your blood with mine set me free.”

  “Free. Because you were trapped. In the sword.” Annie regarded him, waiting for some sort of refutation, but when it didn’t come, she shook her head. “You do know how ridiculous that sounds, right? The better explanation is that I’m still in the storage room, passed out and dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or that there was something toxic on the sword that got into my bloodstream when I cut myself.” In fact, all of her possibilities were more likely than his story. The only way he could know so much about her was because he was in her head, privy to all her thoughts.

  He held himself steady, his gaze unwavering. “I’m real, Annie. What must I do to prove it to you?”

  If he was real, then she had a strange, half-naked man in the house. And a missing sword.

  Her head whipped around. The sword.

  She bolted for the storage room. With her hand now bandaged, there was nothing to distract her, nothing to keep her from her responsibilities. Her heart pounded, faster with each step, but when she skidded to a halt at the open door, everything tunneled to the open case at the far end of the room.

  Her knees quivered as she stepped inside. She circled the case once, then again, though she knew that it was pointless to keep on looking. It wasn’t here.

  That left only a single option.

  As she pulled out her phone to call the police, Theo’s soft voice came from the doorway.

  “Are you calling Quin?” he asked.

  “No. I need to report the stolen sword.”

  “Except we both know it wasn’t stolen. I’m here—”

  Annie whirled to glare at him. “You’re not! You’re in my head!”

  “So who tended your wounds?” He didn’t wait for her to respond, because really, there was no way for her to answer that. “You’re not a foolish woman, Annie. You’re just scared. The authorities will only make it worse. Call Quin. Tell him I’m here. He’ll explain everything. I promise there’s nothing to fear.”

  She wanted Quin’s strength and assurances more than she wanted the sword back, but there was a big problem to his suggestion. “I can’t. He won’t have his phone on during the auction, and then he’s having dinner with colleagues.”

  “Oh.” Theo’s dark brows drew together, his fine features still remarkably beautiful in spite of his frown. “Then I suppose we must wait. Though it plagues me to think you can’t trust what you see with your own eyes. What you felt.”

  She deflated. “You’re not the only one it bugs.”

  Theo stepped around the edge of the room, taking his time, clearly giving her the space she required. “I don’t wish to make this worse for you. If you’d like, I’ll stay in here until Quin comes home. You can even lock the door behind you if that makes you feel safer.”

  Annie glanced from him to the door and back again before nodding. “It would. That’s a good idea.”

  She retreated as quickly as she could, his gaze heavy on her the entire way. She felt a flash of guilt as she pulled the door shut, wondering if she should bring him some food or water, or at least let him go to the bathroom. But Annie dismissed it after turning the lock. That would mean admitting he was real. Until Quin came home, she was going to believe he wasn’t.

  And she’d spend the rest of the day praying Quin’s explanation didn’t include locking her in a psych ward.

  CHAPTER 2

  There was something deeply satisfying about hearing the electronic click of the gates shutting behind the car. With each passing year, Quin prized his privacy more and more, and knowing he could close the door to the rest of the world and spend the night with Annie did more to relax the ropy knots across his shoulders than any professional massage ever could.

  The house was dark, though when he opened the garage door, light spilled onto the driveway. Quin smiled. That was Annie’s doing. She was the one who saw to all the little details in his life that gave him the most pleasure. Hiring her had been the smartest thing he had ever done. The second smartest was falling in love with her.

  Just thinking of her filled him with warmth. She was a deceptive package. On the outside, she appeared fragile, like a poised figure composed of the most delicate glass. Her mixed heritage came out in her flawless, tawny skin and dark brown eyes that tilted ever so slightly at the corners. She wore her dark hair long at his request, though the way errant curls always managed to escape the ponytails she invariably wore for work annoyed her to no end. Annie never complained, though. It wasn’t her nature. She would simply smile at him so that the small mole on her cheek danced, and push the curl back, ready for it to slip free again.

  On the inside, however, Annie was a rock. She was fiercely loyal and had been from the beginning. More than once, she had beaten off lawyers who sniffed too close to his affairs, unknowing of what exactly it was she was hiding but too steadfast to question. Quin wasn’t even sure if she suspected the truth. She was certainly smart enough to have ferreted it out on her own, but if she had, she’d never let on.

  He would have to come clean soon enough. She had already known him for six years, intimate for two of those. Time would assert its control over her, and when it left him alone, she would want to know why.

  Quin loved her too much not to be truthful.

