“You’re the best Christmas present I’ve ever unwrapped,” he whispered, voice husky.
“Well, get down here so I can unwrap mine, too,” I replied, warmth surging over me at the gleam I saw in his eyes. I should have been cold, since we’d turned down the heat before we left, but all I needed was the raging fire of our bond flooding through every vein, a glow that could defeat even the iciest winter.
He’d already discarded his coat. The rest of his clothing went quickly enough, and soon he was naked as well, bare flesh pressed up against my body. There was no real foreplay this time, save his mouth on my breast, and my hand drifting down his shaft, until he shifted his weight and pushed inside me. I was ready for him, had been from the second his gaze met mine. There was something frenzied in the way our bodies joined, as if he needed to bond with me all over again, just as I wanted him to claim me, to put his mark on me once more so Damon Wilcox could never, ever attempt to make me his.
Afterward, we dozed off in one another’s arms, sleeping for an hour or so, then waking up to full darkness. Still, it was early, not much past six o’clock. Despite the various tidbits I’d snacked on at the potluck, I was hungry.
As I stirred, I heard Connor’s stomach rumble and couldn’t help laughing. “Glad I’m not the only one,” I said, sitting up and reaching for my discarded underwear.
“No, I was expecting to eat more, but something about my brother tends to kill my appetite. Please tell me you kept some of those tamales back and didn’t send all the leftovers for the potluck.”
“Of course I did.” I reached over and brushed a lock of heavy black hair off his forehead. Having a mind of their own, the offending strands fell forward once again. “You know what we should do?”
He reached for his own underwear. “I thought we just did that.”
I gave him an eye roll, and he laughed. “No,” I said severely. “I don’t mean that. I think we should go downstairs in our jammies and eat leftovers and watch that cable station that plays A Christmas Story over and over again in a continuous loop. You know, something normal people would do on Christmas.”
“Deal.” He paused, then added, “Well, as long as we can sneak a viewing of Scrooged in there somewhere.”
I happened to love Scrooged, so that was no hardship. “Deal,” I agreed.
And that’s exactly what we did. Ate, and laughed, and leaned against each other, basking in the warmth of the other person and the glow from the fireplace. No more talk of Damon Wilcox and his plots, no tragedies, no spells or hexes or curses from beyond the grave. Only Connor and me, and the comfort of one another’s company. I didn’t know what was coming next, but at least I would have these few golden hours with him.
* * *
The next morning after we’d gotten up and showered — another long, slow, delicious shower, where we took turns scrubbing one another down and which ended with me up against the wall once more as Connor drove into me with hard, deliberate strokes until I cried out in ecstasy — he came downstairs holding his laptop open, an amused expression on his face.
“I think you’re being paged,” he said. “I was catching up on my email, and the Facetime app kept going off. Your friend Sydney, I think.”
Oops. “Sorry about that,” I said, taking the computer from him. “You’d think she’d have the sense to wait until I got back to her.”
“Judging by how many times she pinged me, I have a feeling patience isn’t her strong suit.”
I couldn’t help chuckling. “Well, that’s true.”
He wandered off to the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee. “Want some?” he asked, lifting the pot in my direction.
“Yes, please,” I replied. I’d had fun with my Keurig coffeemaker back in Jerome, but Connor was hardcore about his coffee — used a French press and everything. That stuff was amazing.
After setting a mug down in front of me on the coffee table, he said, “I’m going over to my studio. Just come across the hall when you’re done.”
I’d been itching to see inside that place ever since he’d mentioned it, so I was feeling a little impatient when I clicked on the Facetime icon and launched the app. With any luck, this wouldn’t take too long.
Sydney picked up right away. “Holy crap, I’ve been trying to get you for ages!”
“Well, this isn’t exactly my computer, you know.”
“Oh, right.” She paused, then seemed to bring her phone closer to her face so she could get a better look at me. “Wow. You look like a girl who’s been well and truly fucked.”
“Sydney!”
“It’s true, though, isn’t it?”
My hand went up to the marks Connor had left on my throat. Since it was now safely after Christmas, I was going to make him take me to the mall or the drugstore or something so I could invest in some spackle. This was getting ridiculous.
“Well…yes.”
“I knew it! So you took my advice.”
“I — ” There was a lot more to it than just that, but I figured I’d make her happy. “Yes. And it’s — it’s great. So thanks for that.”
She couldn’t exactly clap her hands together, since she was holding her phone in one of them, but she did bounce a little. Behind her I could see pale blue walls, so I knew she was in her bedroom. “So when do I get to meet him?”
“You’ve already met him, remember?”
A lift of her shoulders. “That doesn’t count. We said, like, two sentences to each other. I mean, really meet him. Get together and go out.”
As fun as that sounded…hypothetically…I wasn’t sure how we could possibly make it work. “Well….”
“I wasn’t saying come down here,” she said. “Obviously. Will Connor get zapped on sight if he shows up in Jerome?”
Good question. “I don’t know. Not that it’s really an option. I don’t see us leaving Flagstaff anytime soon.” As I said this, though, I felt a wave of homesickness pass over me. Yes, I loved being with Connor. Being with him in Jerome would be even better, though. How exactly I would make that work, I had no idea.