  With a sigh, he turned off the engine and pulled the key out of the ignition. This was nothing he had to worry about tonight. Annie waited for him upstairs. He hoped she would be asleep. He loved waking her up by eating her out.

  He didn’t bother with any of the lights as he navigated through the house. The soothing darkness was welcome to the frenzy of his day, and he moved with ease past antique furniture
and closed doors, heading straight for his bedroom. Each step whispered across his senses. Would she be naked? Or clad in the black silk nothing he had given her for Christmas last year? If asleep, her hair would be spilling over the white pillowcase, splashes of life in a world that could very easily have gone sterile on him. Loneliness had a way of driving people inward. Quin was grateful Annie was there to hold his at bay a few years longer.

  A single lamp burned on the nightstand, but she was not asleep as he had hoped. She lay curled up on her side of the bed, the thick creamy duvet tucked up around her chin, her eyes wide and lost in thought. They slid to him as soon as he stepped inside the room.

  “You’re home.”

  “I’m home.” Her soft voice drew Quin closer, shedding his coat along the way. “You’re still awake.”

  “I am.”

  Annie tracked every step until he stood by the edge of the bed. Then she reached out from beneath the blankets and caressed his thigh. The muscle quivered at her touch, anticipating the feel of her skin against his, silken and hot as they wound together.

  Quin covered her hand, but the first stroke skidded over the back of her fingers. He frowned and glanced down. “What happened?” When she tried to pull back, he caught her wrist, exposing more of her arm so that the duvet fell away from her upper body. Bandages wound around the individual fingers. “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing. Just some scratches. I don’t even feel them anymore.” Tugging, she tried to pull him toward her, but with the difference in their sizes, it was a nominal gesture. “I’ve been waiting for you to come home all day. Get in here.”

  He let her go and stepped back, quickly stripping out of his clothes. She watched every movement, searching over his body as if it was the first time. The attention ignited the tinder already sparking at his spine, licking in long flames up and down his body until every inch of him was hungry for more than her gaze. He had had many lovers over the years, but few had fired him up as much as Annie did. Perhaps, only one ever had, but that was a name he dared not allow admittance when he wasn’t alone.

  “Were you hard all day, thinking of me?” Annie whispered.

  Quin fisted his thick erection, pulling slowly. It was agony for both of them, but an agony well worth it in the end. “The auction was hell,” he admitted. “There was a woman two rows up who wears the same perfume you do. Every time I thought I could focus on the auctioneer, I’d get another whiff of it and wish I was home with you instead.”

  “Did it distract you enough not to make any frivolous buys?”

  He chuckled. “Afraid I’ll waste all my money, are you?”

  “It helps gauge your mood.” She slid back, pushing the blanket out of the way to allow him room to join her. “When you spend too much, you have a tendency to take it out on me in bed.”

  The twinkle in her eye stopped any indignation that might have arisen. “Is that what you’re hoping for? For me to take it out on you?”

  “I just want you.” Annie held out her hand. “Please, Quin.”

  For a brief moment, he thought he caught a glimpse of something haunted in her luminous eyes. It stabbed through his chest, sharp and painful, but as soon as he recognized it, it was gone, replaced by the hunger he knew so well.

  “How am I supposed to deny you?” He leaned forward, resting his knuckles on the soft cotton sheets, and the mattress bowed beneath his knee. “But I think I’m going to take my time tonight. Take it slow.”

  Annie rolled to face him as he slid in next to her. “You’re here. That’s all I care about.”

  Her soft curves pressed against him, gloriously bare. Though he loved how she looked and felt in his favorite negligees—and loved taking them off her even more—unclothing her tonight wasn’t what she wanted. The near desperation in her hands as she scratched lightly at his hip said more than any words she might utter. She needed him, more than she had already admitted. The knowledge made his head spin.

  Her lips parted the instant they touched his. He tasted the mint of her toothpaste, the sweet heat of her tongue. He felt the faint sting of her teeth, the soft slide of her mouth. His nose was filled with the tang of her grapefruit conditioner, but it was the musky scent of her skin, freshly scrubbed and dewy in spite of being tucked away in bed waiting for him, that exhilarated him the most. Kissing Annie was like swallowing sunshine.

  Blood pounded in his veins as he pushed her shoulders back to the mattress. She yielded to his every unspoken command, opened herself up as he let his fingers glide down the side of her neck. At her throat, he lingered on the swift quiver of her pulse, like a tiny bird beating against the bars of its cage, and kissed the corner of her mouth before lifting his head to gaze at her.

  “It was a very long day without you,” he said softly.

  Her eyes glowed. “Same here.”

  Quin let his hand stray even farther, down and down until his palm grazed over the tip of her hard nipple. “Maybe we should take a trip. Get away from it all. Just the two of us.”

  There it was again. A shadow passing behind her eyes. And just as quickly as before, it was gone.

  “That would be nice.” Annie tightened her arms around his shoulders, spreading her legs to coil one around the back of his thighs. “Someplace warm?”

  “Someplace warm,” he agreed.

  The way she was positioning her body meant she wasn’t interested in foreplay, but Quin wasn’t done touching her yet. He molded his fingers over her taut breast, delighting in the groan that escaped her throat. Tilting her head back, she squeezed her eyes shut as he increased the pressure, rocking gently against her hips. Though Annie often did that when the pleasure grew too much to bear, Quin could never look away from the sight she presented. He loved watching her as much as he loved making her look that way.

  She whimpered when he caught her nipple between his fingers. “Quin, please…”

  Though she couldn’t see, he smiled. “Please what?”

  She ran her heel along the back of his thigh. “I want you inside. You can do whatever you want then, but please, that’s what I need right now.”

  Quin changed the angle of his hips, letting the wet tip of his cock drag over her lower belly. When it dipped between her legs, her slickness stole his breath. How could he resist, especially when he’d been thinking of burying himself inside her tight heat all day? Leaning down, he captured her mouth in another kiss, waiting until their tongues touched before pressing his body forward.

  They both moaned as her pussy stretched to accommodate his thick girth, each inch he went deeper its own ecstasy. Annie clung to his back, hands ever moving, and the occasional rake of her nails brought goose bumps to the surface of his skin. She always knew how to touch him, what action on her part would elicit the strongest reaction. It was an instinct he had never questioned, always been exceedingly grateful for, because the less he had to talk about his sexual preferences, the happier he was. All that mattered was being with her, here and now. History meant nothing within the circle of her arms.

  Quin had to pause when he was fully sheathed. Her inner muscles quivered around his length, drawing him closer to the brink than he liked if he wished for this to last. He settled for sampling her mouth, seeking out every hot corner with his tongue, tasting and tasting until he thought he was drunk, his lips as swollen as hers, ready to burst. Only then did he start the exquisite path out of her, groaning as his cock was gradually exposed to the cooler air. He only made it halfway before he thrust back inside.

  He set a rhythm as slow as he could, but Quin had no illusions that it was anything remotely languorous. Annie clenched with every stroke, holding him in, and clawed with every retreat, trying to pull him back. Words he couldn’t make out were etched onto his lips, scattered between kisses like petals lost on a wind. He had the distinct feeling that if he could figure out what she was saying, he’d know what it was he’d witnessed in her eyes before climbing into bed. But that would require more concentration than he was
capable of at the moment. Right now, he only had the wherewithal to focus on more primal needs, the joining of flesh to flesh, the slap of skin to skin.

  Her words became lost in a series of cries, each one punctuating the quickening snap of his hips. Quin rested his sweaty brow to hers, embracing the sting of his balls hitting her ass every time he pistoned into her. The lowering of his shoulders changed the angle of penetration, and now, he ground into her clit on each thrust, scraping across the nerves until she gasped for him to stop, to do more, to do something to make it all come together.

  Without breaking his rhythm, his hand sought the sensitive flesh to claim as his own. It took just one hard pinch to make Annie scream, her pussy spasming around his cock, each undulation sucking him in deeper and deeper.

  He came with a matching shout, shaking from the forces buffeting inside his body. Slamming their mouths back together, Quin finally closed his eyes to ride out the waves, knowing that if he didn’t, the world would tip dangerously around him. This was what loving Annie did to him. This was what real love had always done to him.

  As their orgasms ebbed, Annie’s hands slowed, quieting the riot of bunched muscles back into relaxation. His hunger was hardly quenched, but it would certainly be abated for several minutes. Quin rolled onto his back, taking her with him without losing the precious contact of her mouth.

  Annie pulled away with a satisfied sigh and settled her cheek against his chest. When they lay like this, he was always struck by just how tiny she really was. He tightened his arms automatically. She never needed the anchorage to stay in place atop him, but she felt too good not to keep as close as possible. He’d hold her until she asked him not to.

  “I wish you hadn’t been late today,” she murmured. Her fingers ghosted over his nipple, making imaginary circles in the air above. “I could’ve used you at home.”

  Quin remembered the bandages. “Are you going to tell me what happened now?”

  “I cut myself. But that wasn’t why I needed you.”

  “Was there a call you couldn’t deal with?”