You should be able to make it work, I thought. I mean, what good is being the prima if you can’t get your own way from time to time?
Hmm….
Sydney said, “We could come up there. It’s not like Flag’s off-limits to me, you know. And Anthony’s truck has four-wheel drive, so even if the weather gets crappy, it’s no big deal.” She added, her tone almost plaintive, “It would be fun to get out. I had to work such shit hours going up to Christmas, you have no idea.”
Actually, I did, because she’d complained about it enough. However, I only said, “Well, let me talk to Connor. I don’t know if we have anything going on or not.” Ha, that was a lie. I had a feeling that, now the Wilcox holiday potluck was safely past, our social calendar was pretty empty. Not that I would know for sure. We hadn’t talked about much that was in the future except our next meal.
“Okay. Check with him and then call me, okay? Or at least email, if that’s all you’ve got.”
“Probably email, because I don’t have a phone.” Or a wallet, or my I.D., or…anything. All that had been left behind when the Wilcoxes stole me away. The purse I’d carried to the party the day before had held a tube of lip gloss and a wad of Kleenex, and nothing else.
“God, how do you live?” Then she waved the hand that wasn’t holding her phone. “Anyway, let me know. I’ll bet he knows all the good places to go up there.”
“I will,” I promised. “Let me go talk to him, and then I’ll get back to you.”
“Sounds like a plan. Later, chica.” The screen went dark.
I closed down the app, then paused, realizing I hadn’t had any opportunity to check my email to see if Aunt Rachel had actually replied to the message I’d sent her the day before. As much as I wanted to hurry across the hall and see what Connor had been hiding in his studio, it was silly not to take this opportunity to check my email. So I went to Gmail and logged in. I d
idn’t get much email, but there were still the usual after-Christmas sale ads from a few places where I’d made online purchases. Buried amongst the spam, though, was a reply from my Aunt Rachel.
For some silly reason, my heartbeat began to speed up. Was it mere anticipation of her disapproval, knowing that she would be less than thrilled — to put it mildly — once she found out the true nature of my relationship with Connor?
Maybe. But I couldn’t worry about that now. I was an adult now. She would have to figure out how to handle the situation.
I clicked on the link, and the message window opened up.
Angela,
Of course we’re all relieved to know that you’re all right. The elders have been discussing the situation and are trying to see what can be done. Be strong, my dear. Just hold out, no matter what, and we’ll do everything we can to bring you back home.
Love, Rachel
Ah, the guilt. “Hold out”? My resolve had crumpled like wadded-up tissue paper after Connor kissed me that second time. Maybe I could have tried to resist, attempted to ignore the heat of our bond, although I’d never heard of any prima doing such a thing. That connection wasn’t meant to be resisted, but given into, embraced with every fiber of a prima’s being. And the truth was, I hadn’t wanted to resist. Not any longer. Not once I’d come to know Connor as Connor, and not a Wilcox. And my family needed to know that, too. I didn’t give a damn about traditions and custom and what had happened in the past. Connor was part of my future now, and they’d just have to deal with that.
It seemed clear what I would have to do. The problem was, I had no idea how Connor would react. Only one way to find out, I supposed.
I logged out of Gmail and closed the browser window, then shut the laptop. Of course the front door was no longer barred to me, so I opened it and crossed the landing to the apartment opposite ours. That door was unlocked as well. I twisted the knob and let myself in.
The layout was almost the same, as were the wood floors and the exposed brick of the exterior walls. Here, though, the kitchen was obviously not updated, the counters a chipped tile, an empty space where the refrigerator was supposed to go. The windows were uncovered, letting in the pale winter sunlight.
And everywhere were canvases — finished pieces hung on the walls, and paintings in various stages of completion were propped up below them. All landscapes like the ones I’d seen in Connor’s apartment, all with those same strong, sure brush strokes, the same interplay of light and shadow and color. Seeing them all grouped together like this once again reminded me of how talented he really was…and what an ass Damon Wilcox was for trying to squelch his brother’s gift.
Connor stood in the middle of the living room, although there was no furniture except a large table littered with paints and brushes, and the large easel where he was standing. His gaze was abstracted as he stared at the half-finished painting on the easel. An absent hand ran through his hair, mussing it, although he turned around at once when the floorboards creaked beneath my feet.
“Did you talk to Sydney?”
“Yes,” I replied, stepping forward so I could pause next to him. It was colder in here, and I moved close so I could put my arms around him. At once he reached out to hold me, his body heat mingling with mine. “She wants to come up to Flagstaff to meet you.”
“She has met me.”
“I told her that. She said it wasn’t the same thing. But….”
He must have sensed the diffidence in my tone, because he loosened his embrace, drawing back slightly so he could look down into my face. “What are you thinking, Angela?”
“I — ” There wasn’t any easy way to make the suggestion, so I just plunged ahead before I lost my nerve. “I want you to come to Jerome with me.”
Eyes widening, he shot me an incredulous look. “Just like that. Do you know what you’re asking?”
I pulled out of his arms and planted my hands on my hips. “Of course I do. I don’t see much difference between you asking me to go to Damon’s house and me asking you to come to Jerome. I’ve braved your family, so why can’t you return the favor?”
“I — shit.” Again that nervous gesture, his hand running through his hair. “Because they’ll blast me with every spell in their arsenal the second I set foot there?”
“They didn’t when you came to the Halloween dance,” I retorted, then paused, my brows crinkling in a frown. “How did you manage that, anyway?”
“Damon,” he said briefly. “But I wouldn’t have that protection this time.”
“No, but you’d have me.” His expression was dubious, to say the least, so I went on, “I’m their prima — they have to do what I say, even if they don’t like it. Anyway, McAllister magic isn’t like that. We don’t go around blasting things.”
“Maybe not, but I saw that one warlock at the Halloween dance, the one in the Grim Reaper costume. He looked like he could break me over his knee.”
I smothered a smile. “Tobias? He’s a big teddy bear. He won’t hurt you, and neither will anyone else. But don’t you see, Connor? How can we make anything right, move forward from this and try to mend the rift between our clans, if we don’t start here and now?”
That made sense to him, I could tell. He reached up and rubbed his chin; he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, and the stubble had him looking distractingly scruffy. Then he shook his head. “Damon will never allow it.”
“How’s he going to know? Does he have your apartment bugged? Did he plant a witchy tracking device on me so he’d know my whereabouts at all times?”
A grimace. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Well, then.” My gaze flickered to the painting on the easel; it was obviously somewhere just outside Flagstaff, since a snow-capped Humphreys Peak towered in the background behind an autumn hill of yellow grasses and blazing golden aspens. Not all the aspens had been filled in, or the deep blue sky, but it was still powerful, half-finished as it was. “And once they find out what an amazing artist you are, they’ll love you just as much as I do.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” he said wryly. “But okay. You’re right. It’s not exactly fair of me to subject you to Damon and the rest of the clan without me having to suffer your relatives in return.”
“My relatives are awesome,” I replied. “You’ll see.”
He paused. I wasn’t psychic, so I had no idea exactly what was going through his mind, but I could guess. It’s never easy, walking into the lion’s den. “How long?” he asked.
“I don’t know. A couple of days.” I thought of the gallery then and asked, “We can wait until the weekend, if you need to work.”
“No, that’s okay. The gallery isn’t going to reopen until Saturday anyway, so this is a good time. It’s slow after Christmas for us — Joelle can probably handle the place on her own if it turns out we’re going to be away longer than that.”
I reflected how much he had changed in just the past few days. When we first met, he’d said he didn’t trust Joelle to have the keys to the gallery. Now it seemed he didn’t have a problem handing everything over to her.
This was happening fast, but I supposed that was a good thing. That way he wouldn’t have much opportunity to back out. “So we can go today.”
“Sure, why not?” His tone was resigned. He glanced over at the painting. “Good thing you caught me when you did. I was about to start mixing a fresh batch of oils — everything had dried out. So yeah, let’s get out of Dodge before anyone knows what we’re up to.”
A warm rush of happiness went over me, and I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him, felt his mouth open to mine, tasted him. The need returned, just as it always did, but this time I could control it better. Besides, we’d already made love here in Flagstaff multiple times. The next time I was with him, I wanted it to be in that big king-size bed of mine back in Jerome. About time that thing got some breaking-in.
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “I love you, and I know they’ll love you, too.”
Something in his expression told me he sort of doubted that, but at least he didn’t argue. “Well, start getting your stuff together, and we can head out after lunch. I’ll just close up things here.”
Fairly dancing, I kissed him again, this time on the cheek, and hurried back to the apartment to pack a few things. It was hard to believe, but true.
In a few hours, I’d be going home.
9
Cleopatra Hill
“So you’re leaving?” Mary Mullen asked in resigned tones as I folded the last of my sweaters and put it in the duffle bag.
I hadn’t seen her for a few days, and had wondered if she disapproved of the change in my relationship with Connor. Maybe now I was just another one of “those girls.” What they used to refer to back in the day as “loose women.”
But I didn’t see anything particularly condemnatory in Mary’s doll-like features, only a slight worry that she was going to be left to haunt an apartment with no one in it.
“Not permanently,” I told her. “At least, I don’t think so. We haven’t quite figured out how this is all going to shake out.”
Her head tilted to one side. I reflected that her hairstyle was just another reason why I was glad I hadn’t been born back in the day. No way could I have ever managed those perfect finger waves. She asked, “Are you getting married?”
Wow. To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about it. Everything with Connor was still so new. We’d only been together a few days. Going from that to marriage seemed like a big leap…or at least it would have been a huge jump under normal circumstances. It was different with a prima and her consort, though. Marriage in that situation was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
“Um…eventually,” I hedged. “We haven’t really discussed it yet.”
“You should marry him,” she said. “You’re a nice girl. He deserves a nice girl.”
I was oddly relieved that she still thought of me as nice, even if I did happen to be a fallen woman. “Right now I’m just taking him to meet my family.”
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